#long one boys!

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 10/4/22

tis the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness or whatever. all five categories are filled this week which is a fruitful occurrence in and of itself

listening Fresh Laundry by Allie X. this came up on shuffle and gave me pause, bc this is a album i had on loop very early in the video games job while still figuring out how everything worked. i remember the hope and the routine of quick-marching down to the pond down the road (not really down the road. it was like a good third of a mile) to stare at some water for a bit before hustling back home and eating some soup and staring at excel some more with this album on loop until it got shuffled out of rotation in favor of more instrumental stuff.

and now, more than a year later, i have this album on loop again as i start a new job where i stare at excel a lot and eat soup. hope this one works out better.

what a cool personal journey kay! what the fuck is this song tho!

indie verging on synthpop? i rarely listen to albums all the way through but this one flows together nicely without big jumps in mood. this isn't to say it's flat or predictable, but some Thought has been put into how songs begin and end and the order they come in, which i appreciate. she's a soprano with a range and a tonal quality that isn't icy or cold, but it feels ice-smooth. not the soda fountain ice or the ice cube trays in your fridge, but the very clear and almost bubble-less kind of ice.

I want to wake up (I want to wake up) To friends calling (friends calling) I think I've had enough (think I've had enough) Of hard mornings (hard mornings)

-

reading really waffled on whether to include this article my sister sent me or not bc the style and formatting are profoundly fucking irritating but realized it let me talk about my house so here we are

blackbird spyplane is partially cranky about the tsunami of bland round edged squarespace storefronts selling knockoff shit, making it much harder to find people who Are selling weird neat shit, and loosely comparing the rise of this neutered online space to the irl demise of the Un-Grammable Hang Zone. the thesis of the article may be found in the image below.

so this got me thinking, as articles sometimes do: uh-oh! do i do that?

i am noted for my power, my beauty, and the eclectic nature of the Items i dredge up out of estate sales. i do like a weird fuckin object. perhaps my home is grammable for a very specific audience.

however, my current version of the evil lair rejects a large part of the UGHZ thesis bc it is not a hangout zone at all. i am a chronically ill adult living alone and everything is precisely arranged for my personal maximum comfort and convenience. eg the plant shelves and the plants on the floor look like shit but are really easy to water. the water change buckets and sipon directly under the fishtank also look like shit but make remembering to do water changes really easy. the recycling bin on a chair in the kitchen looks stupid as hell but makes me actually take the recycling out bc i do not have to lean down and pick up a large heavy milk crate directly off the ground, which hurts.

the above is a touch more defensive than i usually write these things. partly bc i find the apartment therapy instagram feed irritating as fuck and the merest whiff of association makes me want to jump out a window, weird lamp in hand.

however, there is a world of difference between "a space tightly curated for your personal taste" and "a space intentionally designed to appeal to the broadest possible audience, diluting itself into nothing in the process". so i'm probably fine actually, but it did take up an entire hour's walk while i thought about it so it was worthy of the reading slot this week

-

watching Genius Party (2007, dir many people) and Genius Party Beyond (2008, also dir many people). these are compilations of shorts from japanese Studio 4°C. these are some fun side projects where some titans of the fuckin industry got to play around for a little bit.

i like anthologies and package films and compilations and collected short stories. i would much rather something exist in the world as a tantalizing snippet than it never exist at all or be stretched thin to feature or novel length. something something you're always going to find SOMETHING compelling in a huge lot of ideas in various styles thrown at you like that, something something rough sketches always look more pleasing than clean linework to me bc the eye picks which line it finds most pleasing and fills in a lot on its own.

i thought about writing another paragraph about how letterboxd has changed my habits bc i like Making The Number Go Up, so i am more likely to watch several ninety-minute films over a weekend rather than one epic, even though a lot of epics are films i would like to watch, but this post is already really long.

my favorite short out of the bunch: Watanabe (Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo) directed Baby Blue about two friends who go to the beach and it made me cry my fuckin eyes out. you can watch all of Genius Party for free on tubi rn or (depending on your american library) kanopy. OR this 480p version on youtube

-

playing Dredge is an indie horror fishing RPG. it's got a hot mechanic that fixes your boat and that's all i really care about but i GUESS we can talk about the actual game mechanics or whatever

this is the body of a farming sim with the brain of an RPG. the daily cycle of go out and fish and investigate shit and scurry back to dock before dark/the Madness overtakes you is very familiar. so far, the slow-paced explore/economy/talking to people loop is filling the failbetter games' sunless sea shaped hole in my heart.

