#other than that overall i find the whole thing to be very well researched and very entertaining !!!!!

[amphibifish]

HEY FISH im curious what do you think about mcga loki. like as a character and loki adaptation

oh my god im so late to responding to this lmao i did not get anotifcation for this but ANYWAY

character wise i like him for what he is ! obviously hes the very common evil loki wants to start ragnarok antagonist but i think his scenes (visions?) with magnus are all very interesting and he's just entertaining to read/watch lol I haven't finished the third book yet so i'm still very curious to exactly what happened with randolph and his plan to foil loki's plans.

as for loki adaptation, he's very entertaining but i don't tend to gravitate towards portrayals of them that make them extra evil and malicious. i do like that iirc the grief and pain the aesir put him through was mentioned but it doesn't seem to be touched upon too much after the first(?) book. i def get a diff vibe from him compared to myth!loki and he just generally seems more malicious than them lol but overall i can appreciate mcga!loki for what he was meant to achieve ^_^ (also i just like him for being like the one other god thats meant to be taken seriously lol)

[ilovetheriddler]

egon spengler fluff alphabet please?

I've never done one of these alphabet ones before, but I'll give it my best go, I hope that you enjoy it!

Egon Spengler Fluff Alphabet.

A: Attention (How much attention do they regularly give you?)

He gives you a fair amount of attention, as much as he reasonable can in between his research and his work as a Ghostbuster.

B: Bedtime (How do they prepare for bed with you each night?)

Egon is a very straightforward man. He showers, brushes his teeth, makes sure his alarm is properly set, and then lays down. However, you do have to remind him to take off his glasses every time, a small oversight on his part.

C: Cuddles (How much do they enjoy Cuddles/How good are they at giving them?)

He doesn't necessarily require them, but he understands that they make you happy, so he allows you to cuddle with him whenever you ask to. Despite not needing them himself, he's very good at giving them.

D: Date Night (Where would they take you on a date?)

He's done a fair amount of research into what would commonly be viewed as the best place to take someone on a date, so he gets a reservation at a nice restaurant for the two of you.

E: Effort (How much effort do they put into what they do for you?)

A lot more than you'd think, in fact, he has an entire list of things about you that he's noticed and how you overall like things. If he's asked about the list, he will deny its existence.

F: Fun (What fun activities do they like to do with you?)

He lets you help him organize all of his charts and research notes. And after that he enjoys reading to you.

G: Gestures (What sweet gestures do they like to do for you?)

He's compiled a list of everything that you like and will regularly do research into it so that He's always able to share in your interests.

H: Hugs (How good are their hugs?)

It's a bit stiff and sometimes awkward if you hug him first, but if he's the one hugging you, then he's a bit more relaxed about the whole thing.

I: Infatuation (When did they first realize that they loved you?)

He definitely knew that he found your presence enjoyable, but he didn't realize that it was love he felt until quite a few months into knowing you.

J: Jokes (How funny are their jokes?)

He believes his jokes are extremely well thought out and educated. You sometimes find them funny, but most times, you don't even realize that what he said was meant as a joke.

K: Kisses (How often do they kiss you?)

He gives you kisses on the cheek quite often, but he's not a big fan of PDA necessarily, so he prefers to save anything more than that until you're both alone.

L: Love Letters (How would they write you a love letter?)

It's extremely well thought out and well written, however, decoration wise.... let's just say that for a moment, you thought he was handing you a document.

M: Movies (Their favorite type of movies to watch with you)

Other than documentaries, he doesn't really have a preferred genre. He'll enjoy whatever you want to watch, most likely.

N: Naps (Do they ever really take naps?)

He's not too fond of napping. He has a planned out schedule, and he intends to stick to it, and resting outside of his scheduled seven hours of sleep each night would throw everything off.

O: Observations (How perceptive are they when it comes to you?)

He's extremely perceptive most of the time. However, sometimes he's a bit blunt when asking how you're feeling.

P: Presents (What type of gift would they give you?)

He regularly gifts you interesting mugs that he finds. It was really sweet at first, but now you have 30 mugs and are running out of room!

Q: Quirks (Something specific that they do)

Instead of stopping giving you mugs, he gets you another cabinet. It would be easier if he'd just stop, but he won't.

R: Resentfulness (How likely are they to hold a grudge against someone?)

He doesn't really hold any bitter feelings for anyone for that long. He doesn't see a beneficial reason to do so.

S: Stress (How do they handle stress?)

Egon has gotten fairly decent at working under a lot of stress. He can handle that just fine, but stress related to his personal life? That's more draining for him.

T: Trust (How much do they trust people?)

Most people? He averagely trusts them. You? He's given you his spare key, a list of his medical history. If you told him something, he would trust you without much question.

U: Unexpected Kisses (How do they react to sudden kisses?)

Once again, he's not a big fan of PDA, so if someone else was around, he'd be a bit embarrassed. However, if no one was around, then he'd expect another one.

V: Valentines Day (What do they do for Valentines Day?)

He got you a whole bouquet of flowers! Lilies, Roses, Marigolds, a bunch of different kinds, because he believes that you deserve them.

W: Wishes (What do they hope for from their relationship?)

He has a 27-step plan for your relationship. No, he will not disclose what exactly is all there, but the important thing is that step 19 is marriage.

X: X Ray (What goes on in their mind regularly?)

"How can I implement this into our ghost busting? Hmm..."

"Reasonably that wouldn't make much sense.... however...."

"They really seem to like it when I cook dinner, perhaps I should do it more often?"

Y: Yearning (How much do they miss you while away from you?)

He sees no reason to really spend too much time thinking of you while at work. After all, he'll see you afterward, and you're fully capable of taking care of yourself, so why worry?

Z: Zzz.... (What do they dream about?)

His dreams tend to consist of him capturing ghosts, so, surprisingly, pretty much the exact same as his work every day.

[teaableu]

WHAT IS YOUR EXILE AU LIKE....

