#it’s a gothic horror game…why are you guys so surprised?

[aleelewisharlot]

Why are y’all freaking out over a video game that described the protagonists as “co-dependent” like what did you think was gonna happen between co-dependent siblings?

[cedarwoodtears]

ud characters playing the sims bc im bored

ashley: for such a sweet girl you’d be surprised at the fact she has a lot of sacrificial mods..what do you need them for?????? she still has her cute little family households of course but why do you have THREE serial killer sims. tbf they’re some of her ocs so it makes sense!! she loves making her ocs and making them have cute little happy domestic family lives…but also. so many strip clubs ashley we get you wanna look at virtual boobs LMFAOOOO we know all the animations you have downloaded yeah..it’s okay no shame in it girl ✊ ash doesn’t like playing around other people though she would rather not flash them….

chris: dedicates his time to breaking and exploiting the game…the ways this man thinks of ways to get a million simoleons you would think this man is el0n reincarnated no LOLLL even he’s got to step back sometimes and be like “this is a little fucked. oh well” and goes back to trapping pregnant sims in the pool and forcing them to constantly spawn cradles outside because they’re immortal and stuck in a constant birth loop. it’s entertaining as hell though i can’t blame him hours absolutely fly by when he’s breaking the game, half the time he’s just on call with his friends and sometimes sharing his screen so they can watch the horrors

emily: spends HOURS in cas. don’t ask how much cc she has on her computer. she stopped checking long ago. barely ever plays in live mode or build mode but always has the most EXQUISITE JAW-DROPPINGGGG sims. like wow i didn’t even know pixels could look this good. she’s made over all the townies and loves to make more…and they all manage to look unique in their own way she does NOT struggle with same face syndrome. em has made herself and the sim version of mike fight and she killed him LOLLL she used to do that with all the people she didn’t get along but now that she’s made up with a good majority of them they’re good friends in the game now..how cordial!!

jess: build mode GODDD oh my gosh she does not play around like that. you’d think her dream was to be an architect or interior designer the way she plays. she managed to rebuild the washington lodge amazingly!! it took her awhile to get the confidence to go back up there but she took her reference photos and got back..it took her a few weeks but she did it!! that’s her biggest achievement so far but she also just generally makes super nice houses!! like girl if you don’t use your talents in the real world NOW!!! we need you jess please save us from these ugly modern homes..babygirl..babygirl please…she hates modern homes. some of her favorite styles are gothic revival and mediterranean ^^

josh: he sometimes uses it to cope with his sisters deaths…he has a save file with them and him and he spends a lot of nights making them all a happy family with no worries 💔 usually he gets real sad after and doesn’t touch it for a few weeks….but then his next save is his mafia kingpin drug dealing multi millionaire who is the king of willow creek and has 80 girlfriends LOL josh what a life you’re making your sims live..either that or making the most old pathetic senile men do crazy stuff WHYYYYY is that man a stripper he’s about to die in one day LMAOOOO he occasionally uses the sims as inspiration for his short films funny enough!! maybe not the mafia one. or the um. other one. i’m sure him and chris would be down to poorly recreate it and laugh at it though

matt: has the WORST luck when playing…his guy somehow always manages to get caught on fire, drown, get into fights, get abducted by aliens, get stuff repossessed, all the bad things you can think happened in the sims has happened to him. tbf he doesn’t really know how to play so that doesn’t help LMAO he makes sure to save constantly at least!!! matt does his best to keep a happy family though even if it means doing a little money chest here and there ahem..kaching…motherlode…it’s not cheating if it’s for the better. that’s what he says. so it’s not wrong. matt also loves making the moms knit for the kids too i just think he sometimes wants to take knitting ideas from the game so he uses the moms to do so..

mike: his sims are always so ROWDY and WILD wdym your sims are bad as hell. and not in the good way. homewreckers, leaving toddlers homeless and constantly getting into fights and having the whole neighborhood hate you like mike 😭😭 not his sim self though. no that man GRINDED for WEEKS to max out all his skills and become the prime minister. and also have like 50 friends and an amazing romantic partner and be a multimillionaire all while being dashingly handsome…just like himself in real life, no?!? nah he knows that’s not true but doesn’t mean he can’t wish!! but yeah if it’s not himself in the sims they’re all such objectively bad people LMAOO we need to take away the extreme violence mod from him..

sam: always cheats to make the animals constantly in a good mood and never age bc she can’t let them die that would be wrong…sam loves making super long family lineages though like one of her favorites is her royal family of canada one..not the most realistic duh but it’s a silly little hobby of hers she’s had since she was a kid!!! there’s always an ominous graveyard outside the house with all the ancestors though. just a bit creepy. anytime she sees a ghost she sends it back to the spirit realm she will NOT have them roaming around!!! sometimes she just moves them onto another lot bc she’s trying to deal with 8 sims at once and well it gets a bit distracting having random furniture start floating when 3 of your sims are about to accidentally starve

[courtneysmovieblog]

"Totally Killer" and other Halloween mini reviews

I was debating whether or not I should watch Five Nights At Freddy's. I never heard of the video game, and it doesn't seem like my thing. I've read mixed reviews and ultimately I'd rather keep my childhood memories of Chuck E. Cheese untainted by horror.

But that doesn't mean I haven't indulged in other scary movies for Halloween:

The Beguiled (1971): Wounded yankee soldier (Clint Eastwood) picks the wrong girl's school to mess with. It definitely has a more Western feel to it than the Sofia Coppola remake, or maybe that's because of Eastwood. Either way, if you like gothic horror, it's definitely worth a watch.

A Star Is Born (1976): Not a horror movie, but unless you're a Barbra Streisand fan, the Lady Gaga/Bradley Cooper version is the best version.

Hollow Man: Kevin Bacon turns himself invisible and uses it to rape women and kill people. That one scene is so messed up...

Malignant: A woman (Annabelle Wallis) is haunted by her imaginary friend. The surprise twist in this movie reminded me so much of Stephen King's The Dark Half, and that's all I will say.

Antlers: Any movie involving roadkill is just nasty.

They/Them: I don't know why this had to be a slasher film. Showing the actual horrors of a conversion therapy camp would have been much more effective.

Sick: There was a right way and a wrong way to make a movie taking on how people have acted in the pandemic. This was the WRONG way. What were you trying to say, Kevin Williamson? That people that want to take Covid seriously and are fed up with how selfish and reckless people are acting are just crazy?! Because, yeah, not cool. Some of us haven't had Covid yet, and we'd like to keep it that way!

Miranda's Victim: Nothing is more disturbing than real life. Abigail Breslin delivers a harrowing performance as the woman whose real-life attack (and how the police botched it) wound up the catalyst for the Miranda Rights. While it is a necessary right for people, the fact that it was because of a guy who actually committed the crime and was trying to weasel his way out of jail by a technicality is just nauseating.

Totally Killer: Two of the best 80s genres, slasher and time travel, come together in this great horror comedy where Kiernan Shipka time travels back to the 80s to save her teenage mom (Olivia Holt). Even if you don't like horror, this is a delightfully fun movie for Halloween that I highly recommend.

[juniperdugong]

Couple Costumes 96s ver.

What you guys would wear as a couple on Halloween and how they react!! || 95s || 96s || 97s || Maknae line || A/N: I tried to make these examples as inclusive as possible, if you don't like that THEN GET OUT! Also, the characters or costumes I mention DO NOT correlate to the boys' personalities and this is all just for some silly Halloween fun! I DO NOT OWN ANY OF THE ART, all credit goes to their respective artists!

Jun Phantom of the Opera/Vampires

He's ecstatic when you bring up costumes because he wanted to dress up but didn't know if you'd think of it as something too childish. But past that he doesn't even really know what he wants to be, completely forgetting the actual planning part of Halloween costumes.

Jun isn't one to shove off the idea of going all out for Halloween. Do you want to do historically accurate 1800s vampire? Well goddamnit, let's do it, baby! You wanna dress him up to the nines for a Phantom of the Opera costume? Hell yeah! He will not say no to showing you off or to showing himself off ever! If you focus on all the small details then he's going to praise your hard work and turn it out because we all know he serves cunt on the regular.

Trust~ That y'all are going to look like you are running a freaking red carpet or walking for MiuMiu in Milan or something. Even if you got a really shitty costume Jun would make it look like a photoshoot even if he tries to be funny with it.

Hoshi Tiger and Zookeeper/Cereal Mascots

I know I know... a little on the nose but can you blame me! It's literally his whole brand people! And I don't see him really wanting to dress up unless it is something related to his interests and personality, to be honest. He finds it a bit... silly- BEFORE YOU COME AT ME THOUGH, we have to remember that when the camera is off Soonyoung is actually quite introverted and quiet. Like my dude is pretty emotionless unless he's doing a bit, 3rd to Vernon and Minghao, low-key.

His reaction to you wanting to dress up would be a little something like, "I mean... Sure. If you want to, baby. ఇ ◝‿◜ ఇ". He's neither here nor there about it but he also isn't going to help much in the helping department either... and if we're being so real- His options if he could choose would be crazy without your help. I'm talking full fursuit with his human eyes visible or putting a damn cereal box on his head for the bit.

Agrees (reluctantly) with your picks.

(Why was it actually the hardest to find a good pick for a tiger costume on Pinterest? The closest I could get was this anime boy, just imagine that but simply more)

Wonwoo The Other Parents/American Psycho/LOTR

I hold a heavy belief that being an idol is holding Wonwoo back from true nerddom and that this man would 1000% be the hottest cosplayer of all time... that being said, I am surprisingly not going to give him any anime or video game costumes simply because we all know he would rock that shit.

Another heavy fantasy of mine is that Wonwoo totally has an alternative partner, I'm talking big into horror and alt fashion (ie. gothic fashion, grunge, etc.) So it would not at all come as a surprise to him when you suggest going as the other parents from Coraline or convince him to be the Patrick Bateman to your Evelyn Williams/Jean/Paul Allen. Another strong contender was him as Aragorn because he totally has Viggo Mortensen's smile, also imagine how cute you would be as Arwen!! Or just an elf in general lol

Woozi X-men/Teen Titans

You would think that Woozi wouldn't be into it... but I think he's super down if you're super down, honestly. This man tries to be soooo nonchalant but in reality he goes the extra mile for you and even enjoys doing it! Dare I say he would even do his own research to get you guys some good-quality costumes? I do dare because guess what? He absolutely would! He wants you guys to look the part and be comfortable doing it.

But! He is only passionate when it is a costume idea he is interested in... and thus when you bring up superheroes! Oh boy... yeah he's in.

Listen, I try not to hark on Woozi's height because he's my bias and it really doesn't matter but in this case, I just cannot get the fact out of my head that canon comic Wolverine is actually shorter than our Jihoon. My man would pull that off soooo well, especially because he's built like a semi-truck and we all know it! Plus I just love the idea of you going as literally any other X-men character because Logan is shipped with everyone lmao. And also, just to drop this because it's brain rotting me... Beast Boy and Raven (possibly gender-bent)

A/N: I'm not going to lie... I fucking love what I chose for the 96 line. My favorites go out to Wonwoo and Woozi though for what I would actually consider going as for Halloween lol. Who would you want to go with so far based on costumes?

Please Reblog and Comment if you enjoyed! (They act as power-ups for me)

Taglist (OPEN): @bemybabiibish @bath1lda @porridgesblog

[crowmero]

1. What was your first impression of the game? Is this the first Cybird game you've ever played?

My first impression is that I was not sure about playing this game because vampires are overrated in otome games and I already was more into another vampire otome game (Blood in Roses). I also remember some people was making light fun of the game because of the "we are dating fictional versions of real western historical figures".

When I downloaded the game and played the prologue, I didn't have a good impression of the game because I didn't like the MC's personality and because I was already playing IkeSen I though, I didn't want to play another Isekai of a MC traveling through time haha.

I think I started playing Midnight Cinderella around December 2018 and I started playing Ikemen Sengoku in May 2019 because I jumped to play Sasuke, so is not my first Cybird game.

2. Who was the character you liked most in the beginning, and is he still your fave?

Sebastian because I like his type of character, he is very smart, calm and composed and has gray hair, and he clearly was the human-best friend-NPC who helps MC during the story. I think he was an odd character and I picked him because I have a fixation with characters like that.

He is now in my growing pool of favorites.

3. How you picked your first route, and whose route was it? Was your favorite suitor available when you first started playing?

After making my Ikevamp account and playing the prologue/completing the mission board... I uninstalled the game haha, but because the phone I used to have didn't have enough storage (I wrote that in my ikevamp profile).

I picked Sebastian for my first route, I really waited for him all this years for the moment his route was out.

4. An unavailable route you're looking forward to:

Probably Drake and Galileo just out of curiosity (funny that both have white hair, I like white hair in guys).

5. A character you thought would be different than how he is:

Sebastian was full of surprises, he is actually not so kind haha, It was not fun to get flickered in the forehead and when he called us "uneducated" oh my god. The man was sure a mystery because he don't like opening to anyone, we learned his true name and about his life before time traveling. Also didn't expect that he got such a depressing back story and his current situation was very sad too.

I didn't expect Jean to be like a lost child. He clearly experienced the horrors of the war, but some part of him is very naive and pure-childlike, l didn't expect him to be like this. Didn't expect he was terrible at cooking or that he has a tiger pet (like Masamune... is always the guy with the eye patch).

6. Is there a suitor who you used to dislike, but eventually changed your opinion about?

I disliked Charles, but my opinion didn't changed, only got worse!.

Arthur used to make me a bit uncomfortable/nervous because... he looks like Armin from My Candy Love, both are very look alike in appearance and personality (makes me want to scream "Armin! what are you doing here? and why you're cosplaying as Arthur Conan Doyle?") but after playing some events with him, I can see that he really is as sassy as Armin but he has good feelings too and I like him a lot.

7. Do you remember your first story event?

Dearly Departed AU Story Event. This event was so funny on crack. MC was dead but she can't rest in peace so the guy in turn has to help her to reach heaven and at the end of every story she somehow has sex with the guy (I'm up for ghost sex, this shit is so gothic).

8. Have you ever spent money on the game? Have you tried the free diamonds offers?

Yes, I spent money. Only hurts when you spent money and you don't get what your want from the ranking. I also got some diamonds for making offers but is very tricky, I always have to fill a ticket to get my rewards.

9. Do you have a favorite avatar item? Is it a plushie or maybe a unique hairstyle?

I think I really like the wedding set I got in a event with a view to the sea and the vintage cafe set I got too because I loved the aesthetic.

