#one of the BEST SHOWS IVE SEEN IN MY ENTIRE LIFE GUYS

[d011zk1ll]

Soooo... New years appreciation post time!!

Honestly, Tumblr is one of the few places where I can just. THINK. And I'll find like-minded people. Like .. where are you all irl??? At the beginning of this year I had, what? 50 followers. And now I have 300 something. Please don't ACTUALLY follow me, especially home! From ASMP, to SBG, I've found brilliant, creative people on this app. I've made some amazing friends, and some moots that I sit and marvel at on a daily basis. How I got here, I'm not sure. But I know some people have seen the entire progression, like @easybakeovenn (I'm praying that's Koda's easybakeoven account, if not!! I'm sorry random person/gen!!)

There will be special mentions under the cut, obviously!!

@what-is-going-on-im-confused ah... Good old Meels. I still sit and stare at the art you've made of Mao and Scarabella daily, I don't think you know how much I SCREAMMMEDDD at Koda when you showed me it. It's, well, incredible. YOU'RE incredible. You're funny, and one of my best mates. Though we still need to restart that stardew farm at some point... This time with the chickens... Thank you for helping me with alyanette august, and I'm really happy you did, because else you'd have hidden away in a corner somewhere, and we wouldn't nearly be as close as we are now

@rot-decay-erosion @catladymasterofsqirl RAGHHHHH I LOVE YOU GUYS. you always find the best stuff to play, and although I wouldn't trust Rot to drive a car, I'd still trust you with my life if I came down to it. You're both such, well I've said It a lot already but, brilliant people. It's always fun to hang out with you, whether it's taking and texting about random things, or playing horror games on call, it's always a nice way to Brighten my day!!

@easybakeovenn @drac0line1nn1t ah.. We've been THROUGHHHHH it the past couple years, we'll have known eachother for 2 years this year. Fucking fascinating. I've seen you both grow and I'm so glad I have, you're amazing people. Even if I don't get the opportunity to talk to you, Draco, often due to my Tumblr DMS being broken half the time, I'm still glad we're friends. We need to do Brighton again sometime!!! And koda... Don't perish when you move like a fish in a fishtank....

@thurio-edau thank you, for attacking me in my DMS and SWARMING me with one of my first SBG posts. Else I'd not have known half the amazing people like @ohquail or @fly-in-amber or Kaz (who's tag ive forgotten... I'm GREATTTT at this, if you couldn't tell) you're funny and I'll never forget when you cut the chocolate with that dagger necklace

Special mentions than I can't write a paragraph for because my early onset probable arthritis is kicking in and my wrists are dying slowly: @low-senka @carpetbug @primalmagic @afrogwhocantdraw @sashaishere14 @cookiedough77 @pineapple-sbg-official (I'm @cimonofficial I just didn't know your main and honestly, you're pretty cool so you make it here too!! YIPPEE)

And all my other moots. Ily guys MWAH happy new year!!

[straycalamities]

Hello, how are you

Why do you Like Entre and Swag?

i’ve been sick almost the entire past week but i think im getting better

do you mean as a relationship? ho boy. well, first of all, seeing as a lot of ships ive gotten into after it end up sharing a lot of similarities, i think its safe to say it became one of my favorite ship dynamics period

this got long fast

enemies/rivals-to-lovers isn’t anything new for me seeing as i dedicated, on-and-off, 8+ years to naruto and sasuke as one of my first hardcore ships that i still enjoy

and in general i just really like ships between characters who bicker and banter a lot (vash and wolfwood from trigun being a perfect example of this) but still being something more significant to each other than either of them truly realize until it sinks in either slowly or forcefully

and especially as i’ve grown older, i’ve gotten more and more and more interested in the intricacies and complications of having two very…hmmm damaged? i guess? personalities trying to find something that works because they need it to

which the other two ships have as well, but in a more “toxic yaoi” way, ya feel? LMAO like! hannibal and will graham from the hit show :) which that came after swagtre but it still stands as it got me to appreciate that aspect of their relationship even more than i did

swagtre is in no way synonymous to hannigram. hannigram is on a different level of delicious toxic yaoi, BUT it goes to show what ive opened up my ship palate to voraciously

even so, that’s moreso the early stage of their relationship, which is fun! but also not the whole story

i guess the main thing that initially drew me in was that i’ve always had a weakness for characters like swag. he’s so full of bravado, performative self-interest, defusing every little thing with a joke, and all the while coming off as a destructive idiotic selfish little brat. meanwhile the truth that resides is much deeper than that. that he does care, he just doesn’t know how, so he does his best which…is easily overlooked because he’s uncomfortable with being seen for being genuine in any way because it makes him feel vulnerable and blah blah this ain’t a swag study

but anyways truffula flu made me like him a normal amount! :)

then there’s entre who wears his heart on his sleeve moreso. he’s always been more honestly reactive, that’s why his mainverse it’s so fun to pick on him, and it didn’t get numbed by the apocalypse all that much. entres also a guy who takes things for face value at first. then there’s also the fact he used to have such a hero/senpai-crush on swag before the whole thing even happened and they’d even became pretty friendly acquaintances

and now he’s having to wrestle with the fact everyone who used to like him, hates him, except dave and bitter. and anyone else that might? probably dead. and of course! why wouldn’t they? his big mistake that cost the world

and swag is the loudest reminder of them all. forcibly inching and digging and clawing his way into entres psyche and mind until he finds himself using all of swags same words at himself during moments of self-hatred. self-hatred that’s been there all his life but now it has a burning world to reference. and swags voice mingling with his mother’s.

and entre may get defensive and bite back and try to turn things around on swag, but he can never truly say swags wrong. because he’s not! entre fucked up everyone else’s lives over a deeply selfish and shallowly thought-through decision. and even if swag is also a capitalist self-serving asshole, well he only destroyed his own environment, he didn’t end civilization as they know it

and that just makes it worse than the preachy “hippie” types that used to nag at him before. someone who’s in his same ilk is now berating him

and while entres never Not risen to rage-bait. he absolutely never took the phrase “don’t feed the trolls” to heart, he also has deeper reasons why with swag he always throws himself at the opportunity to try and defend or twist things, because it’s hitting him so much harder than everyone else (besides 72)

so yes, when swag keeps saying entres obsessed with him, he’s actually right! entre IS and has been since swag forced the jester hat on him and paraded him around camp as a spectacle. one that he can never truly deny that he deserves

i also think we should go back to entres pre-apocalypse feelings about swag because it’s important to note that entre wanted to Be swag. he looked at swag and saw the man he wanted to grow into. maybe less childish and gross, but the charisma behind it all, the way that even despite that, he had so many wrapped around his finger and every word

and the thing with early entre, is he always directly compared himself with other oncelers. sizing himself up against them and like…really it just makes sense right? to him, they were all iterations of himself, achieving and accomplishing or even failing different things. and even if at first the multiverse unnerved him, he started to use it to his advantage. i mean he got 72 to mentor him, he was lifting tips n tricks off others like swag, and he was directly taking notes on how Not to be off others (One, Bitter, Strangecase, Stone (sorry man ilu) and more bc this list is longer than the idol list LMAO)

so thats just more to really hammer in how intrinsic to entres identity swag became and it became more palpable in the worst way in truffula flu

this is all as an aside to the crushing guilt of his giant mistake itself but we all know how he feels abt that

and for swag, i mean don’t take my word here as word of god because i don’t THINK my theory here is confirmed to be canon, but im pretty sure he saw himself in entre as well. like it went both ways. and swag felt fear AND i guess relief? if that makes sense that it was entre instead of him. like this guy is very much Like him and any of them coulda done this, but it was entre, not swag. and that’s why swag is very insistent on not letting entre forget it, because deep down he’s terrified that it could’ve been him if entre hadn’t done it first

and so he looks down on him and beats him even further down as a way to kinda uhhh make himself feel better? except it doesnt. it never makes him feel better but it DOES make him feel not as worse as he could, or thinks he could if he just let the guy go after daring to make such a fool of himself in front of everyone

i think, as much as entre sees himself and how he wants himself to be in swag, swag sees himself in entre and what he doesn't want to be. and entre changes it to him seeing all the stuff he doesn't like about swag, the pieces of him he doesn't want to mimic because he refuses to continue to admit to himself that he still envies and looks up to the man swag is, because even at the end of the world, he's one of the few who seems to have something figured out that works for him. he actually seems to enjoy himself in this hell. he seems to feel free to find happiness and entre couldnt be more envious of that

but then as more and more people crowd into their camp, and they get to a baseline and learn the uhhh capabilities of their survival companions, they also learn to realize that they operate on the same wavelength the most even if neither of them admit it. obviously everyone wants out of this hell, but i dont think any of them tenaciously chase after that ambition as much as swag and entre do, for their own reasons

most of the rest of the camp has taken a sort of acceptance to the situation either in a pragmatic or pessimistic way. and of course nobody wants this to stay the way it is, but they don't have that sort of...all-encompassing fire to find a way to reverse their situations as much as swag and entre. i mean we did have bitter's optimism for a bit there, but he was doomed so like...what other option did he have other than believing in entre, but it was absolutely rooted in nothing. even entre knew that.entre especially knew that. bitter was deteriorating the fastest he'd ever seen it and if he hadn't been able to find a way to slow it down in the other ppl who took weeks to turn, then what was he going to do for the guy taking days?

so all bitter's optimism did was make entre feel sicker with guilt for everything and completely drove the little grip he had on hope into the ground. especially by making him take his first un-turned life. especially because, i think we have to address this here to fully understand why entre goes the way he does afterwards: bitter was never truly bitter to entre. bitter was himself. bitter was the likely future entre saw himself walking towards. out of every other onceler further ahead along from him, successful or aftermath or otherwise, bitter felt the most real for him

bitter was always his own failure even before it happened literally and live right before his eyes. that's always what he meant to entre even in mainverse/pre-truffula flu. that's why he made such a dedication to trying to butt his way into bitter's life. that's why he spoiled him and wormed his way into his heart, because he was trying to put that energy out there that one day, if this were to become literally his fate, someone would do this for him as well. or maybe he'd put enough good karma out there with doing this for bitter, that this wouldn't even become him at all!

that is exactly why entre was so stricken after his death. that's why it hurt and broke him so hard. he didn't know bitter long enough for his cries of "he's my best friend!" to fully be true. if anyone was entre's best friend at the time, it was 72, or dave, or his own mother. it was not bitter, bitter was his pet project. bitter was the poisoned dart that seared in striking him, and slowly ate at him after he was gone. bitter was him fully being unable to run from the consequences and culpability of his own actions. because now this was something that was clearly, unignorably, happening right in front of his eyes and now the blood was directly on his hands

bitter was his future self and his sealed demise that came with it. bitter was his destroyed future. bitter was his own mortality.

entre does come to realize something akin to this later on, but i guess i didn't make it understandable enough because i think a lot of people missed that this was the true narrative going on underneath the surface. which is my bad and on me, i could've done a better job, but ya. this was always my intention and it's a very key part in understanding why entre is the way he becomes and does what he does afterwards

which, back to swag, is his doing to entre. because swag does strong-arm him into and making him believe there was no alternative to entre killing bitter who swag DID, as anyone else did at the time, believe entre's statement that entre saw him as his best friend, but that also meant that was even more entre's problem to solve to him. and it's something entre finds hard to forgive swag for for a while after, even as his own guilt berates him for his own involvement in creating this fate for bitter, there's always that part of him that blames swag for forcing him to actually face the consequences of his actions. because, as most oncelers, entre doesnt like that very much LMAO

and yet despite it all, it still, in its own twisted way, makes him feel the most seen by swag. if that makes sense?? especially as 72 made it abundantly clear he was disappointed in him and didn't even seem to know who entre really was anymore. the survival needs and guilt had warped entre towards a vitriolic survivalist away from that bright eyed young man that he had taken in.

and then of course, nobody else really seemed to want to push a deeper connection with him at the time for this or that reason. so he had dave, who he personally saw as still just an employee so of course dave was with him and on his side, he had that employee loyalty. dave became his right hand, but that also meant that entre felt that he couldnt confide as much in dave because it's hard to explain but it's like...since dave was working FOR him, he didn't want to muddle it up with personal feelings to keep dave sharp. that's what entre thought at the time anyways

and so, for better or worse (mainly worse) who stuck around and kept nosing endlessly into entre's business and his life and burying himself in his side like a thorn he couldnt remove and absolutely couldnt forget. well that was swag.

in this sort of fucked up whirlwind...swag became the most emotionally significant person in entre's life. especially as swag started to show that he DID gave at least half a shit. and after their shouting matches that got swag to admit this little tip of the iceberg or that. entre did get to wondering what else there was going on underneath that. it became something he wanted to dig at to find out.

