#my friends probably think Im a freak

[exoticalmonde]

Sweet Pool....... But all my friends were watching the entire time

I am a great fan of Visual Novels and that's no secret to anybody who has chatted with me for more than an hour. But I haven't played it all. Very recently I made use of a summer deal to get all of Nitro Chiral's games (At least those available at JastUSA) and I have been itching.

Naturally, it starts with scuff. Because my laptop is new it needed a DirectX update downloaded from the official website for MSFT and I spent... a pretty long time trying to deal with it on my own until I submit to misery and just

Me: "Pinkie, you were good with computers right?" Pinkie: "No, but continue." Me: "I refuse" Pinkie: "Okay. So what seems to be the problem?" Me, after trying to not say anything for 10 seconds: "My visual novel is giving me problems." Pinkie: Ends up fixing it within 5 mins after I struggled for 20 Pinkie: "So remember how you asked if I was good with computers and I told you 'No'?"

------------

That aside, IT PLAYS

And for some ungodly reason Pinkie volunteered to watch. Then Kryo started watching when Lundi joined in too. The whole crew is here to watch Eve's new fantasy horror gore love visual novel yaoi:

Sweet Pool

The moment I enter there are two things thrown at me. Religion. And a Choice.

Heart or Thought? Instinct or Logic?

Panko helped me and chose... I don't remember which one.

Which sparks the desire to talk about how unique the choice system is in this one. For a 2008 game it's really good. The music is very grating from time to time, the volume it started with almost blew out my ears.

I can tell that it's going to be very interesting because I found an old comment that I had made on a personal discord chat and it reads: "Cease, are you really going to start me off by asking which one to choose? How dare you offer a heartbeat in one corner and empty wind at the beach in the other? Which is reason, which is instinct? Stop playing with me, I came to watch two guys kiss."

"Hey baby, are you religious? Because I would fall on my knees for you like a nun for Jesus."

So I remember 20% of the beginning, because I did play it once somewhere. Somehow. I knew it up to the part where Zenya is having his way with the coconut water or whatever he was drinking. Everybody's first impression of him was... they want to avoid him.

Since we split up so everybody gets to make a choice when the option of a choice pops up, it was Kryo's turn to decide if we want to avoid him when he stopped us or not and he tried to ignore him. It didn't work, as we all know.

Like, look at him, he is a menace he is being everything and too much of it at the same time.

Meanwhile I assigned Tetsuo to Lundi because he looks like Executor and Mlynar and whatnot and that is her type of men it's stamped and mailed already and he is overall, I feel, the safe choice. Tired and emotionless too, he just manages to cover his eyebags by frowning hard enough the shadow of his eyebrows reaches them.

And he looks so cute and small???? He has the cutest ears ever.

...

Yeah it sure is escalating. Everybody took a turn and we're back to Kryo while my little sick woodland creature is having a panick attack inside the bathrub. He decides that he should go with instinct, using logic as a basis since... Yeah, what else are you supposed to do when you're supposedly bleeding out, right?

Wrong.

He.

That scene.

Good voice acting, but I had to start off with "Okay kids, look away now." so I can watch/read it in peace. I'm used to moaning and pathetic whimpering, however none of my friends have been struck witht he full blow of a yaoi scene.

The next day we talk about god at school, so naturally we all decide to share in on the trauma of religion.

---

Lundi: "I think the guy had forsaken god by jerking off in the bloody bathwater."

Kryo: "God said self-preservation and he chose self-masturbation."

---

I was so sure it was over... I didn't expect, call for or desire this scene and we were ALL surprised now. The last one was weird, but this one is just no-choice, no-doubt, just full-blown desire and lust. In the chemist's office. Touching chemicals and then himself, you know?

Here Kryo has provided the necessary censorship so I don't get annihilated for making the post.

Me: "That explaisn this entire game. He's just tired."

---

Our last moment before I have to hop off and Kryo needs to cook etc was during the scene in Zenya's room:

Me: "It feels like it wants us to think in that direction but I don't think there's anything between them."