I HAVE BEEN WAITING AGES FOR SOMEONE TO ASK ME THIS

Okay SO a LOT is up in the air right now because I'm doing Research as best I can between classes BUT here's what i got so far:

Lord Kogane is from a very powerful family that wants to take full control over Neo Edo. They think he's doing a poor job because the yokai are running free again and he's overall a pretty useless ruler. They step in and force him to enforce some pretty Messed Up Stuff that put all the people in danger (something to do with the Makkine tech probably). Usagi and his friends have a front row seat as to what he's up to and Usagi decides he won't let them get away with it. I haven't worked out the details but the Koganes' plans threaten the people and the yokai. BUT Usagi's not strong enough to take out the Koganes on his own.

My Usagi has a mystic power of sorts, which makes him very sensitive to spirits. All of the visions he gets through the Ki stone in the show, plus his ability to speak with Miyamoto stem from this ability. A simple way of seeing it would be like, he can see the threads of their lives. So he can read souls and connect with them, and sees ghosts when others cannot. I think the Ki stone sort of unlocked and amplified it when he connected with her. I'm still working on the details of his power but basically he can see and talk to ghosts with a little extra stuff sprinkled in

So the Ki stone encourages Usagi to seek help. Turns out the Koganes have a rich history of killing entire villages and armies that oppose them, dating (maybe) all the way back to Miyamoto's time. So he finds a couple of restless ghosts that are still waiting for vengeance and asks for their help. He strikes a deal that was supposed to help him fight Kogane while allowing the ghosts to avenge themselves their loved ones and their clans. I think he would amplify their power while they help him fight. But he doesn't realize who exactly he's making this deal with and ends up tethering his soul to very powerful VERY ANGRY ghosts that are WAY stronger than he is (I've been researching onryo and yurei for reference). They can take possession of his body, amplify his emotions to be in tune with their own, manipulate his power, and generally cause a lot of destruction. Basically, he becomes their puppet. I'm thinking it's a Venom or Little Shop of Horrors type dynamic between them. Also think of any poltergeist type film

He makes the deal and the ghosts possess him. When Usagi wakes up, he's killed Kogane (who really wasn't even the Big Bad behind the whole thing) and has to flee the city before he's caught and put to death for treason and murder. His friends are all imprisoned but he can't risk returning because he has lost control of his power and is unable to control the ghosts that are bound to his soul. The ghosts are starving for power and burning with hundreds of years of fury and anguish, and feed off of destruction (maybe the living?) It's sort of a pandora's box situation. The ghosts are just a whirlwind of chaos and use Usagi as a means to exact their wrath

I called it exile because Usagi can't return to the city without being arrested and killed for his crimes. The gang was the only one standing up to Kogane, and with his friends in prison, he's sort of stuck. He blames himself for everything that went wrong because he ran off without his friends and jumped headfirst into a situation he did not understand. He was reckless and cocky and now everyone is paying for it.

That's where EMD comes in, but the story continues after EMD season 2 as well.

Some extra notes:

- The timeline for srtuc would probably be a bit different so I can have more flexibility with the season one and season two events, since I wasn't sure when it would take place and I want there to be a pretty big time gap between Usagi leaving and returning. I also might use the Makkine invasion in the story

- I’m still working out Usagi’s backstory/past, but have pretty much decided that he has some history with the Kogane family

- I'm planning for Miyamoto to have a pretty big part in the story as well, acting as a guide for Usagi when he goes into hiding. I'm really interested in their relationship so I really want to take the chance to explore it.

- I'm thinking of adding someone as a nod to Tomoe Ame as well (descendant of her apprentice perhaps), since we got a representation of Chizu, Kitsune, and Gen in the tv show but not Tomoe (sad)

I wrote out the sparksnotes version of this here

In addition to the artwork there I have some other concept art

Blood warning under the cut

[cryptidcircuswrites]

Character x menstruating reader headcanons

! - slight NSFW, characters mostly suck at this, period =/= fem!reader

AO3

TIM WRIGHT

Has some experience from the events of Marble Hornets (Jay is trans to me) so not entirely clueless

VERY BAD AT COMMUNICATING THOUGH.

He finds out the first time and just leaves. Does not tell you where he's going, does not tell you when he'll be back, does not answer calls or texts.

Comes back several hours later to you in obvious distress with chocolate, midol, that drink you like, one of those plushes that you can heat up like a rice bag

OBVIOUSLY YOU ARE UPSET WITH HIM THO

He's very apologetic

After that first time when he goes out he tells you and makes sure his phone is charged

You usually watch a movie or whatever, but it's something quiet because you probably don't feel well

JAY MERRICK

He is probably also either on his period, about to start, or just getting off of it

notoriously bad about bugging you the entire week.

You get into a lot of little arguments because he doesn't understand boundaries and is also having mood swings

you make up pretty quickly though

He cooks for you the entire time and makes things that won't make you more bloated

BRIAN THOMAS

Absolutely the most perfect.

Massages, trips to the store, cuddling, anything you need he will make sure you get

Even if he's "working"

He will take time in the middle of an assignment to text you and check in

Hell, even if you get weirdly horny he's down to just eat you out "to help with the cramps" for a while

(he's into it)

ALEX KRALIE

He sucks.

And it's not even his fault, he just doesn't know what to do

And he's terrified you'll snap at him or something or he'll do something wrong

So he just ignores you

Self-fulfilling prophecies amiright

If he HAPPENS to have a small enough ego to ask someone (probably Brian) for help and if Brian feels nice enough to not beat his ass on sight, he'll try his best

He's not grossed out by it tho

He might bring home painkillers or a heating pad

Don't expect anything too special this man doesn't understand how this works at all

JESSICA LOCKE

Brian but a woman

Will be so sweet to you the entire time

But not in a "oh come here sweet baby" like Brian, because she gets it

She'll cook for you, rub your back or feet or thighs or whatever hurts

She will sit down and watch that cheesy movie with you, or bitch about whatever's on your nerves atm

TBH would kick Alex's ass into shape if she saw the way he handles things

"Because they deserve better than that!"

