#love stories in time loops man

[salty-an-disco]

relistening to Hadestown's soundtrack from start to finish again and the. the. they so. they

[scribblekinqq]

After making an impulsive buy after seeing people talk about it, I've spent my whole weekend playing this game in a vc with my friends (and we uh... kinda went a little crazy w/ it)

Uh. I'm only in Act 2 (But I might be beating the King very soon) and... oh I have so many theories. (WHAT DO YOU MEAN THIS GAME HAS 6 ACTS?) So hopefully I'll remember to post the art I inevitably make when I get further.

(I also have a spotify playlist for Siffrin - thats how Crazy I Got about this game)

[nidbaesenpai]

Viet blasts Loop as well ✨✨✨

[sysig]

Time Loops are they/them culture (Patreon)

Bonus of my little guy in ISaT style:

[steakout-05]

been drawing a sorta reference thingy for Salesman Barry in the timeloop au i've been rotating around in my brain for a while recently :] it isn't as much a character design reference as it is more of a reference for how Barry's mental state begins to deteriorate as he starts having intense deja vu and nightmares every time his timeline gets reset upon death and he tries to piece together what is going on out of pure desperation and instincts (he is being experimented on and doesn't know it yet). i want to throw him at a wall (affectionate)

it is still a WIP as i haven't drawn all the details yet and i want to change the colours as they look too dull on my pc,,, also here is the original sketch :D

[loopsisloops]

I'm not sorry I still believe in love

Last year I was talking with some coworkers during our closing shift. The conversation jumped from topic to topic and then Janice [fake name] asked "Hey [Me], do you have boyfriend?" I said, "No, I've actually never had one." These women are all twice my age. I've known them for a few years now and I wouldn't say we're close friends or even best friends but I'm chill with them and trust them enough to know they would take a punch for me. They're a little confused about my answer and continue to press.

And before you say anything, yes we talk about nsfw topics at work sometimes so the beginning of this conversation wasn't really anything out of the ordinary for me. I stay in my lane and tune it out most of the time anyway. The spotlight was bound to land on me at some point. Alexa [fake name] yells from across the floor, "But you've at least fucked, right?" "No. I have not." I say a little quieter. Jane [fake name], pops her head in from around the corner, "What about a blowjob?" "No." "Handjob??" Alexa raises her hands above the endcap does a stroking motion with her hands. "Nope." Alexa has a quizzical look on her face and says, "You're a cutie, what do you mean you've never gotten down like that girl?" Jane hums in a agreement and adds "Yeah I mean, I lost my virginity at 16." You and I had very different bodies at 16 Jane. But, okay. Alexa leaves her cart of things in the aisle and makes her way over to where Jane, Janice, and I are by the registers. "If I were gay or bi or a man, girl I'd definitely go for yah." Alexa winks at me. I give her a deadpan look, "Thanks Alexa." Janice continues to count the money from the register, "But why?" I look back at Janice. "Why haven't you?" I think for a moment. "I don't know...I just haven't really met someone. I'm waiting for the right person y'know?" They all laugh and now it's my turn to act confused. Janice speaks up again, "Ohhhh I see. So you're still waiting for your knight in shining armor, is that right?" Jane chuckles, "To be saved and whisked right off your feet?" Alexa leans into Janice and says "Oh knock it off, she's still young." Janice hums in agreement, "Yeaah, life hasn't broken her yet. It's okay, soon enough you'll realize people are terrible, and princes don't exist, you'll see."

In the moment I just laughed all of this off but I knew, deep down, they were wrong. I shouldn't feel stupid for having a little hope...

I don't blame them for thinking like this. I know each of them have had their struggles. Teen pregnancy, loss, life has thrown enough shit at them for them to have these points of views be justified. But to say "don't worry life will break you soon enough." The thing is, life has. Time and time again. Believe me. It has.

I'm not sorry I still think love is real. I am, however, sorry life was not kind enough to you to keep believing in it.

[ongreenergrasses]

🐝 - A step too far

Her husband’s dead. All Annie wants is for the day to be over. But the minute she steps over the threshold of her room, she’s back in command, and they’re telling her…

She can’t. She turns and runs back to her room, and then it happens again. And again. And again.