despite how they bickered and butted heads, entre always felt more comfy telling swag things he wouldnt or would no longer tell anyone else. swag's little bits of sympathy or lightheartedness became little crumbs of something that entre subsisted off of to keep going, because, despite everything, he still looked up to him. he still admired him and what he was capable of and what he could do. and how he didnt seem to let anything that was going on bring him down. he kept his shine.

and for swag (again not word of god here) i think he liked that entre DID butt against him. obviously he had fun with rocky and one. but (and this IS word of god/confirmed canon) they weren't as much his friends as he touted they were. swag struggles creating (and especially maintaining) close relationships. they make him vulnerable and they come with stakes and things to lose. so swag always kept his relationships fair-weathered and shallow. (aside from just not knowing how to be genuinely real and vulnerable with people in a way that COULD cultivate a close relationship) he sure did say and shallowly BELIEVED they were deeper than what they were, but deep down...he had an idea that were push come to shove...he wouldnt mourn anyone as much as your normal guy would mourn his true friends and he felt that it was mutual.

so as much as he ran away from it, swag felt very alone. swag always has issues with loneliness and that's why he throws himself from person to person and has to be the loudest and brightest and funniest in the room. and hey even if you hate what youre hearing and seeing, he's still got your attention. and that can be good enough when it comes down to it. (end of word of god/confirmed canon swag stuff)

but yeah i think that...not that rocky or one were yes-men or anything, but i mean they kinda just worked with his antics and like okay yeah here we go, swag stuff again yay(or nay) but entre always was fighting it. he didnt just accept swag entirely for this way or that, he was always critiquing, always challenging, always prodding back as strongly as swag prodded him. and i think that change of pace is what kept swag coming back over and over beyond the other stuff i said earlier

and like...as the guy at the center of it all, i think even swag said it himself at some point, if anyone knew how to get them back out of this mess it was him. and as swag said: he saw entre as a way better leader than him. even if it personally irked and annoyed him, himself when it happened to him. entre clearly had figured out his stuff and what he'd say had merit (just not with swag who always knew better for himself)

so if entre saw swag as the better leader for his charisma and weird optimism, then swag saw entre as the better one for his pragmatism and his knack for staying rational most of the time. i think that's also why entre's slip in lucidity bothered swag a whole lot because...if entre couldn't be the rational one, they were screwed. he'd gotten used to entre being a kinda...logical pillar to bounce off of, so if he was losing his touch with reality, that was going to doom the lot of them (even him). it's also with (word of god) swag's deep deep fear of abandonment so...if entre abandons his own senses, he's abandoning Swag and that Cannot Happen

this is a whole lot but its really hard for me to explain the why FULLY without dragging out all the nuances and complexities to their relationship because THAT'S WHY!!! it's SOOO complex and there's so many layers and nuances to everything that had to keep working in a certain way to go in a positive direction or else it all fell apart, as we saw, over and over

they both have so many issues that hold them back in ways and then theyre both so damn stubborn that it ended up making them even getting along as FRIENDS a damn slow-burn (and i am, always, a sucker for a slow-burn. one of my main weaknesses in a ship)

you can see they both end up wanting that, even if neither of them would admit it. but they both, as businessmen, saw their cooperation as fruitful for the success of themselves and the camp. it was just all this other baggage going on making it hard

so then we get the hospital. where rocky gets his harsh taste of the reality of their situation and he gets HIS humble pie of his own mortality, pushing him away from swag who remains reckless. and then entre, feeling ostracized from literally everyone and even having a hard conversation with 72 in the elevator, when it all comes down to it, and they seem doomed. he lets himself be weak and falls a bit into swag. and this is where it changes a lot of things for entre. this moment of weakness he was pushed into by fearing it was this or never.

because obviously they get saved and then it's swag losing his foot or getting left behind for zombie-chow and OBVIOUSLY the latter isnt an option so...entre makes that call and then cant go through with it because swag's fear is shaking him to his core in a way he never thought would happen. like he let himself get weak and it's immediately striking him in a soft spot that changes him for the rest of the story

i think it's here where he gets that kinda "oh..." deep deep down. that wow. yeah. swag is much more significant to him than previously believed. that leads into the hardware store where slowly and surely, swag becomes his precious possession. swag's the only one that believes in him. swag's the only one that understands him. swag's the only one he wants to be around. nobody can touch or harm swag but him. swag is his responsibility. swag is his, his, his.

and this is very very poisoned by entre's deteriorating state of mind and emotional health. the man is a long-coming disaster finally starting to collapse on himself. and the centerpin of it all is keeping swag safe and to himself because swag's the only good he sees right now in this hell of a world. swag's words become law in his mind. if swag says he has to be more of a leader, more assertive, he'll take that and run marathons with it. anything to make swag proud of him

because that's another thing is entre has just...always chased someone being proud of him or happy with him. or that he was doing good or whatever. a common onceler problem with the way that Once-ler Mama just Is but yes...it's always been a big deal for entre. he's terrified of failure. and he's terrified of disappointing people who mean something to him. so he'll do whatever it takes to make swag proud and it's not like the rest of thee camp know better than Him what's the Greater Good for them, of course. he's the leader. he's the one who created all this. this is his world and he knows everything about it better than anyone.

meanwhile swag's too fucked up on having his wings finally clipped after leaving off the high of true and total freedom for so long. that he has to stew with no escapism and let the reality of his life as it is now sink in. old ghosts start to catch up to him and new horrors start to sink in. that and the pain meds of course, but through it all, he's still operating on that trust he's placed in entre. entre's a weirdo, but he always takes care of him and spoils him as much as he can. and it makes swag not wanna question, not that he has a leg to stand on (ha) currently anyways when it comes to that. he doesnt know anything going on outside his door. and to be honest, i think that's the part of this shitty situation that he likes. he's clearly tired and been tired of feeling responsible for other people, but he also cant help himself because of his deep need to try and keep as many people in his life as possible because that means the ones that leave have a lot more replacements

but yeah obviously when he gets out and suddenly everyone is his responsibility again and it's up to him to be the hero (in his perspective) he puts entre in his place in the only way he knows how, but at this point...he's reached an understanding of entre and entre HAS become more significant to him than just a business partner. and he's starting to act on the parts of entre he can see in himself and so despite entre fucking up (yet again) he sees it as entre just trying to do what he was guided to in the best way he could manage and swag has little issue just being like ok you fucked up but who cares about that anymore

he has a better understanding on how entre thinks and what he wants (not a great one but a better one) and i think he knows that to endlessly punish entre and leave him alone would just make him way worse and so he decides to stick with him himself (i also think this is also swag's abandonment issues)

i don't think has very recognizable romantic feelings for entre at this point, but entre very much does for swag. so this keeps entre on his feet as much as it can despite the whole spectacle of it being something that'd drive him, any other time, to a long walk off a short pier. but it had to be a spectacle for swag because he had to show to everyone that hey hes here and hes the one fixing things! youre welcome!

but it's still a harrowing experience that strip entre down to the bone and he might be at his lowest he's been since bitter. maybe even lower, but then the prisma event happens and, if entre's event stripped entre to the bone, swag's stripped swag to the marrow

and if there's one thing about entre, it's fixing problems that aren't his own is one of the best ways to keep him moving. even if to anyone else, what swag's been doing this entire time for entre is the Absolute Bare Minimum, in entre's persective, with what he knows and observes from swag, it's worlds and worlds. so when the tables turn, entre feels like it's his turn to give back. and maybe the tables didnt entirely turn on their own, but entre pushed them to. he spun it.

swag was already knocked down a peg by losing his foot, but losing his emotional stability, his comfort, his optimism in this hopeless world. being abandoned by someone that was more dear to him than the others. that slammed him rockbottom. he stopped caring about if people liked him or not because why bother? they're all going to die or leave anyways. i think he knew sooner than we think that rocky was infected, and one was always him being purposefully obtuse. he knew what his fate was. everyone was going to leave him now. and he refused to care about it anymore

shoving everyone away and hermitting in himself. the same careful practices he berated and mocked entre for are things he'd come up with on his own. he was there to be useful now in a direct way. with practical ideas, survivalism, and physical labor. if there was no more joy or optimism, whatever. they were alive. and his joy didn't get to smile anymore so no one deserved to

i think it was the one-two combo of prisma and rocky that really did swag in because, even if i said he doesnt get Actually close to people, he still considered them his. like those are his people and he's going to lose them all. they're all going to leave him behind on this earth that he's been knew for a while fucking sucked shit, but as long as he got to have fun it hadn't mattered, but now he can't

and entre kinda...accidentally did the best thing he could've for swag at this time. he also felt alone, discarded, from the queen piece on the board to a pawn. and so he clung to the only thing he'd found reliability in over and over for better or worse: swag

in general, in this arc, i was working on him taking this giant blow to his ego as a humbling moment to have him kinda try to make amends and create meaningful relationships (or repair the existing ones) with the others in the camp, but being that he thought none of them wanted anything to do with him, his main focus was always swag. swag was the only one besides dave that he thought without a doubt, wanted him around in some capacity beyond being useful

and it's not that entre is a stranger to only being seen for his usefulness, so he bared down into that otherwise, but having tasted the high life...that's why he stuck to swag. he was back to eating those crumbs like addictive delicacies and they tasted even sweeter this time. they end up becoming very, very codependent on each other. they were before a bit too but here, especially so,

but with entre's tanked self-esteem (and it was already pretty bad before) and his sense of duty and taking responsibility, he takes to his role like a duck to water. but it's kinda...funny bc they both become both roles in a codependent relationship??? so it's like...codependency in its most truest realized form lmao

it's starts especially one way but then entre gets sick and it flips the other way, but entre's still trying to maintain the original set-up. this is also where their relationship becomes physical. from affections kept away from others' eyes, to deeper kinds of intimacy. i think with all that they've lost and are doomed to lose, they find their old coping mechanisms (which were never healthy or actually worked either tbqh lmao) just weren't cutting it anymore so then they turned to other things

with like...needing a more direct and physical and raw way to show each other they're still alive, still here, still significant to each other. swag initiates it more, i think, because while they're both on the asexual spectrum. swag's is demi. so this goes to show just how emotionally important entre's become to him, but also i think it's because of yknow...how he was raised. and for him it's more comfortable to do bedroom stuff with entre than kiss him or rub his shoulders. that stuff's "for girls" (too emotionally vulnerable)

and swag starts to show his care as more of...like a direct invasive thing. where he's not going to let entre abandon him too. he's going to somehow make him better and keep him here as long as he can. and entre's taken to rolling over for nearly everyone because he doesnt feel like he's allowed to stand up for himself and this includes swag because it's clear he's doing it because he cares so it's fine right?

and that's kinda where everyone's idea of them leaves off because we never got to go past that. so i get where people, especially those who aren't a fan of toxicity in their ships, would be confused why people like swagtre so much and even for me, as much as i love a good conflict in my ships, i think if this is all it was, i wouldn't be quite as obsessed as i am. because i'll be honest!! it made me sad quite a lot LMAO but i always did it for the bit (story) above all else. because while i wanted entre to say the magic words or do the magic thing or have the magic realization that would fix it all, that's not a good story

but it really is for the later story that i've gotten so caught up. even before we confirmed the Continued story i was always caught up and daydreaming of where this could go

and i just really really love the growth they've had with each other and how many like...jumps in their characters and stuff they've made with and because of each other. entre would not be who he is today in any iteration without some of the realizations i've made through swagtre and same with swag i know with good authority

and it's just like...it takes so long to get even where we ended it. and they have all these weird labyrinthine bullshit things to work through and against and with to get anywhere. and it goes back and forth. forward and two steps backwards so much. but it's just very interesting to study and even reread or reminisce on. and even think about ways it coulda gone differently idk...i just like ships that give me multiple multiple things to chew on and think about. i like to have a full course meal. no shade to people who like other stuff but yea..that's what i personally enjoy. the more complicated, the more difficulty and personal baggage and issues they have to work through to make it work, the better

and i can't say too much on where it's confirmed to go, because that's yet to be seen (smile emoji) but yes...it gets better and idfk i just eat up to people becoming super significant to each other in an apocalypse especially if they started off hating each other?? damn

and it's addictive seeing swag start to come more and more out of his shell. i say his moments of being genuine, vulnerable, real, and raw and caring were addictive crumbs for entre BUT BITCH ME TOO TF!!!

it drives me NUTS (SLASH HUGE POSITIVE!!!!) i love being a driving force to get to see aspects of a character we wouldnt see otherwise. knowing i had a hand in swag learning things about himself and revealing things about himself he would never in other situations...yum...that's the good shit

but yes so concludes my novel on why i like swagtre including i guess an impromptu summary of their relationship

if you made it all the way to the end god damn man...love ya

[roseworth]

You are both an Arrowfamily and Jason Todd fan account so I thought you would be the best person to ask this but: What do you think the Arrowfamily members opinion on Jason are?