10. Have you ever bought merch of your favorite ikevamp character?

No and it makes me sad. I have a damaged badge of Arthur that I want to repair and give to someone who could love him? and I also have one of Dazai that on a second thought, he looks really handsome there and after playing a bit, I got a better opinion of him so don't feel like letting him go.

11. Have you ever mistakingly spent your stamina not in the story event?

Yes, like three or four times, I was probably not paying attention of what I was doing.

12. What's the luckiest you've ever been when it comes to the gacha? What about your most unlucky memory?

My most lucky and unlucky memory is when I spent my tokens thinking it was Faust's rate up day... but instead I got a ton of Napoleon cards because... it was his rate up day. I got good cards, but not Faust.

13. The slowest you've ever completed a route vs the quickest:

Slowest: Napoleon haha, I started playing him one day before Sebastian's route launched and dropped him, and here I'm a year and a half later playing him. Second slowest was Sebastian because I dropped the game in May after chapter 10-11 because I was not feeling him and came back in November to finish.

Quickest: Faust, the reason why I got sucked into this game, I played his two endings back to back.

14. Do you use your 5 free chapter tickets daily?

When I'm actively playing yes!

15. A moment in a route that made you cry and a moment in a route that made you laugh:

Theo has hurt me the most in this game, I was sobbing while reading chapter 20. I was really affected by what happens in chapter 19, I had to step down from the game a bit. There is something really heartbreaking in a character that is so soft and yet he does the unthinkable.

Ironically, he is the character that has make me laugh the most, he is so much fun. For example, there is this part in chapter 22 I think where he hits the floor in anger and I never went from misery to laughing so fast (hitting things feels like such a bad boy toxic trait lol).

16. Who is your favorite pureblood vampire?

I think Leonardo without knowing much about him. I know I want to play his route because I like the premise. I like that he has this "Bad Boy" vibe but he also looks like a very chill character and he looks like so much fun.

17. Do you have a favorite CG? What about a favorite card?

Favorite CGs

Favorite cards

18. Any famous historical figures you wished were in ikevamp?

I think we need female routes! (they already did Jeanne D'Arc dirty erasing that she is a woman) even if I know doing that means this wouldn't be a otome game anymore.

I can only think in famous people like the Brontë sisters, Jane Austen, Mary Wollstonecraft, Simone de Beauvoir, Mileva Maric, Marie Curie, Olympe de Gouges and Amelia Earhart.

I would like too Percy Shelley and John Keats. I don't feel thrilled with the men because the more I read about History, the more I know all the men are trash.

19. What card is currently on your home screen in the game?

I really like this cards because they come with a special melody 🎶

20. What do you think about the suitors' pets? Which one is your favorite?

I love the pets! and I think they always do us dirty when we only get only crumbs from interacting with the pets in the story since they never have a relevant role. This happens in all the Ikemen games and I think the pets deserve better!

I can't really pick a favorite, all the pets make me happy!

𝟒 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐈𝐤𝐞𝐯𝐚𝐦𝐩 𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐚𝐠 𝐠𝐚𝐦𝐞!

Ikevamp EN launched on the 1st of July 2019 - maybe you were there since day one, or maybe you've only started playing recently: here's a little game to celebrate! You simply answer the questions and (optionally) tag the people whose answers you'd love to see next! Happy 4th anniversary to all ikevamp EN players! 🎉🎉🎉

*~if you feel like sharing, you can find the days in the mansion counter in your profile in the game and add it to your questions ~* Also, while reading other people's answers, mind that there might be spoilers!

What was your first impression of the game? Is this the first Cybird game you've ever played?

Who was the character you liked most in the beginning, and is he still your fave?

How you picked your first route, and whose route was it? Was your favorite suitor available when you first started playing?

An unavailable route you're looking forward to:

A character you thought would be different than how he is:

Is there a suitor who you used to dislike, but eventually changed your opinion about?

Do you remember your first story event?

Have you ever spent money on the game? Have you tried the free diamonds offers?

Do you have a favorite avatar item? Is it a plushie or maybe a unique hairstyle?

Have you ever bought merch of your favorite ikevamp character?

Have you ever mistakingly spent your stamina not in the story event?

What's the luckiest you've ever been when it comes to the gacha? What about your most unlucky memory?

The slowest you've ever completed a route vs the quickest:

Do you use your 5 free chapter tickets daily?

A moment in a route that made you cry and a moment in a route that made you laugh:

Who is your favorite pureblood vampire?

Do you have a favorite CG? What about a favorite card?

Any famous historical figures you wished were in ikevamp?

What card is currently on your home screen in the game?

What do you think about the suitors' pets? Which one is your favorite?

Have fun answering! 💕

[radramblog]

Eldritch Moon my beloved

I think most Magic players are going to have a favourite set. Often that’s going to be one they started playing with, or one that really got them into the game, or one that had a limited or standard format they really enjoyed. A lot of people won’t, and that’s okay, they’re allowed, it’s hard to pick favourites sometimes.

But for me, it’s Eldritch Moon, aka the last time we went to Innistrad, and things got a bit more tentacular.

Eldritch Moon had a lot working against it from the get-go.

The Shadows block immediately followed the Battle for Zendikar block, one which a lot of people Didn’t Like. Whether it be for some of the more questionable art direction, for the relatively weak cards and boring parasitic mechanics, and for arguably some of the lamest story the game has had to date. More relevantly, though, it was a pair of sets where a fan-favourite plane was essentially dominated by squid monsters and lost a lot of its unique identity in the process- gone was the fun D&D-esque adventure world, replaced by stark wastelands and a war story with like one good story article. It’s the Tazri one.

And then the next set was Shadows over Innistrad. Another return to a fan-favourite plane, with a huge mystery being built up as to why everything was going to shit again. Why Avacyn and her angels were turning on humanity, why there are all these funky stones everywhere, what exactly Nahiri was doing fucking around on the plane of someone she apparently doesn’t like very much.

There were cryptic hints in the set itself. Its title is a reference to the Lovecraft story, Shadows over Innsmouth, with a fair few cards alluding to the story itself. A few cards did have subtle tentacles in the art, as well as subtle warping of flesh and world. The most damning clue came in the form of a puzzle regarding different flavour texts for the card Tamiyo’s Journal, which gave a particular phrase- “Remember this: they came as three”- flavour text from a Battle for Zendikar card referring to the three Eldrazi Titans, only two of which had been dealt with in that story.

Despite this, people still denied that this was the plot-to-be. There were still rumours that it was somehow Marit Lage again after all this time, or that the threat was a new one, or that it was somehow the Gitrog Monster’s fault. Personally, I wanted to believe this, and desperately didn’t want the next set to be Eldrazi-themed- I’d gotten pretty sick of them from BfZ and OGW and was very much enjoying all the new Werewolves and Madness cards and Delirium mechanic. This was at the point where I was drafting at FNM weekly, and the fun differential between the two blocks was stark.

But of course, the mystery was revealed. It was old god Emrakul the whoooole time! Quelle fucking surprise. And yet it ended up being significantly better than the previous block, for a number of reasons.

Firstly, the story is just kind of better. We get to see distinctly through the cards and the plot how the influence of Emrakul has affected the regular citizens of Innistrad, and how all its various factions- the Church, the vampire manors, the packs of werewolves, et cetera- were all twisted in her visage. We get to see the desperate fight against them, with all these gothic horrors warring against eldritch horrors, and against themselves. And we get both Jace doing some surreal journey-to-the-centre-of-the-mind shit while Liliana gets to be the hero and Tamiyo gives us an ending that raises more questions than it answers.

Also, Sorin gets stuck in a rock. Fuck that guy, Nahiri was always cooler, and fuck War of the Spark for apparently just having them make up off screen.

Secondly, the cards. Flavourwise, the three Eldrazi Titans’ corrupting influence manifests differently for each- Ulamog consumes and drains the world, Kozilek corrupts the mind and wreaks havoc on space, and Emrakul? As we see, Emrakul twists flesh into new and horrifying shapes, that the set’s cards display in loving and disgusting detail. While Ulamog and Kozilek’s drones were clearly a part of themselves, the Eldrazi of Innistrad all used to be something much more reasonable before Emrakul made it to the plane.

There are three types of Eldrazi in this set. Firstly- the transform mechanic from Innistrads previous has been played with to suit the needs of the flavour. With the exception of Ulrich, every single double-faced card represents a creature from the world, be it Human or Werewolf or otherwise, that is touched by Emrakul and makes a permanent transformation into something else. There’re masses of limbs, shapes echoing Emrakul herself, and flesh in configurations that Should Not Be. The shift on every card is stark, and in every case, you have to actively put in effort to push them over the edge- and off a cliff which they cannot come back from. This is especially true with the Meld mechanic, with the cards fusing into this giant monstrosity that literally dwarfs every other card on the table.

The next type of EMN-drazi is the Emerge creatures. The mechanic was extremely fun, almost all the cards were eminently playable in at least one format (mostly just limited), and the art is spooky. The flavour of some guy on your table getting fucking chestbursted and having fucking Elder Deep-Fiend pop out is incredible, and each is a great way of showing how the regular fauna of the plane (and flora, like, I think Lashweed Lurker is a plant or something) are mutating in response to the creature’s presence.

Finally, there’s the cards that make 3/2 Eldrazi Horror tokens. There’s less of these and they’re less intense, but by and large they’re a representation of the regular people being affected by the whole thing. Just about every card that makes one of these involves a creature dying in some way (Desperate Sentry, Otherworldly Outburst) or being spawned by an existing mass of flesh (Hanweir, Howling Chorus), and it gives this sense that everybody is affected by this effect.

Of course, that was also a thing in Battle for Zendikar block. The whole thing was Eldrazi, Eldrazi, Eldrazi, with even vanilla 4/3 worms having something to say about fighting them. They key difference of Eldritch Moon is that the flavour of the world is still preserved outside of this Eldrazi presence.

What I’m saying is- the gothic horror of Innistrad is still present despite the eldritch horror of the set’s antagonist. There’s still a corrupt and violent church (albeit with a few more tentacles now), there are still cults and Frankenstein zombies and vampires and werewolves. Innistrad’s tone is compatible enough with the Eldrazi’s that the combination enhances the two rather than diminishes them.

The final thing I want to say is just- the set’s really fun. It has a bunch of my favourite classic limited cards- Thermo-Alchemist, Ulvenwald Captive, and Boon of Emrakul- along with multi-format all-stars like Grim Flayer and Collective Brutality. It has big potential get-there moments with the Meld cards and some of the flip Eldrazi, and splashy interesting cards like Emrakul herself and Harmless Offering. The set drips with flavour that enhances the gameplay, with very little wasted space.

It’s a set I only really have two complaints about. Firstly- lol Ulrich isn’t good and wasn’t what basically any werewolf fan was after. And two- it suffers from an eternal issue that Magic only recently solved, in that it’s a Small Set with a pile of mechanics that it cannot possibly fully explore in its 200 or so cards. The biggest victim of this is Meld, as they could only fit 3 pairs in under the restraints of the set size. And that’s a real shame, considering that it’s a mechanic that we’re probably never seeing again, especially considering the recent Midnight Hunt. I really think there was a missed opportunity to not have a few leftover Eldrazi in that set- whatever happened to the Dronepack? Or the corrupted vampire houses? I suppose, though, that “I want more!” can be the best complaint a creator can get.

Eldritch Moon had big shoes to fill. However, in my eyes, it didn’t just fill those shoes. It filled them and kept filling them until its distended toes burst out the front and sides of the shoes and just kept growing, and bending in really weird ways, and I think I’ve lost the plot of this metaphor. It’s my favourite Magic set, and I don’t see that changing for a while.

[pixelgrotto]

Visiting the village

It took me a few months because of job changes and a focus on freelance work, but I finally got around to playing Resident Evil Village. And I found it to be...okay. It’s a mid-tier RE game for me that doesn’t hold up to Resident Evil 7, which I loved. (Mild story and location spoilers ahead, so be warned.)

The game ties up the tale of Ethan Winters, the relatively bland star of 7, by having Chris Redfield invade his home in the opening sequence, shoot his wife and kidnap his daughter. Gasp, has Chris finally snapped after 23 years of punching boulders? No, not really, and in fact the ENTIRE plot of Village could have been avoided if Chris decided to sit down and actually have a conversation with Ethan. Because he doesn’t, Ethan has to save his baby from Mother Miranda, the cultist leader of what’s pretty much the Bioweapon Justice League - complete with Tall Vampire Lady, Creepy Dollmaker, Gibbering Fish Dude and a guy who’s basically Magneto but with a suave hat and a hammer. Along the way, Ethan fights werewolves, meets a cool fat guy named the Duke who sells him weapons and tries to figure out why these folks want his child. It’s an alright story, and it even throws in some last minute connections to Umbrella that are fun for hardcore fans. Unfortunately, its foundation is centered around making a good guy like Chris seem bad, and then denying all of the answers as to why he’s acting bad until the eleventh hour. Which is something I tolerate in comic books, but even then only begrudgingly.  

Village is also a lot more “gamey” than its predecessor, which managed to take the classic Resident Evil formula (running around an area, conserving weapons, backtracking and collecting doodads to open new areas) and transfer it in a relatively realistic and down-to-earth Louisiana mansion. In contrast, Village immediately points out that there are four big bosses that you’ve gotta kill to get four items that you need to place in a pillar to unlock the final boss, and hooo boy, is the video game structure blindingly obvious here. This was probably done because the game is sort of open world, with the titular village acting as a hub that branches out into different regions. Each region represents a different slice of horror, giving Resident Evil Village a very “theme park” feel that would’ve been great if the sections were up to the same standard. 

The first section, in Tall Vampire Lady’s castle, is gothic horror, and the closest that Village gets to a traditional Resident Evil. This part’s pretty good because it’s reliant upon that tried and true Spencer Mansion formula dating back to RE1, and as you avoid Tall Vampire Lady and her daughters and eventually start sniping flying creatures on the spires of the castle, Village hits a nice rhythm that’s almost evocative of the excellent pacing of RE4. 

Following this, Village dives into psychological horror with the Creepy Dollmaker’s house. This is the only area that’s legitimately frightening. I’d go so far as to say it’s one of the scariest sequences in the entire series, largely because it takes its vibes from Silent Hill (specifically P.T.). I had to “nope” out of the immersion as soon as the game took away my weapons and had me fiddling with a mannequin in a creepy basement, and even with the Zootopia soundtrack playing in the background (don’t ask, it’s how I cope with stressful segments in horror games), this entire section still gave me the heebie-jeebies. I wouldn’t necessarily want to play an entire game like this, but this small slice of mental terror is very well done.

