#mhw spoilers

[unwilling-therapist]

I'm sorry but I just played the monster hunter wilds beta and who is this wonderfully distinguished little gentleman. your honor i love him.

[machinedramon]

dark souls ass monster

[akirameta84]

just beat the base game of mhw :] its so good. xeno was fun but easier than i expected- that was my first try, and i didnt faint once. farcasted once for potions, but thats it

its been around...100 hours. so i suppose itll be 100 more until iceborne's content is done lmfao. i like going slow

god. love this game

[biohazard-inevitable]

So beat the main story of monster hunter world and also started iceborne today and my thoughts are this:

Harmless

THIS FUCKER BURN IT BURN IT BURN IT WHY WHY WHY LET ME FUCKIN- AAAAAAAAAAAAA

[sielustaja]

I absolutely love this screenshot the game took of the moment I died and failed the quest

[zhephs-dlc]

This thing is SO cool, can't wait to fight volt-magala-kaboom-seregios!

[flamehande]

Really enjoyed the Monster Hunter Wilds beta gameplay.

[brinehater]

WARNING: FLASHING. DEFINITELY FLASHING/RAPID CUTTING.

the dragonsplague descends (aka plagued pawn enrichment)

ft. @edgier-than-a-diamond's Allen and @pawnguild's Hesperos (I promise I'll wash them later and give them worthy gifts!)

[grinkening]

On it boss

On that monster hunter world soundtrack grind

[tfseeds]

Random TF brainworms

Other TF prompts that have been rattling around in my brain the past year(s), mostly franchise-based:

Slime Rancher 2 - With all the weird future/alien mystery science going on, it's prime free TF-estate. And c'mon, there is NO way Viktor Humphries wouldn't have a way to splice slime DNA for science. A cotton slime-ified Gaius would be so stinking cute.

Speaking of slimes, I was definitely on a slime kick -

Stardew Valley - Basically, story involving getting caught on the wrong end of the witch's temper while cave-delving, and getting a good old fashioned slow-burn curse transforming poor farmer Gaius into a slime. Also plays into my favorite trope of trying to keep the changes hidden - as patches of blue ooze-y spots form around his mid section, he tries to wrap them with cloth to keep it from saturating into his shirt. Plastic wrap is also attempted. Too much clothing is worn during the summer. Hats to cover hair that's more like a jello mold. Close friends who discover the secret using a wheelbarrow to haul the poor unconscious slime-guy home before he puddles all over the Halloween party. Figuring out how to maintain a solid enough form to wear clothes, use tools, etc.

BIG OL FFXIV SHADOWBRINGERS/ENDWALKER SPOILERS BEYOND HERE

FFXIV - Aaaaa there's so much I want to draw and design properly.

The whole light corruption/lightwarden arc of Shadowbringers was absolutely my jam, complete with soul-cracking strain and coughing up light gunk. I'm still not satisfied with my first take on Gaius's lightwarden form. The rough mental concepts: Large and bulky, like Zinogre from MHW. Maybe a semi-quadriped. Hooves on the rear feet. Wings for sure, white mane, gold horns. Blend bull and lion and other creatures.

The thing is I really want to bring a lasting physical representation of the corruption to Gaius's current form. I'm struggling with how to do that. Lots of other WoLs changed their hair white after the events of ShB, but that doesn't fit Gaius. I've been playing with the idea of a glowing scar of some sort, like markings on his neck or maybe chest that he keeps covered. I love using the bandana in his regular fashions and could be a fun way to tie it into his lore.

Throwing in my hella-old Zinogre doodles because I want to capture some of that mid-way feature goodness with Gaius's light corruption.

The whole journey of Shadowbringers is such prime real estate for transformation trauma - budding horns, patches of skin/fur bleaching out, those random soul-crunching episodes as a little more light escapes and furthers the process... All the while having to keep moving forward, despite the quest literally eating him. The other fun part with going sineater is the invisible changes, like a growing craving for aether, and losing the clarity of other senses like physical touch and taste. Gaius's character has always been a boisterous lover of food with a bottomless appetite. It's part of his love language - he makes sure his friends are well fed with snacks and home-made meals. This is something Minfilia/Ryne gets to experience intensely as he does his best to make sure the young girl is well nourished through their travels, and as a way to include her in the family.

There is a whole comic I will probably never get around to drawing, highlighting group meals along their journey - Gaius sharing his travel snacks in Il Mheg, getting her to join them for drinks and a big meal in the Crystarium, forcing a second helping of stew on her in Rak'tika with Runar. But then it comes to a small camp in the Tempest as the Scions overlook the skyline of Amaurot, one last rest before they venture into the final leg of their journey. Ryne is the one who brings a bowl of soup to Gaius, who is sitting apart from the others. The man is already showing extreme lightwarden features which have been spreading since the episode on Mt. Gulg. "I brought you some soup. To keep your strength up," she offers. He turns his one still-blue eye to her and smiles sadly. "Thanks, but I'm not hungry." He wishes he was. He wishes he could still taste anything. He wishes food didn't sit like a rock in his stomach. The look of grief and pity on Ryne's face is obvious.

