#okay i dont think i can impliment this idea BUT

[42-42-564]

black☆star being raised at the dwma, and ostensibly by lord death to some extent, is probably part of why he's so sure "surpassing god" is something that can happen. lord death is Just Some Guy to him

[ruthlesslistener]

Okay having now seen Jurassic Park in full I can say:

a.) Everybody telling me not to bring back the dinosaurs because they're dangerous is full of shit, all these animals are attacking people because they are VASTLY underfed and understimulated. The entire movie was the animals toying with them bc they were bored and likely hungry, not because carnivores just...do that. The entire animal care team and handling was a goddamn disaster. C-

b.) The geneticists were fucking stupid, who the FUCK would patch AMPHIBIAN DNA into REPTILES, they're as distantly related to them as amphibians are to us!! Use bird DNA!! Or DNA from other reptiles! Fuck!!!

c.) On the same note, whoever thought to use all female dinosaurs was huffing paint thinners bc fucking. DAMN IT. PARTHINOGENISIS IS A THING IN REPTILES. YOU DONT EVEN NEED FANCY AMPHIBIAN DNA FOR THAT I AM RATTLING THEIR GENETICISTS BY THE SCRUFF OF THE NECK WITH MY TEETH ARE YOU ALL FUCKING IDIOTS

d.) The lysine contingency plan wouldn't have worked as a useful failsafe because it would have taken too long for the animals to run out of lysine to halt their metabolisms- the killswitch idea is excellent tho and is a legit tactic used for transgenic organisms so A+ for them implimenting that there. I don't exactly have an alternative method either bc I'm not good with metabolism, I just know that depriving them of lysine would likely be bullshit

e.) All the kill scenes were waaay too censored and way less people died than I thought :( major salt to my dad for not letting me watching this as a kid because it would be 'too scary' or 'make me violent' bc this shit was a letdown for how tame it was. Still a good movie but very much not a horror movie

f.) This is an outstanding movie about the hubris of man but I see now why people would think that the moral of the story is 'playing god and bringing back dinosaurs bad' when its really 'billionares are fucking idiots and should trust a wide variety of scientists'. Hammond chose a bunch of fucking idiots to help run his park and trying to monetize living creatures is never a good thing. This is why peer review exists!! This is why its important!!!

g.) this film reminded me that i will never see a living non-avian dinosaur irl and i am sad :(

[regrettablemeasure]

THAT BEING SAID, heres my list of criticisms for CP2077 so far because i’m not just blindly praising it. under a readmore for a few spoilers, one major character spoiler so if you’re playing don’t read this until youre finished with act 1

this isnt bringing into the account of the criticisms console players are talking about bc im on PC, but i completely agree with frustrated console players about launch being a mess.

the fact that they cut you being able to take jackie with you to go meet with meredith is really frustrating. i wonder if they lost time and it broke something because it was in the gameplay demo from a while back.

on the same vein, t-bugs ‘death’ was so sudden and fast that i didn’t even register it as her supposedly dying until v brings it up later in the level. i thought she had just gotten hurt and booted from the program. if she’s actually dead i’m going to be incredibly disappointed and its going to be one of my few genuine sour notes on the game.

the romances are laughably inserted and shouldn’t have even been part of marketing in my opinion. from my understanding it looks like they’re all sidequests and there’s only like four of them total anyways. dont bother if your v isnt into one of the two options they have and just pretend youre kissin whoever you want lol

takemuras introduction was amazing but i feel like i missed a dialog somewhere that explained why he ended up getting chased by arasaka so fast after the events of act 1. i know his motivation but am a little confused about whats going on.

in the same vein, some optional dialog choices don’t actually feel optional if you don’t want to feel like you’re missing context for whats going on. i don’t mean this in a lore way, i mean this in a basic narrative way. 

i like that v clearly has their own personality that you kinda tweak and manipulate through your own actions, like with geralt in the witcher series. however i completely understand if people were lead to believe they’d be getting COMPLETE FREEDOM and are let down by the reality of V being a slightly less mailable character. as someone who likes witcher and the dragon age and mass effect series i’m okay with my oc having a pre-ordained personality but marketing could easily have misled people to believe otherwise and thats a totally valid complaint.

i love jackie to DEATH and hes one of the most likable videogame characters ever. however i do wonder sometimes if he suffers from ‘bilingual people don’t talk like that’ syndrome. it can get kinda muddy given how translators work in this universe.