Constantly describes it all as "the bare minimum" and downplays it though

EYELESS JACK

Will probably need direction on how to help

Knows a bit, does a lot of research, etc

Ask him to go get x, y, or z though and he absolutely will

Tampons? Pads? Totally knows what he's doing, you just have to specify size and brand

Finds out that orgasms can help with cramps and will definitely test the vibes to see if you're DTF

Definitely into the idea of period sex, if only because he's literally fucking away your pain

If you're not up for it though he'll let you use his favorite heating pad and also lay across you while you nap or whatever

Also overly protective of you the whole time, because you're uncomfortable if not in outright pain

Will bite people for you if they piss you off at all

JEFF THE KILLER

Also really likes the idea of period sex, but for other reasons

Blood kink to the extreme

Will not buy you pads, unironically asks what size pussy you have if you manage to make him get them

Might bring you chocolate or painkillers I guess, but only if he genuinely likes you (not fucking likely)

Overall a total man child about it

But when is he not

SORROW

Doesn't remember much about periods due to the dissociative amnesia and not having one regularly

Tries their best though!

Ends up never remembering when exactly you're on it so is constantly bringing home chocolate, midol, pads, tampons, whatever just to be sure

They're not good about affection so they leave it on your bed or something

TICCI TOBY

Doesn't really understand a lot about it

Like he knows what it is, and there's blood involved, and that it hurts, but beyond that? Jack shit.

He asks people around him about it discreetly though and ends up getting all kinds of weird remedies for it

Will also ask what size your pussy is unironically

When he finds out the differences in pad size etc, still asks what size your pussy is as a joke

Grossed out by the idea of period sex despite being fine with woundfucking

KATE THE CHASER

Has a pretty good grasp on how to handle a period, but it takes her a few times to understand how to handle YOU on your period

Mood swings or whatever and how to keep you emotionally stable

Once she figures that out she’s pretty good about it

Also LOVES period sex

Either of you are bleeding? She wants to FUCK

Will back off if you say no, but definitely still wants you really bad

[thygoddessouijathicc]

Bishop Edibility Tierlist; A very deeply serious essay about which bishop would taste the best if you had to eat one of them for any reason

Aight, 88% of you voted in favour of this being released, so this is on you. This blood is on YOUR hands. Just remember that as you read this.

So you all remember that essay I did about how the bishops all had some kinda trauma or different reactions to purgatory and shit and how that was such a serious thing analyzing dialogue and reactions and stuff-?

Well there are TWO wolves inside of me, and one of them writes serious researched essays, it’s time you meet the other.

To preface this, this essay is entirely a joke please don’t take any word of this seriously.

To start with, technically anything is edible if you try hard enough, sometimes only once but I digress, however some things are more appetizing than others.

For this essay we will be taking evidence from canon in some cases on things you can eat, but assuming that this only means these things are more appetizing in this world, not that anything you can’t feast upon very specifically in the game is somehow inedible. Meat is meat.

Also Narinder will be referred to as a bishop because he was one.

Ok let’s start our list.

At the absolute bottom of the edibility tierlist is Narinder. Narinder is a cat. While technically cats are indeed edible by the laws of meat is meat, cats hold a special place in the hearts of many including myself.

But to be honest the real reason that Narinder holds this spot is meat quantity and quality of him specifically. Narinder, holds very little meat. Sure he has a head, but his arms are skeletal and it’s safe to assume possibly a lot of the rest of his body tis also but frail bone. Possibly what is not could also be rotten if he’s that kind of god of death that qualifies as a corpse. And while meat is meat, Narinder not only has very little, but what he does have may be poor quality. This cements him in the shameful bottom spot.

He’s also a-

Moving on, next, quite regrettably, is Leshy. Leshy is a major jump in quality from Narinder.

We don’t know much about bushworms or their anatomy but what we do know, is Leshy is dummy thicc, this means he has a large quantity of meat.

Unfortunately Leshy is also a worm which isn’t exactly the most appetizing creature to put in your gaping maw so that docks him a few points.

However the true reason he cannot be higher is that depending on your read of his anatomy, Leshy could qualify as a salad, and EWWWWW VEGITALS!!! 🤢🤮🤮

Moving on to the “would eat again category” we start with Heket.

Now it should not be news to anyone that frogs are edible, especially to French people. But I don’t believe in French people, they aren’t real. Anyway as I’m saying, you can eat frogs to your hearts content!

There are sanitation issues with Anura apparently being super gross which docks some points but overall, Heket is a solid option.

Now we’ve reached “ok hear me out” territory with Shamura.

Spiders are a major food source in cult of the lamb. Which is a bit questionable for a few reasons, including that there are multiple spider characters and Webber exists but also small spiders on the ground which seem to be a separate species which raises a lot of questions possibly best gone unanswered.

What really matters is what you can do with the small spiders you find around, you can chase them down and when you catch them, they drop meat. My friends have told me that this means I’m just taking meat they are holding, after all you can get berries if the spider has taken them.

What I say to this is: but the idea of lamb running around at night and picking up whole large spiders off the ground and feeding them to their followers is fucking hilarious, and also they always drop the same meat and never berries unless they have picked them up. You’d think if I’m just taking what they have and they will eat berries as well as meat, that I’d get berries more often. Nay, only when picked up from my farms.

This leads to the only possible conclusion being that people in the cult of the lamb universe feed often on spiders, that’s right, Helob eating followers is VENGEANCE.

So, we have established spiders are very edible in cult of the lamb, and you know what Shamura is? A giant fucking spider. They are edible, I rest my case.

Now let’s move on to first place oh boy who is it, probably who you should have expected, Kallamar.

His name sounds like Calamari to start with and not only can you eat squids in real life, you can in the game (similar weird separate species thing with spiders only in this case it’s more definitive that you can very much eat the squids themselves.)

Kallamar would also likely cry if you proclaimed your desire to consume him, misery not only makes meat better but his tears could be seasoning!

Not even to mention the fact that after beating him, it would be a moment of victoriousness and pure vindictive nature, to proceed to eat Kallamar, and vindictive nature is something I most definitely do not lack as I cuss out bishops every time I see the statues after I beat them.

Squids also don’t have many bones so unlike the others who you’d have to spend an extensive time processing before eating, Kallamar would be easy and his bones make up very little of his composition.

In conclusion, why did you read this whole essay it’s not even that funny.

And those of you who voted to have this released. Are you happy?

Are you not entertained!?