Then we’re on to Gibbering Fish Dude’s section, which was probably meant to evoke thalassic horror but largely ended up annoying me. There’s this part where you need to rearrange sections of a bridge and dodge fishman as he jumps out of the water, and he one-shots you if you screw up. The whole thing reminded me of the Quick Time Events plastered all over RE5 and RE6. In fact, there’s a lot of sequences in Village reminiscent of those, which probably contributed to the slight disappointment I felt while playing. 

After a brief shooting segment, finally we reach the last stretch of the game, an industrial horror wonderland run by not-Magneto. Resident Evil has always featured industrial areas, so this one’s pretty par for the course, though the enemy designs reminded me of the often-neglected Resident Evil Revelations 2 more than any other series entry. It all goes on for a bit too long, and at one point Ethan even blusters, “Damnit, not again” after not-Magneto kicks him into a hole, making him fall through three factory floors for what seems like the umpteenth time.

The game ends with Chris Redfield reappearing to finally deliver exposition and some bosses that are reminiscent of the ridiculousness seen in RE6. There are a few plot threads hinting that Ethan’s daughter is going to be a pivotal figure in upcoming games, but by this point Resident Evil has so many unresolved plot threads that it’s hard to know if Capcom will actually follow through with this. (Remember when Albert Wesker’s son was supposed to represent the future of the franchise?) 

At the end of the day, I enjoyed Village enough to push back all of the freelance projects I should’ve been working on today to finish it and write this blog post. But the inconsistency of its theme park feel is tough to ignore, and the game brings Resident Evil back to the wham-bam-shoot-’em-up vibe of RE5 and RE6 to a degree that surprised me. Perhaps this was done to prepare audiences for the inevitable remake of Resident Evil 4, which I’m sure will emerge in a year or two and reuse half of the assets on display here. Whatever the reason, I’m glad the series got another first-person entry to wrap up the saga of Ethan Winters, but this Village won’t be one I’ll revisit in the near future. 

[fortunatelyhauntedblackcherry]

Moonshine - A Beetlejuice Fanfiction 05

Warning: Swearing, mention of mental illness, Beetlejuice being smut and creepy... As always.

Ari was sitting on the side of her bed, head in her palms, breathing heavily.

- Either you are telling the truth or I'm going crazy. Or I'm tripping. Even though I don't do drugs. - Beetlejuice rolled his eyes. He was standing before her, with his hands crossed across his chest. His hair was in a light green shade with some light pink streaks in it.

- As I said previously, down in the living room you idiots, on purpose, bought a haunted house. - Ari looked up and nodded sarcastically. He was right, after all. - Seriously, what did you think, that you'll get unicorns?!

- Ghosts! - shouted Ari in a muffled voice. She didn't want her sisters to hear that she was talking to herself... But the hissing and scratching of Minerva before the door surely made a helping white-noise.

- Well I'm the leveled-up version of those suckers. - said Beetlejuice proudly and sat down next to Ari. - You might say I'm the ghost with the most! - the girl chuckled.

- Okay, if you really are the improved version of a ghost... - she shrugged - ...prove it!

- EEEEEH! - out of a sudden Beetlejuice imitated the sound of a siren which made Ari jump a bit. - Can't do that.

- Why?

- I can't interact with the human world. Only ghosts can do that. I can posess electronics and appear as smoke in mirrors, max. - Ari stood up and went to her full-size mirror.

- SHOW MEEEE! - she said in an excited voice. Even though she would really loved to talk to a demon, she thought this action would prove the fact that it's just her consciousness playing games with her and that she had to see a psychiatrist again, but a slightly human-shaped, green-ish white-ish smoke-shape appeared behind her and her lights started twitching.

- Helloouuu... - whispered Beetlejuice into her ear in a funny voice which didn't make her jump at all... No, it actually made her giggle. Beetlejuice raised his eyebrows. That was a first. Someone actually liked his jokes and funny voices. Weird.

- Ohmygodsthisissocool! - Ari was talking very fast and in a very high-pitched voice. She acted like a little girl, excited for her Christmas present. That made Beetlejuice smile. Nobody was that happy for him... Like... Ever. Ari turned around to where the voice came from the last time. - Gee I can't believe I am actually talking to a spectre. What are you doing normally? Just float around the house? Also, most of the time why do you sound like you just swallowed a cheese grater? - she stopped for a moment and continued in a more serious voice. - Also why do I hear you exactly? That bugs me a bit... to be honest.

- First: yeah, mostly I just follow you guys everywhere I can, floating around you. Watching. - he lowered his voice, his lips could almost touch Ari's ear. - I know. Very creepy. - Ari shivered like something just ran across her back. She hated being followed. She had bad experiences with that in the past. She noted to herself that she had to tell this demon not to do that oh so silently. - Second: you can't ask why does somebody sound like that, Karen! - he said sarcastically then went back to normal voice. - Also I'm dead, rotting, lower your expectations to that. Third: I have no idea but it's gonna be so much fun! - now he sounded like a child. He started to run around Ari in circles and clap little claps while he was talking. - It surely is interesting, but eh, who cares, the important thing is that now we can talk properly! And you can answer! And you can sing the songs I request! And react to my lewd comments! And we could have sleepovers and shit since now I can come in! - he changed into a more seductive tone and leaned closer to Ari. - Obviously R rated sleepovers cause I am a very sexual handsome being who you could totally not resist. - the girl blushed a little which made Beetlejuice even more horny than usual. But since he knew he couldn't do anything with her at the moment, he changed back to normal voice. - By the way I like what you did with the room, seeing it for the first time and I am shooketh how many stuff here is relating to the whole being dead thing. Babes, you have a problem. A cherishable, cute problem, but still a problem. - Ari laughed. Very loudly.

No surprise Beetlejuice liked her room. Although she followed her own path, she really liked the whole (kind of mainstream by now) witchy-gothic aesthetic and since horror was her sweet spot since she was a child, she had to decorate her bedroom in a certain way. Starting from the chandelier, which was basically a huge glowing pumpkin with wrought-iron tendrils all over it, the color of the ceiling changed from light orange to a pretty pumpkin colour, then continuing on the walls it slowly turned into a dark coppery reddish-orange. The hardwood floor was fully covered in soft grey carpet with little bats on it. There was a fake bat-skeleton, a fake raven-skeleton and little felted dolls in the form of the three witches from Hocus Pocus hanging from the chandelier. To the right of her door (which, by the way, was painted dark grey and had a "Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc" plaque on it), there was a big, wall-to-wall cabinet painted black with a full-size mirror on the right, and a dressing table in the middle embedded in it. Her makeup brushes and eyeshadows were already scattered around it 'cause she was messy. To the left of her door there was a shelf in the shape of the triple moon, with horror-movie figurines, crystals, Funko Pops and random skulls on it. Around it, family photos. Next to that, in the corner, there was a black, coffin-shaped shoe cabinet with pumpkin-coloured insides and leds in it, and with a sign that said "Dracula" on top of it. On the opposite wall, below the window there was Ari's sewing-corner with 2 sewing machines on the table. On the wall, opposing the wall-to-wall cabinet there was a ram skull, engraved with Edgar Allan Poe's s silhouette, with huge black horns curling backwards. Under it, on the wrought-iron bed there was a blanket with the bride of Frankenstein painted on it, and many pillows. On the two sides of the bed, there were little "nightstands" which were basically cages. One worked as a cat-prison for Minerva, padded with a soft mattress, with a night-lamp grabbed by a zombie hand on top of it. The other held Ari's favourite books, and had a little altar on it for her "weird witchcraftsy shit", as Rei said many times before. In front of the bed there was a black chest, filled with random pieces of fabric and patterns for clothes, the top of it covered in soft black and white striped velvet. Next to that, there were 2 Paris dolls, one on each side.

- Thanks, I am the breathing, living version of Halloween. - she sat down before her dressing table, looking directly into the mirror so she could see the shape of the demon again. - And... Yeah, please stop the creeping around. At least when you come into a room where I'm at, just whistle or something so I could know that you're there. - she turned around, facing the middle of the room and blinked sweetly. - Please? - Beetlejuice sighed with resignation. He couldn't say no to those pretty, living eyes.

- If your pets even let me near you, then okay. Your stupid cat always hisses at me and won't let me come into your room... I mean I could float above her but I'm legitimately afraid for my afterlife around her, it's weird, I don't get it either. And your actually scary dog... I'm not even sure that's a dog, that looks like a wolf, so yeah, that mongrel almost ripped my arm off last week! You have to convience them that I'm not trying to hurt you! -  begged Beetlejuice. - I could only come up with you now cause I was faster than those suckers. - Ari stood up and went to the door where Minerva was still scratching the door into pieces.

- You know in many ancient cultures, dogs and cats were considered as guardians of the underworld or bodyguards for their owners against demons. For example in the Aztec religion, dogs were associated with Xolotl, the god of death. Or in Egypt cats were used as protectors against evil spirits.

- Thanks for the history lesson, miss-know-it-all. - said Beetlejuice sarcastically with a snort. Ari rolled her eyes.

- So I suppose they can see you, right?

- Yeah... I thought I'd use them to get you guys' attention but... - he stretched his arms out in Ari's direction. - ...I have you!

Ari smiled. She was still not sure he was not malevolent like those spirits from The Conjuring, but he didn't feel like someone with a super evil plan going down.

- You know maybe they just love me and want to protect me. - she sat back on her chair. - You know, Sirius is a tamascan, a guarddog, a wolf-type. He looks like he could rip you in half but actually he's a sweetheart. Yeah, his teeth are sharp as needles but he only uses them to chew up his toys. - Ari shrugged. - He doesn't even know how enormous he is. He looks very fierce and heisty but mostly he just sits on people's laps. - Beetlejuice floated right next to the girl again. He was so close Ari could feel that icy coldness on her skin again.

- You should sit on MY lap. - he said in an arousing voice. Ari looked the way the voice came from.

- Shut up. - she said in a sharp voice. BJ rolled his eyes and went a bit further. - Minerva would totally kill you though. She should be a very social breed, but she basically hates everybody and wants to kill everything that moves. So yeah, beware of the claws. They hurt more than you can imagine. - Ari held up one of her hands with a huge scratchmark on it. Beetlejuice chuckled.

- I don't feel pain.

- Oh you'd feel that, trust me!

Ari looked at her clock. It was almost 2 in the afternoon.

- Oh shit, man, I gotta go to work. First day, I can't be late. - she went to her bed and started to pack her sheet music rapidly into a red bag. Beetlejuice walked up to her and with hope in his eyes and fully green hair, he asked:

- Before you go... Can't you... Say my name 3 times? - Ari looked at his way with a raised eyebrow.

- Why do you want me to do that?

- Cause that would lift me out of this weird alternate state and I could roam earth while being seen! Now I can't leave this house but once being summoned, I could! And I haven't been out since literal decades! - he sounded so desperate. - Please don't make me beg... I will... I just... Okay you know what, I'm begging. - he threw himself on his knees and tried to grab Ari's trousers, but his hands went right through them. - I'm just so sick and tired of being invisible! - Ari made a weird little sound of shock.

- I don't even know your name, and you seriously think I would let you roam free? I just met ya...

- PLEASE! JUST DO IT!!! I WOULD DO ANYTHING, SCARE ANYONE, JUST PLEASE SAY IT! I SWEAR I'LL LEAVE SOON AFTER!!! - he was nearly crying, his hair started to turn into fully purple. Ari was thinking about her options. She could either let a wild entity roam free, or have someone murder her father or one of her exes and then just leave. That sounded good.

- That's a flattering offer so... Kay, what's your name then?

Beetlejuice stuttered.

- I... - he sighed. - I can't say it. - he said with total hopelessness in his voice and tears in his eyes. He sounded so miserable. Ari squatted down to him. She didn't even know, but she was looking straight into Beetlejuice's eyes. Her warm smile made him feel a bit better, but he was still miserable.

- Then how could I help you, Bug? - he stayed silent. That nickname actually sounded cute. - Yeah, I heard you munching on them. So let's stick with that name until I find out why do I hear you and what is your actual name, shall we? - she would've just pat his head if she could see him. He sounded so alone. She knew exactly how that felt.

- Kay. - said BJ in a repressed voice as he viped his tears and nose in his jacket. Ari wrinkled her nose at his direction, snapped up her bag and headed for the door. Beetlejuice got up quickly and floated before her, if nothing would've happened. - Wait, what am I supposed to do while you're gone? - Ari shrugged her shoulders.

- I don't know, haunt my sisters' electronics? Find out if they can interact with you too? - there was no answer so she just waved goodbye. - I'll be back at 11-ish. - and with that, she went to work.

But Beetlejuice was still there. He rubbed his hands maniacally and talked to himself in a very evil, raspy way.