in the same vein i think some of the calls for the game being transphobic or misogynist are overblown but i feel like part of it is the game might not be properly relaying that the overly sexual, violent, objectifying advertisements in 2077 is actually part of the lore and not CD trying to be cheeky ala Saints Row. Its a crit on consumerism and how desensitized the populace of the future gets to hatred, violence, and sex that it has to be overblown to the point of ludicracy. it might not translate for someone who hasn’t taken the time to look into the lore or familarize themselves with the vibe of the series before picking up the game. YES it is incredibly gritty and dark, but thats the point. However I think that fact needed to be communicated better because it just won’t be palatable for some people. Its stuff like this that makes me think we really need content warnings ALA fanfic for... all media, really. its a good idea. i could see the ‘fuckable piece of meat’ line being genuinely terrifying for some people and it comes out of nowhere. I like dark media and content but i don’t know if the game properly conveys beforehand that this is a BLEAK. world. BLEAK. 

i also think, unfortunately, its clear the team was crunched and ran out of time for a lot of things they wanted to add into the game. i feel like tying gender to v’s voice was the most elegant solution they had considering all of the voicelines in game. not saying it’s the best solution, but i’m glad they did that rather than tie it to body type or genetalia.

that being said i wish you could have a biotic pussy or dick in this game just bc that would be some cool transhumanism. same in general i wish you could replace limbs or eventually get more cyberware options that changed how you look.

I’m glad they’re gonna fix the epilepsy trigger but I’m also surprised and disappointed no one caught that might be a problem earlier on. I wonder what play testing was like.

Also glad the dev team isnt going to be treated like the new vegas team and they’re getting their bonus regardless of the game’s review score. that’s some stupid bullshit but every publisher does that shit unfortunately.

the fact you cant change your makeup, cybernetics, or hair after the start is dumb and i hope they fix that.

the c key being for crouching AND skipping dialogue is inelegant to say the least. you can fix it in settings for skipping dialogue to be ‘hold c’ but it shouldn’t have been an issue in the first place.

ai definitely wasnt finished and it shows. largely in how theres clearly no AI driving and how cops feel half-implimented.

managing stash is CONFUSING. so is the hacking minigame until you get used to it.

it is a LITTLE apparent that you’re going to go into Cutscene Time because characters tell you to sit somewhere specific. However once you’re in those locked scenes the game is still super immersive and beautiful so it’s not too bad.

i don’t understand why youd buy a car when you have one already and a motorcycle but i’ll still probably shop around for funsies

combat definitely feels floaty but ive played bethesda games and nothing can be as bad as those so its fine for me.

i know there’s more but thats what i have so far. I’m having a great time but those are my Thots.

[jhindraven]

okay now that issue 6 is out and ive read the thing like 3 times, im gonna do my full review/breakdown of the zed comic and allll my thoughts on it.

no screenshots bc i dont want this to be longer than it is already, and also im not gonna talk about the art itself either. this is simply about the characters, the story, and how that relates to the lore of league itself.

all of this is my opinion, you can agree or disagree with me whatever, yadda yadda lets begin

ISSUE ONE

Probably the best one? In my opinion. The lack of expectations really helped this one not suck. Also the most consistent when it comes to characters personalities, comparing them to the in-game voice lines from league and the card game.

There are scenes in issue 1 that almost foreshadow, or at least reference, the events of Issue 6, specifically Zed looking up to the statue of Kusho, and how Zed kills Althon vs how Zed kills Kusho later on.

The dialogue between Shen and Akali is.. a little clunky? Shen’s dialogue is just a little. formal. but to the point that he sounds like he’s lecturing a stranger, not talking to a former student.

Jhin giving Zed his scalpel from 19 years ago is a neat detail that I wish they used more in the story. Sure, we can assume now that Jhin probably only got it because Kusho gave it to him at some point after releasing him- which means that the scalpel is one of the many wasted plot opportunities I’ll bring up here. Part of the appeal of that scene, if only just for me, was the idea that Jhin stole it from Zed while he wasn’t looking. I remember people pointing out background characters and being like “but what if that’s Jhin there! what if he was there all along!!”  But that has now been thrown out the window.

A thing I wish they did was shown more of Jhin’s ‘performances’, even if only in a montage. To show more of the impact this had on Zed and Shen, the strain it put on them mentally and emotionally, and how it affected their relationship. But I understand time and probably page restraints. So whatever about that.

Again, I think this was the best one. Set up the story well, showed why everything happening is important for the character. Neat, cool. Let’s move on

ISSUE 2

Seeing the bodies was pretty fucked up, but tbh? That shit vibed. It’s one of those things I hoped they were gonna do and they did. The bodies looking like porcelain with gold blood?? And the peacock feathers???? Thats fuckin cool as hell.  Then they never did it again.

In the flashback comes one of the worst fucking things in this comic. Yevnai.