[hungry-eel]

"The biggest gacha game glutton doesn't exi-"

I am still very new when it comes to granblue fantasy, and as of right now I do not know all that much about the series, and I still won't know that much given that its a pretty old game that I can't access, and haven't head of any recent updates as far as I know. So because of that among other things, I hadn't really known about Cassius or his event story. (Correction: the game is still active and getting updates, just not as much on Cassius)

It wasn't until I was scrolling through some tumblr blogs (which @askbloatedbellyblog thanks for sharing the post that sent me down a spiral) and once I discovered about Cassius and his event story I was hooked! Not only is it one of the only visual novel/gacha games that I have seen so far that actually has visuals of the actual weight gain itself, but its also not done as a one time gag either and we get prolonged scenes of Cassius' overweight state. The story itself is also so good in my opinion! Although the actual content itself my not cater to everyone and their desires, for me, I think the story is one of the best!! It fulfills all of my stuffing fantasies and desires, watching him endlessly devour and gorge on everything that is around him, and finding enjoyment in doing such as well!

No joke, I was so invested in this character and his event story that for a good portion of time that was all I could think about! I wouldn't be surprised if this becomes a bit of a mini hyperfixation for me.

To know more about my research on Cassius himself and his gluttonous pursuits, he is fairly new to the setting as he came from another world, and is leaning to discover both this new world, and how everything works. Along with such he applies ration and logic to everything with very little emotions, isn't surprised by much, thinks very literal mindedly, and comes across as childish and naïve.

His other most notable feature is his HUMONGOUS apatite, and how he is able to eat much more than the average person. He has a very high metabolism so he is able to eat in mass quantities without risking his heath or gaining weight. However, during the Ramen Travels event, he manages to eat so much and in such crazy amounts that not even his metabolism could keep up with him, leading to his eventual weight gain.

Although his original purpose was to try out various ramen noodles, his pursuits evolve into eating everything that he can as much as he can. To give a bit of a perspective how much he actually eats during this event, he hits up multiple desert stalls, wins a food eating contest, tries various kinds of ramen, eats entire menus in restaurants including the main courses, drinks, and deserts, eats whole dishes made to serve a family of six in one sitting, and repeats that behavior consistently every day for weeks on end.

Another part of his endless gluttony is also how Cassius also took the term "There is always room for desert" too literally and came to the belief that no matter how much he eats, there will never be enough food for him to eat, and that there will always be room in his stomach to eat and try more foods.

When it came to his eventual weight gain, although the people around him are concerned about his overall heath encouraging him to lose the weight, Cassius himself doesn't mind the weight gain at all and if anything he actually enjoys it, believing that the feeling itself is satisfying, and that the more weight he puts on the more room he will have for food.

This is a man where if he is not calculating and questioning the things around him, the only other thing that is on his mind is food, and although it may make him seem one note, I find this aspect of him to be a really charming trait of him, especially these are traits that he fully embraces, and not even afraid of gaining weight, which is an unusual trait in other foodie characters.

It honestly saddens me to discover that Cassius barely gets any recognition in general, especially compared to the other characters that I enjoy, and now because he hasn't had that much new content in a long while, he has only barely had any new posts and content made on him in years, so I thought if there was anyone who could bring this wonderful character back in the spotlight, even for just a brief moment, I might as well do so.

Last thing, but if your ever wanting to read the full story for yourself, here is the link to the video down below. Know that the video is incredibly long, but is absolutely worth the watch!

[mustbemosstaken]

I know this has been said before but the people bringing it up in the art stream has put it back in my brain (Also please keep in mind this is very /lh and just my opinion based on how I interpret the story of Fable SMP as a viewer):

Y’all don’t want a Rae villain arc, you want an arc where Heyhay can play a villain. A villain arc for Rae would go against literally all of the character development that has been established for Rae.

And you can’t even have the argument of like “oh well the angst of if he’s corrupted and then comes back later to see how he hurt people” because WE HAD THAT. WE HAD LIKE A WHOLE ARC OF THAT WITH THE WARDEN.

Even outside of the Warden, you’ve got that whole Among Us AU where we get to see Rae being evil?? We have villain Rae guys what more do you want?!? Villain!Rae is a fun idea for an AU, but narrative wise it does not work in canon at all-

I agree that Heyhay would play a great villain, and would probably find a way to make Villain!Rae really compelling. But Rae has been built up in such a way that to have him suddenly “go on a villain arc” would just like,,, wreck any of his previously established arcs?? At least from my interpretation of Fable so far, the overall arc with Rae as a character, regardless of gods or anything like that, has always been about a man coming to love himself through learning to love other people, and through that, a lonely man finding a family. S1 Rae at the very beginning is a lonely, broken man with no regard for himself or those around him, driven purely by research, who is forced to take a mentoring, and then pseudo-leadership position, and forced to care for and eventually come to love the people around him, who he now views as his family. A family he never got to have beforehand.

That’s why the relationship with c!Jamie is so important to Rae in canon. Jamie is the first person where Rae really had to step up and be there for someone else. Thats why he cares so much about c!Athena, because Rae really had to find it within himself to save them and be there for them. That’s why Banner Fam, or the Breakfast Squad, or even eventually Broters means so much to Rae because he didn’t have that family when we started the story. To have him go on a villain arc and hurt the people around him would narratively break all of that. It would pull apart all of those relationships at the very foundations, and it would be really hard to repair them from a storytelling perspective.

The only way I could see it being done is if Rae was to go “evil” to protect the people he cares about, but as long as those characters are still in the picture they’re the kind of people who wouldn’t let Rae do that to himself. Hell, the man had a full breakdown because he punched his best friend one time, you think he’s gonna murder someone or something?

And like,,, it’s not even like we don’t get to see snippets of these things in canon. We get to see elements of Rae losing himself to anger and desperation in order protect others. We get it when he replaces his eye in S2 and he goes all mad scientists, or when he yells at Ulysses in S3 because he genuinely believes he needs to step up because this man is a threat to his family. Hell, we even see the angst of “his family thinks Rae is evil and is scared of him” because THATS LIKE MOST OF C!JAMIES ARC IN EARLY S2???