- Oh I would love to do that. Of course, I might have to get a little... Mean... I might have to get a little... Nasty... But if you want me to act like a demon... Then I'll be a demon 😈

[roxygull-blog]

CISFEMALE — ever hear people say ROXANNE GULLIVER looks a lot like LYNN GUNN? I think SHE is about 22, so it doesn’t really work. The MUSICIAN has lived in Livingstone for 15 YEARS. They can be DEPENDABLE, but they can also be SHORT-TEMPERED. I think ROXY might be SHEEP. 

heyhey, i’m elijah and this is roxy!! she let’s me live out my badass idgaf fantasy lmao. hmu if u wanna plot.

name : roxanne ‘roxy’ gulliver (stage name ‘roxy gull’) age: twenty two occupation: musician pronouns: she/her sexuality: bisexual watershed status: sheep

growing up:

roxy had a troubled childhood. her parents split when she was three; her mother being an alcoholic meant that her father took custody of her and her older brother, alexander. their mother disappeared and for two years everything was okay, until their father died in a freak car accident. with no idea where their mother was, not to mention her inability to look after them, they went to live with their grandparents in livingstone, vermont.

roxy struggled with the loss of her father and absense of her mother. she fest as if she had no control over her life and developed a fear of death by the age of six; particuarly of the death of those around her. as a way of coping she developed an eating disorder in middle school which is something she still struggles with to this day. food has always been something she can control.

in freshman year she fell in with a group of people who introduced her to the world of alcohol, smoking and drugs. despite her mother being an alcoholic, she was too young to remember the damage it put onto her family nor the state that it put her mother into. high school shaped her into becoming the rebellious woman she is today.

neither her nor her brother haven’t seen their mother in almost twenty years and have no idea whether she is still alive. roxy and her brother currently rent an apartment together and only stay a couple of blocks from their grandparents.

family:

roxy remembers very little of her mother and has very few memories of her father. her mother she couldn’t care less about since she basically walked out on her and her brother, but it upsets her and is still a sensitive subject all these years later that she doesn’t have many memories with her dad that she can actually recall.

growing up with her grandparents (from her father’s side) means that she naturally has a close bond to them. she grew up with them telling her all sorts of stories about her father, so much so that it feels as if she did know him. she is very protective over them which is why when she moved out she decided to move in with her brother who only lives a couple of blocks away from them.

roxy has an older brother, alexander (or alex). with only two years between them, they’ve always been close. he’s the only other person to know exactly what she has gone through and to roxy, that makes their bond unbreakable. he’s not only her brother but her best friend and he’s the first person she goes to when she has something on her mind or if there’s a problem. he too feels a sense of protectiveness over his grandparents and also roxy herself which is why he hasn’t left livingstone.

relationships:

this may come as a surprise to some people, but roxy has never been in a serious relationship. she’s had hookups a plenty but has never been able to settle down with any guy or girl. although her grandparents are still happily married, the divorce of her parents has made her untrusting of love and relationships.

however, there was this one guy that she met in school, senior year. he had transferred schools in his last year and an unlikely friendship bloomed. he was the complete opposite of her and saw something in her that other people didn’t see. there were lingering feelings between the two but roxy being roxy, she pushed them aside and once they graduated she dropped all contact with him. he was the closest she’d ever gotten to even considering a real relationship.

watershed:

roxy’s relationship with the watershed app is the complete opposite of what you would expect, and what she wants. where she would probably be one of the first people to use it as a shephard, she is a sheep (probably karma for acting like an asshole her entire life). she puts on a facade, acting as if it doesn’t bother her and tries to ignore the whole thing for the most part. but really she’s just bitter that she isn’t on the other side of it.

likes:

music (mostly rock and acoustic stuff), alcohol, space & alien shit, cigarettes, the colours black and red, tattoos, it’s always sunny in philadelphia, horror (movies, books, everything), gothic literature, veggie burritos, classic/cult movies, video games

dislikes:

wine, ‘comedy’ movies that aren’t even funny, meat, uptight people, people in general

[secretlyatargaryen]

July 2019 Reviews

Games

Walden, a game - A delightful experience for those who love games and literature and the idea of them together. The best parts of the game are the quotes from Thoreau's book that appear on the screen when you examine something closely, like a fox or a maple tree, complete with great voice acting. The ecological detail put into the game is impressive. The worst part is that the game mechanics for completing tasks are clunky and there is very little time each day before the game forces you to go to sleep and begin the next day, and your hunger, fuel, and shelter meter always seems to be low, causing you to spend the majority of your daylight hours picking berries and collecting firewood. I get that this is supposed to mirror the experience of "living simply," but 1) it is boringly repetitive and if anything calls to mind the irony of “being one with nature” in a computer game and 2) there are a lot of other interesting things to do in the game which you do not have enough time to do, such as helping escaped slaves on their way to the underground railroad. I learned playing this game that Henry David Thoreau was basically every guy I met in college who hated the government and whose solution to its atrocities was to fuck off into the woods and smoke pot instead of actually doing anything about it. This analogy is completed by the fact that you are able to go into town and get food and clean laundry from your parents' house if you get too low on those things.

Black Mirror (2017) - No, not the Netflix series. This is a re-imagining of the Black Mirror series of adventure games developed in the early 2000s. The original game is considered a classic of point and click adventures but suffers from an unoriginal plot (obligatory part where I once again complain about horror games and their obsession with "Surprise! You're crazy! Dead women!") and the unfortunateness of early 3D polygon graphics. The second and third game took the series in a completely new and original direction and were quite good, so while I had never heard of the remake before I came across it during the steam summer sale, I was cautiously hopeful. Even if it was trash, it's just the kind of gothic-mystery-exploring-a-haunted-castle trash that I like to throw my money at. The gameplay is pretty fun (minus some quick time events where you can get killed by ghosts mostly by failing to operate the somewhat clunky controls - the game was originally ported for PS4) and the story is original but also expands upon the series mythos. An enjoyable trashy gothic yarn, although the story also felt incomplete, even to someone who has played the original games, and was both wrapped up too quickly and left weirdly unresolved.

Books

Greenglass House, Kate Milford - I started this book a while ago and it’s been on my radar for a while, and I restarted it again when I heard it was going to be on this year’s BOB list. A fun young adult adventure story which utilizes one of my favorite mystery tropes, the closed circle. The story is that preteen Milo lives in the eponymous house, which his family runs as an inn. The house used to be a meeting place for smugglers back in the day, which means there’s buried treasure somewhere in the house, and when the story starts a slew of guests arrive at the house and are stranded by a snowstorm, when things start getting mysterious. Someone in the house is a thief! I really like this book and the way that the story’s original folklore is woven into the plot. There are also several dungeons and dragons elements that play a role in the plot - to solve the mystery, Milo and his friend Meddy pretend to be characters in a role-playing game, and I love the way the story makes connections between games, stories, and language, since that happens to align with my interests.

Serafina and the Black Cloak, Robert Beatty - Another BOB book, this one also has been on my radar for a while because the series is very popular among my students, and when I went to Beatty’s website recently I saw that Disney had already put their name on it, lol. What I didn’t know was that the series takes place in my state. The setting is the Biltmore Estate in the late 1800s, and the story is a historical fantasy that utilizes some of the local folklore in some really interesting ways, although it’s more fantasy than historical. An enjoyable read with an interesting female protagonist.

Movies

Ready Player One - I enjoyed this movie a lot more than I thought I would. I had heard going into it that it was not a great adaptation from friends who loved the book, which I haven’t read. That might be why I did enjoyed it so much. I don’t think it’s anything that memorable, but it is enjoyable. I can see why the book became so popular, although I’ve read books with similar storylines. I guess a book like this is more relevant nowadays with the popularity of VR in the modern gaming market, but the story relied on some tired cliches nonetheless. I also was a bit annoyed when the story acknowledged the issue with the main character falling for Artemis’ idealistically beautiful avatar without really knowing her...and then had her turn out to be stunningly gorgeous in real life. Okay, she had a wine-stain disfigurement on her face, but she was still traditionally beautiful, and the main character gets to be with her in the end while meanwhile, his actual best friend, who turns out to be an unfeminine black girl in real life and who obviously has a crush on him, is left behind.

Picnic At Hanging Rock - I come across this movie on gothic film recommendation lists every so often and have wanted to watch it for years, and I happened to find it on youtube, which surprised me. The original movie is from 1975 and is a cult classic for a reason. Stunning visuals and a story that leaves you confused in the just the right way. After watching it, I was itching to learn more and came across last year’s amazon prime series with Natalie Dormer and watched all six episodes, and although the series was enjoyable and a good extension for anyone who enjoys the original movie, it does not have the charm or brilliance of the original. The series expands on the story, but part of the beauty of the original movie is the way the story is told in what isn’t said, and in carefully choreographed scenes where nobody on screen says a word. I can see why the movie is called “gothic” as it has some of the trappings of the genre. It takes place in 1900 at a remote and mysterious boarding school in Australia. Three girls vanish during a school field trip, seemingly without a trace. What happened to them may have been supernatural. Or they may have been murdered, kidnapped, or run off on their own. Also, I’m pretty sure everyone is gay.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle - I’m a huge fan of the Shirley Jackson novel which this movie is an adaptation of, and unlike Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House, this movie is actually a fairly straight adaptation of the novel. The movie captures the gothic feel of the book as well as the anxiety about gender and class from which it gets its themes, and there are solid performances all around, but the movie does seem a bit devoid of a life of its own. Despite, and possibly because of, the voice-over narration, Merricat never really comes alive as a character the way she does in the book. This is, I think, a problem with a lot of book to movie adaptations that rely on voice-overs to tell the story. I can see the appeal of this, especially with a book like this which is both heavily steeped in POV and characterized by an unreliable narrator, but I found myself really wishing the movie would just let itself tell the story rather than the narrator.

Shows

American Gods - I watched all of season two on the starz website except for the finale, which I was told that I needed to upgrade by account to watch, so if you are watching on the website or the app be aware of that. I enjoyed season two, although it lacked some of the urgency of the first season. I do enjoy some of the adaptational choices made that update the novel a bit, such as having Technology be outsourced by New Media. Also, season two saw the arrival of my daughter, Sam Black Crow. I’m also looking forward to the Lakeside subplot next season (I assume) as it’s my favorite part of the novel.

Stranger Things - I watched the first four episodes of season one when it came out, and then for some reason never finished it. I know, I know. It didn’t take me very long to watch all three seasons, which I sort of interpreted as one as a result, although I do think there’s a drop in quality somewhere in the second/third season, but overall it’s a fun show that definitely kept me interested and invested in the characters. Also, every scene relating to the upside down motivated me to clean my bathroom.

[thetygre]

30 Day Monster Challenge 2 - Day #16: Favorite Evil Weapon/Object

1.       Stormbringer (Elric of Melnibone)

The Black Blade. Daughter of Arioch. The Stealer of Souls. One of the single most legendary swords in all of fantasy, present in every universe in at least one form or another. A demon of chaos bound by the Lords of Law into the shape of a weapon. Whoever wields it can drain the souls from whoever they stab and sustain themselves with it, but is driven by a terrible hunger. The Black Blade has a will of its own, and it howls for blood as it is swung. In short, the definitive evil weapon.

What makes Stormbringer stand out from its later imitators, and even previous legendary evil weapons, is how it affects its primary wield, Elric of Melnibone. As an albino, Elric is sickly, and usually uses medicine and dark magic to stay alive. But abroad in the Young Kingdoms, Elric has to rely on Stormbringer to survive. Even as Elric connects with people outside his home kingdom, they are bound to die whenever he needs to stay alive, no matter how much Elric tries to fight it. Stormbringer is essentially a manifestation of Elric’s burden as the Champion of Balance, but also his greater isolation that distances him from being able to make connections. Elric makes it clear that Stormbringer isn’t some kind of ultimate weapon, it’s a crutch, a drug that ultimately consumes its user. And in the end, that’s what happens to Elric; when the entire universe is consumed by chaos, Stormbringer finally turns on Elric before disappearing into the apocalypse.

2.       Soul Edge/Soul Calibur (Soulcalibur)

So this is honestly cheating, but I just can’t pick between the two swords. Soul Edge is the clear Stormbringer descendent and looks rad as hell to boot. Even more that Stormbringer, Soul Edge looks like a living, breathing monster. It can even shapeshift into weapons that aren’t sword, and it had an entire life cycle in Soulcalibur 2. But Soul Edge never really stopped being the ‘bad’ sword. It’s counterpart, Soul Calibur, on the other hand, started off as the ‘good’ sword. But as the series went on, Soul Calibur began to change. In Soulcalibur 4 it was hinted that Soul Calibur might have a mind of its own as well, and it might not have the purest intentions. By Soulcalibur 5, the plot hook came to fruition; Soul Calibur is just as dangerous as Soul Edge and wants to trap the world in a perfect unchanging state. The swords have become the embodiments of Law and Chaos; the Michael Moorcock reference comes full circle. All we need now is a game where Soul Calibur is out of control and the only thing that can stop it is Soul Edge.

3.       The Terror Mask (Splatterhouse)

The Terror Mask has sass, the Terror Mask has a personality. Half these evil artifacts are just kind of generically malevolent; they won’t yell at you in Jim Cummings’ voice and call you a pussy when you notice one of your arms is missing. There’s a surprising amount of lore invested in the Terror Mask. An entity from the space between spaces, it fled the cosmic horror gods until they bound it in a bone mask. Now it’s out to settle the score, and whoever is wearing it just happens to be along for the ride. Granted, the wearer of the mask turns into a hulking slasher ogre that is almost impossible to kill. The Splatterhouse games are a gateway into the video game id, replete with monsters, ultra-violence, and a hero so buff he puts the ‘masculine’ in ‘toxic masculinity’. The Terror Mask, like in the game, is just a way to get to that special kind of hell.

4.       The Necronomicon Ex Mortis (Evil Dead)

The Necronomicon Ex Mortis is probably the most famous evil book in the world, probably more so than Lovecraft’s original Necronomicon. (Frankly, I could do an entire list on favorite evil books, but we’ll get there when we get there.) The Ex Mortis really doesn’t have a lot to do with Lovecraft besides the name, other than that they are both old, sanity-rending, and bodies of literature. But, being honest, the Ex Mortis is just the more fun of the two. The Ex Mortis is the party-boy of evil books to the original Necronomicon’s Ivy League scholar. It’s such an embodiment of Sam Raimi horror; gory, campy, with a bit of slapstick thrown in, and its mere presence causes weirdness to happen. The Necronomicon Ex Mortis contains knowledge of things man was not meant to know, and it knows it. It’s mischievous, and it’d almost be lovable if it wasn’t also full of immensely powerful black magic.

5.       The One Ring (Lord of the Rings)

I’ve always been interested by the concept that the One Ring can think for itself. The One Ring is, ultimately, an incredibly loyal evil artifact, and is only interested in new yielders insofar as they can deliver it back to Sauron. The Ring really is an apt counterpart for the hobbits; a little thing, defenseless, almost useless at first glance, but capable of changing the world. The Ring also has a pedigree, of course. It shares more than few traits with the Ring of Nibelung from the Wagnerian cycle of operas of the same name. The Nibelung Ring, like the One Ring, can grant the wearer power over the world, but only if they renounce love. In time, the covetousness of men and gods for the ring destroys the world and brings about Ragnarok. The One Ring is a reflection of the Ring of Nibelung, but also vastly different in many respects. It brings about the end of the gods and immortals, but only because they were staying to try and destroy it. The end of the Ring and of Sauron grants the world the ability to move into the next age, the age of mankind, which reflects not only Tolkien’s notions about divinity and its place in human existence, but I think also his faith that people can rise to their best in the changing times.

6.       Rubilax (Wakfu)

Rubilax is the only evil weapon here to have a character arc. Granted, that’s because he’s actually a demon bound to a sword, but whatever. Rubilax starts out as your typical evil sword, trying to possess the (idiot) paladin bound to guard him. Not to make it a contest, but he gets pretty far, to the point that said paladin has to release Rubilax and fight him in a bare-knuckle fist fight into submission. After that, things get kind of complicated. People die, souls are displaced, there’s a colosseum death match, and Rubilax has to make some calls about his moral character, so to speak. In the end, Rubilax decides to side with the good guys, and even gets along with the paladin’s kids. So he’s less of an evil weapon and more of just a demonic one, but he’s definitely the most nuanced character here.