the demo itself only lets you putz around for about ten in-game days, which is a good choice bc it left me wanting much more. it's very polished, and the framework for a lot of the big upgrade mechanics is There but not in this demo (also a good choice). you can play it until uhhh the tenth as part of the NEXT fest demos. if you like it, add it to your fuckin wishlist. steam stats are a thing that can actually make or break a new game, bc u need a certain number of wishlists to bubble up through the algorithm and actually get presented to users in New & Noteworthy.

i really really like the fishing mechanic despite hating every fishing minigame i've ever come across, bc you will catch things without "winning" the minigame it'll just take longer. the minigame is a little bonus if you're impatient. generally this game is quite polished and has a lot of quality of life stuff one might expect from a farm sim.

something i am worried about, bc it's not really touched on in the first ten in-game days, is the occult/horror aspect. is this game going to subvert all the worst parts of lovecraft et al or will it sort of blindly embrace them? who could say. the team is very new, although at least two of them have worked in games before.

cautiously optimistic about this one lads

-

making leek and potato soup with bacon and green onions AND the chicken stock i made several weeks ago. i was too impatient to let it cook down as far as i wanted, so it's not as chunky and thick as i would like (also if i were making it again i think i would halve the amount of milk, even though i doubled the recipe).

other changes include: no chicken, bc i couldn't be bothered, and four small leeks bc if i did not use the whole bunch at once i would never have used them. didn't like the fennel seeds very much, not really sure what i would put in their place bc Wow is this thing bland. i feel like either you go whole hog with herbs de provence or you go more of a curry route with ginger/lemongrass/turmeric and friends.

no pics bc it is genuinely impossible to take good food pics in this kitchen and i cannot be bothered to go outside and like Stage a pic.

[wasabi-gumdrop]

local ladies man’s signature move totally useless against autistic monster enthusiast. more on Kabru’s fumble era at 6

[hhhhunty]

How funny that she never considered that.

[chloesimaginationthings]

FNAF movie Mike meets Jeremy Fitzgerald

[kenchann]

king of snork mimimimimi-ing

[lesbiannieism]

i need 7+ seasons of dead boy detectives specifically to see the long-term payoff of charles putting a jar of bees in his bag

[emedeme]

Let Luffy do the poster thing, he deserves it!!!

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Thanks for listening to my sad backstory. Anyway, here's Wonderwall.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[savanir]

DP x DC prompt [3]

during one of the final psych evals at Arkham right before he gets to be released, the whole thing wrapped up so tidy, just a little relapse which involved a robbery. Getting sent back to Arkham, but he got to stay at the asylum so long that he no longer has to serve a prison sentence, score!

But during that eval his overseeing psychiatrist recommended him to have a change of scenery, some fresh non polluted air.

Riddler was rather convinced the guy was making this recommendation to everyone in Arkham in their own weird way to convince them to just leave Gotham and become someone else's problem. should he notify Batman about it somehow? nah, it’ll be more interesting to see how this is gonna turn out in the long run.

But can he leave the state? Can he even leave the city? he never really bothered to look into it, at least not legally, up until now if he felt he needed to leave for one of his plans he just did it.

Turns out he can, it’s a whole hassle and a half though, first a judge and then a probation officer and he’s pretty sure both were like “what the hell is this psychiatrist guy thinking!?” but at the same time, shrink probably knows what he’s doing (WRONG) so he’s allowed to go visit out of state family or whatever.

he had to wear this nice ankle monitor though, Wayne Enterprises™ tech, not overly bulky but still very present. real fancy, and a fun extra challenge heh.

now as for a good reason to leave New Jersey he’s going to need distant relatives, and he finds some, great grandpa walker also has a son, who had a son who had a daughter Madeline, who married some guy Jack Fenton, and she lives somewhere out in the boonies Illinois. great he’ll visit her.

far enough away in all sense of the word that there is no way she knows anything about him. it would be best to call her first though, be polite about it.

“hello, you have reached Fenton works, this is Maddie speaking” 

“Riddle me this-” ah whoops, habit, oh whatever, “we don’t share parents, but certainly a part of your life, from laughter to strife. Who am I?”

there is a pause …  he’s going to be a bit disappointed if she hangs up if he’s honest.