Season 2 really is a treasure trove of theoretically “villainous Rae” content. His betrayal of Aax’s trust with the eye surgery, the Jamie memory arc where they do view Rae as evil, delving into more and more dangerous and morally questionable Telchin medicine to help c!Athena, and then the entirety of the Warden arc where he’s actively hurting those around him and taken over by an evil goddess, like it’s all there. We have that guys!?!

This ended up way longer than I thought it would lol, but I don’t know, I just constantly see people in the fandom and in HeyHay13’s twitch chat being like “oooh villain Rae we desperately need villain Rae in canon” and I just personally don’t get the appeal from a storytelling perspective. Maybe I’m just too caught up in wanting characters to be happy lol. Let my poor little meow meow have peace and love his boyfriends and not have to be evil again.

Anyway, uh… TLDR Mosstaken doesn’t like villain!Rae except for when he does I guess lmao /j

[blackjackkent]

I find myself wondering what happens if you manage to kill Lorroakan before Aradin can make his move on camp, which I think happens at the next long rest, so we're going to maybe see if we can prioritize the whole Sorcerous Sundries adventure immediately.

I imagine Jaheira is not thrilled about this distraction given we were on the way to rescue Minsc, but - being Jaheira - immediately deprioritizes her own comfort in favor of looking into the potential threat to Aylin and potential information about the Crown of Karsus, both of which are important to the group's overall goals. (Thus simultaneously making herself feel guilty for considering him more important and guilty for not doing everything she can to find him immediately, because Jaheira is harder on herself than anyone else in the game and possibly the world.)

Rakha, meanwhile, is oblivious because she is deeply distracted by being fascinated by the whole store building. If the show out front was fascinating, the show inside is extraordinary.

Even leaving aside the magic, its a gorgeous building, tall and ornate, filled with columns of metal and carved stone, lined with elaborate stained glass windows.

But the magic... the magic!

Elementals stand in every corner. The bookshelves glimmer and glint with the barely-restrained power they hold. Animals appear and disappear around them, seemingly summoned by the very shop itself.

And in Rakha's eyes, which see beyond the skin of the world into the Weave itself, the whole place glows like fire, like lightning, like moonlight and sunlight and a rainbow of colors beyond imagining. It is, perhaps, the most beautiful thing she has ever seen.

(A/N: Look how pretty Sundries' ceiling is! Score one for flycam; we're missing out by not being able to look up in these games. And props to whatever Larian dev made that ceiling even though no one would look at it.)

To her surprise,she recognizes - very vaguely - another face in this place as well.

"How can I help you?" the tiefling at the counter asks irritably as she draws near.

It takes her a moment to place why he looks familiar. Partly this is because she only met him for a few moments, but partly it is because he looks utterly terrible; his face his mottled with bruises and a long burn scar marks his left cheek. There's a hollow expression in his eyes that she doesn't remember being there before.

(A/N: Rolan! Low-key I def assumed he was dead until I thought about it within the last day or so. Nice to see him alive, although unfortunately for him Rakha has zero reason to care about him at this point. He sounds so tired and beaten down, poor guy.)

"You look familiar..." she says slowly. "Were you in the druid's grove?"

He shrugs vaguely. "Perhaps. I stopped by many huts and hamlets on my way here. Master Lorroakan invited me to be his apprentice." He tries to smile, but it seems to tug painfully at the bruises on his face.

Yes - she vaguely remembers him mentioning this from the fragment of conversation she overheard before he left the other tieflings.

"You must be here to shop," he goes on hastily before she can ask anything else. "I am sundries, while Tolna deals with tomes." He hesitates, then looks at her narrowly. "Or are you perhaps another 'adventurer' with information on the 'Nightsong'?"

Rakha grunts noncommittally. It's an unpleasant reminder that they're here for things other than looking at the beauty of the Weave, and with a scowl she tries to draw her thoughts back into order.

Tomes - yes. They will need to speak to this Tolna. She'll have to bring Gale here and see what information they can glean together, as he thought this was the best possible place to research the Crown of Karsus and how it might be defeated.

For the rest, though...

"I might be here about Nightsong," she says cautiously. She has no interest in Lorroakan's reward, of course - only what threat he might pose to those in her camp. He would not be seeking Aylin, and convincing those he contracts that she is a mindless relic, for any good purpose she can conceive of.

The man's eyes narrow. "If you've got information, Master Lorroakan will want to speak to you immediately," he says brusquely. "He speaks of almost nothing else than the Nightsong's retrieval."

He jerks his head towards the rear of the store, and winces at the movement. "Head upstairs to find the way into his tower."

The slightest flicker of hesitation, and then he adds in a low voice, "But be careful. Mistakes are always punished around here."

[alexanderwales]

Game Review: Factorio: Space Age (pt 2)

This is the second part of my review of Factorio: Space Age, covering the planets. This will have more spoilers than the previous section, but also include more cohesive thoughts on the expansion as a whole.

Vulcanus

Once you've built a spaceship, you have a choice of three planets to go to, and you can do them in any order you'd like. Each planet comes with its own researchable rewards, which require you to build up a base on the planet capable of making a science pack and shipping it into space (or alternately, to remake all sciences on the planet, but this is stupid and pointless given what lies further down the tech tree).

I chose Vulcanus first. There are five resources here, three of which can't be found anywhere else: coal, sulfuric acid, calcite, tungsten ore, and lava. Lava gets used to make anything having to do with copper and iron using the foundry, which is most of the things in Factorio. Sulfuric acid gets used with calcite to make water, which is one of the notable things missing from Vulcanus, along with oil. Plastic requires a long chain to make: coal liquefaction into heavy oil into light oil into petroleum into plastic. Because rockets require plastic twice (LDS and blue chips), you eventually need to set up a fairly sizeable build for this.

I didn't find any of this to be too interesting. Infinite resources are at least different, but there was nothing that fundamentally changed how I view the game, and I ended up setting up a bus with more fluids than usual, mostly making on-site plates, pipes, steel, etc. The art for it is cool, and impassable lava is at least a little constraining, but I didn't feel like it was all that great.

Tungsten ore is the main material from Vulcanus, and it's defended by the other major thing that makes the place unique, the worms. Each worm has a territory, and until you've killed your first worm, you don't have access to a tungsten ore patch, only loose scraps that have been laying around.