7.       The Event Horizon (Event Horizon)

The Even Horizon is pushing the definition of ‘evil object’. It’s really more of an evil place, which might also be worth a look sometime, but for now a ship counts as an object. There’s plenty of sci-fi stories that try to do the cursed spaceship deal, but I feel like Event Horizon is the only one that really captures the gothic horror aspect. I think we tend to forget that architecture, aside from its practical usage, is also meant to convey ideas and thoughts as much as any other form of artistry, and was one of the more important forms of public communication before the spread of reading. The architecture of the Event Horizon is the words to a spell, the three-dimensional incantation that opens the gates of Hell. It was a morbid, dark temple to man’s ignorance even before it went into other dimensions. Once it returns, it hungers for more; a cursed ship bound to always return to its home port on the other side. Something about the Event Horizon reminds me of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner; the way the ship is warped and changed by sailing through strange waters, and how the survivors are bound to relive the curse over and over again. That’s why the Event Horizon is my favorite ghost ship in science fiction.

8.       The Marker (Dead Space)

The Marker draws directly from Event Horizon, and they both share the concept of wordlessly communicating a kind of madness to the people who view them. The Marker, though, takes it to a new extreme, in that it has a literal insanity aura that causes hallucinations, paranoia, and aggressiveness. An interesting way that the Marker is more ‘alive’ than other evil objects is that it is self-propagating; part of the madness it transmits is the formula necessary for its replications. But what I find most fascinating is how the Marker can transmit information that changes DNA, altering people on the cellular level to turn them into Necromorphs. That kind of power, to change biology through information, is nothing short of magic in most other settings.

9.       The Berserker Armor (Berserk)

You can’t fight demons if you ain’t cute. The Berserker Armor was forged by dwarves for the explicit purpose of fighting demons and monsters. It draws on the rage and negative energy inside a person to give them incredible strength and agility, but at the price of slowly draining their senses. The Skull Knight originally made it for himself, but even he was scared off by the armor’s power. Now Guts has it, and he has a lot of rage to give. I think the most fascinating thing about the armor is how it changes and molds itself to how Guts’ uses it. It didn’t start off with a giant wolf helmet; that’s just Guts’ personal totem representing his inner darkness. But when the armor drew on that, it changed shape, and when Guts holds himself back, it stays restrained. Still, the armor takes a lower spot because it itself isn’t evil, it just draws on a person’s internal negativity; it’s all up to the wearer on how much they use it.

10.   The Gonne (Discworld)

Discworld is full of anachronistic magical devices, and they’re all usually cause for some kind of concern. The Gonne was at the center of a fairly elaborate murder plot involving the Assassin’s Guild and the Night Watch, but was finally put a stop to. Like any good evil weapon, it whispers promises of power to whoever happens to be holding it at the time, and is also a little trigger-happy. But the Gonne and its metaphor for firearms gets kind of overshadowed by everything happening around it, and it even gets acknowledged as a powerful and worthy weapon in its own way by the end.

[16ruedelaverrerie]

Excuse you!!!!! First of all, anon, if you ever call yourself that again I will find you on your birthday and I will take from you that which you love the most. If at any point I happen to say something that rings true or seems even vaguely insightful, that is a product of practice and experience and has nothing to do with natural aptitude! Literally I have been trained for more than a decade to read things as a career, and I’m still slowly learning how to do it better!

It is, of course, also a product of even less remunerative forms of practice and experience-- that is to say, too much time in fandom. Even in that regard, there’s still more for me to learn! But it’s really fun to think about how each fandom has its own distinct ecology, how each subsection of that fandom operates under a distinct microclimate, and how each country (or linguistic community) has such different norms of engagement YEAH THAT’S RIGHT THE THIRD ITEM IN THIS LIST DOESN’T COME WITH AN ENVIRONMENTAL METAPHOR

I think that’s the problem with fan studies academics who aren’t actually knee-deep in the filth of fandom, but are just... distantly fascinated by fandom; they’re trying to draw global conclusions by aggregating disparate sets of local phenomena, because they haven’t run up against how heterogeneous fandom is on the ground level. I mean, sure, there are trends! There are waves! But sometimes people do arrive at the same thing via wildly different paths, and having seen that makes me reluctant to come to any kind of conclusion (other than only very tentative suggestions). So everything I say here should probably be read as you picture me shrugging so noncommittally that my shoulders shoot up past my ears. (Thank you very much for reading v v v)

 THIS IS... TOO CLOSE TO A HORROR MOVIE. It’s kind of like that AO3 Gothic post! “YOU ARE ALREADY FOLLOWING THIS USER. YOU ARE ALREADY FOLLOWING THIS USER.” As your foot snags on a floorboard and you come crashing down onto your elbows, the voice dogs your heels through the interminable hallways. “YOU ARE ALREADY FOLLOWING THIS USER.” You try to crawl to some sort of escape, one knee after the other, sobbing for breath. “I DON’T WANT TO FOLLOW THIS USER,” you scream, tasting blood in your throat. “IT’S TOO LATE,” says the voice. “YOU ARE ALREADY FOLLOWING THIS USER.” This is the price you pay for making kind but unwise decisions with your social media accounts!

 NAGEKI.  NAGEKI. NAGEKI. NAGEKI. NAGEKI. NAGEKI. NAGEKI. NAGEKI. NAGEKI. NAGEKI. NAGEKI. NAGEKI. NAGEKI. NAGEKI. NAGEKI. NAGEKI. NAGEKI. NAGEKI. NAGEKI. NAGEKI. NAGEKI. NAGEKI. NAGEKI. NAGEKI. NAGEKI. NAGEKI. NAGEKI. NAGEKI. NAGEKI. NAGEKI. NAGEKI.

Gosh I love Hatoful Boyfriend SO MUCH. I have to confess, though, that this is one of those canons/fandoms where my love is composed mostly of the emotional memories that I have from the process of playing the game, not of any recall of actual factual details! I did play it and a short bit of Holiday Star, but I didn’t actively seek out the fandom or any fanworks, and I think that allowed a lot of the plot to ebb from my brain over time. But, I mean, it’s like 95% still there! I’ve only forgotten some of the intricacies of the BBL route!

Hatoful is a MIRACLE. It is an IMPROBABLE CONFLAGRATION WITH GREAT CHARACTERS and it would surprise absolutely no one who is familiar with my terrible track record with character preferences to hear that my first instinct was to make a beeline for Shuu. Not even exactly because of AH MY SERIAL KILLER PARTRIDGE DOCTOR LOVER feelings, but more-- I just really needed to see what he was about??!? And then it turned out that what he was about was Ryuuji Kawara, which (it would also surprise no one to hear) I was INTO. You know what I was also into?? That bit during the epilogue where Kazuaki turns up pushing Shuu’s wheelchair and Sakuya is like ?!?!?! APPLYING ETHICAL GUIDELINES TO EITHER OF YOU IS COMPLETELY FUTILE. Like what kind of convalescence interactions are Kazuaki and Shuu even having during this time!! They are both SO INCAPABLE OF RELATING TO EACH OTHER IN WELL-ADJUSTED WAYS that I was charmed in the way that you are charmed when you see something so intractable that it defies understanding. I just want them to have hilariously maladaptive cohabitation routines where they are both SO SERIOUS about themselves and the entire rest of the cast is just like ????!?!??!?!?!!?! WHY IS THIS HAPPENING

I ended up talking a lot about Shuu, but I really do love all of them so much. They are all so special and if I started shouting the names of characters I loved I would just end up shouting all of them! It’s debatable whether Shuu is even my favorite, because Okosan exists... as does Anghel... and Yuuya... and Azami... and Sakuya... and... SEE THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I WAS AFRAID WOULD HAPPEN. Anon you are a blessing for sending in this ask and you should tell me your feelings about Hatoful too!

 fkjld;hlgkeofkld “I DON’T DANCE” IS DEFINITELY A REFERENCE I HAVE MADE BEFORE, IT’S LIKE YOU KNOW ME INSTINCTIVELY ANON. First of all I will never be out of DBH, I talk about this a lot but I do have to make it clear, I’m just not capable of losing interest in things for good so you bet I’ll still be in DBH fandom long after DBH fandom has functionally ceased to exist! Second of all, Markus x Simon (Simarkus, I suppose, but my aversion to namesmushes continues unabated) to me is less a pairing that I choose to ship or not ship, and more... a precondition, like a natural fact of the world. In my head I am like, yes, I accept Markus x Simon, what would I be otherwise, a flat-earther?! And I say this as someone who loves North very much and doesn’t care for invalidating her as a romance option. Markus x Simon is just... a thing! But anyway THIS IS SO BEAUTIFUL

SIMON TEACHING MARKUS THAT IT’S OKAY TO EXPRESS HIS MUSICAL THEATER INCLINATIONS

WOULD ALSO WATCH SIMON AND NORTH DO THE “BOP TO THE TOP” ROUTINE

Oh my god I hope that in this AU Josh is Troy but that the plot is split in half instead of converging so that Josh is just running around having important epiphanies and going through crises and falling in love with whoever Gabriella is, but it’s happening entirely in the background while Simon and Markus just engage in one elaborately convoluted set piece metaphor after another about Markus discovering his sexuality. At the end of the movie they meet up and Josh is like “Guys so much has happened, I don’t know where to start” and Markus is like “Okay! Well Simon and I are an item now” and Josh is like “...That’s too big a thing, you were supposed to be the side plot”

I realize that “I Don’t Dance” is from HSM 2 but honestly that is a sequel that is FAR SUPERIOR to the original!!!!!!!!!! (Insert 15-minute monologue here about how I think “Bet on It” is one of the funniest pieces of cultural output that humanity has ever produced.)

[sunnysynthsunshine]

7th Comedy Monologue

“Hey my Cheese bags I’m back from my adventure in 1985”

“No joke if you look it up

the timeframe of days for each month this year

are the exact same as they were in 1985”

So all this “80s revival stuff” with Duran Duran and Depeche Mode touring, Petshop Boys releasing a new album, a new generation falling in love with Queen and She-Ra while the world is being messed up by a tyrannical iron lady and a talking tangerine makes a bit of sense doesn’t it?”

Even though I was born in the 2000s I’ve always loved most of the media from that decade, the gothic and upbeat synthesizer music,the cheaply made but entertaining cartoons,the video games,the basic but stylish fashion,the musicals and John Hughes films,the mix of music genres in the charts,Goth,Synth,Punk,2 Tone,Post-Punk,New Wave,Glam Metal,Alternative,Shoegaze,Hip Hop,Electronica

I was watching Saved by the Bell  before Netflix even existed

Then again a lot of the shows from then were also being revived back in my day

Dal Winton was presenting game shows, Pingu replaced the scary walrus monsters with rap music, I watched or had VHS tapes of the Muppet show, Noddy, Postman Pat and Scooby Doo.

Scooby-Doo! Now that’s a show that never gets old because it never changes, anyone regardless of what generation they’re from would be able to tell you

“Oh Yeah, I remember Scooby Doo”

When you think about it Scooby Doo is quite philosophical

we are all just a gang going on our own adventures

that and the first few live-action movies are modern masterpieces

I was just browsing Twitter or Tumblr or literally anywhere on the internet only to see that screencaps were taken from the live action Scooby Doo interviews had turned into memes

*ahem*

Well,I was auditioning for the role of Velma, I could sense from the way Matthew Lillard just fully encompassed the role of Shaggy, it felt like he was Shaggy, he was our saviour as he felt his spiritual energy increase, that’s when I knew we were working with a legend

Something like that although Matthew isn’t too fond of the memes himself specifically the ones where his spiritual connections are described more like demon possession rituals

*ahem*

“Being Shaggy has led me down a path of death and destruction. I’ve killed many mortals in hope of replicating 1% of Shaggy’s being, by the end of filming I hope to become one with him”

In which Matthew responded with

*deadpan voice*

This is wrong

I mean I might also have inspirations where I feel like I can philosophically connect with them, in their performing style and personality but that’s where I draw the line

Personality?  That’s a tricky subject

You could say some people have consistent personalities

People said Freddie Mercury and David Bowie were party animals who were incredible on stage with their charisma, creativity and charm but other sources have said they were relaxed, laid back people who were shy when being interviewed.

That could just be the contrast between their onstage and offstage personas but not all of us have that, even if we are all  just actors in a play, hoping each day goes the right way

Some of us are punk, even if we don’t explicitly say that we are, or have the stereotypical style associated with it,a lot of us just try to be ourselves,some of us can enjoy reality shows and horror movies at the same time,some of us can enjoy One Direction and Gorillaz,some of us can love fashion but also love memes, Theatre, and 1980s aesthetics

I’d say I’m the same but sometimes my personality is all over the place

I can go from being cheerful, relaxed and happy to being dazed and clumsy or cynical or entranced and hyper-fixated to Pessimistic and Cold to Quiet and Timid to Mellow and Loud   what personality traits you associate with me, however, is up to your own conclusion

call me any internet subculture stereotype and I’d be able to tell you about how I either, unfortunately, was the stereotype or I hung around people who were those stereotypes

if you said I was someone who watched Cbbc and citv you’d be right

if you said I was a classic rock enthusiast years ago and now you’d be right

if you said I used to be a cringy anime enthusiast  you’d be right

if you said I was one of those theatre kids who watched Disney sitcoms you’d be right

if you said I was one of those meme posters who referenced movies like Shrek and bee movie you’d be right

Another thing punks did was and sometimes still do was creating fanzines, magazines related to their favourite band or tv show or their own opinions on what’s going in the world, nowadays you could say social media has replaced that, but publications like the Daily Mirror, The Sun and TMZ still have a presence on there,I’d say fanzines should have a revival.

The BAFTA’s also happened recently and I wasn’t impressed, then again when are awards shows anything other than beauty pageants for films anyway?

Some films deserved their awards, but some films barely got a mention, Paddington 2 wasn’t included in there or in any of the other film awards this year and Stan and Ollie got nothing…

A darn shame because that film was so well made, it felt authentic, while Stan and Ollie also have a bit of a universal following, there are still some people who probably don’t know who they are!