Listen I adore Yevnai as a character, one of my favourites to come from the comic. You know, in the ONE ISSUE SHE ACTUALLY SHOWS UP IN????? She shows up as simply conflict between Shen and Zed (which never actually comes up mind you), as bait for Jhin, and for? Zed to show that he can sense magic from her kids to show that she’s been cheating on her husband with Quno the vastayan servant (bc we know Zed hates vastaya i guess?). oh and Guess What? the sensing magic thing also doesn’t show up again. 

Oh and Jhin follows Zed to Yevnai’s place. But nothing happens from that.

Issue 2 was good, but just a total waste imo. A lot of plot points set up only to never happen again. Best things about it were dead bodies, Jhin’s tiny Zed and Shen puppets, and the knowledge that Shen still writes letters to Yevnai :’(

ISSUE 3

I got so fucking pissed when this issue came out, no shit. They took the events of The Man With The Steel Cane and just. Threw it out the window. I did a whole other post about my issues with it so I won’t just rewrite the same shit twice. But I had to actually stop reading and pace angrily for a bit. I HATE issue 3 bro.

The scene with Kusho :) . Good to know that was now a waste of misdirection because EVERYONE seemed to call that Kusho was still alive. What bullshit. But I’ll get to that.

The inconsistencies in character really show in this one. And that connects to it being a shitty rewrite of The Man With The Steel Cane. They probably wanted a fight between Shen and Zed by this point, being halfway through the comic, and just shoved it in there. Doesn’t mean I’m not mad about it.

Akali and Kayn’s dialogue was probably the best thing in the entire issue. I don’t vibe with Akali/Kayn as a ship personally, but it got a giggle out of me im ngl.

Akali attacking Zed. I guess yeah sure she would. Fits her whole “fuck you i wont do what you tell me shen” vibe. But SHEN? calling off the armistice between the yánléi and kinkou due to the actions of one of HIS ex-students?? Shen would never. Let’s add another point to the ‘This Is Really Out Of Character’ board!

The sworn and witnessed scene was nice, it’s what Kayn deserves. Finally knowing the Kashuri Faction was nice, too bad they never get fucking mentioned ever again I guess.

There’s so many references to The Man With The Steel Cane that they could’ve implimented so much better, especially dialogue. I can’t read the original story without feeling cheated out of what it was before Issue 3. So more wasted potential I guess.

Issue 4

This was a big step up from Issues 2-3. My personal favourite, but not the best (if that makes sense). But there isn’t too much to talk about here? Jhin sets off his bombs from the last issue, it looks cool, but there’s no real story to talk about here. There is a lot of character stuff to talk about though.

Zed choosing to save Shen over getting Jhin is fucking HUGE for Zed as a character. For a character so hellbent on vengence throughout the entire thing choosing instead to save his "hated enemy and closest friend” ?? im sobbing.

This whole comic was emotional as hell, and the most character development we ever fucking saw in this thing. From Zed’s daddy issues to the realisation that Zed’s shadows are shades of Jhin and Kusho (which is now fucking hilarious and makes no sense after Issue 6).

There was a lot of setup for plotpoints that actually did show up later for once, like Kayn being the temporary leader and all that jazz. What it had in emotion, it seemed to lack in real story progression until the end. 

Issue 5

This issue was weird for me. Like there was a lot of plot and a lot of character shit that seemed so condensed that it felt like nothing. Zed’s confession in the cell-wagon and the information that Shen was out fighting Noxians too? Alright, sure okay. 

Shen still seems wildly out of character for me, since we mostly know him as this beacon of peace and calm- he’s so violent towards Zed all the time it’s strange. Like he points a sword at Zed while saying that he isn’t allowed to kill Jhin, wtf

The callback to Awaken is fucking superb. Really solidifies that video into the lore of the game. Camille being mentioned had me like :hearteyes: This is a nitpick- but I wish we knew what happened at the end of Awaken. Is Camille okay? Did Jhin get injured? It was a week ago, if he did get injured- where and how did he recover so fast? Little details  that I wanna know, not really for any real story purposes.

Rhaast finally showing up :hearteyes:, nothing else to add bc nothing else happened with him.

Jhin making the most of Piltoven technology is really cool, and its a scene that made me go “OH YEAH he was a stagehand for a good period of time!!”  That’s what we call Tying In Pre-Existing Lore fellas.

Jhin just really shined in this issue. Really set him up to be The Big Bad of the comic, like he had a monologue and everything! Once again, though, that gets absolutely wasted by Issue 6.

Issue 6

Where do I fucking start?

Let’s start with Jhin. I don’t know about yall, but since we spent a solid 5 issues chasing after him I expected more of a dramatic fight. More like the explosions in Issue 4. But uh we got. Some fancy prop work before he got punched in the face twice and thrown on the ground. It’s What He Deserves but like you know, he deserved worse.