And again.

fake fic ask game

[darth-does-stuff]

what i really love about neverafter is that every character feels that they all have significant importance. you have the obvious ones, mother timothy goose with his book that seems to be the centerpiece of everything in the neverafter, princess rosamund with the fairies coming after her, but the others are just as important as well. ylfa with her realizations of ‘once upon a time’, pinnochio with his stepmother who is fucking just. yeah. there’s pib and his trickster ways, his purpose to disrupt the forces who intend to control the story, and gerard with the golden ball and his connection to elody. with a fairytale story it’s SO easy to make one person the main character of it all, but brennan made every character feel no more important than the others and it’s fucking fantastic

[mymp3]

I had a lot of the same issues with reload as I see you’re having, and I do think most of it is from the new team’s inexperience. They’re trying to recreate a game that made very purposeful decisions in its mechanics and cutscenes without understanding why those decisions were made, which really undermines the experience.

If the team had more experience under their belt, or had full creative decision on an entirely new game, I feel like they could make a really good game! Reload is not that though.

I completely agree anon. It's a shame too, because it's not an awful game, just a different one. I wish they hadn't tried to recreate FES as a test project on a shoestring budget when it was literally the benchmark for our modern Persona games. It changed so much, it's iconic, a cult classic.

I really wish they wouldn't have lied about not planning EpiAi beforehand so they could cover the fact that the game doesn't look all too good. I wish they hadn't charged $200 for an "Aigis Edition" and not include the dlc. I wish they hadn't sanitized and scrubbed the game about death and grieving of all things that were slightly upsetting. That's what ended up happening though, and as you said, they're trying to recreate a game that was very purposeful in its creation.

Reload was a cheap quick test that they knew would work because it has a wonderful story and dedicated fans. As long as they make it a fun popcorn game, they don't have to put in those purposeful additions or think about it much at all.

[surunoita]

jsyk this has been me the last couple of weeks while getting through alan wake 2 ngl

[the-maladjustedjester]

The inherent eroticism between a condemned and their executioner

[legionofpotatoes]

there is a. fundamental flaw in horizon's combat design that I can't quite put a finger on, but I definitely feel it reaching a breaking point in burning shores. the jank was palpable

[lucybellwood]

Lemme tell you a gay little story about an eagle.

Our town (~9,000 people) has a couple garages, but there's a big one on the main drag. My family has been going there for decades. I drive past it every day.

There used to be a huge pine tree on the corner of their lot, but last year it became a hazard and had to be taken down.

Shortly thereafter I drive by and see they've hired a guy to chainsaw sculpt the stump into a bald eagle.

Birds own my heart, but nationalism makes me twitchy. I withhold outright condemnation of the eagle, but I'm skeptical. (The original owner—an objectively Good Dude—sold the business to a younger couple a few years ago, and I don't have any knowledge of their whole deal.)

Then it turns out someone on staff is really into making costumes for the eagle. Every holiday. Every month. Stuffed turkey, witch costume, menorah headpiece, bunny ears. These people love to dress their bird.

The changing of the eagle suit becomes a source of joy every time I drive through town.

Until June, when the eagle is bare.

Now look, maybe I'm expecting too much asking my garage to celebrate Pride. But this is a small town. Every time I drive by that stupid eagle—this thing that has previously brought me so much joy—I feel hurt. I feel reminded that there are plenty of people in my liberal bubble who don't consider my community worthy of celebration. I drive to work, I feel bad. I drive home, I feel bad. The eagle is mocking me.

Then my A/C quits working.

So I book an appointent to bring my car in—and realize what I have to do.

I pick all this up at a thrift store for under ten bucks. I print the shirt with some weird heat-transfer fabric crayons I find in a cupboard. I loop gold elastic around the sunglasses and pray they'll fit on the eagle's head. (It is also important to draw your attention to the price of the feather boa.)

(Nice.)

My reasoning is thus: if I show up with a complete costume ready to go, someone will have to look me in the eye and say "We don't believe in that," at which point I'll be finding a new garage. But if they let me dress the eagle, then people in town get to have the joy I've been missing since the start of the month.

I listen to a lot of hype-up jams on my way over. I hate confrontation. I also don't wanna have to find another garage. I want to believe that this decision isn't actively antagonistic, but I'm not particularly hopeful.

I talk through the A/C issue with the guy at the desk, hand over my keys, then take a deep breath.

"Who's in charge of the eagle?"

"Oh, that's all Dylan. Second bay from the end."

I walk down the row of hydraulic lifts and find a disarmingly smiley middle-aged man pouring fluid through a funnel. I introduce myself and explain that, since the Pride parade is this Sunday and the eagle seems to be missing a costume, I have taken the liberty of making one myself, and can I get his blessing to go put it on?