Before Walliams and Lucas, Before the Two Ronnies, Before Richie and Eddie

There was…Laurel and Hardy

Two moustached blokes, who in the 20s and 50s would just try to delight audiences the best way they could, through slapstick and laughter, without them, most of the world’s double acts wouldn’t exist and even Spongebob wouldn’t exist

Yep, you heard me right, all those misadventures Spongebob and Patrick would have, they were loosely based on the adventures of Laurel and Hardy, except instead of it being about a tall British man and a fat American it was about an anthropomorphic sponge and a dumb but caring starfish.

Speaking of Spongebob, there was some sad news involving Spongebob not too long ago

The creator of Spongebob, Stephen Hillenburg…had passed away from ALS

I know, it’s awful,stupid motor neuron diseases and stupid Adam Levine too,for those who don’t know there was an episode of Spongebob called Band Geeks where they ended the episode with the cast playing a song called Sweet Victory over a Superbowl type of event, for the actual super bowl Spongebob fans around the world petitioned for that song to be played in tribute for Stephen,however we got Adam Levine singing a different song instead….what a letdown

If it wasn’t for SpongeBob I and some of the rest of the new generation, wouldn’t know half the old music or old films we know now.

To let down millions of fans like that makes me sick

Honestly, I was a bit sick a few weeks ago, I’ve been sick before and hospitalized twice but this particular moment of sickness was odd

It was like any other night, I was trying to get some sleep and lucid dream, but then it happened, the shivers, the shakes the trembling aches,

Out of nowhere, I felt like an ice-cube stuck in a microwave, It was too cold but it was too warm, I eventually got to sleep but when I got up the next morning I felt sick again, sorry for disclosing those details but it was like the exorcist…

Usually, when I’m sick watching documentaries, Kitchen Nightmares or 90s films weirdly cheers me up

Speaking of films, Rocketman the Elton John movie is out and it actually looks good

It’s being directed by the guy who was the replacement director for Bo Rhap and if it ends up being brilliant I won’t be surprised, the trailer gave off Velvet Goldmine vibes, the style of composed cinematography and I’m sounding like Film Twitter, Isle of Dogs was a good film…oh wait it wasn’t acknowledged much by the award shows either.

Another amazing film I recently watched was Rocky Horror…I know I’ve mentioned it before but that was when I only knew the sequel and some of the soundtrack,

It was amazing, it was brilliant, it was fantastic, it was out of this world,

ah! Rocky Horror was splendid

I definitely now understand why it’s still going strong to this day

It’s that hybrid of rock and roll, optimistic nihilism and soft aesthetics

That just works for me, another thing I’ve remembered was that Richard O’ Brien played the dad in Phineas and Ferb, well that explains that part of me liked that cartoon for the music and some of the characters but other characters did my head in like that Isabel character

“Hey, Phineas what ya dooing?”

“How about you let me finish my invention and you mind your own business”

Oof that’s too harsh…but considering aspects of the marvel Phineas and Ferb crossover were surprisingly a bit sexist at times outdated for the show that is usually quite progressive in its representation and characters…it’s probably accurate

Another person who hasn’t changed but is also often harsh, Piers Morgan, a little tweety bird told me he had a mysterious illness, good riddance I’d say, he’s the new Noel Edmonds, the presenter who used to be ok but now is unbearable…because he never shuts up

Thankfully though he’s “taking a break” from GMB that will rest our eardrums

Russell Brand has also been in the tabloids again, even though he’s more focused on his Buddhist spiritual recovery enlightening, looking back he wasn’t as bad as people described him, yeah at times he was a bit too over the top,but he was and is quite an ok bloke, but I’d say temporarily banning tickling is a bit of a stretch,

when you think about the number of people who disrespect our literal and figurative personal space on a daily basis, it kinda makes a bit of sense,

whether your sensory sensitive or not, I’m sure you hate it, when people are too touchy at times

although years ago I would’ve been a bit of an ignorant hypocrite about that

Hating it when crowds of kids would chase me like how the paparazzi chase their next gossip target, yet often annoyingly running up to people to talk to or entertain them.

I really need to learn to enjoy loneliness more because I get some of my best ideas when alone, but emotionally I feel a lot better when around others, a bit of an Ambivert really,

I’m sorry I can be a bit all over the place, I’m trying to make my energy more manageable

as that lucid dreaming thing has been misused at times,

I shouldn’t let myself be controlled…

by anyone or anything..no overthinking, no overworking,

treat the world as your stage, start your first act, motivated and ready, take your recharging interval breaks and then move on for your second act

fancy that me an ex-drama student making that metaphor when my current course  involves digitally drawing art, editing audio and sitting at a computer for most of the day

But then again just because someone shows good charisma that doesn’t always mean their a good person.

Ted Bundy, one of America's most notorious serial killers used charisma and charm in his court cases, and with the amount of fangirls giving him fanmail it was like the Beatles fandom but for people with Stockholm syndrome,and now with Netflix’s documentary and Troy from High School Musical in an upcoming film about him, that seems to be repeating itself…

*Alien voice* Ted Bundy the 1960s called they want your fangirls back!

One show I know you probably haven’t heard of is The Boondocks, a south park esque cartoon with an anime esque art style, referencing the social commentary of African American culture and media, celebrating some aspects while critiquing others, through the lenses of a socialist boy named Huey Freeman, his rapper wannabe brother Riley and their activist grandad Robert.

This show was quite revolutionary,it referenced the issue of each episode quite well, even though it only lasted 4 seasons, however, because the show is quite American, apart from the animation which is done in Korea,The Boondocks is not well known in the UK, which is a shame because it is a really good show that still holds up…however, it does fall under one mousetrap that most other adult cartoons fall into….

Because of the references to violence,innuendo and other dark subject matter sometimes referenced in a satirically humorous way,some audiences  would just watch the show because it’s offensive thinking that the show was made just to be offensive..instead of what the show was actually made for..which was to give social commentary on the issues relevant to African American communities in America.

I had watched this show years ago, it only just came back on my radar, because the creator Aaron McGruder, who based the show off his webcomic of the same name, had recently made a new issue.

There’s a difference between being satirical and being offensive

Your either making fun of something bad that a system or people are doing to make people aware of how stupid and sad the world can be at times,subjectively making fun of a stereotype, or your an arse who thinks they’re a comedian when they waste their time on social media, thinking they’re amazing and funny when they’re holding up the line at Mcdonald’s and the only people laughing at their jokes are gammon and people who found Bernard Manning funny

“Oh Wait”

I know sometimes I have unpopular opinions such as how my views of someone dip depending on their views of Kanye West

and sometimes I can be a bit snarky, and I hate and love stuff in equal amounts, but we need a bit of that don’t we, if we bottle it all up we explode like volcanos, but if we overshare too much, we crash like out of control cars

It’s all about moderation, salt is a tasty condiment but eat too much of it and your arteries will get clogged,

A few days back it was the day Mark Ashton passed away, for those who don’t know,he was an LGBT activist in the 80s,he volunteered with organizations such as the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament,he and the other activists helped to support the miners during the miner strike, creating the LGSM Alliance,Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners,there was a film made about them too, called Pride,but what some people don’t know is that….Mark Ashton was Northern Irish…he was one of us..he was the Marsha P Johnson of our time..if we were a bit like Mark Ashton this country would be a slightly more accepting place, why don’t we give love!

Let’s move on, plant more flowers in our garden..I know I sound like a hippie but it’s true, our Celtic Summerland is being used as a cesspool for Nuclear Waste

Oi! use your own bins, not the place we’re living in, pick up your rubbish and clean up your own mess…

The 80s were telling us something with all those protect and survive adverts, yes some of us were prepared as the older generation made us alert, others couldn’t recognize that a lot of innocent people were getting hurt.

When we say we want a 1980s comeback we want the music, clothes, games and  films,

but Nope

while we have some of that the 1980s revival we get is the one that involves Nuclear Danger and the ghost of Margaret Thatcher

All these TV and Film revivals, some are cool others are just unnecessary  Do we really need a Snow White sequel? No, we don’t but we did get one even if it was unofficial

Back in 2007 a French animation company made a sequel to Snow White which was also a bit like Shrek in how it satirised the fairy tale tropes, how Prince Charming feels like he is objectified while he ends up doing the same thing to the female characters, quite a tosser but that’s the point of the parody to point out the flaws with fairy tale logic, and to put the likes of Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella in more realistic scenarios.

…it’s strange, weird but brilliant too

The English dub had quite a few familiar faces doing the character voices

Stephen Fry as the narrator, Morwenna Banks, Simon Greenall and another British actor

Rik someone...

Ah! I remember his name now, he was in many successful sitcoms in the 80s and 90s,he was a legend, he knew how to keep people laughing, whether they were children, adults, teenagers,

in television, theatre, film or music

quite an eclectic range of talent

Although

I’m a new fan, I might adore his work, but I had just learnt his name 2 years ago, whereas, with other fans, they have created their own work, such as Charlie Brooker and Simon Pegg… some were able to meet him…lucky...

Some encounters were quite interesting, I had heard someone’s nan got to meet him in the 90s but she got his name wrong so she ended up saying

“‘oh hello can I have your autograph please Mr mayo?’

Well that happened, she probably still got that autograph,...

And somewhere up there, Rik Mayall is thinking of us, he, Stephen Hillenburg and David Bowie are probably chatting away

Let’s make the lord of misrule proud

[jugandbettsdetectiveagency]

Halloween-y prompt: ouija board as a party game (maybe at Thornhill since Cheryl loves party games). Weird things start to happen and people freak. Of course there is an investigation.

@theladylabyrinth: I’d love one of jug talking Betty into exploring an abandoned asylum and her being terrified when they encounter some strange spirits/noises and him having to protect and comfort her.

Soooo, this turned out way fluffier than it probably should have given these prompts, which I decided to combine. I digressed a little, sorry!

prompts are closed

“Why are we doing this again?” Betty asked with a hint ofexasperation, trying not to let her nerves show.

The towering remains of the old Riverdale Asylum loomedbefore them, covered in decades of piled up filth and crumbling brick. Bettycouldn’t help but see a day that had long since settled into the back of hermind, slightly faded around the edges but still ever-present – standing infront of The Sisters of Quiet Mercy, with its lifeless windows and imposingstatues, waiting to see what had become of her sister.

But now, just like then, she could feel the warm, solidpresence of Jughead Jones by her side. Except this time it’s ‘post windowclimbing’, and she could slip her hand into his and soak up the reassuring warmthradiating directly from his palm.  

“Because, B, when Cheryl Blossom throws a party and deigns to extend you an invitation, yougo,” Veronica chirped with a teasing smile planted firmly across her lips.

“She already lives in her very own Transylvanian castle, Idon’t understand why she had to drag us all the way out here,” Jugheadgrumbled, flexing his fingers around Betty’s while he lifted a scepticaleyebrow at the dilapidated building. Veronica shot him a withering look.

“Oh, please. Like the fact that you’re currently rocking the DickAvery look means absolutely nothing,” she quipped, shooting a pointed stare atthe camera hanging from his neck. Jughead’s free hand came up to cradle theitem in a motion he would retrospectively think was ridiculously protective.But, hey, he’d saved up a lot to buy it and Veronica’s eyes looked like they couldwhip it away from him with one quick quirk of her head, wiccan style.

“Didn’t want to waste the opportunity,” he mumbled under hisbreath, averting his eyes and scuffing his boot against the gravel. Betty’sfond giggle tugged at the corner of his mouth and his shoulders dropped withthe soothing feeling of her open palm rubbing up and down his arm lovingly.

“My little photographer,” she cooed gently, lifting up on hertoes to press a soft kiss to his warming cheek. The fact that she had calledhim her anything was always enough tohave the tips of his ears turning pink beneath his hat. He turned his headquickly, stealing an unexpected kiss that had Betty gasping in mockchastisement.

“Come on,” Veronica said a degree louder, securing the armthat Archie had slung around her more firmly across her shoulders. “We shouldget inside before all the good ghosts are taken.” Archie’s eyes widened.

“Babe, were you being serious? Are there really ghosts?Babe!” Jughead shook his head fondly as the sounds of his best friend’spanicked questions – that were remaining resolutely unanswered by Veronica –drifted further and further away.

“I know Veronica was only teasing but I know how you feelabout parties,” Betty said, tugging him to a halt as Jughead tried to followafter their friends, her eyes wide and placating. “We don’t have to go in ifyou don’t want to.”

He couldn’t resist the opportunity to rile her up, hisbeautifully stubborn girlfriend. “Why, Betty, if I didn’t know any better I’dsay you didn’t want to go inside this perfectly gothic asylum. Scared?” hesmirked, seeing the moment the liquid concern in her green eyes solidified.

“Not at all,” she huffed, pulling him towards the entrancenow. Jughead bit his lip against a laugh and let the imposing void of thedarkened doorway swallow them both whole.

~

It hadn’t taken long for Jughead to want to find somewhere abit quieter to spend some time. His friends had only been able to distract himfor so long before being around a large group of people at varying levels ofdrunkenness began to make him antsy.

“Come on,” Betty murmured smoothly into his ear, emergingfrom the crowd and sliding up beside him, wrapping her hand around the crook ofhis elbow.

“Huh?” Jughead asked lightly, painting an innocent expressionacross his features and consciously making an effort to stop his foot fromtapping hurriedly against the concrete floor. Betty sighed in mockexasperation, pulling him along with her as she began to walk backwards – itdidn’t take much effort on her part, he went willingly.

“I’ve seen you peering aroundpractically every corner and every doorway we’ve passed tonight. I’m surprisedyou lasted this long; you’re itching to explore,” she teased, locking theirfingers together. Jughead hurried his pace until he fell into step beside her,looking down at her profile with the softest eyes.

“You hate creepy places,” Jughead pointed out as they beganto ascend a questionably stable staircase, the slats creaking in protest witheach step they took.

“But I love you,” Betty replied easily without missing abeat. Jughead felt a tingling warmth spread throughout his every extremity, andhe rolled his lower lip between his teeth to try and keep his cheek-splittinggrin somewhat at bay.

~

“What was that?” Betty squeaked, her shoulders jumping up toher ears as another unidentifiable noise echoed through the room they were in.

“It’s nothing, Betts. Just the wind. Can you look backtowards the window?” Jughead dismissed from behind his camera, trying tocapture the way the midnight moonlight bounced off the smooth planes of Betty’spale face, refracting off the broken glass in front of them. Betty shookherself, clearing her head of ridiculous thoughts while trying to ignore thetiny prickles dancing their way up the back of her neck, and did as she wasasked.