Just, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. *rolls around in traumatizing-OCs-for-fun brainworms*

I want to tie the whole light corruption in with Gaius's struggle with his Inner Release beast - probably the best and terrible example I could give of what's in my brain is like how Naruto has the fox spirit sealed inside him. Inner Release is a whole other monster or side of Gaius that he harnesses for power, but not without risk of losing himself to it. Like something during the post-ARR banquet breaks it and that's why he takes up Samurai during HW, as a way to learn to control himself with discipline, meditation, and patience. The whole lightwarden thing either corrupts or fuses with his inner release, and maybe he still manifests some features while he's berserking, like vestigial horns and spikes. IDK, still playing around with that. I do think he keeps his hair longer to cover the small gold horns left over from his light corruption, along with whatever other scarring I settle on. Trying to distance himself from the 'beast' is a big long part of Gaius's struggle through FFXIV.

AND AND. I THINK ZENOS GOT TO FIGHT FULL-ON LIGHT INNER RELEASE BEAST GAIUS AT THE VERY END. Where Gaius finally let's himself fully sink into the pit and embrace everything he's kept buried away, that even he is too afraid to acknowledge. Accepting Zenos also includes accepting the entirety of himself, beast and all. Fray would be proud.

[abraxasrinbalt]

I wish I liveblogged about monster hunter lmao. It was a wild ride.

Spoilers for mhw below lmao

I start the game

I follow the main quests exclusively

I'm too afraid to do any big hunts by myself and make a friend or my Partner In Cringe help me whenever possible

I run for my life from rathalos and rathian when I find them

Anjanath is my biggest enemy and my greatest fear

Spent most of my time going on expeditions to get endemic life for my room.

I have 3 forest pteryx and I love them deeply

I make it into High Rank somehow

Still haven't soloed either rath. Still haven't solo'd much of anything

Enter: Bazelgeuse, more lovingly called the B-52 bomber.

This fucker is my paralysis demon. I am VERY AFRAID of him.

He ruins many of my hunts

Also enter Deviljho. Known colloquially as a Pickle. I finally get why ff14 content creator Drak referred to that one boss as a Pickle.

He ruins many hunts that Bazelgeuse didn't

I hate them both. Partner tells me we're gonna hunt a B-52 bomber to try to make me less afraid. It doesn't work but I appreciate the effort.

Game eventually wants me to kill elder dragons. I put this off as long as possible.

Get bored of waiting (and also forgot I was supposed to get PiC to help, we ended up fucking up a bunch of black diablos that day instead)

Accidentally pick the easiest one to deal with. Kill it on my first attempt of the mission.

Also learn that the Girros are suffering from cordyceps fungus. Hate that.

Pick the single most annoying one second, also by accident. Beg PiC to help me because I don't have the APM or skill to control the WIMDY FUMKIN BOY. L + Ratio + I'm too fresh to MH

I cause the mission to fail so we try again. Goes better.

Then we meet Toaster.

Good boy 10/10 I'm afraid of him too

Very good fight

I'm now Master Rank and have entered Iceborne. Except not really.

I'm undergeared in the sense that I'm not building with any specific idea in mind, so I can't even get past the first iceborne encounter

I now have to farm rathalos, odogaron and Toaster for gear. This is non negotiable.

I keep getting distracted by endemic life

Any time Bazelgeuse, Deviljho, rathalos or rathian show up uninvited- actually when ANYTHING shows up uninvited. They get dung pods to the face.

I now carry excessive amounts of animal shit in my inventory to make more.

Tonight alone I:

Finished my Flying Kadachi Strikebow after grinding forever yesterday

Anjanath AND Rathian almost ruined my last capture, but somehow I managed to time a flash pod with Rathian knocking over my Critically Wounded Target, blinded everyone, trapped the Tobi-Kadachi amongst the chaos, and tranquilized it before it (or I) met an untimely demise. I never want to do this again.

Hunted One (1) Odogaron and was immediately overstimulated

Hunted a Kirin because I didn't want to negotiate with a rathalos after the above overstimulation

[ars-daemonum]

Old Everwyrm

Also big puppy

[machinedramon]

I LOVE rompopolo it's SO fucked up 11/10 monster

[dwarvenfanboy]

How using the Insect glaive against Shara ishvalda feels like

[tofumeat]

i may not own iceborne but i sure as heck can meme 

[spider-bot1]

So we took on Shara ishvalda

Pretty sure its the only monster i managed to keep a little seceret out off all of them in Iceborne

Worth it tho to hear the "WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT"