#lotsa words there...

[therantingsage]

Chapter!!! Four!!! Of Too Close!!!!!!! Cuz I forgot to mention it here yesterday!!!!!

[fr-thrice]

hold my hand fellow fat dragon enjoyers we'll get through this 🤝

[ramenwithbroccoli]

guess who finally made a fanbot after 2 years in the musical robot fandom

meet Janka!

above: Janka in to versions - a bare mechanism and a 'friendlier' folk attire

created in 1921 and commercialy released in 1936, named after a character in a famous song, Janka was intended to be the first fully inteligent record-playing machine for personal use. With her creator, Stanisław Lasota, basing its design on popular barrel organs, she was equipped with many different accesories to make her blend in with the enviroment. The most popular one was a folk-based look, inspired by traditional clothing of people of Łowicz, but many different options were available, with some owners even sewing it clothes of its own.

above: bare mechanisms, the mask sold to make Janka less 'intimidating', the most popular folk variant, a "night out" variant personally crafted by one of the owners

Although the company producing record players promised all of them would be able to change the songs by the voice command, it seems that only the original prototype of Janka retained that function. That's why, while the other copies went on to become just a fancy gimmick, Janka's value skyrocketed, providing Lasota with a great sum of money that allowed him to retire early and comfortably. After his death in 1937, the original designs were found. It seemed that there were no differences between the commercial versions and the prototype - except for the material that the top of the table was made of. In the original, an undefinable green matter has been used, that studies have not been able to replicate. It is suspected that the substance, mixed in with molten glass, was a gift Lasota brought back from one of his travels.

above: diagram of the functions of certain parts

Once an unique antique, original Janka lost value over time. The amazement over her ability to change music at request and memorising entire symphonies after playing them once disappeared, replaced with annoyance, and sometimes even horror, as it seemed the machine gained a mind of its own.

Owners reported music playing in the middle of the night, suspicious movement and the needle skipping over certain words in song, forming a new message altogether. After the last owner, Jerzy Sójka, claimed "the goddamn machine, [it] has a mind of its own, [it's] the devil! devil is speaking to me!", the fate of Janka had become unknown. Many suspect that it has been abandoned in a basement or an attic, with some even claiming they still hear her song being played at night.

[ihatebrainstorm]

drawing ten in the corner of my assignment with my mouse to motivate me into finishing this thingy

[goat-and-a-pig]

favorite word?

Embezzlement

[piosplayhouse]

should i play death mark. i trust you

Hmmm I would say it depends how much you like horror games. The fandom dicks around a lot of course but the game itself is actually pretty scary and some of the imagery and subject matter is genuinely very unsettling in part because of how great the art is. I'd say there's no shame in watching a playthrough of the first game if you want to get a feel for the vibes of the series, and if you enjoy that then buy the game (since it's eeeexpensive). It's also a visual novel and though there are some pretty unique and fun mechanics that it blends into its format, if you're just naturally more into games with more active gameplay you might find it a bit of a slog to get through. Like I've said before, it's not a flawless game, but I do feel it makes up for it in just being a great game with fantastic atmosphere, characters, and of course the most important part: fucked up horror ♥️

[ant1quarian]

I swear Dustverse is going to be like 600k words because every single Dust is going to have 10-20 chapters before we go to another AU.

And I'm planning to keep the chapter wordcount around 2,500-5,000+ words so

[peppermintys]

i wanna make a scott pilgrim apocalypse au so bad. i’m resisting the urge. grrrrggggggggrraaaaaaaaaaAAAAARRRRRG

[amir2018]

Starting the essay....this is my sisyphean boulder...my atlas globe...

[wabitwithadot]

I really like pantufa the cat. Ft Chainsaw Tail!

I really like VAdaPEGA's work in general, not only their serious stuff, but also what im going to define as "serious shitposts". I unironically enjoy stuff like SIivagunner or Rave Story (a cave story mod) that start start off as a joke and never really loses the joke, but is so high effort and good that is suprising. Some might see it as a "waste of potential" but that kind of stuff really tickles a really specific part of my brain, maybe its because I watched SIivagunner when I didnt even know what Vinesauce was and just did it because of funy Flintstones theme and videogame OST mashups. Btw shoutouts to SIivagunner for showing me the existence of Vargskelethor Joel he is like one of my top streamers.