ooooh i love this question.. i think a lot of people jump straight to "they would hate him" because of his fight with mia but!!! i don't think thats entirely true!!!!! some of them would hate him but not all of them </3 i feel like the people that claim they would all hate him have a fundamental misunderstanding of the arrows and what they stand for, not to mention deliberately misconstruing what the the jason & mia fight actually was and pretending it was a lot worse than what actually happened. but thats just my opinion

ollie absolutely would hate him though lmao. he would never get over the fact that jason kidnapped, fought, & tried to blow up his daughter. no forgiveness ever. if jason HADNT fought mia though i think ollie would like him or at the very least tolerate him. ollie very clearly has no issue with murdering bad guys (as seen in ga88) and would be completely on board with anyone who goes out of his way to fuck with batman constantly <3 also in my humble opinion ollie shouldve been a cosmic mistake in countdown due to him coming back to life because parallax put him back together, which would have been hilarious and would absolutely have ended in them getting along (until jason goes through like his fifth breakdown in that book, because he would absolutely lash out at ollie after watching that one version of bruce die. but thats a whole separate tangent)

dinah also would hate him for trying to kill mia, but probably not as intensely as ollie. but even without that issue i dont think dinah would like him, mostly because hes the worst and i dont think dinah would have the patience to put up with him. she wouldnt have a huge problem with the killing (she wouldnt NOT have a problem with it but i really dont think it would be an unforgivable issue for her), but she would just think hes kind of an asshole about it and she wouldnt like him at all. i also think theres a panel somewhere where jason says that dinah told him she hates him personally?? idk ive only seen screenshots of it but i think its funny so im incorporating it into my belief system

with roy... i feel like there are so many people that see rhato and swing to the opposite side of the pendulum and say that roy would hate jason but i dont think thats true at all. im a rhato hater because that is Not Roy so we're disregarding that, but i still think they would get along tbh! given that roy is deeply in love with a serial killer i think that the people who say he would hate jason are misunderstanding who roy is. i think when theyre both in character they actually have personalities that would mesh well together and they COULD get along really well. i dont see roy having a Big Problem with jason killing people (he would try to stop him from doing it but murder wouldnt be a dealbreaker for roy) so i think its fair to say they would actually get along!!! but i bitch and complain every time they show up in the same panel because now the damage has been done from rhato so i dont want them to interact in canon. only in the secret world in my head. in regards to jason fighting mia, i dont know how to say it but,,, i dont think roy would have a huge issue with it. he certainly wouldnt be happy about it but also he wasnt there so i feel like all he would know about it was that jason kidnapped mia one time but mia was fine. honestly i think that he would be more interested in brothers in blood bc dick would def mention that jason murdered people in a nightwing costume then turned into a tentacle monster and tried to eat someone but dick forgave him anyway. and once he hears that suddenly the mia thing seems inconsequential in comparison

with connor... i cant lie im a little biased because connor is a member of my dream outlaws team but i really think they would at least kind of get along! connor is not the type of person to hold a grudge at all so once mia forgives him (which ill get into in a sec) connor wouldnt have a problem with him. he WOULD have a problem with jason killing people but he's close with eddie so clearly he doesnt have that much of an issue with working with people who have killed before as long as they dont kill in front of him. and i think that jason has a healthy respect for anyone who can beat him in a fight and because of that he would not kill anyone when hes around connor. i also think that connor and jason would never fight because connor would never throw the first punch and jason would never start a fight that he knows he cant win (but thats once again a whole separate tangent). basically i dont think they'd be besties or anything, i dont think theres a world where they'd ever even consider themselves friends. but i do think they'd get along well enough to not hate each other

okay now finally mia. kind of a controversial take but i really think she'd forgive him for kidnapping her! she absolutely would not forgive him IMMEDIATELY because it fucked her up so she would be pissed about it for a while, but also? i think she completely understood what he was trying to do. he wasnt really hurting her specifically (like yeah he hurt her but he made it a fair fight and he wasnt beating down on her or anything. she also hit him so it evens out) and he was actually trying to talk TO her and relate to her. and it was working!!! he didnt force her to do anything except fight (in a fight where he untied her and gave her her weapons), so once she got some distance from the event i think she'd forgive him. it would take a while for her to actually forgive him enough for them to actually get along, but i genuinely think they would. theyre extremely similar people and i think they would really be good friends if given the chance, but it would take a looooong time for mia to be comfortable enough to be around him enough to consider him a friend since the fight definitely fucked her up. but it is possible for them to eventually be close, and i think they could be really good friends

honorable mentions: - i dont know emiko well enough to know for sure (i havent read new52 or rebirth green arrow so i havent read much with her </3) but from what i know i think they would get along - lian would have no opinion of him whatsoever. at most she sees him as her uncle's brother. i truly dont think she'd care enough about him to form a positive or negative opinion about him - i dont like sienna so i dont want to acknowledge her but for the sake of the post. she doesnt like jason because dinah doesnt like jason and she says "i hate everyone that black canary hates <3" - cissie is not a member of the arrowfamily but she wouldnt like him because she absolutely would have an issue with any murderous vigilante given that she almost killed someone one time and had a huge breakdown, so anyone that kills people for the Greater Good and continues to do so would not sit right with her - i have absolutely no basis for this but shado would hate him for no reason. no specific beef with him about his morals or his actions, she just wouldnt like his vibes. sorry to talk about rose (no im not) but she would see rose hanging out with jason and go "im so happy for you and your ugly fucking boyfriend im serious" - eddie and jason would get along like a housefire. there is not a doubt in my mind that they would bond instantly (ok not instantly because they both hate everyone and would probably start with trying fight each other. THEN they would bond) and it would be catastrophic for everyone involved 🫶

ok i think thats everyone. or at least everyone that matters. never forget that all my opinions are 100% correct at all times

[ladystoneboobs]

i present: small and non-verbal but very funny star wars moments:

ep. V: the empire strikes back--the millenium falcon achieves hyperspeed again, despite the imperials' best plans to the contrary. admiral piett and his men are terrified of vader's reaction, all trying to stay out of his path. but he's still too busy brooding on his loss of luke to even force-choke anyone. that's how thrown off he was by his newly-mutilated son running away from him!

the sole exception to this collective terror being this guy, so intent on his own important work, that he doesn't even notice his scary boss until darth vader has walked right past him.

ep. III: revenge of the sith--padme's droids somehow getting her unconscious body back on her ship.

in the novelisation, r2-d2 just drags her up the ramp with his gadgetry, but in the script it's c-3po who carried her up bridal style. which would be impossible to film when 3po could barely manage to move around under his own weight. what makes it really funny for me is that there was no need for any of this. why not just have obi-wan pick her up as he's hurrying outta there after failing to kill her husband? i mean, it's surely not good to be lying out in the open on a volcanic world with poisonous gases, but it wouldn't be good for obi-wan running around out there either, and this lady was about to have broken heart as her only known cause of death. when has science ever held back star wars? and i can't imagine that being dragged by wires from artoo or dropped every few steps by threepio could've been too good for her body either. just makes for an absurd little (offscreen) background detail amid the tragedy of the end of padme's life, imho.

ep. IV: a new hope--obi-wan vanishing into thin air when struck down and vader's (very understandable) bafflement afterward.

by this point in the second screencap, luke is shooting at him in retaliation and the stormtroopers are all shooting back at luke, but anakin is still dealing with this unprecendented vanishing and busy searching for any corporeal remains of obi-wan kenobi with his boot. "where did you go, my old master? how could this happen? i wasn't done fighting with you yet."

ep. V: the empire strikes back--vader inviting lando calrissian, chewbacca, han solo, and princess leia to share a meal with him and boba fett, before taking chewie, han, and leia prisoner and torturing han.

i think a lot of people must assume there was no actual meal, but it's not like vader had to go to all that trouble in the first place of setting out an entire banquet table with proper containers and utensils. just because that was lando's pretext to bring them to vader does not necessitate actually having a table set. darth vader could have had them led into any other room with boba fett and stormtroopers waiting to just arrest them right away. instead, as we can see in the second screencap, (over lando's shoulder and leia's bun), vader did sit down at the head of the table, waiting for his prey to join him. and i swear, in one of the earlier drafts of empire's screenplay there is actually a scene showing their awkward meal together. or rather, han and leia being served food and drinks while darth vader just sits there, watching evilly, explaining his great villainous plan to use them to trap luke. it's like dr. evil making austin and vanessa sit down at his table in the first austin powers movie. darth vader really did always live for drama

ep. VI: return of the jedi--leia telling han that she loves luke, but not that way. he's her brother, silly! as if this is something they all knew all along, with zero follow-up explanation. you can just see han wordlessly processing this bombshell of brand new information through his facial expressions alone. (this lasts so long that i wouldn't even count it were it not likely overshadowed by everything else in the ending of rotj.)

wh-what did you say? your brother? since when?

wait-wait-wait. i've seen you mouth kissing luke right in front of me before. i'm so confused now.

just what kind of weirdo family have i gotten myself mixed up with here?

oh, well, she's only kissing me now. that's good enough, i guess. maybe?

hey, as long as you do love me and luke in different ways ...

i don't know much about families, but i've heard they all have their weird traditions. so who am i to judge you, babe? as long as we're together now, that's all that matters.

[desire-mona]

pre-1995-ish rsl, 1995-ish-to-2001 rsl and post-2001 rsl are three different people in my mind

pre-1995-ish rsl is pretty baby gender-envy whereas 1995-ish-to-2001 is gorgeous theatre nerd intellectual era, and post-2001 rsl is grumpy bastard man (affectionate)

please offer revisions

yeah basically! in my mind those time periods arent impossible to be the same guy, but in a vacuum theyre kinda very distinct from one another.

i guess to go into more detail, late 80s to early / mid 90s rsl is best known for playing boyish characters (obviously teenage characters such as max (manhattan project), jeremy capello, neil perry, etc. but also boyish looking adults like chuck bishop, peter (swing kids), claudio dare i say, etc)

mid / late 90s to early 2000s rsl pretty much accurate with gorgeous theatre nerd but thats also just applicable to his entire life. in my mind this is the era i associate most with his friendship with ethan, probably because of tape and chelsea walls. i also think this was the time period where he fit the bill aesthetically for asshole-ish characters imo.

and ur kinda exactly right with post 2001, but id like to change that to post 2004 honestly. grumpy bastard is correct, but again i think its applicable to him as a person (said lovingly.) house era he was in much more interviews both written and video (from what ive seen) and he got to share more of his personality LMAO. ofc speculation since i dont know the guy but yknow. plus at this point he was settling down and starting a family so the good ol "i dont wanna work lol" sentiment started showing up more, which makes total sense.

[earlgreygirlfriend]

sunnflower content BIG POST 🌻

first of all, ao3 !! i really just wanted some good, nontoxic sunflower fanfiction because both sunny & basil deserve to be happy after the shit they've gone through! also, i wanted to feel better because BASIL IS CLEARLY HEAD OVER HEELS FOR SUNNY AND HE DOESNT KNOW IT (video by nerdy arty) hdjvhdjvhdn he JUST LIKE ME FR!!

ive categorized them by AU / canoncompliant with additional tags! completed fics are marked with 🌻, long fics (5k+ words) are marked with 💡

canon compliant:

Culinary Conversations by ShardOfHope💡

A Mug of Sundrops in a Wave of Sadness by karma_kalanchoe💡

The First Day of the Rest of Your Life by smiles2m

Suddenly, Sunny by diagnosed_shitposter

Bloom Later by witheredahlia💡

Catch a Glimmer of Your Star by UdonPuddle 🌻💡

au / mari lives:

Secondhand Sequitir by Soppypup💡🌻

He's Impossible by HowardR💡

to bask in your warmth by im_clo💡🌻

Flower Language by mirror_to_the_past💡

hmestwbf by ME (yes yours truly)

next up is yt animatics because uhhh idk i really like watching homo idiots!! i have 🕹️ that indicates the video depicts some omori plot involving spoilers for the game (the accident, angst, etc) or covers the entire game happening.