As much as I didn’t want it to happen, I’m disappointed they didn’t unmask him at all. His mask was still fucking pristine by the end of the fight!! Not a scratch, not a chip!! But to be fair I think we got maybe 2 pages worth of a physical fight with Jhin so,, sure. Whatever. Out goes 5 issues of setting up? Not to downplay the conflict in that scene of course, I think it was pretty cool. It was just so anticlimactic at the end like wh-

Kusho! Haha they got us good!! The dead dude is actually still alive oooo~ [heavy sarcasm]. Why. It wasn’t a good twist! It was a “oh. okay yeah sure” twist. This might be my heat of the moment response but I have no words for how cheap and absolutely horseshit that twist is. Good thing we only have to think about it for 10 pages because HE FUCKING DIES AGAIN. WHAT A WASTE!!

Whatever, whatever, thinking about it makes me so mad because they set it up barely in Issue 5? I’m just tired this actually drained me irl.

At least we have baby Kayn and good dad Zed at the end to cleanse us of that.

HEY actually did you know that they thought that Good Dad Zed was considered contoversial by Marvel’s editors?? HUH????

whatever, whatever. i’m pissed. 

BONUS SHIT

So Jhin’s lore has now had an update to connect with the comic. And it’s fucking weird. Now suddenly Kusho didn’t care about catching Jhin after he found out it was just a human person murdering people? And that it was essentially Not Their Job anymore??? excuse me??

CONCLUSION?

This comic started with a good beginning and a lot of potential. It brought up so many new theories and so many new headcanons. But all that potential and all that interesting story got washed away with unconnected plot points, ‘important’ characters that show up once, and a cheap twist ending that simultaneously came out of nowhere and was easily predicted (in the bad way). It was a fun read for a while, but the ending has soured the experience I had reading it.

Some issues may come from time + page constraints, and the limitations of the medium. But those were mostly minor issues. I wanna give the artists and the writers the benefit of the doubt, maybe blame Marvel as I like to do. But...

6 months worth of waiting for an ending like this? I’m just disappointed.

[starclanmemes]

and okay, my thoughts as AVoS as a whole

AVOS was very much like TNP, in that you can split it into two really distinct arcs: the darktail arc, and the skyclan arc. 

i think the darktail arc was one of the better warriors storylines in a long time! it introduced some great characters (needletail, violetshine, alderheart, puddleshine, sleekwhisker). the villain was effective and great at building a sense of dread and tension. darktail’s kin had efrafa vibes, and that’s high compliments. overall it really had some nuanced character beats and was a nice change. having a more down to earth, political drama was nice after OOTS. 

the skyclan arc was... pointless. it was an okay idea for the middle of an arc, but not for the second half. there was nothing glaringly wrong with it overall, but there was also nothing really good. it was clans squabbling, and not in a fun way. the conclusion felt forgone and every obstacle frustrating. interesting characters were mellowed and given kits, because of course. most of the problems were “a natural disaster!”, but not in the kind of nail-biting way like the fire in rising storm is 

now, book by book

apprentice’s quest was.... fine. quest books tend to be middling in quality at best. its biggest strength is the needlepaw/alderpaw dynamic, sandstorm getting a larger role before her death, and the introduction of darktail.

thunder and shadow was good! that’s how you do political drama and rising tension. the twigpaw and violetpaw dynamic is heartbreaking, and needletail and violetpaw are both really established as interesting and nuanced characters. the conflict feels fresh and honestly you don’t know what will happen. 

shattered sky is good! darktail’s kin is a really good antagonist group. im torn about his backstory, but eh, it clearly resonated with a lot of people. twigpaw’s characterization is best here, i think her beat of “obsessed with her origin” was interesting and distinguished her from violetpaw nicely, too bad it was lost here. needletail’s arc is absolutely heartbreaking. i dont think its any coincidence that needletail’s death and the onewhisker/darktail final battle have cemented themselves as commonly drawn scenes. it might just be because it was so refreshing, but id say thunder and shadow and shattered sky were definitely two of the better modern WC books

what happened in darkest night...? um, the only parts i remember about this are tree, and the ending with the ghosts. was this the one where they brought back skyclan? that was okay. tree was interesting, if poorly implimented at first imo. the part with violetshine getting to see needletail again, and dawnpelt appearing, that was really nice. honestly this book was justified by that last scene, it was the perfect bittersweet conclusion to the darktail arc. and the idea of cats trapped until they move on was not bad

river of fire was. eh. in retrospect it was okay for a fifth book. but so LITTLE happened, i mean the only thing i really remember was “riverclan doesn’t want to open its borders, and then there’s a fire and then have to”. the epidemic plot goes NOWHERE, and briarlight’s fridging really can’t be forgiven

i talked about raging storm. honestly it was even more nothing than river of fire. juniperclaw would have been more interesting of a character if like... anything was interesting. the conclusion to violetshine’s arc was kind of insulting, and twigbranch’s arc was ????. what was alderheart’s arc? 