“You know whenever the guy in the movie says it’s just thewind, it’s never just the wind,” Betty retorted dryly, barely moving her lipsas she tilted her head, guided by Jughead’s gentle touch. He brushed his thumbalong her lower lip as he pulled away, delighting in the way her eyes darkenedto a slightly deeper shade of green.

“Don’t worry, baby. If the big, spooky ghosts come for us, I’ll protect you,” Jughead whispereddramatically, one corner of his mouth lifting cheekily, dropping his hold onhis camera to take a step closer.

“I won’t hold my breath,” Betty whispered, trying and failingto hide that she no longer had any breath left – not after the way his lipslooked wrapping around the word ‘baby’, the way he was crowding her against thebattered desk behind them.

One of Jughead’s hands came up to cradle her face as his lipscovered hers, pressing the length of their bodies together with the other handat the small of her back. Betty could feel the pad of his thumb rubbing slowlyback and forth there, grazing the swell of her ass briefly with every swipe. Shelet out a soft whimper as his tongue ran along the seam of her lips, dipping into taste the inside of her mouth, his hip bucking into hers at the noise. Thescrape of the desk across the floor as they forced it backwards got lost in thethudding bass of the party music filtering throughout the building, vibratingup through their bodies and keeping time with their rapidly increasingheartrates.

“It’s also… the couple… making out… that gets killed… earlyon,” Betty spoke against his lips between kisses, trying to calm her heavingchest as Jughead began to roam further south, mouthing at the edge of her jaw,the underside of her chin, the slope of her throat. His amused laugh rumbled inhis chest, fuelling the growing heat beginning between her thighs.

“As much as the fact that you’ve been watching so many horrormovies lately is working as a turn on right now,” he breathed with a pointedpress of his hips into hers. “Talking about our impending death is not,” hefinished, digging his teeth into her lower lip.

“Oh, but I thought it would be your kind of thing,” Bettygiggled, sliding her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck and pullingjust hard enough to elicit a grunt. He lowered his head back to hers, hisfingers wandering beneath the fabric of her sweater.

“Hey, Bughead! The queen requires your presence,” Kevin’svoice drifted into the room about the raucous. Jughead groaned, dropping hishead to Betty’s shoulder as she continued to run her fingers carefully throughhis dark waves, making him shudder.

“Now?” Jughead shouted back, feeling Betty’s shoulders shakewith quiet laughter. He pinched at her hip, enjoying the squeal that burst fromher lips.

“Now, or on your head be it,” Kevin replied, poking his headaround the doorway. “She’s brought a Ouija board!” he screeched, disappearingas quickly as he arrived. Jughead rolled his eyes.

“Cheryl Blossom andghosts in the same room – I’m not sure anyone should be subjected to that,” hegrumbled, locking his arms around Betty’s waist.

“Don’t worry, baby.I’ll protect you,” Betty mimicked, shrieking as he chased her out of the room.

~

“Alright, cretins. If anybody so much as slides this glass aninch, even by accident, I will rain hell upon them, got it?” Cheryl told everybodysteadily as they gathered in a circle, each resting a finger on the planchette.

An apprehensive hush fell across the group, and even Jugheadfelt a slight buzzing starting beneath his skin, and not just as a side effectof sitting so close to Kevin who was practically vibrating on his other side.

“Spirits,” Cheryl spoke into the air, closing her eyes so herthick lashes rest daintily on her high cheeks. “Are you with us?” It was as ifeverybody simultaneously stopped breathing as they waited for a reply. Jugheadwas just about to scoff his disbelief in the afterlife when Archie spoke upfrom across the circle.

“Why isn’t anything happening?” he frowned, furrowing hiseyebrows at the little wooden object as if he were trying to move it with hismind.

“Hush, Archiekins,” Cheryl chastised, earning herself an icyglare from Veronica. “Give them time.” They waited some more.

“Look nothing is going to–” Jughead’s sigh was cut off by thesharp slide of wood across wood as the planchette shot over to the word ‘yes’.

“Holy shit!” Reggie yelled, pulling his finger back quickly,replacing it when Cheryl fixed him with an unimpressed stare.  

“Did that seriously just happen? Nobody is fucking with us,right?” Moose asked nervously, glancing at everybody in the circle pointedly.There was a murmured denial of any tampering.

“Shut up!” Cheryl demanded, shifting in her seat, lookingever the summoner of the dead with her dark red lips and spider brooch glintingin the low light. “Spirit, can you tell us your name?”

Another beat passed in which Jughead was ready to chalk thewhole thing up to their collective imaginations – even if he knew such a thingwas pretty much impossible, but he wasn’t willing to dismiss the theory thatthey were being slowly pulled under the influence of some age old toxic fumesthat lingered inside the building – when there was movement under their handsonce more.

“C. O. O. P. E. R,” they chanted, spelling out the message.Betty’s blood ran cold as multiple pairs of eyes turned to her all at once.

“Me?” she squeaked, locking eyes with Jughead.

“Betty Cooper,” Cheryl crooned. “Well, if anyone was going tohave any crazy skeletons in their proverbial closet of course it would be yourfamily.”

Betty narrowed her eyes. “Cheryl, our families are related.Technically it’s your crazy, too,” she shot back, preening at Jughead’s chuckleas the smirk dropped quickly from Cheryl’s face.

“Ancestor Cooper, do you have a message for us?” Cheryl bitout in lieu of a reply, straightening her shoulders. The planchette quivered.

“D. E. A. T. H.”

“Well, that’s not good,” Archie piped up, not looking up tosee Jughead’s withering look.

“Who?” Kevin asked eagerly before anyone else could,balancing on the edge of his seat. “Who’s gonna die?!”

“E. V. E. R. Y. O…”

As the group continued to spell out the fatal message,Jughead’s gaze narrowed in on the opposite side of the table, his angerflaring.

Chuck’s composure was cracking, a laugh threatening to breakhis almost-straight face as he unquestionably pushed the planchette across theboard. Jughead bristled, furious that he’d bring Betty into his games, shootingout his foot and delivering one swift kick to Chuck’s shin beneath the table.

“Son of a bitch!” Chuck yelled, pulling his hand back tocradle his injured leg, his retreat coinciding with the stilling of thespelling on the board. “What the hell, Jones?!”

“I believe we’ve found out ghost,” Jughead deadpanned, leaning back in his chair and drapingan arm protectively around Betty’s shoulders. Veronica whacked Chuck’s chest withthe back of her hand.

“Not cool, man,” Reggie breathed, some of the colour finallybeginning to return to his face.

“I can’t believe it was fake,” Kevin pouted, slumping in hisseat while Moose cast him an incredulous look.

“Tut tut, Chuckles,” Cheryl sang, and for the first time thatnight Chuck began to look afraid. “You didn’t play by the rules…” she trailedoff. As much as his curiosity was piqued, Jughead didn’t stuck around to hearwhat kind of repercussions Chuck was going to have to face at the hands ofCheryl Blossom. He pulled Betty up with him.

“Looks like I came to your rescue after all,” Jughead murmuredinto her ear as he tucked her close against his side. Betty shoved at hischest, quickly pulling him back to her after he stumbled.

“Never doubted you, Jones.”

[boglog]

Wholesome Questionare Tag Meme

Tagged by @80sglamcowboy Rules are: -Post the rules -Answer the questions given to you by the tagger -Write eleven questions of your own -Tag eleven people

This is long as Hell, friends and I apologise.

One inquisitive bitch has asked me:

1. Name one person (real or fictional) that you think you could 100% take on in a fight

Foaming mouth guy from Avatar. He’s got no stamina, barely any health, no skill. He’s unfocused and weak and my noodley nerd-ass could take him. (Though I am a little concerned he has rabies.)

2. What’s your favourite snack rn

Grilled cheese w veggies, mustard, and grilled tofu w a side of ketchup made by my roommate. It’s honestly the purest thing.

3. Which apocalypse do you think you’d do the best in? (i.e. Nuclear winter/ robot uprising/ Too many vampires, etc)

O man. I love apocalypse movies and I love survival horror (that one episode of the X Files where they’re trapped in a cabin, anybody?). I also genuinely love camping and I’m a bit of a medical hobbyist. I also watched an unreasonable amount of prepper videos on YouTube. That said, as mentioned above, I am a couch potato weekling. Furthermore, I don’t do well in conflict so if the world hierarchy collapses into a power vacuum where you have to Orange is the New Black-style intimidate ppl for supplies, I would melt and die quickly.

My best bet, it would seem, is an Arrival-esque alien apocalypse where the ones who have enough patience and sci fi knowledge to communicate w aliens are at the top of the food chain. And worst case scenario it’s better for my ego to die at the hands of an alien than a human.

Sci go apocalypses are just cleaner y'know ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


4. Best and worst fandom you’ve been in? Or have you somehow managed to avoid fandom completely?

Worst has to be Steven Universe. I regret not just moving on after I got bored. Ah well.

(I also think celebrity/real ppl fandoms are a dead end.)

My other fandoms all have various pros and cons and it’s hard to pick a favourite.

Adventure Time has great fanart, great meta and ppl have yet to descend into Homestuck-ian chaos. That said, they’re quiet af. People also fixate way too much on the fake fanfic AU Fionna and Cake. I have yet to read a really good Bonny/Marcy fic and that is a tragedy (a few have come close tho). Bottom line for AT tho is that it’s my go to wholesome cartoonist fandom. I like that it has depth but that it’s generally very simple and fun and that the fans are mostly shut in animation adults.

AtLA/LoK fandom’s biggest pro is that it’s huge and you literally never ran out of quality content. I’ve even made a few friends via this decade old franchise. It’s also enjoyably rich and complex. One of my favourite (now inactive) blogs was one that connected world building and little background Easter eggs to real Chinese history and culture. That wAs so cool!! I defs think as a Chinese person it allowed me to connect to non-western culture in a socially acceptable way.

The downsides tho are many: it can be overwhelmingly complicated (esp as someone who knows jack shit abt Chinese history), people take it too seriously, The Great Shipping Wars, it’s so big it’s a little lonely, the show itself has so many flaws upon greater inspection you wonder why you wasted your time on anything related to it, it’s an Asian themed story created by white dudes who make fun of their fans, the best parts of the show were written by other writers but those same white guys get k the credit. Also as w any fandom related to POC culture, racism happens. Anyways most of you know this already. IMO the best thing to have happened do the fandom is korrasami. Now it’s just abt Asian lesbians ruling the world.

(Though I also thoroughly enjoy the Family Rivalry part of the fandom. There are so mNy dysfunctional families to choose from!)

Rick and Morty is technically speaking my newest fandom. It’s got a lot of obvious cons (pickle Rick sexists, Szechuan sauce racists, asfhkkh incest) but one other con is just how pedantic and overly analytical people are abt the world building. I can’t breathe wo being corrected. RM has a misleadingly complicated high sci fi aesthetic that begets the kind of overanalysing my brand of overanalytical nerdiness can’t handle. Too many alternate universes. It’s just too complicated.

However one thing I like is that conversely I can overanalyse the writing and characters’ psychology/relationships (which I LOVE) and ppl take me very seriously. (At least they used to.) it’s kinda validating to have your 3k word essay on an old man’s bedroom and what that signifies for his depression get over 1k notes.

Rm also attracts the fun, super talented animation crowd so there’s boundless fanart and memes. I never knew I would like a gravity falls crossover retirement home AU btwn Rick and Stan so much but the art is objectively gorgeous?? So ??

I really dislike the lack of attention the female characters get from fandom bc they’re all really great? Female rep is limited but both canon and fic really do their 2-3 tokens justice. Also the jerry hatred is getting old (that male aggression… Like… Calm down, Jake) but it’s a refreshing departure drom when Megg from family guy was the butt of the joke.

Harry Potter, one of the pillars of nerd society, has both changed my life and irreconcilably annoyed me to death. (W no thanks to the racist creator herself!) One can’t underestimate how huge the hp fandom is which offers you as many reasons to love it as reasons not to. Harry Potter’s canon has complex world building that’s also charming enough not to take itself too seriously and much the same could b said of fanon. To a degree. Certain corners of the fanbase are fantastic shitposters and meme-ers and can draw you back in like a black hole. Casually enjoying Harry potter imo is where it’s at. The fanfic is probably one of the most impressively vast. Strangers at Drakesaugh, believe it or not, still updates and not only that, I still read it.

Not casually enjoying Harry potter is, um, yikes? HP and Hunger Games love to insert themselves appropriately in real life political traumas and honestly the dedication of the fandom can be overwhelming.

The HP fanart corner of deviantart circa 2010-12 and @flocc HP comics however are the best.

Meet the Robinsons, Ye Olde Fandom, still stands to this day. (Thanks in part to me ngl) As Iroh might say, they are a proud people. MTR is so bizarre and tiny it’s the only fandom I was able to read EVERY fic summary in existence (ones published on obscure sites excepted). The fandom has never ceased to surprise me for better or worse and mostly due to its age range. The original movie was intended for 8-12 yr olds and their (jaded) parents which means that now, ten years later, the fans are anywhere between 12 and 25. It has approximately 20 pieces of professional-grade fanart and fic and I am downright serious abt the quality and thoughtful complexity of this minority of fanart. Like I shit you not some of it’s almost too dark. However, tragically, one can’t talk abt obscure Disney fandoms wo also mentioning the incest ships (this is what happens when middleschoolers have to resort to cartoons to explore their sexuality in an anti sex ed world), the disorganised crossovers, and the blinding lack of imagination. Nonetheless, that a fandom of any kind could sprout from a 90 min cgi movie before the recession, based off an obscure but objectively fascinating children’s book, is still impressive. The fandoms smallness can in many wars work to everybody’s benefit: it’s a tightly knit community w little to no drama. And lots of memes (that I mostly make) to enjoy sincerely or ironically.

I’m also going to mention, very briefly, the Twin Peaks fandom, most of whom, even the die hards, are v casual when it comes to fan content (I need more fic damnit). Nonetheless it’s a decidedly cool art kid crowd for an art house show and I really enjoy befriending twin peaks watchers.

5. What’s one hot food that you prefer cold? (or, alternatively, one cold food you like hot)

Is it snobby to say I like food to be the temperature God intended?

Like I like cold pizza and salad-y pasta but I wouldn’t mind if everything were room temperature as long as the food itself was well made.

6. ya like jazz? What music do you enjoy listening to? Can you recommend any songs/ artists from that genre?

I think in some contexts I can like jazz. It’s very cosy and nostalgic, it can make you feel like a grand dame stepping out of your limo into your martini filled mansion as records pop around you and your fur carpeted living room. I also occasionally like jazz covers and alternate genres of jazz like electro swing etc.