OMORI MV - Eine Kleine by Bear🕹️

Try Again by eggsoupery🕹️

OMORI MV - Love Me by white_tulips_

Nonsense Speaker by Nerdy Arty🕹️

in defense of sunflower: (major omori spoilers here cw!!)

why are people antagonizing them this badly? seriously i don't get it. they were children when the accident happened and gameplay shows that both of them got shittons of trauma

"what the hell were you guys thinking when you decided to ship two mentally unstable teenagers that participated in the same manslaughter??"

it was an accident. looking at the incident, i firmly believe it was very seriously fucked up, and they weren't in the right state of mind when it happened. consider the situation, the person you love most in the world is gone forever. in this situation, sunny completely closes in on himself and creates headspace. basil on the other hand sees sunny (his childhood best friend and the one he describes as 'perfect' and puts on a pedestal) completely having a mental breakdown. basil panics, not knowing what to do, because both of the people he idolize are gone - mari is dead, a part of sunny died with her. obviously he has a mental breakdown figuring out what to do, too?

obviously we should also consider basil's mental state at this point - pure speculation here, but basil, due to his feminine gender expression, would have been a victim of bullying, and the gang would have been his first friends. and basil photographs things he cherishes. that would mean he sees himself losing his friends when mari dies because sunny is most likely gonna be legally convicted of manslaughter right? in his disoriented, panicked mind, he wanted to protect sunny, the friend he most likely did have feelings for but was unable to admit them due to already being bullied, (that's just my hc dw) and did something that is super fucked up — he did more harm than good, but i believe he was just trying to fix everything back the way it was. we're absolutely going to talk about why Basil knows how to tie a noose, which adds to my point — basil might already have been mentally unwell (no doubt taking more shit from life than one is supposed to) BEFORE he met his friends, and he was desperately trying to salvage what little happiness he had left.

i cannot deny that sunnflower has full potential of being a very unhealthy and toxic relationship, but i might add that the true + secret ending has both Somethings disappear, implying that both of them are capable of healing. thats why i ship them manyyearsafter-canon or AU, bc therapy can fix shit ive seen it myself

ill end this little rant by a comment from j0kerclash on reddit:

Pairing them together is the implication that they are able to completely heal from their trauma, the actual dynamics of their relationship isn't toxic, it was the circumstances of their interactions combined with the context of the event itself. Sunny and Basil aren't permanently fucked up, I'd say it's quite harmful to imply that people are forever broken and can never truly recover. Considering the choices in the game are about confronting, accepting, and moving on from guilt and trauma, the best scenario for both Sunny and Basil, is if they were truly able to let go and not become triggers for each other, which is illustrated by them being unaffected by the potential toxicity of their past.

sorry for the rant! here are some links also defending the ship

if you enjoyed, i also have another sunflower headcannon post

from diagnosed_shitposter

idfk how to link the original text im sorry

this

[the-kipsabian]

Kip Sabian.

Please go off.

anon i respect you so much for this but i hope you know what you have just done LMAO

tl;dr - hes absolutely perfect in every way possible. love of my life

hes just.. so innovative. his character work is absolutely fucking masterful, no matter which one it is. all of them are so delightfully different from one another but you can still see the same man behind all of them and thats just talking about the range of the character work and the clear work and effort he puts into everything he does, be it just the characters themselves, the promos, in-ring work, anything. he always goes all out, hes creative as hell with them (name me one other person that gets over with a box on their head i dare you) and it truly shows how loving and passionate he is about this whole wrestling thing and that he just absolutely gets it. also he just has fun with it and it shows. anything from cocky indie superbad to coward best husband superbad to boxman to whatever the cringe failure era was lmao and now the sex idol. he just does it all and he does it flawlessly and i will throw hands with tk if he doesnt capitalize on this man soon i sWEAR TO GODDAMN

his in-ring work is incredibly good. watch literally any sequence hes ever had with orange cassidy and you see what i mean. hes improved from that too (since the last one of those was a quite long while ago now), he can hang with pretty much anyone. i like it the way he says it himself, he can literally make anyone look good and no one has ever complained about having to work with him in the ring. which says a lot about how good and talented he is imo. he can do it all, be it more grounded moves or recently hes been doing a lot more jumps and top rope moves which! exciting!! cause it just adds to his arsenal and shows off that flexibility even more and its just so insanely good. like fuck man if you can get someone who can hang one-on-one with someone like vikingo like he did a few weeks back, thats a fucking keeper. dont you dare forget that

im not gonna take this moment to talk about his promo stuff cause i will literally be here forever. watch this and get back to me later about why im right that hes incredible at this shit with the tone and again character work and just overall presentation. even if its now a bit more comedic with the sex idol, its still an absolute delight. also i could listen to him talk forever, he has my favorite voice in the entire world and his accent is delicious and good fucking lord

PRESENTATION. hes just really fucking hot okay. i thought he was cute before but my god. the hair, no matter the version, on point. the eyeliner, gorgeous. nail polish, good lord (he needs to bring it back tbh its been a while). the outfits, holy shit i cant say words. i have done an extensive gear study to show how truly insane he makes me about his looks, not to mention the goddamn casual fits/suit game. jesus take the wheel. his smile is fucking out of his world and the laugh lines he gets are maybe my favorite feature on any human ever. hes fucking delicious and what of it

also arms. i dont think i need to say anything more i have also turned into a back admirer girlie (gn) because of him so like. uuuuuh

AND THEN. hes just a fucking delightful human being in general. is he stupid and cringey? yes, but arent we all. it just shows how human he is. just like us. ive so many times wondered how if we lived on slightly different timelines, we might have genuinely been friends cause he reminds me so much of guys of the same age that i know and im friends with. like we would have meshed pretty well together if circumstances were different lmao. that just shows me how genuine he is tbh. hes just fucking nice, hes very supportive, tries his best to be a good ally (i have both seen this and have first hand experience on it so dont @ me saying im wrong or its performative, i have way too many cases to prove that hes fr fr) and.. yeah. ive never heard anyone that actually knows him say anything bad about him. he has his flaws, obviously, cause nobodys perfect, but he makes up for it with what ridiculously good he has in him. this is a man with so much potential and love to give to the world both in his personal and professional lives and hes just needs his chance to shine so fucking badly, in all areas of life

im gonna stop now before i get too emotional but. yeah. he means fucking everything to me 💜💜

[giggly-squiggily]

haiii!! little life update then some suna headcanons cuz i feel like it ^^ i had my first sleepover last night and it was so so fun, with my best friend and her 2 best friends ive talked to but had never met before. they were so welcoming n nice, they're the best <3

i've recently been gaining a small audience on tiktok for my art! feels super good to be appreciated by the art community :)

i'm also finding my style more! trying to accept that it's ok to not only have one style, and, as a nonbinary/trans masculine, that long hair too can be masculine. (desperately want to grow my hair out but so scared to be seen as more girly😣)

nowwww for suna!! i feel like he'd have like a little cousin or smth that's really quiet and he'd be super close w them. they have the type of relationship where it takes 30 mins to warm up at family gatherings n stuff but he loves them so dearly (this may be possibly reflecting off of myself and my wishes for an older role model to be friends w but never had ((i'm the oldest cousin)) so don't mind me🙈) and i feel like they'd do art and stuff together or go skating. he'd be the type to welcome them into his home if they're going through sum at their home. 😋

that's all!! i hope all is going well for you! don't know about you but i'm kinda excited for the colder weather to start, i love baggy clothes so it's pretty nice to curl up in a big ass t shirt and blanket n watch anime or play video games for a while.

Friend!!! :D I'm beyond happy to hear from you! :D That's freaking awesome you had your first sleepover! I'm glad you had a great time, and you met some really lovely people too!

Ahhh yeah!!! Look at you go on Tiktok! :D I'm glad you're getting appreciated by the community, and I'm thrilled to bits your art is being recognized! Keep on drawing and having fun!

That's really cool you're finding your style too! Having more than one style is totally valid, as is having long hair while identifying as non-binary/trans masc. Your choice on how to wear your hair or present yourself doesn't invalidate your identity. You are you, and you're amazing, worthy and enough. Anyone who says otherwise can go sit in syrup! Let the bees get them :3

OOOH THOSE SUNA HEADCANONS! That's so sweet- him being the family member his more reserved family member is close to! He's so chill and comforting; not necessarily doting on them but the one who sends funny videos to them at the most wild of hours. Like you said, he'd take them out for skating or mall trips- offer them a place to stay if things get messy. I like to think when he goes to college they still stay in touch; face timing every week and making plans to meet during breaks. He's just such a good guy!

Oh friend I am THRIVING in this chill! Sure, my fingers are frozen, and it's terrible to wash my hair in this weather (My hot water broke ToT As is life) but I love baggy hoodies and socks- hot drinks and my pets all cuddled up in bed with me (even if they take up the entire bed). The chilled out vibes of just curling up with our favorite game or show is just perfection! I hope you're doing alright friend!

Thanks for sharing friend! This made me smile like crazy reading it! I hope you have an amazing day!

[valeriianz]

2, 3, 14, 19 for the concert asks?

yo! under the cut cos this got just a little long

2: Best concert you’ve ever been to

THE CAT EMPIRE AT HISTORY, TORONTO!

ahhhh every Cat Empire show is crazy. they are so fucking talented and you can tell they just love music. they do jam sessions on stage and the hype and positivity is so infectious. Felix does this thing that i love where he sticks the mic stand into the crowd and gets us singing. it's always such a fun time. and the fans, dude! we are all just music lovers and since i always go to shows alone, i love talking with them. they are the most down to earth, chill human beings.

and this show in particular, i got invited backstage to jam with the band 😭💖 we ate pizza and drank beer and it was the coolest experience of my life. i wish they toured N America more lmao

3: Worst concert you’ve ever been to

im very fortunate that most of my shows have been at least worth the money. but i can think of two right off the bat that i wasn't satisfied with. story time(s)!

Lindsey Stirling at the MET in Philly.

so, ive seen Lindsey Stirling three times. for those who don't know her, she's a violinist, but very poppy with dubstep mixed in. her shows focus very heavy on dance and theatrics. the first time was at a festival when she was suuuuper brand new (2015) and the crowd was alive. it was so fun. and it makes sense, her music is the type to dance to!

second time i saw her was another standing crowd situation in Manhattan circa 2016. when i say the crowd was dead, oh my god it was lifeless. i was embarrassed. New York City, what the hell?

then i saw her at the MET in 2022, which is a seated venue. and like, holy hell... everyone remained seated, even when Lindsey told the crowd to get up and dance multiple times. at one point i had put my phone up to record a certain part of the show and the girl sitting behind me immediately tapped me on the shoulder and told me to put my phone down. like, okay i get recording the show is annoying, but im not that guy. i just wanted to record a 10 second sequence she was doing but fine. i barely took my phone out during that performance.

but anyway, the stillness. listen, ive been to seated venues before (rock shows) and no one ever remains seated through the entire show. what the fuck is that? i was dancing in my seat while everyone around me looked at me like i was crazy. omg i just wanted to jam! and then my favorite song came up, Roundtable Rival (listen to this song and tell me how im not supposed to dance to this) and fuck it, i stood up and started to shake it.

to wrap up this long story, the girls behind me were so disgusted by my actions they full on left. there was only one other person in the floor seats that i could see who was also standing and dancing. and during the last song, Lindsey actually made everyone stand up and groove to the song (but even standing, these people were fucking dead).

i took my frustrations to reddit, asking if i was in the wrong, and got absolutely dog-piled with hate. even though Lindsey clearly said at least twice during the show to stand up. i haven't listened to her since. she's a talented musician, but the fans absolutely killed it for me.

Fall Out Boy at the Key Bank Center, Buffalo

this is gonna be a short one. this was in 2017-early 2018 i think. it was for their Mania tour. I had seen them the year before in Brooklyn and the show they put on was super fun, they really made use of the stage (this was an arena tour) and for that show, i had purchased nose-bleed seats. and for this one in Buffalo, i purchased floor tickets (it was significanly cheaper in Buffalo).

but they didn't utilize the stage at. all in Buffalo. all the theatrics i had seen in Brooklyn didn't exist here. the tracklist was pretty much the same, the graphics and pyro the same. but just a weak performance with no energy. i was so bored.

14: Moshpit, barricade, back, or rafters

i have sampled all these options, and 100% always prefer the barricade. i love being up close to the action and (usually) that up close is where the party is happening. (though i could go on a rant about how concert goers don't jump/dance at shows anymore, even some rock shows ive been to have just been. muted. i still dance my face off and make it a problem for the people around me).

tried one moshpit in my experience and the adrenaline is like nothing else. but i'd probably steer clear of it now. gotta protect my weary bones in my older age haha

19: Farthest traveled for concert/festival

before my trip in June, it was 400 miles (within the states). but after my last show, its now 560 miles (900 km)!

ive definitely thought about going to festivals overseas, especially since two of my favorite bands are English and Australian... but as much as i love traveling, i find it annoying to plan a trip around a concert so. traveling further than a few hundred miles just for a show is not something i typically do.

concert asks

[coolritofacts]

Shin Megami Tensei IV Apocalypse: A Strange Journey

Shin Megami Tensei IV Apocalypse (known as SMTIV Final in Japan) is a sequel to the original SMTIV, both of which are 3DS games. It follows an alternate story that begins near the end of the original, where a new protagonist accidentally kicks off a sequence of events that leads to the game playing out completely differently.

It's... not perfect. The gameplay and audiovisual design are not only top-notch for the series, but for RPGs of the time as a whole, but the story fails to execute on its admittedly interesting ideas, and the third act in particular might be the most spectacular way I've ever seen a piece of media completely fumble the bag. This post will be a chronicle/unstructured rant of my entire two-week journey through the game. Spoilers for both SMTIV and Apocalypse will be covered in detail. Strap in: this is going to be a long one.