Dylan grins this absolutely giant grin and goes

"Oh hell yeah."

So that's what's up now.

Happy Pride.

[aparticularbandit]

how do you feel about time loops? reading them and writing them!

I LOVE TIME LOOPS.

I love the constant attempts to change things but not being sure of what needs to change to reach the result you want (if the protagonist is intentionally making the loops) or to reach the result required to end the loops (if someone/thing else is causing the loops). I love when people realize halfway through that they're in a loop because they retain no memories from the previous loops. I love when they don't realize until later because their life already feels like a loop and so they only notice because one of the few things that's new (like a new episode of a beloved television series) suddenly isn't new (and then they blow it off because maybe it's a rerun in the middle of the season after last week's half-season finale).

But also they are a pain to write.

For me, anyway.

My brain wants to write them the way that the Haruhi Suzumiya anime did Endless Eight - the same thing, over and over, with a character making a change and then seeing how that flows out - or even just writing the same thing with subtle changes - but that can be. extremely tedious - both to write and to read.

(I actually - a while back - planned on doing all of Homura's timeloops from Madoka. I had it extensively outlined. I did not write much of it because the intricacies of it and the exact nature of what changes and how that changes things can get really overwhelming.)

The last looping fic I wrote, I just did snapshots of things instead, and that was a lot easier (ish), but there's a part of me that still wants to do that...longer thing.

[cielospeaks]

honestly im so weak for the trope of "(original) character does everything they can to save/help/whatever canon character but in spite of that the end result is still the same"

[inkskinned]

how odd, to watch the creative writing exercises of angry men in the comments of instagram. you noticed it first in the comments of conventionally attractive women - but then it started appearing everywhere else, too.

a young man talks about what lunch he's packing his wife. there is a little story under it, with 300 likes, fabricated from nothing. "this is pointless. if you treat her like this, she will take the lunch to her office and fuck her boss and divorce him and take all his money."

you scroll. a young woman talks about what lunch she's packing for her husband. it is always uglier when the subject of the video is a woman, you've noticed. "you sit on camera and you smile and you are cheating with the neighbor and then you're going to lie about being sexually assaulted by your husband and -"

you stop reading. it has 567 likes.

where did this even become a thing? people making up stories in their head, disgusting long-winded assumptions about intention and sexual disgrace. the evil twin of fanfiction.

like - it's just a lie. it's a lie that they are telling, baldfaced and assumptive. the undercurrent is of course misogyny, but the trouble is that they're so fucking certain. that's what makes the hairs on the back of your neck rise. there is this pervasive, inventive desire for them to be right. that they must be right. all women are cheating, lying, gold-digging bitches. no exceptions.

in the reverse, when women say i'd rather meet a bear in the woods than a strange man - men funnel in from the sides. they defend each other with a vibrance and capacity for empathy you wish applied to like, the other half of the population. a man could be saying i absolutely did kill her and these creatures in the comments would rise up with king shit. she made it happen. they love each other to the point of this sick strange self-gaslighting, a fervent and unhinged cognitive distortion. all men are good, wonderful people. all women are terrible, conniving, seditious, annoying.

and when did it become okay to just, like... say that kind of a thing? at one point, you find yourself typing out a witty and snappy retort. why are you spending so much time fantasizing about other people babe. but as you stare at the screen, some part of you pictures this man in public, saying these things to your face. his soapbox, high and mighty. his mirrored sunglasses and his empty life: tired and lonely.

what a sad and horrible loop he's locked in. he is terrible to women, so women don't talk to him, which he uses as an excuse to act more terribly. he blames this "failure" on women, rather than on his behavior. it cannot be that he is the problem (that the solution is to just put his ego down and accept women as equals) - he begins to invent a sculpture to replace the flesh frame of each person he sees.

it isn't just a woman posing on the beach. it is now a slut with a desperate need for each person to crave her body. it isn't just a woman yelping with surprise during something upsetting. it is a hysterical, unhelpful cretin who will probably make things worse instead of better. it isn't a person.

someone's very sweet wedding vows get moderate attention on instagram. in the comments, a man says good fucking luck you'll waste your life providing while behind your back she's absolutely fucking the best man. this will be so cringe in 2 months when she walks out on you.

you think - is that what you need to be true? is that what you need to happen, for the world to make sense to you?