The worms are long and segmented, very distinct from the biters. They disable electronics with their attacks, making fountains of lava beneath you, and overall I think they're cool ... except that they're a little too easy to defeat. I set up a grid of 50 turrets with armor-piercing ammo, and that proved sufficient.

This is a boring solution. I wish it didn't work. It was the first thing I tried, and afterward I thought ... well, what was the point of that? I don't have a good solution to what you'd want to do to stop this from working, but I do think this is sort of bad design, since it's a "more dakka" solution. I've also seen that you can build a tank and take one out with a single uranium shell, which is even worse design. What I wanted was a fight were I needed to use poison capsules, land mines, strategically placed turrets, etc., some kind of mixed-asset offensive package, and what I got was fifty turrets in a stupid grid. I really do try to not be one of those players that optimizes myself out of having fun, but it's hard to motivate myself to do something the pointlessly hard way when there's something simple, easy, and foolproof.

The other thing about demolishers is that they have their own territory, and that territory never changes. This means that if you want to expand beyond a relatively modest starting patch, you need to kill them ... but unless you're going for a megabase, you don't need to kill more than three or four of them across the entire time playing the game, and since they only attack if you build in their territory, those worm encounters become like 1% of the Vulcanus experience.

I would have liked if the worm territories changed. I think it would have been cool if they fought each other for dominance over an area in a way you could capitalize on, or if they would expand into places that no one had claimed, or places a dead rival had left behind. It would have been cool to require the player to build up some do-nothing machines or other infrastructure to keep the worms back, like a sort of "build this at the edge of your territory to be in constant motion to convince the worms that it's occupied" type of thing. But instead, you just kill the worms and that's that, you never see them again unless you go hunting them. According to my end-of-game statistics, I killed 8 small demolishers and 2 medium demolishers, which was probably 5 more worms than I needed to kill, since I ended up with a lot of empty space I didn't do anything with.

So overall, Vulcanus is the weakest of the planets for me, and I think that's at least partly down to the under-use of the worms and the simplicity of the "new" mechanics.

Fulgora

Fulgora contains the ruins of a vast civilization, and there are no resources except the heavy oil between islands and the scrap that's left behind. Solar is terrible on Fulgora, but there are lightning storms at night, and lightning towers can collect it into accumulators to power your base.

Scrap gets "recycled" into a bunch of different things, and so it quickly because a nightmare of sorting things out, dealing with excess products, and turning complex materials into simple ones. There are no iron plates, those need to be recycled from iron gears. There are no copper platers, those need to be recycled from copper wire. Blue chips, which in any other circumstance need to be jealously guarded, are found in abundance.

I found this to be great fun. The challenge is certainly unique, turning the production chain on its head, but it has a nice "ramp" to it, as first you get a pile of crap, then you turn it into things, then you uncover excesses that are gumming it up, and the problems keep coming, but they usually come after you've solved some other problem.

When I started, I did a sushi belt (ed. - a sushi belt is a belt that contains multiple unsorted good, controlled by circuit conditions which allow certain limits of each item to go by, named after conveyor belt sushi restuarants), which was good enough for the short term and got me all the basic technologies, but ran into all the problems that come with a sushi belt, and switched over to a belt-based sorting system of splitters that could handle two full green belts of scrap input.

There is, for me, one big miss on Fulgora, which is that the lightning storms are basically not a challenge at all. You set up a grid of substations, each with a lightning rod, and that protects your base. You set up accumulator fields on one tip of the island, and this is a pretty boring solution. If you went to Gleba first, you can instead set up heating towers that burn the fuel you get from scrap, but this doesn't seem like it saves terribly much more space, and either way you need the lightning towers, so I'm not sure it's worth anything, and I never implemented that plan.

One of the other big challenges of Fulgora is that it's a set of islands, and there's no way to place anything on the oil sands. Additionally, there are two types of islands, one with a fair amount of space and minimal scrap, the other with tons of scrap and almost no room. In theory, this encourages a rail world, but in practice, the first island I plopped down on was the one I stayed on the entire time, and my rail network, such as it was, extended to only two of the smaller islands to guarantee all the scrap I would ever need. I think I rolled high on one of those islands: 63M scrap is a ton, but that's what I ended up with on default settings. With the drills from Vulcanus, expected output is double that, and with the legendary drills I can now produce, it would be 787M. There's simply not a need to place rails elsewhere.

I do feel that Fulgora would have benefitted from some enemies of some kind, either those that lived on the oil fields, so you'd have to build defenses on the edges of the islands, or some kind of robot enemy that you needed to kill to take islands from. Given the setup of an abandoned high-tech planet, and the electrical weapons you unlock there, it would have been nice to have some reason or chance to use them. I've definitely played Factorio scenarios with bot opponents and buildings that can be captured after the AI's defenses have been breached.

Still, the scrap sorting puzzle was a good one, with many solutions, and Fulgora was a ton of fun.

Gleba

Gleba is a swampy fungi planet. There are no conventional resources except for stone, and pretty much everything else is derived from two plants, jellynut and yamako, that get broken down.

The main mechanic of the planet is spoilage, where materials break down over time. Jellynut and yamako last for about an hour, the products you get from them are much less, a material made from both of them, bioflux, lasts a lot longer, and nutrients, which are fed to the new building, the biochamber, last hardly any time at all.

Spoilage is cool because it requires a very different mindset. Normally in Factorio, you're building up big buffers to minimize downtime. On Gleba, you want as little buffer as possible, just constant rivers of materials flowing by to be as fresh as possible, because if anything stays still for too long, there's a chance it'll spoil, which will stop the machine trying to take the ingredient, which can create a spoilage cascade.

My initial plan was to have some kind of circuit-based just-in-time system, where every machine would be monitored in order to see what ingredients it needed, and everything would be made fresh-to-order.

I ended up not doing this, mostly because demand stays relatively constant, and where it doesn't stay constant, you can just eat the spoilage costs. There's so much abundance that you really don't need to care about half your crops going to waste.