Btw Btw I also really love games that really selfish in the best way possible, maybe I should make a Huge Ass Post™ to explain what I mean by that, but to try and condense it, I enjoy the "Here's my OC that used/still represents me as the main character, btw here's a bunch of inside jokes, people you probably dont know and crystal clear inspirations from popular media, deal with it" I 100% explained that wrong and I should really gather my toughts about that kind of games, but the work of Unlimited Trees, VAdaPEGA and to some degree Patricia Taxxon are the only ones so far that that managed to hit that part of my brain and I REALLY love it.

Go and support VAdaPEGA's work you losers.

[cyberpunk-20xx]

about masc!V's VA

cw for general spoilers and mentions of typical-canon violence

I always find it strange that people find masc!V's VA emotionless, or even annoying or plain bad. I'm not gonna say anything about fem!V's VA because I don't pay attention at all to it cus if I do it gives me dysphoria.

I don't, on the other end, find it that strange that most people I've seen with this opinion are in fact cis men.

To me masc!V's VA is actually super emotional, but not in the conventional likeable, heroic way. Jaded and reserved at the same time. I like the VA a lot for doing what I consider great work at presenting us a character who has lived from 2050 to 2077 in a deeply fucked up world where hope is so sparse. A world that we have no idea how fucked up is, even reading about the ttrpg because to me Cyberpunk Red is much less fucked up even if it is already a dystopia.

Just as a reminder, in CP77's NC society:

Amputation without actual health concern is highly encouraged all for the sake of pure performance. And nothing else. Your physical body is socially just disposable. The only way to keep up with the world that keeps eating itself is just to upgrade, and if you don't have the money for it? Fuck you, fuck your ideals, fuck your dreams.

You get suicide baited on the regular by the fucking street advertisements.

Violence against marginalised people is at an all-time all. Sex workers have it even worse than in the real world and that's saying something on how women and queer people are treated in general.

Acid rain is normal.

The majority of the animal population is extinct in the whole world. The cattle industry has collapsed and unless you're Kerry Eurodyne levels of rich, meat is either made of worms or insects and it's not even something hidden or taboo. In fact, it's shown explicitly in ads. Real vegetables and organic food in general is scarce as well. We might, irl 2023, start to be desensitized about it because we're on the brink of the ultraliberal hell that the game is portraying, but human's civilisation started with agriculture, and cattle culture was a big fucking part of that, regardless of one's ethics and morals about meat consumption (do not clown about veganism on this post, people are allowed to value animal life regardless of this video game blurb). In various quests, namely Panam's and River's, we can see firsthand how the collapse of that industry has rotten individuals and left the land in ruins.

Even a mondial star like Kerry or a fixer queen like Rogue are just, in the end, the bitches of the corps they sold out to, and unable to fight back. In fact, they've both given up entirely until V comes crashing into their life, with Johnny in tow. The fandom paints them as charismatic individuals but I really just think that's the rose-tinted glasses effect of us knowing what they used to be, when they tried, and them just being... Pretty conventionally attractive, quippy and sarcastic. But really even those two people who we are presented with as Succesful Individuals TM just... Man they just fucking suck, okay? They're miserable, they don't like themselves, they don't like who they are anymore, they don't have any speck of joy left in their lives, they're both estranged from their kids, alone, and just going on because death is scary. They're so human. They're at the top of the world and in the end they're still nothing in the face of it. Love them both so much but they're heartbreaking.

V always starts the game after having lost everything. Any other fucker in their place would have most likely finished just like a certain Heywood kid with spikey brunette hair. V is an exceptional individual for even having a chance at a second life.