“cousins~” comes the cheery reply.

“correct! the name is Edward Nygma, we are distantly related you and I and well-”

“oh you simply must come visit!” 

well this was rather easy, perhaps a little too easy, but she lives in the midwest so maybe just going with whatever some guy says over the phone is normal there? stranger danger not really a thing in a small town where everyone knows everyone?

things start to make a little more sense once he gets there and he’s starting to think some things might run in the family. like a preference for the colour green and weird hyperfixations and genius bordering on insanity. Though that remains to be seen, Jack does not seem like a very bright light after his very enthusiastic welcome.

their kids however are observant and sharp. young Jasmine is wasting no time trying to psychoanalyze him. and the boy, Danny, he had not really meant to and he swears he’s sticking with calling the kid Danny so he wouldn’t seem overly familiar, but he might have called him little bird a couple times now.

but that’s all whatever, he’s playing nice here. and he doesn’t even have to worry about his eccentricities tripping him up because this place is insane.

There actually is a local teen vigilante active but he seems about as loved as he’s disliked. and the ghost boy’s enemies are basically all his own kind, which another crazy thing to now know about. ghost. they are real actually, how is Gotham not completely overrun? and how do they even work? and where do they keep coming from?

Edward might be getting a little sidetracked here. He had fully intended to sneakily get his next big game plan underway all the way out here, ankle monitor be damned. but he hasn’t made any progress at all.

Instead he’s been listening to Madeline and Jack to maybe figure out what the deal is with these ectoplasmic entities, he has to know, at this point he might go crazier if he doesn’t. 

He’s making Jasmine promise him not to get her doctorate in Gotham, he’s going back and forth with space riddles with Danny.

so yeah the whole thing kinda just became a vacation, maybe the psychiatrist had the right idea after all? hmm nah, probably not. but this is fun. He’s thinking about recommending this place to some of the others.

It's different enough to get the vacation feel, but enough crazy shit happens to make it all feel like home.

it is not until Maddie wants to talk with him about potentially switching the position of godfather of Danny to him rather than some weird rich friend of theirs that Edward realizes he might have lost the plot somewhere

Apparently the little bird basically begged them with a powerpoint presentation on how he likes Edward so much more than that Vladimir guy. 

And honestly, the fellow sounds like a Dracula Lutho so even if it’s kinda sad Edward can understand why he’d be considered a better option. Even if the guy has more money and a huge company that makes him said money. And it’s not like the Fentons know about his Riddler activities.

Thinking it over, Edward does think that Danny would like Gotham and Wayne has that space program thing right? The kid is definitely smart enough for that (Nygma certified), and yeah Edward does quite like their space themed back and forth. So, fuck it, why not, what is the worst that could happen?

He doubts Maddie and Jack are gonna kick it any time soon anyway out here in the boonies, it’s just a title thing, a stamp of approval or something.

he should have known he was going to eat those words later… he had this whole beautifully elaborate trap set up for the whole Batclan, and he was just getting to the good part when his phone went off.

Had to put the whole thing on pause cause that particular contact wasn’t gonna get ignored. He did promise to be available.

If the whole thing he had planned now went tits up he could at the very least laugh later at the reactions of the bats as he told them to “hold up one second, I have to take this.” while they were all in various perilous positions. 

Sadly he did have to go, he had a very distressed godson to pick up.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

soon it'll be dawn again

transcript under the cut ⏬

page 01

Fig: no way? - you're still up?

Riz: Wh– yes?

Riz: Why'd I not be.

page 02

Fig: I me~~ean - that took.

Fig: whole day.

Riz: Yeah?

Fig: 'm beat.

Riz: you should sleep.

page 03

Fig: nah. my guy's still up

Fig: I wanna hang out.

page 04

Riz: That's really nice.

Fig: Hah! - Nobody ever expects an Archdevil rockstar to be nice.

Riz: … yeah. - 's just budget work tho. (the stuff I'm working on) - I've heard it's boring.

page 05

Fig: yeah, but you do it…

Riz: It keeps things going, right? - Nothing happens if nobody sits down and - does the thing.

Fig: That's right… - though. Yeah.

page 06

Fig: sometimes it's someone else who - doesn't want the same thing to happen.

Riz: … - mm.

page 07

Riz (off screen): …It took me a long time to get that not everyone likes doing what I do. - 's probably because you guys are so nice– - or. - kind.