overall this arc was just... the first half had some really bright moments and great new characters! and then it dissolved into an utter mess. the attempt to implement tigerheart’s shadow halfway through broke the tension in darkest night and river of fire. 

its a minor detail but im still very annoyed that they made this big deal about fernsong being a queen after ivypool stopped nursing but ? never delivered on it? its unclear if ivypool is still nursing, but the last we see she’s in the nursery with spunky kits and fernsong is NOWHERE to be seen. come the fuck on

anyway i love needletail and violetshine and think the arc was worthwhile for them, but otherwise. eh. OOTS was a disaster but warriors really badly needs a singular, arc-long threat again!!! 

[kalon-confessions-blog]

Hello my dears,

[asap if you will tree]

phew okay so please please bare with me on this, it's going to be long and rambling and im sure it will jump back and forth a lot so you've had a fair amount of warning :p

im going to start off with the long "essay" posts from yesterday, just to kinda get my foot hold on things c: and guys please understand that in writing this i am really not trying to come off as rude or attackful or anything, and i apologize if i do or if i come off overly "unprofessional" it seems a lot of the time when i try to be super professional i come off as condescending or cold and when i try to be a bit more relaxed im just being silly or unprofessional.

"artists not doing anything for months and then getting to come back whenever they want, taking up a slot that could’ve been an active artist filled with energy and vigor to create instead."

I've seen this mentioned a lot ,, the whole slot thing. the thing is guys, that we don't have a set number of "slots" on staff ,, really we base what we think we need on how efficiently the staff we currently have is functioning. I know recently [the last month or so] things have been a little slow but you have to remember that it was the end of the year, many staff members [and heck people in general] we're busy with finals/vacations/family/the holidays and a whole slew of other things. Bringing in more staff during the holiday season because there a bit of a dip in activity doesn't really make a whole bunch of sense in my opinion because its just the natural ebb and flow of how things go, it happens every year. 

"nursery slots being weeks and even months overdue while dozens of personal work and things for other people get put out"

I'll be the first to admit ,, this is actually a bit of a problem ,, it doesn't happen with every artists but I do understand that sometimes owed work gets forgotten, especially when the artist keeps taking on more and more in an attempt to keep up with demand that the community has created. we are aware of this, and myself and Karmel have been discussing it for quite awhile and throwing ideas back and forth for a way to manage it ,, at the time I think we have a pretty solid solution and it after a bit more discussing and working out the kinks it should be able to be implemented fairly soon and shouldn't take too long to see the effects c: i do apologize to anyone that has been on the brunt end of having to wait. one thing you can always do though is message the artist directly to see whats up, and if you don't get an answer then you can always come to myself or Karmel [or if you're noticing something that you aren't a part of you can even submit it to us anonymously via ask or tumblr!!

"hardly anyone but a handful of artists having hm customs open almost constantly, and i’m sure we all know why that is, other than the few artists who genuinely can’t open slots right now."

HM customs have always been a bit of tricky situation since it was switched so that only offical team members could do them and I do apologize that it was never fully explored how to best impliment this system. in the beginning i dont think it was set up to handle a community the size of which we have and hasn't ever really been revised to help fix it. with that being said though we do have a fancy new thread you may want to check out !! its still in the works as all the artists find their spots but there are already several artists who have started using it if you would like to keep track. its called the <a href="http://www.chickensmoothie.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=87&t=3701780">Kalon Artist Alley</a>!! essentially every artist on the Kalon team has a post here and they will be able to detail what work they are open for, lay out what projects they currently have, and list any examples or prices [as they may apply] for their work! with this it should make it a lot more easy to find an artist that is open to HM customs and browse just who you might want to partner with!

"staff not responding even to help questions until it’s irrelevant or the other person completely forgot they even asked. not enough nursery artists who are actually active to compensate for the rise in kalon members looking for batches."

I do apologize for any questions that have went unanswered! Its really unfortunate that we've gotten this reputation, but I do swear to you that it is never intentional! Sometimes I so wish I could just show you guys a day in the life of the staff chat, it is honestly off the hook 24/7 with people chatting about all kinds of different business from questions to designs/growths/rule breaking and a whole slew of everything in between! And often times our inboxes are just the same, I know mine is! Things fall through the cracks sometimes in a community so big and id be willing to bet that more often than not we actually have discussed the question at hand and it may just be that the conversation rolled over to something new that distracted the original staff member handling it from responding to you and then never picked it back up. that is something that we will have to start working a lot harder on, but like i said, it is absolutely never intentional that we are forgetting responses. if you dont hear back usually within 72 hours it is absolutely okay for you to resend the message or to send it to a new staff member !!