For those who aren't aware, Shin Megami Tensei is an RPG series that dates all the way back to the 80s. The gameplay involves fighting demons based on mythological gods and beasts, convincing them to join your party, and fusing them together to create stronger demons. Most SMT games take place in a post-apocalyptic version of Tokyo and center around the conflict between those aligned with the ideals of Law and Chaos. The series is best known for its largest spinoff series, Persona, but SMT has so many other increasingly obscure entries and spinoffs that they could probably form an iceberg video with their titles alone.

SMTIV in particular takes place in the year 2038, 25 years after nuclear war ravaged the world. Thanks to a confluence of factors, Tokyo was protected from the war by a giant dome that covered the entire city. A few survivors managed to breach the ceiling and form a new city up there, and since time flows much faster above the dome, an unusual medieval society called the Eastern Kingdom of Mikado, with "Samurais" and a caste system, has had over 1500 relative years to develop by the time the game starts. The cast of SMTIV hails from Mikado, while Apocalypse starts in Tokyo.

Back to the game. I knew a few things about it before I decided to start playing it, the first (and most striking) of which being the protagonist's design:

There's just so much to take in here. His haircut is insane, he's got one pant leg rolled up for seemingly no reason, and the "NO WAR" text on his suit and the peace symbol pin are a good indication of how subtle the game's themes will be. My favorite part, though, are the lyrics to John Lennon's Imagine emblazoned right below the pins. They might be too small to make out here, but trust me, they're there. Also, his name is Nanashi, which literally means "nameless."

After an entire hour of downloading a ROM onto my very real 3DS (accompanied by this completely insane blurb) and trying to figure out how to make the DLC CIA file work, I finally opened the game and was immediately greeted by this:

This shit is SERIOUS. We're going to WAR here.

The game opens with two random guys telling Nanashi (who I gave the hunter codename KILLJOHN, as a reference to my everlasting mission to kill John Lennon) and his childhood friend Asahi that they're too young and inexperienced to join the Hunter Association and become official demon hunters, then tasking them to beat up a couple demons as basic combat practice. Nanashi picks a phone up off the floor, starts killing, some demons, and immediately gets jumped and dies. In the afterlife, a demon called Dagda shows up and brings Nanashi back to life under a contract of complete subservience, then jumps into his phone to help him take down the demons.

With the two random guys dead and nothing else to do, Nanashi and Asahi collect some demons of their own and start doing quests from the Association. One of these almost gets the two killed, but Flynn, the protagonist from the first game, and his friend Isabeau show up to rescue them. Flynn has a major speaking role in this game, which is always cool to see in a sequel.

Throughout the game, you'll be given several dialogue choices that alter Nanashi's alignment. In vanilla SMTIV, these were centered around Law and Chaos and were entirely responsible for which ending you got, but in Apocalypse, they're more focused around being "good" or "evil" and the consequences for which one you choose are a bit different. Since Dagda constantly (and I mean constantly) tells Nanashi to betray his friends and work alone, and most of the "evil" options are Nanashi acting like a total dick to whoever he's talking to, it reminds me a lot of specifically the SnapCube fandub of Shadow the Hedgehog, where The Devil from The Bible repeatedly shows up and tells Shadow to be an asshole and collect Sin Points.

Another fun element of this game is the lore compendium, which contains such things as the entire plot of the first game, an unnecessarily lengthy entry about the preparation and history of fried chicken, and the unrequested information that Isabeau reads yaoi. The fried chicken thing is even lampshaded in-game, just to give an indication of how unserious the game is going to be.

For the gang's next mission, they take a request called "plz stop fight" and travel to the Fairy Forest. Waiting for them is Nozomi, a character from a series of side quests from the first game that's been upgraded to a party member here. Since most of her development already happened in that game, her role in this one is as more of a mentor figure and as a mouthpiece for Dagda's mom, who lent her power to Nozomi so she could carry out her duties as queen of the fairies. She asks Nanashi to take care of King Frost, the king of all Jack Frosts, while unleashing this humdinger of a line:

Your next mission is given to you by some demon guy, who instructs you to go to a really cool waterfall dungeon to unseal a powerful being. With nothing else to do, the gang goes off to do exactly that, and they're greeted by this twink:

He introduces himself as Krishna, leader of the Divine Powers, a group that wants to create a new universe outside of God's grasp so humanity can be free from his constraints. Unfortunately, this means killing everyone in the current universe, so he's gotta be stopped. He starts a war between the Divine Powers, Merkabah (God's chariot) and Lucifer (Lucifer), kidnaps Flynn to use in much the same way as Dagda has with Nanashi, and fucks off to do his own thing. At this point, Dagda drops one of my favorite lines in any video game:

I refuse to believe someone at Atlus wrote this line and unironically thought they were cooking. They are not beating the Shadow the Hedgehog allegations.

The game then gives you two quests and lets you choose which one to do first: clean up the Divine Powers' invasion of the Fairy Forest from earlier, or go to the big tower that leads to Mikado to collect a part for a thing I'll mention in a moment. Both of these lead to boss fights, and I killed both of them in about three turns. SMT has a reputation for being really hard, but if you have enough experience with the series and spend more time nose deep in the fusion calculator than playing the game, it's not too hard to turn any boss in your way into red mist, especially since the first one of the two has a habit of using a skill that guarantees that his next hit will be a critical hit when he already has a status that does the exact same thing.

The second boss of the two is worth talking about a bit more, though. Medusa is a boss returning from the first game, and her encounter here is meant to mirror the one from that game as closely as possible, from the legendarily kickass boss music to the dialogue being nearly the exact same. One line in particular sticks out:

This game has uncensored swears in it, which makes me believe that Medusa just called Nanashi several slurs. You also get a new party member here, but he sucks so I don't feel like talking about him.

This seems like as good a time as any to mention how amazing this game's OST is. SMTIV already had some awesome tunes, and this game naturally carries most of the tracks from there while also adding some unique ones. The entire soundtrack is gold, but some of my personal favorites are the Large Map theme and the Divine Powers battle theme. I'd highly recommend looking these up to accompany your reading if you've already made it this far.

Your next mission is to defeat the Divine Powers' Evil Snake. Joining you is this wonderful gentleman:

This guy goes out of his way to use your turns to attack. This has a high chance of getting you killed in random encounters. He's also almost necessary to kill Evil Snake, since he carries around a spear blessed by God that's super effective against it. I love this guy. The battle against Evil Snake is also pretty interesting; you need to choose the right dialogue options so you don't get wiped. Most major bosses in both SMTIV and Apocalypse do this, but the Evil Snake fights really make you feel like a tactical smart guy for choosing the right options...

...or at least they would if I didn't have a guide at the ready. If there's one thing I regret about this game, it's looking things up on the wiki way too often and ruining some things for myself that I would've liked to see with my own eyes. I needed the alignment guide to make sure my Sin Points were at sufficient levles and a walkthrough to get through the incredibly crankass final dungeon, but I could have survived without the constant wiki diving.

Anyway, after killing the Evil Snake, a couple of creepy old ladies tell you to kill Flynn and the Divine Powers. The gang obviously objects to the former, so they let you skip that part as long as you let "this weird child" (their words, not mine) named Toki follow you along for the ride.

The second she joined my party, she instantly killed an enemy I ran into and then said this. You can't make this shit up. Isabeau also formally joins the party around this point, rounding out a complete set.

The whole squad goes off to fight the Divine Powers, which completely backfires in their face and ends up revealing to the entire party that Nanashi is essentially a corpse being puppeted along at the whims of Dagda. Nobody is happy about this. After the confronration, one of the Divine Powers sets up a barrier that makes everyone in Tokyo unable to summon demons (except Nanashi because he's different). One of the leaders of the Hunter's Association asks you to quell an invasion of Nanashi's home, leading to one of my favorite dialogue choices in the game:

During the invasion, Asahi's dad dies. Womp womp.

While Asahi mourns, the rest of the gang turns their focus to destroying the barrier. To do this, they need to seal five jars that power the barrier through collecting emotions from five of the seven deadly sins, because I guess the Divine Powers couldn't afford all seven. Toki volunteers to do this because she's trained to seal her emotions away, and she gets brain blasted by all five of the sins while she's sealing the jars. After getting through the lust one, she says "I'm too young for this"... and then slightly later, she returns with her mask off and with a habit of calling Nanashi "Master" and openly thirsting over him. This could be generously described as an unorthodox writing decision. Since Asahi starts developing an interest in Nanashi around the same time, this is (to my knowledge) the only SMT game with a genuine love triangle.

On that topic, this seems like a good time to mention a major criticism with the game, that being that it feels more like a cheesy sitcom than a "real SMT game." This is definitely true, but I don't think it's that big of a deal. As I said before, there are like 40 SMT games, so it shouldn't really matter if one of them isn't super dismal and depressing like the rest, especially if the game uses that tone to tell a compelling story. It... doesn't, but that's besides the point. Also, something really funny happened in that dungeon:

Next up: beat up the Divine Powers, for real this time. After getting through a genre staple Fuckass Teleport Maze, you finally get to partake in a formal bout with Krishna, who's probably the hardest boss so far. He loves to stack multiple status effects on your party at once, making it nearly impossible to move at times, while simultaneously tanking your stats and raising his own. If there weren't a party member that blocked status effects, I genuinely don't know how I would have gotten past him. He doesn't even die, either; after you beat him, he just goes "ohhh nooo I've been defeateddd how could this possibly happennnnnn" and fucks off to do some more plotting. Somehow, the entire party is fooled by this expert subterfuge. Flynn is also rescued during this operation, but he's acting a bit freaky.

The next thing you do is infiltrating Mikado for a reason I literally forgot. Since Mikado's Samurai get assigned at the age of 18 and most of the gang distinctly does not look that old, they put on stupid-looking disguises, which leads to Asahi getting totally owned by the angel guarding the gate:

After a bit more work, you finally arrive at the Eastern Kingdom of Mikado. This moment is awesome for both story and meta reasons: the characters are astonished by the fresh air and the feeling of sun on their faces since they've lived under a dome their entire lives, and the player (me) is astonished by being right back at the initial hub area from the first game. The music and visuals are exactly the same, and you get to use all the same facilities and things that the Samurai do. It's a really rewarding and cool feeling after the extended gap between my playing of the two games. As another bonus, Nanashi gets to wear the supremely cool Samurai outfit:

Ignore the green shades. He thinks they look cool.

At this point, Merkabah and Lucifer officially declare war and start trying to beat each other up. To stop them, you need to go through an area from the first game, interspersed with sections of Lucifer's Palace (but not Merkabah's Purgatorium, for some reason). At the center of the area, Merkabah and Lucifer are talking shit to each other, with Flynn sitting in the middle and calling them both poopyheads. At this point, you can side with either Merkabah or Lucifer to get a Law/Chaos bad ending that ends the game early, or kill both of them like the game clearly wants you to. Gaston breaks his heavenly spear and becomes a worse character by replacing it with a normal one, and some other guy does some thing that I don't care about. Once you do that, all of the evil forces of the world are totally dead, so you can go back home and celebrate! Woohoo!

At this point, I came to a realization: I was really invested in this game. Sure, the tone was very different from any other SMT game, but I didn't perceive that as a bad thing. The characters were fun (if a little simple), the plot had set up lots of interesting threads, and the gameplay and vibes were as excellent as ever. I might have even been enjoying myself more than the first game. I went into the comments section of a review to see if other people shared this opinion, and I just ended up disagreeing with most of the reasons people weren't vibing with the game, but I also came to another, much more terrifying realization:

I had stopped to check right before the plot turned into a shitshow. A magnificent one, but a shitshow nonetheless.

Surprisingly, the game doesn't actually end after you beat up Merkabah and Lucifer. At the ensuing party, Flynn reveals himself as a reincarnation of the Evil Snake from earlier and eats the souls of everyone at the party. This would probably be a much more shocking reveal if he didn't spend the entire Merkabah/Lucifer encounter making this face and the game didn't draw attention to it every single time he did.

Once he reveals himself, Evil Snake jumps at Nanashi with intent to kill, but Asahi jumps in front of him to protect him, dying in the process.

I have so many questions. Didn't she know that Nanashi just comes back to life whenever he gets killed because of Dagda? I've died plenty of times throughout the game, so she had to have picked up on that by now. Is she stupid? Well, yeah, she is, but you know what I mean. Also, why can't Dagda just bring her back to life like he does with Nanashi? Is he gonna do that later in the game? Oh, God, he totally is, isn't he? And why does nobody else in the party care!?

The possible explanation for that last point is that Evil Snake just turned into a giant egg that's going to hatch and destroy the universe. Krishna shows up, says "hey bitches I didn't die", and now you gotta deal with them again. Great. At least I got Nanashi a lovely new outfit for his troubles.