V pretty much has brain cancer and is promised a painful, slow agonising death unless they basically kill themselves, and the less painful way to go is to gobble down medication but then that means giving the body up to Johnny. Johnny's first interaction with them is: violent physical assault and suicide baiting. It's hell. V is in hell. It could not be me if I were honest, I would not bother fighting it and I would not only alt+F4 from life, I would do as Johnny wishes at this point and erase us both at once.

V's so traumatized that when they lose Jackie, they're still able to function, but not enough to see a blatant trap coming. And when they have to carry Evelyn's corpse out of that tub, they don't have a breakdown, they just tank it. Which is not badass by the way, if you frame this as anything positive you need therapy yourself tbh boo you deserve better.

V's also a cold blooded murderer very easily if you want to take that path, and I'd even argue that the game makes it very hard for them to not be a killer honestly. Even the "non-lethal" optic mod doesn't work that well past a certain point. I've yet to try my hand at a pacifist run.

If you want V to be a good person, a hopeful person, someone who does not sound deeply suicidal and terribly fucked up, someone who's not used to death and treason as their daily lot, someone who's going to make you feel good about yourself when interacting with the world... I don't think you understood the game you were buying, nor that you were paying much attention while you were playing.

I'll be the first to admit have my own biases and gripes with the game's bleak looks on life, at its pretense at being "cyberpunk" when it truly only has the "cyber" part down, but at the same time I gotta give it to it, it's cohesive within its own universe and tone. V's canon, vanilla character makes perfect sense in the settings we are presented with. Masc!V's VA just does a good job of translating that.

But I guess that's not all of it, the difference between my interpretation and the one I made this post about makes sense because it is true that masc!V's VA does not act like the normal hero archetype at all, but like an anti-hero, except without the whole "charismatic leader" bullshit tone and bravado, unlike… Well, Johnny himself.

Masc!V's voice is not only not the voice of a good guy, it also fails to be the voice of a leader, of someone who's got it all figured out, of, well, the alpha male. It commits the crime of not being Good and not being Manly, at once! It even dares to be human and vulnerable at times! No wonder it gets haters lmao.

And the people I see bashing on masc!V's VA are always fucking kissing Johnny's ass for being who he is in the flashbacks, in the legends and at the beginning of the game. And that, to me, is pretty self-explanatory why I cannot relate with their opinion on masc!V's VA.

[leatherbookmark]

my dream portrayal of jgy is that he's an independant character with his own strengths (not lxc's sweet little child-birthing wifey) that get recognition and appreciation (and that aren't 'being a good mommy/rabid event planner, haha, such a control freak this a-yao'), who deserves and gets love (but isn't just a tiny lovely thing whose only purpose is-- do you get my point already i wonder), who's allowed to be in a bad mood (but isn't defined by those moments, which is very important to me personally), but who isn't a cruel or bad person (and whose attempts at explaining his situation to others are taken seriously, and not as just him trying to Manipulate Others As Usual because, and i might be controversial but idqc, if i'm to call a character a gaslighting manipulator i'd like to see cases of him a/ doing it b/ succesfully c/ often, and no, "well he conned lxc into thinking he's not an evil murderous twink, SOMEHOW" doesn't count)

and my problem is that it's, well, as dreams usually are, rather unattainable

[yonker-tonker]

was Gone all weekend at a con!!

[llitchilitchi]

You can mute/blacklist certain words and tags. So when those people use certain tags you can mute it and you won't see it

I know, but unfortunately the way tumblr handles it is shit, plus it doesn't work if people don't tag this stuff.

plus, and I know this will sound petty, it does get really, really annoying when I'm scrolling through my dash and all the posts are just a grey square that just says 'POST CONTAINS TAGS YOU BLOCKED: DISCOURSE, QSMP' like that's nice but that's still 30 posts in a row that are greyed out and taking up space. I might as well just J past the posts after catching the first signs of it covering something I do not want to see

[siennaditbot]

How many does it take for this to get weird

It's weirdly addicting lol

The rain one is from the fic but others are just random doodles and practice I guess. Idk it's just fun! Weird but fun!

This notebook is definitely going to be hidden whenever I get guests though..