The other reason I didn't end up going with this is because unfortunately, the "river of goods" solution has essentially no complications to it, and you can simply dump everything into a recycler/incinerator at the end. In some of the Factorio overhaul mods, this concept is called "voiding", a way of dealing with byproducts, and if you make voiding easy, you essentially remove a logistical challenge, which means less gameplay. I kind of get why they made this easy, but ... I don't know. I did kind of want something that would require a big, complicated solution, a factory that dances on the edge of clogging itself up.

I ended up with a completely belt-based system, with a belt of jelly and mash, then a belt of bioflux, all nutrients made on demand, and production lines in defined blocks. The final build does 520 science/minute, which becomes 2Ks/m with full-prod biolabs, most of which goes into the trash, since it's not actually consumed all the time.

One of my favorite little puzzles of Gleba was the metals, which are produced with bacteria that spoil in a minute, becoming ore. There's a process, with bioflux, of having bacteria make more bacteria, but if the bacteria ever stop flowing (if, for example, you have enough ore), then they spoil and die, and the whole production line stops. So you need to build in a little kickstart system that will inject new bacteria if it's needed, and I found that to be delightful to work on.

The other major thing on Gleba are the enemies, which are pentapods. Pentapod eggs are necessary to make biochambers and science, but after you have one, you can set up breeding, which is dangerous given they can make more of themselves, but definitely the way to go. There are three forms of pentapod, all with their own weaknesses, and ...

Look, I went to Gleba last, but I put up a defensive wall fairly early on using only materials that I had gotten from Gleba, and then basically never had any cause to think about the pentapods again. Because I slapped this down with blueprints, it took all of ten minutes, most of which was spent fixing the kind of scuffed corners (skill issue). So I would say the amount that I actually got to experience the pentapods was pretty minimal. I also shipped in four artillery turrets that are crowded around a box of ammo, supplied by site-made shells using imported tungsten, and the circle almost entirely contains my pollution cloud, so in theory it's just an easily solved problem.

It might have been different if I had gone to Gleba first, I don't know and can't say without actually doing that, but I would have liked a little more of a challenge, and this might be where being a veteran hinders me.

Overall, I really enjoyed Gleba, the mechanics were new and unique, the little puzzles inherent in design were interesting, and I thought that overall it had the best art direction of the four planets, which is saying something, because I think they're all great on the front.

Aquilo

On every other planet, a "cold start" is possible, building up from just what you find laying around. Aquilo is different: it's a planet with ammonia oceans and some scattered liquid vents, and part of the point of it is that you need materials from outside, including anything made from iron, copper, or stone. You can't softlock on other planets, but you can softlock on Aquilo.

Aside from requiring pretty solid planetary logistics, Aquilo's main mechanic is heat. It's cold enough there that bots don't work very well, and everything has to have a heat pipe near it for it to function, including pipes and belts. To heat up a heat pipe takes either nuclear, fusion, or the heat towers that burn up fuel, and if the heat ever stops flowing, everything will seize up, requiring heroic efforts to get running again.

There's not all that much to Aquilo. You pull up slurry from the ocean, split it into ammonia and ice, use them together to make ice platforms, import concrete, and then combine oil and ammonia to make rocket fuel, which is used to both launch rockets and to toss into heating towers for power and heat to keep everything running.

The science pack is easy, though it require imported holmium plate, and my entire 200 science per minute production line was run off a tiny cluster of buildings that would have been pretty trivial to expand.

It seems to me that Aquilo is at least partly inspired by Seablock, an infamous mod where you start with almost nothing on a tiny island that you have to expand with the mineral sludge you dredge up with an offshore pump. But Seablock is a very long mod, one that typically takes hundreds of hours, and here ... well, there are a handful of challenges, and they're not all that challenging. I think I could probably list them out now.

Making ammonia also makes ice. You can void excess ice through repeated recycling, but ammonia can't be voided except by combining it with crude oil to make solid fuel, which can then be put in an incinerator. I solved this problem with a simple circuit condition.

Science and some crafting uses coolant, which must be cooled back down after use. If you just keep making coolant, eventually the system will seize up, since you won't be able to put more hot coolant into the system. But because this is a lossy cycle (you lose half the coolant) you can just hook a pump up to a tank and only inject more hot coolant into the system when below a threshold.

Outposts need their own heating for the pumps to work, and those outposts are, on default settings, quite far away. This requires setting up a self-sufficient little heating module that's either serviced by train or which runs entirely with materials found at the outpost. I ended up doing two different modules, one for oil outposts and the other for everywhere else ... but I never actually had to use them, because there were sufficient resources for tens of thousands of resources right next to the starting area.

As the "final boss", I am underwhelmed, and even as one of four planets I find myself a little underwhelmed. I don't know how much postgame stuff I'm going to do, but I can't see that there's going to be much challenge in going large on Aquilo, except that I might have to build another ship for moving in materials (as currently I have a single ship that makes a circuit of the solar system for materials and also handles shipments of science).

There is also, again, a lack of enemy. Once the rocket fuel setup was done, I had a single scare when ammonia backed up and stopped ice production, which shut down the water chem plant, which killed the turbines and stopped power to the entire base. But that didn't even freeze anything out, and it was fixed pretty easily from a restart module I'd built earlier, and after that, the ammonia issue was fixed to never have that problem again. If the cold is the enemy, it's not enough of one for my tastes.

Integration

With each planet you conquer, you get a new science pack, which opens up new technologies, and in theory you, can use them on other planets. These buildings are very powerful, and so there's some incentive to return to old factories, rip up old designs, and install new ones using the better buildings.

I did eventually do this, but I'm not sure how much I actually needed to. My furnace stacks were replaced by the foundries from Vulcanus, supplies by a hauler ship exclusively for calcite, though I did make an abortive attempt to just harvest calcite from space using a stationary space platform.

(I made four of them before giving up on the project, and found out only later that asteroid spawn rates depend on how many chunks large the ship is, so the ideal build has asteroid collectors on very long arms, and there's nothing in the game that tells you about the asteroid spawning thing, so ... whatever, it's opaque and very gamey hidden stuff, of the kind that I hate.)

I replaced my circuit production areas with the EMP, which saved vast quantities of resources and also made more circuits at a much faster rate within the same blueprint. I upgraded most belts to green.