The moment you get into the Cosmic Egg, Krishna turns to Toki and says one of the most stranger danger lines I've ever seen:

After that, he extracts the demon living inside Toki's brain (which still has her conscious inside it) and whisks her away to stuff souls into the demon to create new demons, which he will not stop describing as "giving birth". I have no idea how this got past QA and made it into the final game, especially since Toki is fourteen years old. Even more strangely, after traversing the majority of the Cosmic Egg (which looks like this the entire way through, overlay included) and defeating the demon possessing Toki, she just reverts to her personality from before the thing with the jars, implying that the way she acted for half the game was the result of that whole process altering her brain and turning her freaky. They try to insert a character arc of her trying to find inner strength or something after this, but it feels more like someone suddenly telling you about the job interview they just got out of after several hours of showing you Homestuck porn.

After another piss easy bossfight, you finally get to the decision the entire game has been building up to: destroy the Cosmic Egg with the help of your friends to preserve the current universe, or betray your friends and use Dagda's power to create a new universe where humans take back the godlike powers stolen from them by God. Since I pride myself as a comprehensive reporter, I'll be going through both of these routes, starting with...

Pacifist

On the Pacifist route, Dagda's mom shows up and tells him "fuck you, I'm gonna kill you, give me 2000 Macca" and creates another Dagda that's less of an asshole so you can kill the old one. After beating Dagda MKI up, Dagda MKII releases the souls of everyone eaten by the Evil Snake and therefore trapped within the Cosmic Egg, resulting in Asahi coming back to life completely unscathed despite her physical body clearly being eviscerated when she protected Nanashi earlier. Man.

At the end of the Cosmic Egg, you find Krishna waiting with Flynn crucified next to him. He soliloquizes a little more about saving the world, then fuses with Flynn to become Vishnu-Flynn... who I effortlessly destroyed because I accidentally set my difficulty to Conflict instead of WAR and forgot to change it back. Whoops! Also, I'm pretty sure they forgot to translate one of the dialogue options that appears when you fight him.

After defeating Vishnu-Flynn, Flynn separates from Krishna and deals a very anime-looking finishing blow to him. Krishna is sealed away back in that waterfall dungeon, the Cosmic Egg is deactivated and becomes a tourist attraction, and all threats to Tokyo are destroyed, so everyone from both Tokyo and Mikado can return to living peaceful lives. Also, the time dilation in Mikado is removed because the Evil Snake blasted a hole in the ceiling earlier. Sounds like a happy ending for everyone, right? WRONG! An expy of Stephen Hawking appears in the dreams of the entire party and tells them to go kill God, directing them to the universe where he lives, which is one of the most agonizing final dungeons I've ever had to sit through:

What this map doesn't show you is that every single floor here is absolutely gigantic, which, when combined with Nanashi's sluggish walk speed, results in a dungeon that may have genuinely killed me if I didn't have a guide telling me exactly where to go. Throughout the dungeon, you fight clones of Merkabah and Lucifer that God created to beat you up, and then the real Merkabah and Lucifer show up to become SATAN! He is not remotely challenging. Satan creates the door to God's house, and you finally come face to face with the big man himself... or perhaps "face to face to face to face to face to face" would be more accurate.

This is the funniest thing I've ever seen.

This boss is ridiculously hard, for a number of reasons:

Flynn and Isabeau split off from your party to form their own with Jonathan and Walter from the first game, who show up here just to kick God in the pants. You swap between the two parties every turn. This sounds beneficial, but Isabeau is the best partner in the game, so losing access to her for the final boss really stings.

God naturally resists all elements. To counter this, you need to have Flynn use Godslayer's Sword on him, which reduces his defense against a random ailment, and even turns it into a weakness if it hits the same element twice. There's no guaranteeing which element this skill affects, so you might end up giving him a weakness to normal attacks and absolutely destroying him... or a weakness to an element none of your demons can use.

This is a two-phase boss. The first phase is relatively inconsequential, but it does drain your patience and resources before the second phase, which is where shit gets real. He gains a skill that fully buffs all his stats and gives him a very dangerous status, a skill that fully debuffs your entire party's stats and has a chance of blocking you from using skills at all, and a full-party nuclear bomb that pierces affinities and does massive damage. Thankfully, he doesn't tend to use these skills one after the other, but it's still incredibly hard to deal with, especially since Flynn's party has a very limited set of items to work with.

The boss is levle 100, while Vishnu-Flynn was only lv87. I assume they want the player to make up the difference while going through the dungeon, but since this struck me as a massive waste of time, I fought him at around 10-15 levles below what seems to be recommended. I could have fixed this with a bit of grinding, but that's dumb and lame and I didn't wanna do it.

For all of these reasons, I was genuinely unable to do the boss on WAR difficulty and had to step down to Conflict to finish the game. It's a shame, too, because I think the concept of the boss is really cool; you need to have your entire party reject God as a concept by forming a proper understanding of him and thus denying his mysterious power, and once you do this enough, he reverts to just another regular demon that you can take down like any other. It's a pretty awesome fight from a lore standpoint, and it also fits in with absolutely nothing else from the rest of the game. After giving God the old one-two, you get a heartfelt goodbye from the gang as a slideshow of what they've been up to scrolls by, and the credits finally roll.

Ignore the guy with grey hair and the weird green ghost thing, they don't matter. This ending is kind of infamous for being incredibly saccharine and feeling more like a Persona ending than an SMT one, but at this point, I've been through enough shit that I think I've earned it. I shouldn't revel in this for too long, though, because now I have to get through...

Genocide

On the Genocide route, you side with Dagda in order to create a new universe that promotes solitude and personal strength above all else. Unfortunately, this is in direct conflict with your friends' goals, so now you have to kill all of them and harvest their souls so you have the power necessary to create a new universe. I fail to see how this makes you any different from the Divine Powers, but I digress. Hilariously, after killing all his friends, Nanashi says "Dagda" in a much more evil and fucked up way whenever he calls him to pull up the menu. Nanashi and Dagda then walk up to Krishna, tell him to stop yapping and turn into Vishnu-Flynn so they can beat him up, and... I got instantly wiped. Not only is he tougher and seemingly smarter on WAR mode, but you also obviously don't have a partner for this fight and can't reap the benefits of that. I clearly need to do some preparation to take this guy on.

Actually, that relates to something I haven't really gone into yet. Whenever I play an RPG, I have a habit of optimizing my build as much as possible over the course of the game, and SMT is no different A large part of my time with Apocalypse in particular wasn't actually spent playing it; instead, I tend to bury myself in a fusion calculator (basically a chart of every demon and every way you can fuse them together) and refuse to let myself out until I find a way to fuse the exact demon with the exact set of skills I want on it. Occasionally, I'll spend an entire day going through the calculator to find a certain combination without playing the game at all. I have mixed feelings about this habit: it's fun to figure out how to acquire the demon I want and incredibly satisfying when I find a recipe that works, and annihilating a boss with a team specifically created to exploit their weaknesses is ridiculously gratifying, but it's usually unnecessary, greatly increases the amount of time I spend on the game, and sometimes leads to me finding out about certain plot-relevant demons before I wanted to. In any case, once I found a combination of demons that was suitable to take down Vishnu-Flynn (which included Shiva, ironically enough), he went down without a sweat.

Dagda then tells Nanashi that he needs a "goddess" to properly recreate the universe. This goddess can be any of the party members you just killed (or Asahi), regardless of gender, and Dagda will bring back the one you choose as a puppet and consume the rest to fuel his new universe. He also possesses Flynn for good measure. I chose Isabeau because she has the best skills and she's a pretty woman. Oddly, Flynn essentially turns into a walking corpse who only exists to serve Nanashi, but whoever you choose as your goddess seemingly has their sanity totally intact. However, things aren't over just yet, since there's one man standing in the way of your path to godhood: the Creator God himself.

Since you actually have an impetus to kill God on this route, Stephen mostly just appears to tell you where he's at and how to do it. Once I made a pit stop to pick Krishna up from the waterfall dungeon and wiped out the Secular Press, I went back to God's Universe for a rematch against the big man. The return trip was about as interesting as the first; I tried to do some of the DLC quests, but they whooped my ass and pissed me off in equal measure, so I kept my distance and went straight to the boss with my squad:

Fighting God at lv99 on WAR mode gave me much more of an appreciation for how fun the fight is. On the Genocide route, the second party consists of only Flynn and Satan, but that's hardly an issue since Satan has ridiculous health and stats and every skill you would want him to have. Instead of your friends rebuking God's pity, you have to choose the right dialogue option to disavow him and progress the fight (or at least I think; I'm not sure what getting these wrong actually does). With proper preparation, the first phase is essentially free, meaning you get to the second phase (the fun part) much more often, which is as much of an assclench as ever. He's still incredibly hard for an enemy you're expected to fight in the main game, but I thoroughly enjoy everything about the fight from both a gameplay and lore perspective, especially on this route. Once you sufficiently kick God in the pants, Nanashi takes his seat at the Throne of Creation, Stephen Hawking warns him that more messiahs will come to fight him off the throne which is clearly a teaser for SMTIV3, Dagda vanishes into the cosmos to watch over their new universe, and the credits roll.

Honestly, I vastly prefer this to the Pacifist route. The act of killing your friends and possessing Flynn for your own benefit makes you feel like a bit of a dick without hamming it up for shock value too much, and actually having a reason to go to God's house and punch him in the teeth makes the ending feel a lot more natural. Also-- and this might make me sound like a psychopath-- I didn't realize how much I didn't want my friends screaming into my ear until they were all dead. That one YouTube comment I saw once was right; the best part of this game really is getting to kill your annoying ass party members. There's also a DLC where you collect the protagonists from the other games to fight Stephen Hawking, but I couldn't even get past the first phase to get to the second one where he stands up and becomes obscenely difficult.

Conclusion

Shin Megami Tensei IV Apocalypse is not a perfect game. I probably wouldn't go as far as to say it's a great game, and it's definitely worse than the original. That being said, I still had a lot of fun with it. There are a fair few genuinely novel ideas hidden behind the shaky execution, and the gameplay is absolutely phenomenal, even compared to other entries in the series. I also can't help but feel like I learned a lot about myself and how I consume games during my time with it.

I have a very particular way of playing most games. I'll usually wait until a game has been out for a while so I know what to expect and I can get it on sale, or, in the case of older games, I simply pirate it. I collect all of my preexisting knowledge on the game and go "okay, this is what everyone likes and dislikes about this thing, let's see what genuine value I can find in the good and ironic value in the bad". If I'm worried about getting something wrong during my playthrough, I find a walkthrough and follow it to a T. I report amusing happenings or interesting observations about the game in a Discord thread, and by the end, I come out with the lives of me and a couple others enriched by the experience, no matter what flaws the game may have. I am a strong believer that (almost) any game has value waiting to be found, no matter how rocky its surface may be.

SMTIVA completely broke this system. The game shattered all expectations I had for it in both good and bad ways, the walkthrough and relentless wiki-diving led to my playthrough becoming much slower and somewhat artificial, and my need to report on every single facet of the game dragged things out even more and led to me doing some things that I absolutely wouldn't bother with on a solo playthrough. My philosophy of every game having something to enjoy hasn't changed, but perhaps I should spend less of that time carefully planning out how to go through the game and what to say about it and more of it just... playing the game. As a result, this might be the only post I make in this format, or at least the only one nearly this long. I still like the idea of writing reviews here for games I finish playing, but I'll try to keep it to just a few paragraphs instead of nearly six thousand words.

In conclusion: play Shin Megami Tensei. It's based as hell. Persona, too, for that matter; regardless of how much I rag on it, that series contains my favorite games of all time. And no matter what you choose to play or how you choose to play it, remember to have as much fun as you possibly can. That's what video games were made for, after all. Before I leave, though, I have one more word of wisdom for all of you:

Nice

[markatoto]

favorite moment(s) in pro wrestling?

man..... i have not been able to keep up with wrestling in recent times due to do the fact that i'm now streaming on the wednesdays when AEW dynamite happens, so i have been missing out a LOT. even sundays, when typically the PPVs happen, ive been missing just cause i normally stream around those times as well. that being said... if i had to pick some favourite moments in pro wrestling, like.... there are so many storied matches throughout me getting into the genre. i guess nothing quite hits like a good story that accompanies the eventual fight. the one i can think of from the top of my head is CM punk vs MJF. as much as i hate CM punk, he put on a damn good show in all of those promos and matches against Max. that was some damn fine television. i also really enjoyed the brief rivalry between the lucha bros and the young bucks, culminating in one of the best tag matches ive ever seen in my entire life - All Out 2021. that fight was fucking brutal, beautiful, and EXTREMELY well deserved towards the Lucha Bros. Those guys work so hard and for them to get the tag belts was nothing short of incredible. and then there was Revolution 2021: Exploding Barb Wire Deathmatch. Jon Moxley vs Kenny Omega. Incredible fight, its as bombastic and bloody as you think it might be. Kenny gets the win and you see a countdown appear on the titantron. The ring is apparently going to explode. Kenny gets out of there, but Jon is on the ground. He's been beaten pretty badly, and you can tell he's tired. Just when you think our protagonist is done for, here comes his friend, Eddie Kingston: one of the coolest dudes in all of wrestling - has been through so much and is finally here to take the blast for him. he covers his friend with his body to take the blast and

...okay?