"staff don’t have an obligation to be active since if they aren’t, they don’t get the activity rewards, but again, like i said in a previous point, artist activity is a serious issue that isn’t taken seriously enough, or at all. if people aren’t active but get on to post maybe one kalon every few months, that’s an issue and needs to be talked to with the person. if they can’t get on enough to post kalons more than every few months, maybe they should take a break and someone who can be more active can be brought in."

like you mentioned, i kinda touched on this one in the first response, however I would also like to point something else out. while i dont consider Kalons to be a business and myself and Karmel dont run them as such, even if you are looking at this from a real world employment there are actually a lot of different levels of activity that are acceptable!! normally you have full time ,, part time ,, and PRN [as needed] employees all working for the same company. my artists are just like that in a lot of respects and its completely unfair to say they dont deserve compensation for what they do when they are able to do it. they aren't taking up a slot from anyone else and they are still providing amazing designs and input into the community ,, heck a lot of the time when an artist is unable to make designs they are still active in the staff chat and in other areas that may not be their primary duty as an artist.

" staff apparently being too big to manage properly"

[cutting this one a little short]

you are absolutely right !! we have said this a lot and that's because we really do mean it !! and when we talk about staff being too big to manage we dont actually mean that all those names are just too much, we mean that the active people that we are currently managing is quite a lot !! looking back on our activity documentation for the last 6 months there has consistently been an average of 30+ active artists working !! and that not even including our mods or myself and Karmel ,, for two people who have adult lives off the internet that is a lot to manage and we are trying our absolute best while still not spreading ourselves too thin because then the issues that you have already expressed just become more exaggerated when we have to provide them with even less attention than we already do. and while we think that the staff we have right now is very strong and putting out a lot of work already [did you know that last month alone over 200 designs were put into the community just from the nursery and main adopts ?? and over the last 6 months over 2,000 designs were?] we have opened the nursery search again and may soon be opening the main artists search as well to alleviate some of the demand that you guys are throwing out there c: 

I'm not going to quote any of the last point as its quite long but to a degree I would like to agree, just in all honesty. I haven't been able to be a real part of the actually community for quite some time since becoming a co-owner and in that time from the position i am in I have seen a lot of stuff. I know that it may seem like no body cares but really I think the issue is just in a community this large in general it can be hard to find a foot hold. now im not making any excuses for those that go out of their way to ignore everyone or only talk to their friend group, but I do also know a lot of people that try their hardest to talk to new people or as many people as they can. i wish there were some easy clear cut way that I could address this and have it fixed in just a couple of days but the sad truth is that you are right, this is more than just what we as staff can tackle by ourselves and really takes the effort of the entire community but we are trying to promote it !! our events have shifted from just token grabs to be more development and cooperation based and often offer or require the interaction with community members that you may not know !! while I dont have any wonderful news for how we plan to fix it please know that we see the rift and we do want to fix it ,, if you or anything really has suggestions or just wants to talk about the experiences that made their introduction to the community better/worse i would honestly really urge you to come talk to me or any staff member. i promise you for all the anxiety it can cause to message one of us we are really just a group of massive dweebs and our side chat would definately prove that. we don't ever aim to make anyone uncomfortable or to be rude when responding to you guys and i apologize if it has ever come off that way when dealing with one of us with Kalon related things. one good thing about such a big staff is that if you have an issue with one of us you can always find someone else <3

Im sure i've missed some stuff and i know i had origianlly planned to address more than just the essay posts but its getting late for me and I have a really big day tomorrow ,, so if ive missed someone or you guys have anything else you would like to have addressed I would actually really urge you to send it on over to the Kalon tumblr. you can find it at kalon-adopts.tumblr.com [where this was submitted from] !! i vagued it earlier but yeah !! its brand spanking new and still under a lot of construction as far as  coding and the like goes but it is functional !! as much as i despise the premise of both of the confessions blog i have realized that Tumblr has become quite an ingrained part of the CS and Kalon community and I would love to continue engage with you guys over it. I know its not the same as the confessions blog but hopefully you will feel more at ease contacting us anonmously there or just sharing your views and opinions in general c: we plan to eventually link the blog on our CS pages once its compeltely set up so please keep in mind nothing explicit will ever be allowed to be submitted there.

ack so yeah here's my really long and drawn out submission that i promised earlier c: i hope you guys read a bit of it and maybe understand a bit more now. i know sometimes it can seem like the staff is being really quiet and maybe not doing anything at all but i can assure you that we are always abuzz and honestly we are just about everywhere listening to just about everything and in some way or another almost all complaints are brought up and discussed. we may not post or announce every little move we are making but i cross my heart and pinky promise that we are working tirelessly to try and improve this community for you guys and for ourselves ,, we love this species and we know that without each and every one of you there wouldn't be anything for us to love so we want to make it as friendly and functioning as we can. all i ask is that you give us a little understanding and patients and i promise you are going to see the positive outcome <3

[also please forgive any mistake its late for me and im tired and not the best at typing anyways lol]

-Wicced!