Lundi: "It could be anything."

Me: "I'm sure they're going to make this go completely haywire from nowhere. I don't know what to expect."

The scene happens.

Kryo: "I need to go cook now and process what the f--ck I just witnessed."

They like it so far c:

[krazieka2]

Here's a big old Fire Emblem Search & Find I did for the FE3H Masquerade Zine! Find the Golden Deer, but see if you can't find the rest of the students as well! For the ultimate challenge, see if you can't name every character! (Disclaimer two characters are NPCs with no names)

[marxism-transgenderism]

..

[celestialecho]

🌦️&💤

on childhood best friends.

via ill give you the sun by jandy nelson // via the art of ponyo by hayao miyazaki // jack johnson, we're going to be friends // a message from my childhood best friend // mitski, i guess // via a little life by hanya yanagihara // adventure time, island song (come along with me) // via unknown // abba, chiquitita

[hopefullystillliving]

You ever get lulled into a false sense of security during the first two thirds of a kid's movie that's good with a serious plot but mostly a pretty fun time, only to have the entire final third tear your heart out, chew it up and spit it out, crush it into even finer paste beneath its heel, and add the fine powder your ribs have been turned into by the sledgehammer it whammed you with as a seasoning?

Anyway Nimona was great, 10/10 would recommend, I was crying on and off for what probably totaled 20 minutes of tears.

[nabaath-areng]

The weirdest part about FFXIV for me now is that for years I considered myself a newbie. I was always around people who had played longer than me, both legacy and not, and with it also being my first ever MMO they all seemed so experienced to me.

... And here I am now, forgetting that I am in a sense closer to all those players I looked up to back then. Year after year I've seen fewer and fewer legacy mounts and titles, and as time goes by I am more and more shocked by how many I interact with who describe Shadowbringers as "the old days". And not only that, I realize then that 5 years IS a long time, and that all the things I keep thinking of as new and flashy (Gpose, job gauges etc) have been in the game longer than they have not.

Mind you, I became psychotic less than a year into my FFXIV career, and then I spent nearly a decade after that trying to heal from both that as well as the paranoia it left me with, so in a sense the years 2015-2022 might as well not have happened in terms of me remembering them in a way that matters. My vague measure of time between 2014 to 2019 in particular is only possible because I memorized FFXIV patches, since the game was practically the only thing keeping me both sane and alive. I cannot tell you what I did IRL in November 2015, but I can tell you what I did during patch 3.1.

And I guess that's why it all feels so mindfucky to me? It's not like I can look back at my years in FFXIV like normal memories, so realizing that 10 years have passed in what to me felt like the blink of an eye, and then having to reconcile with my self perception and reality not quite adding up... it just makes it feel so weird? It kinda feels like waking up from a time bubble, where everyone else has lived normally and you have to adapt super fast to keep up with the changes you barely have time to process.

In a strange sense, many of the people I knew and loved at the time feel like fuzzy figures to me. Some of them I cannot even recall the names of, and some I remember nothing except for their names. I know they were real, because I have screenshots of us playing the game together... but it still feels very little like they're my own memories. It's not like amnesia, but I don't know how to describe it.

They're kind of like the Warrior's of Light who vanished during the Calamity as described in ARR. I know these people were there, and I know that they saved me when everything seemed hopeless... and yet when I try to recall their faces, all I see is light behind silouettes. When I try to say their names, they disappear on my tongue.

And it feels so shitty, because why wouldn't I remember people who were super close to me? But that was the nasty thing with being psychotic, I was so caught up with being constantly in terror, and being unable to determine what was real or not, that even the good things aren't more than vague flickers of light amidst the hopeless darkness I was in. I can barely claim to be the same person, because those years stole "me" for lack of a better way of putting it.

I feel like I came out of that situation a completely different person, someone who is ultimately more "real"... but that makes me question whether the people I held dear actually knew me. They knew a broken down person bearing my name, but I don't recognize that person at all. It was practically a stranger behind the wheel veering off the road over and over again and causing more damage to the vehicle itself.