[slowdripsunrise]

jfc okay so i have forgotten/been too lazy to write up reveiws here i apparently havent updated since. lone women which is well. so ive read a shit ton since then so i'm going try my best to write up as much as i can in this post bc i don't want to just. stop and skip over stuff. so well. here we go. spoilers for various books under the cut, i'll tag them all !

first book i finished after i last updated was silver nitrate by silvia moreno-garcia. been a while but damn do i remember the fucking vibes. absolutely killer vibes and atmosphere, and the plot was fun and interesting; i do remember being a bit confused in one of the final scenes fighting the guy but it wasnt enough to take me out of the story. the characters felt real and i could feel their love of movies and maybe each other off the page, definitely recommend if you're looking for an atmospheric, creepy little book.

next (and i'll just group these together) i read the poppy war trilogy by r. f. kuang ! absolutely wonderful storytelling and the characters were interesting and loveable. i think that this story succeeds in being one of the few good "war stories" as in it doesn't glorify or make light of any aspects of the war. there are good moments and bright spots throughout, but in the end pretty much every single character we know and love ends up dead, and before they're dead, they've been shaped so thoroughly by the war around them that there is no way anyone could have come out of this series thinking that it in any way romanticized the events. i loved everything about it and more. but while i did love the series. tbh i don't agree with everyone saying that its the most serious and intellectual and groundbreaking book in the entire world. yes it is groundbreaking and yes it is based on a lot of real life horrific events, but it's also. extremely entertaining. it's written beautifully and has some very poignant scenes that i love, and i am gonna be honest i lost where i was going with this point. i think what i'm trying to say is like before i read it, i saw a lot of people on the internet saying that it is like. the highest peak of literature and such and like. for me, it's mostly just a damn good time. i go into most books looking for entertainment (meaning like. i would like to feel emotions, not necessarily happy ones, just emotions in general) and what i think a lot of people made it seem like, was ONLY an epic tome about the brutality of war, the military, and colonization. and it absolutely is about that ! i am not docking points for it being about those things, in fact if it hadn't had all these hard hitting topics i wouldn't have liked it as much. but it's ALSO about rin, kitay, and nezha, and how they love and hate each other. and sometimes i think people lean too much into one aspect of the book, one way or the other (i have absolutely seen the inverse of this, people forgetting about the colonialism and militarization aspects in an impressive show of hypocrisy. which... is worse imo.) but idk. i have no idea what i am trying to say i just like this book yall.

next oml. okay again grouping them together for my own sake but i read the southern reach trilogy by jeff vandermeer ! this series was such a creepy and weird and offputting good time i ate that shit right up. the first book and the biologists pov are my favorites, and all of the insight we get from her and the first book into area x was just. so compelling i could not put that shit down. i'm pretty sure the second i finished in the hospital lol i was INVESTED. and honestly. i did really like the second book. not as much as the first, but i don't think it was bad or underwhelming compared to the first. once i got past the pov shift, i really liked controls pov partly because he is just some guy. like he is just so average and banal, and seeing this set against the absurdity of the rest of the book was really interesting. i liked how even though we weren't IN area x, the southern reach still had that otherworldly and offputting suspenseful energy, even in a familiar setting (office building type i mean. as opposed to weird as fuck forest). that and also i am deep into my f1 phase so like i kept picturing control as checo perez. like hes just so guy to me like hes just a normal guy that has no fucking clue whats going on and thats really funny and awesome to me. like man. anyway the third wasnt my favorite, but i still really like the series as a whole and will probably read the 4th one coming out whenever it does.

NEXT. sharks in the time of saviors by kawai strong washburn. did i cry. maybe. did i really like the story. yes. it was definitely a change of pace for me after reading the above books but the story was lovely and magical and engaging and very sad and i enjoyed every bit of it.

after that i read scattered all over the earth by yōko tawada, which is a story that i kinda have mixed feelings about? i listened to the audio book and the narrator did such a wonderful job, i loved listening to the two man characters talk about language in the mc's made up language, panska. and if the book was just about that, i probably would have liked it more, exploring language and the loss of it; however one of the side characters constantly get's misgenders when the story is outside of her pov. and it's like. really fucking distracting. so like i guess i don't have very mixed feelings about it lol. i liked one bit, definitely did not like another bit, and the rest of the book wasn't really strong enough to sway me back into the "i like this book and think it's interesting" camp. although if you can get past the blatant transphobia, the audio book really is nice to listen to, especially coming off a post surgery high.

next i read the ghost bride by yangsze choo ! this was another really atmospheric, palpable book. i could feel the setting, the humidity, the smells, all of it and it was so good! an engaging story, i'm pretty sure i read this one in a day or two. the characters were fun, the plot moved quickly in a way that made sense, and exploring the realms of the dead and the living with the characters was so fun, definitely recommend !

im gonna wrap this post up here mostly bc im hungry but i still have a lot more to update on ! if u made it this far thank you and also im sorry. happy reading!

[jazzmckay]

i finally finished the fallout show, so here are my thoughts. i will talk about both things i enjoyed and things i didn't enjoy. be aware that i'm one of Those west coast fallout fans so this will be bethesda-critical, although it's never my goal to be a hater or make fans of bethesda games feel bad for enjoying them.

spoilers for not only the show, but most fallout games ive played, which includes: fallout, fallout 2, fallout 3, and fallout: new vegas

lets start with the positive!

things i enjoyed:

the aesthetics: it just plain looks good. it matches the games pretty accurately, it brought the world of fallout to this new medium very well. visually, it definitely looks like fallout, and i thought it had some nice cinematography and shot framing. i like that it was never too dark to see what was going on, i like that it was fairly vibrant even with the unavoidable Brown Wasteland, Metal Grey Vault palettes. the costumes were great. i liked how the people looked realistic for the world they're living in. i would have liked cooper to be more standard ghouly, but after having seen the full show, i'm fine with it. the ghouls have a lot of range, physically, and it does make sense for cooper to be more human-like because he's actively preserving himself, and probably did so pre-war as well. all in all it was visually great

the main characters: lucy is a fantastic main character. i love how shaped she is from living in vault 33 specifically, with her moral compass, view of the world, social uniqueness, and relationship with sex. i adore that she's such a positive person, always wanting to see the best in others and make the best of any situation, but that doesn't mean she can't get hurt and angry, can't fight when she has to. she's fun and badass, i really like her. maximus is just as complex, shaped by the brotherhood instead of the vault--again, moral compass, view of the world etc all coloured by where he's spent most of his life, just in a different way from lucy. more grey, more skewed, more manipulated, in my opinion, even though of course vault 33 was quite manipulated as well. his struggle with identity is awesome. i like how both of them are a little weird, a little socially unhinged, and majorly biased about the world. i enjoyed maximus' struggle and journey with coming into his own. i'll be eager to see that continue in s2. cooper took me almost the ENTIRE season to warm up to. at first he was the kind of character i found interesting, but difficult to like. right from the start, you know he wasn't always like this, and 200 years in the wasteland has understandably changed him, but i was still very "fuck this guy, hes a prick and he annoys me" for most of the show. the final episode finally tipped me over onto the "okay yeah im properly into this character now" side. he's definitely layered, just takes a bit to see more than the outer one that makes him just look like... a major piece of shit. i love a dark character as much as the next guy, but i prefer if it Makes Sense, and i didn't fully get him until the last ep. eager to see how he develops going forward as well. don't have a lot to say about norm, i just really like him. hell yeah fuck shit up, little bro

the side characters: betty and stephanie fascinate me, especially after learning who they really are. moldaver is SO COOL and a milf for real oh my god i'm a little obsessed. thaddeus surprised me with his depth. ma june was really cool and felt sort of quintessential fallout to me. even just the one-off people of the wasteland were really interesting to me. they were real people with a place in this world, no matter how small. (you'll notice i havent mentioned dane, even though being nb myself, a nb character should be a big deal to me. well. i still dont entirely know how i feel about dane, unfortunately)

the vault lore: from start to finish, i was HOOKED on everything to do with the vaults. the concept of 3 vaults being connected and able to trade with each other when necessary was interesting. i liked the concept of vault 33 and how it gave the characters a different culture about relationships and sex. then i enjoyed the suspense of the lie unravelling, of following norm's arc of defying what he'd been raised with to figure everything out. it was very tense and mysterious.

vault lore part 2: historically, i've not been a fan of pre-war society actually being shown. didn't like that they did that in fo4, though part of that could be that i just massively dislike the choices they made for it, including how it locked the player too much into an unchangeable (heterosexual) backstory. i guess i'm not fully against the pre-bomb time being shown as long as it's lore-friendly, and i'm pleasantly surprised that the show was pretty lore-friendly indeed. not entirely. i have some major gripes that i will get into later, but i liked the tension and intrigue of the big corporations doing their gross capitalism shit, and cooper finding out just how fucked up they are. the idea of the vault ownership being split up between different companies and therefore different ideals so "the best ideas of how to continue civilization can win" was interesting! i think it's more grounded to say that most vaults were trying to make something viable for the future, not just fucked up experiments for the sake of it, but the ideas were extreme and many doomed to failure. i wouldn't even say this is a retconn, a lot of the vaults, even the ones that got really messed up, can be viewed as an attempt at making something good, just with amoral methods

how the brotherhood was portrayed: FINALLY bethesda has written the brotherhood in a way more reflective of what they're supposed to be. the brotherhood are not the ultimate heroic knights in shining armour. they're not just a grandstanding military faction. caveat that i don't know the fo4 brotherhood personally, but fo3!brotherhood was so incomprehensible. in fo1, the brotherhood is reclusive and focused on technological / scientific information. they are a force to be reckoned with when convinced to take good action, but they're on the insular side. in fo2, they're a destroyed shadow of what they were, with barely any presence. in fnv they're even more reclusive, entirely xenophobic to anyone outside of the brotherhood and further stuck in their ways. you can help them improve, but there are cult vibes. and the show? i am impressed by how they focused on those cult vibes! the brotherhood doesn't have to be 100% the same every time when there's a lot of geography between chapters and different points in the last 200 have different needs, different goals and enemies, but the brotherhood should, imo, always be a grey area. when lucy asked "this is good right, the brotherhood are the good guys?" and maximus and thaddeus were like....... eh... it's. a complicated organization. THATS THE REAL SHIT. complex. a bit uncomfortable because they're reclusive and teach their people biased ideas of the wasteland. an ideology that makes sense in-verse, but isn't a simple dichotomy of good or bad. some parts of it were uncomfortable for me in a "well thats an odd writing choice" but most of it was uncomfortable in the way the brotherhood is SUPPOSED to be uncomfortable, and i am here for that

the scene where maximus comes clean to lucy and she accepts him, because she's learned how complicated the surface world is, and she has been travelling with him enough to see who he really is

the fnv theme cue when the ncr flag was shown. got me emotional fr

lucy is down to fuck and i LOVE that for her. it's great to see a female main character be so into sex without it being for any reason other than... she thinks sex is good and fun

the lucy/maximus ship. im officially on team "people who say its boring and lacking in chemistry might be not giving the black character the consideration he deserves because of internalized racism" sorry

i can ALSO get behind the lucy/cooper ship, after the last episode. it feels like theyre on somewhat even ground now. i can go for a begrudging allies pair. they should have rough, angry sex and remind each other it doesn't mean anything after and then they both go and pine and/or brood about the people they wish they were with, or wish they were with but in a happier story

the music in general

cx404 my beloved <3

things i did not enjoy:

the biggest issue is, of course, the way the show completely fucked with and/or retconned fallout: new vegas. in my opinion, it was very disrespectful, to the point where it's hard to see it as anything but maliciously intentional for mr. todd 'liar' howard to literally nuke the center of west coast fallout's world. it feels scummy. it feels tone deaf. it feels like a kid stomping on another kids sand castle at the beach because all they understand is destruction and coming out on top. and it also makes NO sense. the show says shady sands was bombed in 2277, which is the year of the first battle of hoover dam, and 4 years before the start of fnv. it renders everything in fnv void. the thing is that shady sands is just one small part of the ncr--in fo1, its a small farming village just getting started and a couple generations later in fo2, it isnt even recognizable as shady sands anymore, its just. The New California Republic. it's huge! it's sprawling! bombing a single city wouldn't have wiped out the ncr--and even the show acknowledges this with vault 4 and moldaver's people--but it's still too significant a calamity that fnv could have happened the way it did proceeding it. you can't just add an event like this and think it'll work when no one in fnv mentions it, when it can't retroactively impact the ncr's future that is already shown. and even though the show does allow that remnants of the ncr have survived, they didn't do it in the way that makes sense, in my opinion. what would make sense is having an entire nation losing its capitol, but the rest being able to continue on. it doesnt make sense for them to become what they did in the show, nor having it be a non-issue during fnv. the ncr could not have had a continued presence in the mojave if that nuke really happened. ive seen pieces of articles and such about how they were careful to follow the timeline and "dont worry, fnv still happened!" but.... they most certainly did not follow the timeline, and what they did utterly fucks up fnv's narrative