Riz (off screen): to anyone too, not just. - the people you /love/.

page 08

Riz: that's not how it is elsewhere. - The world's– not. hostile. - but 's not like it's kind.

Riz: So I'm doing as much as I can now… 

page 09

Fig: Hey.

Riz: ?

Fig: Go dig some dirt with me.

page 10

Riz: [blank speech bubble] - oh you meant like - actual dirt. (not incriminating information)

Fig: o yea.

Fig: there's clay in the backyard soil. - sometimes when I'm sun deficient or something I go touch dirt for a bit.

page 11

Fig: here u go

page 12

Riz: uh

Fig: now we make a thing! - 'm pretty good at freehanding a bowl.

Fig: I'll show u

page 13

Fig: just– yep, flatten that out as evenly as u can, then–! - actually ur nails'd be so good at cutting out the strip. [larger than usual space] wait. - wait. wait u can carve patterns with them! we HAVE to try

Riz: uh - What. do I carve?

Fig: anything!!!

page 14

Fig: and– yep just seal the inside uh. seam?

Fig: yep that works - okay time's up! all contestant hands up

Riz: [blank speech bubble] - okay - wh. what's next?

Fig: haha - watch this.

(sound effect text): FWOO—MP

page 15

Riz: WH– DON'T JUST DO THAT???

Fig: Now it's fired!

Riz: THAT WAS NOT SAFE

Fig: (actually it's just dry. if u add water rn it'll dissolve)

Fig: ok catch!

Riz: [blank speech bubble] - careful!!

Fig: dw no need haha

page 16

Riz (thought bubble): oh - it's warm…

Fig: now I want you to throw this.

page 17

Fig: u gotta do it - c'mon

page 18

Riz: wh– - It's like 3AM right now

Fig: oh it's not /fired/ fired it's not gonna make a loud noise

Riz: And then just? leave a pile out here?

Fig: pour water over it & it'll be gone I told u

Riz: but

page 19

Fig (off screen): RIz.

page 20

Fig: I've done all this before.

Fig: Can you trust that at least?

page 21

Riz: no, I– - I do. - I trust you.

page 23

Riz: okay what happens now

(sound effect text): glob

page 24

Fig: we do it again!

page 25

Riz: wh. [larger than usual space] What do you mean. (this clay's too wet also)

Fig: see! you're already learning

Fig: [blank speech bubble] - there are flows that are futile to fight. - The world changes.

Fig: Things change.

page 26

Fig: I've learned my lessons with "forevers". - But - as an artist

Fig: I can give you one thing: - You can always do it again.

page 27

Fig: most of everything depends on the rest of the world, - but this. - making new. - that's yours as long as you want it.

page 28

Fig: So?

page 29

Riz: Yeah. - Yeah! - let's make another one.

[ofswordsandpens]

This Kid's Not Alright

perseus // unknown // The Battle of the Labyrinth, Rick Riordan // unknown // The House of Hades, Rick Riordan // unknown // @ vialjarhorn // The Last Olympian, Rick Riordan // The House of Hades, Rick Riordan // @ dying-dog // The House of Hades, Rick Riordan // brutal, Olivia Rodrigo // The Mark of Athena, Rick Riordan // unknown // The Gods Show Up, Michael Kinnucan // The Chalice of the Gods, Rick Riordan

[a-jasminator]

could you meet me in the middle?

[laz-262]

child of the stars

[Image description: Gravity Falls fanart. Bill floats in front of the massive Axolotl, who smiles at him, and asks: "are you happy?" End ID.]

[eiuuei]

‘Blue Lily, Lily Blue’ an animation.

[kathaynesart]

A sketch of Replica Leo immediately after his EPF Interview in this scene, but before being reunited with his brothers here. I hope to dive more into the fallout of such a defining moment in Leo's young life and how it would go on to affect him once I get my Patreon up. In the meantime. Enjoy the little angsty sneak peek.

[fakakta-art]

can i be so fr with you guys white eyed scarred up jason todd from The Boy Wonder #2 has bewitched me mind and soul

Plate Glass Apology by Apes of the State You broke my heart, I hope you die, emptier than how I feel inside And when you lay your head to rest at night I hope that you Never fall asleep when you think of all the things you do I wish I could just hate you, oh, I wish all of these words I said were true.