[tumblunni]

HEYO! oh man now my friend helped me get all inspired again for working on my Cathedral Tower Defense game so WOO lets have another long post of miscellaneous ideasies for storyness! may not be very coherant tho cos i am super tired and ill! but happy!! THANKS SUMMON-DAZE FOR BEING MY ULTRA BESTIE

* Okay now I am super sure that I’m gonna let you choose the gender of the protagonist! And I wanna keep it so that their name is Amity either way, cos that’s kinda stuck in my mind. Surname Amity, player gets to decide the first name, but people will still be calling you Amity a lot at first cos you start off all awkward and formal with everybody. You’re a newcomer to this cathedral town and nobody knows whether to trust you, from their perspective you’re this dangerous person theyre forced to accept just because they need you to help protect them, whether you’re good or bad. They’re all worried what price they might have to pay for this, trying to figure out how to minimize the damage if you turn on them... and its not like they’re bad people for being untrustworthy, they’re just scared people huddling in a church and trying to keep their families safe at any cost. So try and prove your worth to them, and help them learn to protect themselves too, and make this ramshackle settlement into a real home! ....anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, gender selection is a good! And it could be relatively easy to impliment too, cos of the situation. Doesnt even necessarily have to be a menu or anything, it could just be like sir amity/lady amity/master amity. Cos you’re this paladin knighto, itd make sense for them to ask for your title. And it could just be like a shot of protagonist’s badass silhouette in the gateway of the cathedral and then you get the dialogue choice to pick your identity, and its all Super Cool~!

* It also actually gives me more of an idea of what i could do for their design, like I dunno maybe they have some sort of face-concealing helm or headdress or something. I was just thinking of them being dressed like a generic nun or princess but maybe emphasize more on the knight aspect instead of the holy part? So like anyway, maybe they have a very all-concealing outfit and that could be the framing of the first scene instead, its like *pulls off the mask and you’re into the character selection screen* Orrrrrr maybe there doesnt need to be any magical setup for a gender selection and it can just be a menu before the first scene starts XD Or maybe you have a cool face-concealing helmet thing anyway, like all three gender options just have a different one, lol

* More random magical names i got via the cool name generator site summon-daze linked to me! Dunno if I’ll actually use any of these but im writing them down here so i dont forget. Berebath, Betnia, Amurziz, Jetre, Miemahl, Semdach, Batxahl, Sidefarch, Botolohn, Vausach, Thammoch, Droibhal, Lekonach, Zeidhal, Tieloch, Rabrohm, Maesur, Smoiroch, Baelbuhr, Axoth, Jige, Chushou, Hukru, Nejeget, Roucu,  Jinah, Aujus, Yekoth, Nugresah, Israfel, Jabriel, Tabris, Douma

* Also I’m remembering Jade Cocoon and how I liked that the different ‘families’ of monsters shared naming traits. Like how all those weird snake/slug cutiepies that i loved best were nushab, rashab, etc etc. And tamatoch and somethingtoch and so on. I think there was at least one where the modifier was a prefix too? I dunno why i’m talking about this, but there you go. I just think if i wanna do full original made up names for demon species then i wanna make em stuff that just... feels like that. I dont actually wanna make like five different elements of each one tho, i wanna have only one per element and then they have like two different higher level finalized forms. Like, the human characters can have two job classes each and the demons can have two specializations within an element. That helps me think about how to limit it down to four or five elements, if we can combine common fantasy elements together! And yeah I was thinking it’d be cool if the demon ‘job classes’ could have their own evolving appearances and new names!

* Thoughts for the ol elemental groupings! The only one I really have finalized is grass + poison = same thing. Florin, why u always the character that gets developed faster than everyone else XD And I’m thinking giving them their own made up names would make it easier! Like how in SMT you have spells being stuff like ‘media’ and ‘agi’ instead of cure and fire. But here (hopefully) it’d be easier to memorize cos its just the element names that’re fantasy words, and the attacks themselves would be a little more self explanatory. i just think it’d work cos like... the idea i had of rock and fire being one single demon type, you could just call that magma. But i mean, what can you call plant + poison? Except.. like.. plant. Cos poison is reasonably often a grass type skill anyway. And i mean, game creators dont often worry about making sense, what with how ‘grass’ is the common element name when thats just one plant in a million. I cant stop thinking about that now I’ve noticed it! I legit thought grass was a synonym for plant when i was a kid, i learned to read from pokemon yellow... ANYWAY IM GETTING OFFTOPIC AGAIN The other idea I had for groupings was fire + non-elemental together? I was just thinking like... aura. Non elemental/physical attack as a ‘magic’ could be fighting spirit! And thematically speaking it tends to be shown as fire effects in anime, i guess XD But then i couldnt put fire with rock and that means I’d have to redesign malachi again. his design ended up looking more firey than rocky :P Another idea is maybe darkness + non-elemental together? like, interpret non-elemental as ‘void’. Or light and dark could be together actually, that could be an interesting way to do it, instead of having them opposing. Like maybe the elements could be colours! Grey element, able to specialize into white or black but neither is any sort of ‘good and evil’. And then the rest could be like green or like.. instead of red maybe fire could be bronze and thats why it has rock skills too? or man, maybe rock and metal could be one element and fire could be grouped with something else. And would water and ice be too ordinary and boring? do they already kinda count as one element? should I throw in something else? GAHHHHHHH