the answering of the question "who fired the first bomb". while i enjoyed the backstory, i did not enjoy this question being answered. the point of fallout is not who was right and who was wrong. the point isnt about there being a good side, a bad side, a justification for anything. the point is that nuclear bombs are horrific and what happened to the world is the ultimate tragedy. and it's about communities still being able to rise from the ashes and make something real. it's about people being able to survive and thrive. yes, conflict persists, but the world has not ended, and in west coast fallout, entire cities have grown up from nothing to take on a way of life all on their own, different from the pre-war days, but no longer weighed down by the tragedy, either. east coast fallout is post-apocalypse. west coast fallout is post-post-apocalypse. it's supposed to be post-post-apocalypse, and who dropped the bombs does not matter. the point is that war never changes--but people do. the old world is gone, what happened happened, and society has to move on. answering the question of who dropped the bombs serves no narrative purpose

and if america dropped the bombs on themselves--what does that mean for the rest of the world? of course, we have never known if the rest of the world is still out there continuing as normal, but making the bombs in america an inside job has new implications for china's part in everything. i do wonder if the shift away from the american-chinese conflict is a sensitivity issue. i'm not knowledgeable enough on the topic to speak on it further

robert house's potential/likely character assassination: the best way i could possibly read it is that house was being reticent about his true feelings because it wouldn't have been very tactful to oppose an entire room of capitalism moguls. but his part in planning the bombs is, if taken at face value, utterly opposed to his actual goals as stated in fnv. i want to believe he was just flying under the radar to get information. but it either doesnt make sense, or we dont have the full story yet, because house's intentions were to save new vegas from the bombs, and he wasn't able to save the entire area, which he should have been able to do if in the know, and he also would have been able to get the platinum chip on a better timeline if he was in the know. i'm trying to reserve judgement in case they elaborate on him in s2, but s1!house is.... not fnv!house

needed more pre-existing rad creatures. i'm guessing the bear was supposed to be a yao guai even though they didn't name it, but the gulper was new, and i wouldve liked to see geckos, maybe nightstalkers or cazadors if possible, just... anything properly reminiscent of west coast fallout. based on the final scenes, i'd like to think we'll see deathclaws in s2. please.

sometimes there were bouts of confusing / weird writing. episode 6 in particular had me a bit "what the fuck is going on and why are certain characters acting like this????". the scene where maximus reveals himself to thaddeus was also lackluster in my opinion. i think it should have been drawn out at least a bit. maximus trying to explain, thaddeus being conflicted--not just an immediate flip. it's hard to believe maximus would injure thaddeus THAT badly without trying something else first. whiplash for real. maximus was a little weird in vault 4 and i genuinely don't know what vibe they were going for. at first i thought he'd been drugged and the people there were going to experiment on him. (also how did cooper NOT SEE the "test subjects" over the door when he was doing the vault-tec ad? i dont remember if the name plate was shown in the commercial itself but i sure hope not or, uhhh... people would have known something bad was up). it was just a bit ??? for me, that whole damn episode. what was with the ncr remnants acting Like That? i don't get it and it was never addressed again? am i just supposed to believe that a couple decades or whatever separated from the ncr society has turned them into a cult? what association do they even have with moldaver anymore? its all so weird and unexplained. and if moldaver opposed vault-tec, how did she end up in cryo with them? i guess she didn't actively walk away from it? maybe im missing something here

on that note, the portrayal of the ncr: moldaver and her people end up being ncr but they were played the whole time like raiders. only for the end of the show to have moldaver's settlement be totally normal people just living their lives. what the hell? and the vault 4 people, again, were unsettling and confusing, i don't understand what i'm supposed to take away from this. i suppose the point is that time has changed both groups, and moldaver's been pushed to extremes, but the framing was just.... weird and iffy for me. it's a far cry from the ncr i'm used to

final thoughts:

i did overall enjoy the show, but i suppose, as they say about games like fo4, "it was a good show, but it wasn't a good fallout show". i was pleasantly surprised in a lot of ways, but the fact remains that bethesda misses, or disregards, the whole point of fallout. often they go directly against the original message of fallout. most modern fallout just isn't what it was when it started or what it is when created by people who were there at the beginning. it's painful being a west coast fan specifically, sometimes, because todd is always finding new ways to massacre my boy. but if i pretend this isn't canon and that it has no bearing on one of my favourite games, if i look at it just as it is instead of something that hinges with a bunch of other stories... it was surprisingly enjoyable. i just have to turn off the part of my brain that wants to fight mr howard in the dennys parking lot at 4am

[weepylucifer]

hi! im trying to get into luciferanism and ive always admired how you worship. I was just wondering how you got into it/what are the best places to start? thank you!!

i had to let that one marinate bc, whew, you must have been here a long time. it's been about 5 years since i talked about luciferianism at any length

i can forward you a post with links for sources on it but be aware that i personally haven't vetted these and, from my experience with the different types of people that find themselves drawn to any flavor of satanism, you could find a WIDE array of dodgy shit here. enjoy with care: (x)

i can say i got into it purely by accident: i was a teen and i saw a german youtuber i admired at the time talk a bit about being a satanist, and so i just started saying i was one too. i can pretty confidently claim that's honestly all anyone does, plus extra frills of choice attached.

no, hear me out here: the thing that still fascinates me about luciferianism and really any kind of satanism is that it's an entirely artificial religion. now, you could say "that's all religions. they're all made up by humans lol" and i'd dock you points in the game of life for being a reddit atheist. you could say all religion is really a long tradition of passing on a narrative and set of guidelines to help us live good lives and understand our starry universe, and i'd be lenient with you for wording it more sensitively. but that's not what i MEAN. what i mean is: most religions are built up, more or less by consensus, organically over the centuries. and most religions that you'd think of raise some claim towards the truth: that their god is real, that their prophets are real, that their holy scripture came about as a result of some manner of inspiration from a superior entity. satanism in no form claims that. the satanic bible was written by some guy, and no one is saying that satan spoke to him. i don't think anton szandor lavey believed satan exists. the overwhelming majority of satanists don't believe satan exists. the entire point is to take the cultural narrative that exists in a (christian-centric) culture about satan and craft something out of it that carries spiritual meaning to you. that's why satanism is not so much a religious group as it is myriads of worshippers doing their own thing.

(this does however carry the danger of just producing individualism with a goth veneer, and lavey himself was inspired by ayn rand. be very wary! ☝️)

i've seen luciferianism loosely defined as this: you take in the story of lucifer, and you try to make it applicable to your life. for me, this has kind of organically led to becoming a communist. this is my one legit offering to you: not higher wisdom, but the words of mortal man (karl marx). ...nahh just kidding go wherever you want with it. that said, reading paradise lost can't hurt!! while that's probably not what milton wanted you to get from it, it really does show you a great sympathetic devil!

[your-local-uwu-artist]

(i could be wrong since its been forever since ive watched the movie), but it think that was the point of the metaphor. if you peel off the layers of an onion, you'd still find more onion--it doesn't change no matter how deep you look into it. Shrek was saying that no matter how much you try and look deep into an ogre, they'd still be the same. he was saying that he doesn't have any sort of specialness deep down inside of him; that he is exactly like how he is, both inside and out. if you kept peeling him, you'd still find the same ogre-ness to him, just like how if you kept peeling an onion, you'd still only have the same onion, nothing new or special different

First of all anon, thankyu for casually spashing in actually intelligent insight as a response to my comedically toned shitpost /gen /pos (being able to take silly things seriously is like, one of the first steps to a good media analysis) also sharing your thoughts can make some people feel all shy so I feel you deserve a thumbs up for having the courage to hit that send button >:3

Okay so I did some googling and I do think that the initial assumption of like, outer layer, inner self, is probably the intended meaning:

But I defintly think your onto something anon :o and lowkey explained it better than the articles I speed read nshdjsn

Anyway this is completely on the fly rambles so ill try to bullet point it and put it under a cut sense I'm writing off the top my mind and dont know how long it'll be

-i definitely think the way you explained the idea makes a lot more sense to Shrek's characterization, It doesn't seem like it was trying ti insinuate that there was something particularly special about whats under the layer, just that there is more to him than the outer layer

-it did seem that it was trying to express something about outer appearance and stereotypes but probably not in the manner my blunt autistic brain takes metaphors so literally

-so onion metaphors in general do exist theoretically before Shrek and in general it is used to convey multiple layers around one core, and apparently "peeling the layers of the onion" is seen as a metaphor for like, personal growth and dealing with deep buried problems in your life, not sure if the second ones relevant but idk maybe someone can find a tie in

-so I'm guessing the layers of the onion is either like, how much somebody sees of you, or the persona that you show on the outside, I'm not sure which one is more fitting or neither or both, but I guess the idea is that like, someone may seem rude and cold on the outside but behind that outer layer there's other aspects to this person, I suppose to tie in the its still the same, it could be argued that the outer layers are still a part of that person, it's just not hollow like some assume it to be, and if you peel back the layer its the fact that there is anything more than the outer layer that is signfigant

-i could see that approach to it making more sense since I think its trying to say something about stereotypes, I vaguely remember Shrek also saying that people will decide they dont like him when they barely know him

-in that case I guess you could try ti apply a similar metaphor to a real stereotyped group, like perhaps a gay man acts eccentric and fits those stereotypes and so people write him off as just the "gay best friend" and boil down his entire person to just that outer layer, it doesn't accur to them that the outer layer isn't just hollow, that there's anything underneath, and they might not think to try and peel it because they think they know the person based on only the outer layer, in which, I guess we can think of the core of the onion as that person at their purest, and by peeling back the layers your getting close to seeing that person for every aspect of who they are, so if you peel back the layers of this theoretically gay guy, yeah he still likes men but he also has this thing called a life and more than one personality trait

-i still find irony in that the idea is that by peeling back layers your seeing "more" to the person, sense peeling an actual onion makes it smaller

-but I the metaphor won't be perfect to its litteral counterpart...

-anyhow once again thanks for the message anon! I really enjoyed and appreciated hearing your thoughts and found them helpful in kinda like, how I tend to approach these kind of metaphors in general :DD I hope you have a lovely day and you deserve an apply juice box with some crackers for your contributions to society

[boonesfarmsangria]

mdou moctar @ crescent ballroom

been a minute since ive talked about a show ive seen ..

crescent remains the best venue in all of arizona to catch a show. it is tiny but still feels navigable even when packed, the sound is always perfect, and you can see everything from any place in the ballroom. actually cant say enough good about it. ive seen some dream acts here and its never lost on me the specialness of it

rosali opened and was one of the best openers ive ever seen and an instant love. (kiev & gustaf reign) she has a beautiful, pure voice and uses it fully. musically tight with kind of a post rock edge on the ends with distant echoes of appalachia. she mentioned & contributed a song to cardinals at the window (go get it on bandcamp now) she has a little bit of stevie in her a little natalie merchant. her & band were brilliant. live is better. more loose and heavy but what can you do? hills on fire is also a good one↓

mdou is fuckin crazy. these guys went from 0 to 100 from first note and never really let up. az is rarely at this speed and it took awhile for people to adjust and get with it. with barely a thimblefull of rhythm amongst them, the crowd eventually started dancing hard. the drummer was going buck and the smoke that hung in the air around the stage im not entirely sure wasnt just coming from him. i watched him a lot. it was a sight. i had been up since 5a and worked on 3 hard ppl so was on the dead side and there was a point where... oh so they played all their songs for like 13?15 minutes...i completely zoomed in and was locked like in the music. it was super weird. ive only done that a handfull of times at shows and only ever at foals shows. its where youre like so acutely present you can almost see the enlivening structure of your surroundings like theres a visible quality to the edges of things or the air or something or youre in th idk...anyway i was totally entranced. time passed in a floaty way. im so so happy i went. there was a point where i thought oh im not sad really i just need live music. there was a part in one song that the drumming was really at the front and it just filled my body i almost wanted to cry. like just the drag on a snare. there wasnt much singing but when there was it was

so i have no idea what but that let me just be fully in the sound of it. to say they were good is just dumb. the way moctar plays guitar is like if a small boy stumbled on a hendrix record in an otherwise totally isolated musical environment and was only able to play it on a malfunctioning turntable that distorted the speed and tone and he obsessively wanted to encompass and surpass him.

i dont know how to characterize how i feel about getting to see this band live. its genuinely insane to fathom in a cosmic sense. he said here was like where he is from and talked about how he plays guitar by what he feels🥲 funeral for justice is an incredible record. listen to it. and what an amazing title

obviously im intense about music. see exhibit this entire blog, but the reality of being in a small venue with music vibrating through you is truly the greatest joy of life.