Generally though I also think jazz is a little antiquated and a little all over the place. I lean more towards the ambiguous minimalism of mellow techno music like Jonna Lee, Grimes, Björk, early Lorde, Yasmine Hamdan, Austra, TRST, etc

I mean I don’t stick to just one genre (I imagine most ppl don’t). I like alternative (Tori Amos, Regina Spektor, Joanna Newsom) and some musicians who seem to completely exist outside of genre like iMonster and the Gorillaz. Not to mention straight up pop like broods, Ellie goulding, lady gaga and Lana del rey. (I mean technically Ldr isn’t pop but u get the ideer)

7. What binge worthy show do you like?

So many man. There are so many out there! Twin peaks, Transparent, Love, Grace and Frankie, Adventure Time, House of Cards, Bojack Horseman, Rick and Morty, Mad Men, Girls, Broad City, Black Mirror, Avatar TLA, 6Teen, Chowder, Over the Garden Wall, Flapjack, the first season of Downton Abbey, Game of Thrones, etc

The list goes on. I’m a TV fiend.

8. What’s an old meme that you miss and wish would be brought back?

Always liked the Gothic [x town or whatever] meme. It was like a text post version of the cursed images meme. Currently I’m really enjoying the song from another room meme and I hope even after it gets old it’ll make a comeback.

9. Tell me your aesthetic



O man. That’s a can of worms! Okay. Deep breath.

I like futurism, of all kinds. I like strong lines and clear shapes. I like colour blocking and minimalism and glass and holographic LED neons. I like white Japanese urban tiled buildings. I like aliens and ruins and cubes and white and colour blocking and black. I like technology and aliens and Comme des Garçons and Issey Miyake. Rooms that are empty but for one light and one window and one plant. Love that.

I like the midcentury cubism and Mod and 30’s futurism. Clear and strong industrial shapes and curves and post modernist abstractionism.

I also love nature, I love most every Björk and Iamamiwhoami music video. I love the mountains and the forests and the desert and the winter tundra and most of all I love the water. A vast expanse of sky and sea w so many colours and textures. I love the 2000s and funny blob shapes and y2k’s obsession w secondary colours and shiny round things. Love pink. I am a grown adult who will never tire of pink. (Though I don’t really like when people overdo pink.) I love cursed image family photos taken with flash in a suburb. I love the grime and the sanitary aesthetic of suburbs and hospitals and brutalist office spaces. The fluorescent lights of the institution but with purple carpeting!

I love 70s mod and I love colorful 80s brutalism I like it when houses are shaped weirdly and they have carpets and polished curved wooden countertops and spacious nothingness where everything looks clean and cosy and bizarrely ugly and it all looks like an art gallery w too many plants.

I also really love maximalism and wood and detail and fur and velvet and embroidery and silk and windows and wood carvings.

I love 70s kitsch like John waters movies and Shrimps designer fake fur CDG17 where they just piled on knickknack after knickknack onto white dresses w food long trains. Toys and novelty items and lamps shaped like a woman’s leg in a fishnet stocking. (See also: most Tim burton movies, wes Anderson, Carrie fishers house)

An overwhelming mishmash of wool patterns with clean cubic 70s architecture and so many plants and windows and wallpaper and candles and cobwebs. Also really like witchy mourning jewelry and essentially every house in Harry potter. Love the unfortunately racist boho/hippie aesthetic. Any house designed by bill kirsch is a masterpiece. Woven baskets on the ceiling piles of hats and art supplies everywhere. Stuff!! Everywhere! Hidden passageways reading nooks fireplaces the Pink Palace from Coraline!

Everything!!!

I’m a cartoonist who’s a nerd for design so I like when concepts are taken to the extreme in a humourously charming and clear-minded way. Whatever aesthetic someone chooses, they should go all out and really dedicate themselves to the highest form of that aesthetic. It has to be perfect without being sanitary of fake. It has to be alive yet beautiful, frozen in one perfect moment.

10. Favourite time of day and why?

Dusk. I think it’s a nostalgia thing. I loved the hours before bed time as well the hours before dinner when it was getting dark and the sun was reflecting freaky colours along the horizon while I ran around the grass. It’s cozy but it’s spacious and adventurous. So many things can happen at dusk!



11. You have the choice to live in any fictional universe - which one do you pick and why?

Harry Potter!!! You get the best of both worlds: magical, over-romanticised Victorian/medievalism, wish-fulfillment surrealism and wifi. It’s great. Likelihood of dying is so low, medicine is so advanced and even then ppls n°1 choice of lethal weapon (Avada Kedavra) is painless. Me and Luna could hang in her garden. I’d never have to pay for the subway again. I could live a nomadic life in a tent w infinite space. If you chose to live as a wizard amongst Muggles you’re basically god and you can cheat capitalism. Gravity is my bitch! And I’m not gna lie my dream house has always been a combination of The Burrow, the Lovegood house, and Shell Cottage.

My turn to pick your brain:

1 Favourite texture?

2 Favourite smell?

3 Favourite children’s book/children’s TV show? (I’m talking about the bizarre abstract ones for toddlers)

4 Best and worst prank you’ve ever pulled?

5 Weirdest beginning of a friendship?

6 When you’ve been in fandom for a while you start to notice you’ve a habit of staying in the same corners. What corner are you in? Are you part of the fluffy ship corner? The intense world building spec meta corner? The shitpost comic fanart corner? Etc

7 If you could invent a class that would be obligatory for all high schools across your country what would it be?

8 What’s the weirdest thing you’ve gotten at Halloween while trick or treating?

9 Weirdest family tradition of yours?

10 Describe your significant other (or your crush, or your dream partner or if you’re aromantic your fave person) through only TV references.

11 Favourite piece of dialogue in a movie?

I don’t know 11 ppl but nonetheless tagging: @that-guy-in-the-bowler-hat @skairheart @nochangenohope @eventheslightestrayofsunshine@autistic-jaredkleinman@phoenixkluke

…and YOU (if you were not mentioned above and so choose to accept this mission)

[pixelgrotto]

The horrific Resident Evil playthrough, part six

Resident Evil Zero starts with a bang and a wonderfully tight example of level design, as new STARS member and series cutie pie Rebecca Chambers investigates the Ecliptic Express, an Umbrella-operated train that’s become the testing ground for an early version of the zombie virus. On the train, she meets an escaped convict named Billy Coen, and the two of them have to blast their way through tight cars filled with bio-weapons and a great number of leeches, which play an important role in this game, before finding a way to stop their Orient Express outta hell.

I adored RE Zero’s Ecliptic Express, partly because I have a thing for old locomotives and also because it reminded me of 1997 adventure game The Last Express, but with zombies. The environment also felt wonderfully fresh, since aside from the ruined Raccoon City briefly featured in RE 2 and more prominently in RE 3, the majority of the series has, thus far, been content to fall into a fairly standard cycle of settings - mansions, ruined industrial complexes and underground laboratories. What better way to inject some variety into this mix than with a Gothic train, perhaps the perfect environment for a survival horror game thanks to its many rooms, narrow hallways and plentiful hiding spots for the walking dead? Unfortunately, the Ecliptic Express is more or less the highlight of RE Zero’s environments, and once Rebecca and Billy crash the train and end up in an old Umbrella training facility, the game once again falls back into the trope settings that Capcom was content to recycle. This was a disappointment, but RE Zero injects some unusual, experimental shifts into the gameplay experience that make up for packing its most atmospheric surprises into the first hour, though not all of them are entirely successful. Chief among these is the partner zapping system, which has players controlling two characters at the same time and occasionally separating them to solve puzzles, like when Rebecca has to stand on an elevator to reach a higher area and Billy has to work the controls. It’s good stuff, since if one thing has become clear to me since beginning this RE journey, it’s that the series has always harbored fantasies of being a partner affair but never was quite able to figure out how to do it. Previous games would only feature very brief sections where another character accompanied you, and the rest of the time, they would keep making ridiculous excuses for why they needed to split up, kinda like members of the Scooby-Doo gang. With Becca & Billy, finally this nonsense has been done away with, and while you now have twice the amount of inventory management to wrangle with, it’s great to finally explore these secluded, dangerous environs with some backup. The fact that Becca & Billy are actually good characters with chemistry helps, and while it’s understated, the story gradually forces them to trust each other more and more. It all stays mutually respectful and there’s no forced romance angle (even though I totally ship these two), but when Billy gets into a bit of a tight spot near the end of the game and Rebecca desperately shouts out his name in panic, you can sense how much she’s bonded with him through their shared night of terror.

I mentioned inventory management, and this leads me to RE Zero’s other big surprise - the magical connected item boxes that have been a series save point trademark are completely AWOL in Zero, and players can actually drop their stuff anywhere, a first in the franchise. Apparently, the devs implemented this to take advantage of the nonexistent load times of the cartridge-based Nintendo 64, which was supposed to be the original platform for this game. (Prototype footage of the N64 version exists and looks impressive, though the ROM’s never been leaked, unfortunately.) I’ve also read that they did it to bump up the difficulty level and intentionally go back to the essence of Sweet Home, the grandpappy of the series.

I thought Sweet Home was a fantastic hidden gem, but the limited inventory space and necessity to drop your items was actually my least favorite part of the gameplay, since it led to lots of housekeeping and backtracking where you’d realize you needed a particular tool but had left it on the ground ten screens away. And this problem exists in RE Zero as well, which is probably one of the lead criticisms that the game faces on the internet. In my opinion, Zero’s backtracking is nowhere near as bad as in Code Veronica, but there were definitely large stretches of the game where I was simply picking up all my crap and moving things to save point rooms, which I basically converted into makeshift item storage halls. There are also a lot of items in the game, like the hookshot, which take up two slots in Becca & Billy’s precious inventory space and aren’t used for a long time only for the game to suddenly drop a “hey you need this to progress” moment, which is liable to piss folks off. I can understand the devs wanting to make things harder, but there’s a fine line between challenge and annoyance, and Zero’s inventory wrangling occasionally enters the realm of the latter. It would’ve been best if the team had given players the ability to drop their stuff and included the traditional item boxes, but unfortunately, it seems like they were operating under the mentality of “we’ll give you ONE freedom but take ANOTHER away, muahaha!”

In the end, I was able to forgive most of the item problems thanks to the fact that I liked Rebecca and Billy so much, and I had more fun with RE Zero than most of the fanbase, which tends to view it unfavorably. If I were to rank all the classic Resident Evils, I’d actually put Zero right under REmake, RE 2 and RE 1, and in my eyes, it’s better than RE 3 and Code Veronica, which end up on the bottom of my list for different reasons. (RE 3 is competent fun but kinda by-the-numbers, and Code Veronica remains the only Resident Evil game which really felt like a slog the more I played of it.) 

Why then does Zero end up getting so many apathetic reactions? Well, it’s probably because aside from the inventory management problems, this game feels a little unnecessary, which is an issue that most prequels suffer from. Zero was advertised as revealing the details behind the tragic mission of the Bravo STARS, the team that you learn was slowly massacred over the course of Resident Evil 1. Unfortunately, aside from Rebecca and a few token cameos, the Bravo guys are barely in the game at all, and most of the plot revolves around the background of Umbrella and a case of backstabbing and industrial espionage where one of the original founders, James Marcus, was killed by his colleagues. Marcus, who created the zombie virus via experiments with leech DNA, was resurrected by the very leeches he experimented with, and now he’s out for revenge.

All of this is vaguely interesting, but if I’d been a hardcore RE fan back in the day and was promised a prequel that revealed the fates of the Bravo STARS only to be given a side story about a dude and his leeches, I’d probably go WTF. Capcom dropped the ball on their storytelling by providing something that nobody was really asking for, in other words, and I’ve found out through my meanderings on the Resident Evil Wiki that The Umbrella Chronicles, a spinoff game for the Wii, actually delves deeper into the deaths of Bravo team. That’s the sort of stuff Zero should’ve focused on in order to feel more needed in the grand scope of Resident Evil. Another option might have been to ax the prequel concept entirely, which leads me to another thought that’s only appropriate to bring up now that I’ve finished all of the “old school” Resident Evil games.

If it had been up to me, I probably would have plotted the course of the series differently after RE 2, which contains an interesting nugget of information hinting at an Umbrella Europe base that was never expanded upon to its full potential. The game seems to indicate that Jill, Chris and Barry are going to Europe to investigate and shut down this facility, and just about EVERY strategy guide, article and bit of speculative message board posting I can find from around that time was obsessed with this concept. It seems like everyone thought that Resident Evil 3 was going to be a rollicking European adventure…and it wasn’t, it was instead a game that took place at the same time as RE 2 and explained how Jill escaped Racoon City. Code Veronica never really expounded upon this tidbit of lore either - we get a very brief intro with Claire Redfield investigating an Umbrella headquarters in Paris, but then suddenly she’s captured and the vast majority of that game takes place on an island near South America.  I can’t help but feel like a massive opportunity was missed here, and if I’d been in charge of Capcom’s scenario division for these games in the late 90s, I would’ve changed the plot of Code Veronica and basically made that one Resident Evil 3 (which it was originally going to be if Capcom hadn’t wanted to keep the “main” RE games on a Sony console). I would’ve made it an adventure with Jill, Chris and Barry in Europe, and near the end I would’ve brought Claire in to join them and fight alongside her brother. Then, I would’ve made a spinoff game simply titled “Resident Evil: Nemesis” or something of the sort, and taken the general “escape Racoon City” plot of RE 3…but had it star Rebecca Chambers.  See how nicely that would’ve worked? Fans would’ve gotten their detailed peek at Umbrella Europe and the return of the classic combo of Jill + Chris + Barry. The weird Ashford siblings and Code Veronica doofus Steve could’ve still been incorporated into the story. Meanwhile, Rebecca could’ve starred in a game that felt necessary, since the beginning scenes of destroyed Racoon City were some of the best bits of RE 2, and there’s no reason why she couldn’t have met escaped convict Billy Coen while escaping the city. They could’ve worked together to flee from Nemesis, and I guess the mostly forgettable mercenaries of RE 3 could’ve made an appearance as well. 

Sadly, I don’t work at Capcom, and they planned these games totally differently. We finally would go to Europe proper with Leon Kennedy in the next RE game, but that one would mark a shift in both storytelling and atmosphere, as Resident Evil quickly transitioned away from its horror roots…and into the realm of fast-paced shoot ‘em up action.

Resident Evil 4 is next, and the playthrough continues! 

All screenshots taken by me. For more, check out this Twitter thread showing my step-by-step progress through the game.