And it sounds so stupid, I know, but FFXIV sincerely was my sole lifeline. It was the only normal thing... and yet it didn't shield me from the repercussions of losing my sense of self, as is evident in hindsight now that I'm out of the abyss that was my abode for years. It's like I fell asleep at 19 and woke up at 24, and suddenly I had to recalibrate the way I viewed myself and the way I no longer felt like I belonged with other people my age. And then another couple years were spent catching up and trying to "age" myself accordingly. All while fighting to rid myself of the paranoia and delusions that still had me in a chokehold.

And here I am now, running around in FFXIV, free from my delusions and my paranoia once and for all... all while still looking for the people that were around me when I had just started playing, and trying to process that the one safe place I had was just as fleeting as everything else in my life after all.

I should have known that, it's an obvious thing when spelling it out like such. But it shows me that despite having come this far, there's still a lot of work for me to do, and a lot of grief to come to terms with about everything I lost. Things that one may take for granted, that can never be reclaimed once it's gone.

[tantumuna]

what's crazy to me is multiple times i've received encouragement to start drawing again, even when i mention that the only reason i've considered drawing again is as a desperate ploy for attention

but whenever i talk about my writing i either get ignored or told to "write for yourself"

like just tell me you don't value writing as an art form. it'll be easier than having to dance through whatever the fuck this is

[moonilit]

Cloud: 

Tifa: *sight* I'm really worried for Barrett…

Cloud: 

Tifa: and you ofc be careful…

Cloud: 

Cloud: *fear*

[undercoverangell]

everyday the voices tell me to make a legendary/little wolf animatic

[oh-cramity-its-amity]

my friend: i want to listen to more music :(

my friend: billy. you should send me some of your music. show me some sick metal punk whatever music.

me: *shaking with excitement anxiety in the corner*

me: w-what...?

also me: okay so like... *inserts spotify links*

enemy of the world - four year strong

letters to our former selves - youth fountain

tribulation worksongs - modern life is war

let it enfold you - senses fail

turn on the bright lights - interpol

misery made me - silverstein

for when you're falling backwards - rome hero foxes

lifes not out to get you - neck deep

my friend: GODDAMN

my friend: thanks for the music

[blue-nebraska]

Day thirty-one: Laura Palmer

Laura! Without her there would be no story, but who was she? I couldn’t think of what to draw for this, because her character is (of course) only represented in the show through others, remembering her more for what they wanted her to be than how she truly was. It may sound silly because she’s just a fictional character, but I wanted to draw something that felt true to her, rather than one of the empty tropes she embodies (prom queen/dead girl/doppelganger). I was working on previous prompts and watching the first episode of season two, where the Palmers, the Haywards, and Maddy are having their dinner party. Harriet read the poem she wrote about Laura and it struck me as being so authentic, and so unlike any other characters’ tribute to her, that I decided to use that as my foundation. I am really happy with this, I feel like I’ve done right by Laura which is what I set out to do with this last drawing.

ID: A black and white drawing. In the right is Laura Palmer, wearing a skirt and a sweater with her back towards us, looking over her shoulder. There is a white glow around her figure. Beyond her is a dark forest with trees white trees and branches that fold over her. To the left is the text from the poem by Harriet Hayward.

[tommygotwrittenoff]

i need eddie to get another guy friend in season 8, and buck loses his shit about it (again), so he breaks up with t because he's convinced that the weird feeling he gets when he sees them together is because he is Really attracted to the new guy.

[phagodyke]

was gonna say smth else but this turned into a vent sorry everyone just ignore. typical weekend post on this blog u know how it is here we go👍

[moshieee]

Love how I'm scared to even like posts of most cool people as if they'll somehow notice me and track me down even tho they get tens to hundreds of likes on their posts

[scarletcomet]

might have accidentally given my bunny 2 doses of the same antibiotic instead of 2 different antibiotics, and now im freaking out.

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...