* Ideas for the multiple religious groups aligned with each element! I’m thinking I want one of them to interpret the setting’s absent god as two deities. like, every perspective on this deity is a wildly different character, this one is just even more so! they’d see malahat (tentative name) as two people, but kinda more like a shared soul that can manifest as either a male or female form. But there’d be ambiguity and debates in the mythos over whether this is actually a genderfluid god, or if its ‘twins who were cursed to never exist at the same time’, or various other variations on the story. I wanna make it like real life, where even within (for example) catholocism, there’s different sects and different translations of the same text. And where there’s predjudice against minority groups and people like to twist their faith to ‘justify’ it, even when parts of the original tale could easily justify treating those people with kindness too. So there’d be some followers of the twins religion who are very openminded to LGBTQ people, and historically anyone trans was able to hold a unique position as a priest, being treated as someone blessed by god. But like in norse mythology, this wasnt necessarily a sign that society was 100% okay with LGBTQ people. Its kinda depressing to read about how trans women and gay men were considered the only people able to become a specific kind of witches, but also how you kinda HAD to take this one safety net in society to stop people from making you an outcast. It was like ‘make them fear me so they dont fuckin kill me’. You had to become a medicine person and at least claim to believe in these magic powers, you had to be blessed by the gods to prove you were like.. one of the good ones. Otherwise its like youre saying the gods made a mistake when they made you, or youre choosing to be a deviant against nature. i can only imagine how terrifying it must have been if you believed in that religion and had to like.. be forced to go against it and leave society, or be forced to lie about being chosen by a god for a higher purpose, while believing that any moment you might get struck down for lying. And then I read in other history books about how the concept of homosexuality was far different in that old society too, how male-on-male sex was accepted at sea as long as you were the dominant one and you were forcing something unwanted onto a lesser shipmate as punishment. Like ugh, rape being more socially accepted than consensual LGBTQ relationships! I guess the only solace is that we can never be 100% sure how much of historians’s theories are correct and what might have changed in retellings of history, but honestly I can believe the past is this fucked up when the present is already fucked up in different ways. BUT ANYWAY I wanna explore those themes in my story maybe. And I wanna do more research into the subject to make sure I’m doing it justice, even though its a very sad subject that might be quite stressful. Maaaaan, I remember how I used to obsess about researching norse myth as a kid, it was one of my first Special Interests and I really wanted to see all the different reinterpretations of Loki and write my own fanfic/adaptation/vaguely inspired original story about What If He Stayed A Good Guy. Man I had soooo much sympathy for the poor sod. I mean it depends on the retelling whether he was always evil or whether he was like a comedic neutral ally to the gods who just abruptly becomes evil and gets killed off without remorse in the final story. And gahhh he’s like the biggest LGBTQ bastion in the whole mythos, and how can I not feel sympathetic?? When we get all these stories about him being a literal genderfluid shapeshifter and giving birth to half of his children and just like seriously its like The Story Of the One Trans Man In Homophobic Transphobic Valhalla and he was probably meant to seem Bad and Funny and whatever but im gonna sit here and grumpily cling onto the idea that he was deliberately written as trans, or that if these gods actually do exist out there somewhere then Loki would support me. *pout* I just have a lot of good memories of how this was like the first sign of me realizing my own gender, back when I first learned about Loki in school and then devoured every damn history book about the dude. And got in a million internet pissing matches about how innacurate the marvel version was XD Also it sucks that we like to believe that modern times are always 100% more enlightened in every way, yet its modern adaptations that always censor out the bits about him shifting gender identities and getting pregnant once. ... man this has gone offtopic too much, im really tired but seriously its funny how teenage bunni had NO CLUE they were nonbinary, no clue why they got so obsessed researching gender-defying mythological figures and historians who created gender neutral pronouns in the 1800s. i was so supernaturally oblivious, holy shit...