I didn't end up using the biochambers much, in part because they need nutrients to run, and 50% prod with more module slots is great, but not so great that I wanted to set up a biter egg farm that could potentially blow up in my face.

Cryochambers just came too late for me to implement them anywhere, though I probably would if I kept playing to the megabase stage, or if I'm gunning for an achievement that requires updating Nauvis.

So I think, strangely, when considering how the planets impact each other, they ... kind of don't all that much? Yes, having foundries on Gleba means that you can make all your belts and things at a fraction of the cost, but how much doesn't that really impact anything? It meant that my ore production areas could be smaller, I guess. Is that worth anything? I kind of don't think so, if I'm considering the main gameplay to be in terms of design and decisions. Foundries saved me from having to lay down a furnace stack. EMPs saved me from having to have expansive red circuit lines to get the blue chips necessary for rocket launches.

Ideally, I would have liked one or two killer techs that mostly work through combining each planet's "thing". Like imagine that there was a combination recycler and foundry that melted down whatever was put into it, giving you molten copper and iron in exchange, creating a whole new kind of problem in exchange for ... I don't know, much much faster recycling, or less loss from recycling, or maybe a recipe that allowed true voiding. Or if you went to Gleba and then Vulcanus, and were able to bring biochambers that would allow the cultivation of some new specimen specific to that environment, maybe something that would allow better plastic production, or could pull water out of the air, both of which are kind of a pain in the ass on Vulcanus. Couldn't there be some kind of new bacteria swimming in the oil sands of Fulgora? Not something that would trivialize any challenge, something that would be a reward for having two flavors of research from two different planets. Ideally, there'd be six of these in total, allowing for each pair to benefit each other pair, but at that point I start to feel like I'm just asking for new content.

I cracked my game back open to check the tech tree, and all the Aquilo techs require all three planets. The are two techs that require mixed packs: Rail Support Foundations, which simplify rails for Fulgora, and Railgun Damage, which increases the power of the railgun. That's it. This screams missed opportunity to me.

So in terms of how the planets and their mechanics interact with each other ... I would say that they mostly don't, which is a bit of a shame. The biochamber in particular requires nutrients, which makes it effectively unusable on Vulcanus and Fulgora ... unless you're shipping in heroic quantities of bioflux, I guess, though I don't think that I could ever see myself doing that. I guess maybe on Vulcanus, which has the aforementioned plastics problem? But it feels like the kind of thing that would mostly be done for a stunt rather than because it was actually the right thing to do. And potentially on Nauvis, but it does seem like a megabase thing to do, rather than normal play. I will have to do the math, this too might be a skill issue.

(Real quick: 1 Bioflux makes 8 nutrients in a standard biochamber, which is 12 with prod, which is 24 MJ. A biochamber consumes 500kW, so with no spoilage nutrients allow 2 crafts of the 2 second oil cracking recipes, which means that every Bioflux can, at most, turn 960 heavy oil into 1080 light oil rather than the 720 light oil it would normally crack into. But obviously since the Bioflux has to be shipped in, it ends up being less than that. This is obviously more effective than shipping over oil itself, but ... man, I don't know, this seems very weak, even with adding in productivity to other steps. I guess the use case in Nauvis, where you're in theory shipping Bioflux anyway in order to feed captive biters, but that's still premised on an oil shortage that I never actually experienced.)

I do also want to say that quality had very little impact on my play. I tended to carry around some high quality quality modules and use them when crafting infrastructure, but in most cases it just wasn't much to write home about. It's most important for the ships, and for personal stuff, but it never felt that important.

And finally, I do want to give a shoutout to how easy and effective remote viewing was. One of the things I'm going to eventually do, after a Factorio break, is the 40 hour achievement run, and I have to imagine that a lot of that is just landing on a planet, doing the unlocks, building a rocket to get back, then having starter bots do all the actual base building for me, which is pretty cool.

Conclusion

Space Age took me about 140 hours, and I would say that about 10 of that was idle time while I was waiting for legendary ship parts or for a buildup of materials. The Jacknape-class ships have an issue with ammo production where they can more or less keep up with rockets, but the belt buffer goes from the front of the ship to the back, meaning that it empties from where it's needed most, rather than emptying where it's needed least, and yeah, having a fully stacked buffer takes a hot minute of waiting. Similarly, the quality module I made works over sufficient time scales, but especially while waiting on quality quality modules, there's a real temptation to just leave it running rather than actively playing.

130 hours for a veteran player is a long time for an expansion, much longer than I would have expected, even knowing what I knew about the expansion going in. Some of that time I don't count as expansion time, like all the parts where I was just doing normal Factorio stuff, and I did end up building adapted malls on each of the planets, which added on more time that could have been cut out by making an effective blueprint the first go-around, and which I don't really count as expansion time, because there's not much that's unique about making the new malls. But even if I'm arbitrarily cutting things out, that's still a ton of time.

Overall, I'm extremely happy with it, and I think I'll be more happy with it once there's another round of iteration, QoL, changes based on feedback, and modding. The modding scene for Factorio is really really good, and I have to imagine that the expansion is only going to make it better, particularly some of the changes that were made to implementation.

But I do think that it could have been more, and maybe this is just coming from a guy with more than a thousand hours in this game and multiple overhaul mods under his belt. It's very possible I would have had a better time with it if I'd chosen a higher difficulty, though of course that's very hard to know ahead of time. Certainly there were some design misses for me, and at least some of that is because I have enough experience that I can fix things with circuitry, plan a base that doesn't immediately become spaghetti, and see the deadlocks coming. I'm not saying that it wasn't hard, because parts of it certainly were, and I'm not saying that I made a bunch of perfect bases with no major flaws, because there were designs that needed to be ripped out and belts that needed to squeak through. But I think I would have preferred more complexity, more problems, more more more, and I'll have to hope that mods can give it to me.

All that said, this is the best expansion I've ever played, they put a ton of work into making sure that every planet was truly different from the others artistically and mechanically, and it's a 10/10 from me.

(I do plan on getting all achievements ... eventually. The "win in 40 hour" achievement seems very doable, and that's the hardest of the lot, though the others might take some significant time. It took me multiple years to finally getting around to doing the last green chip achievement, so I'm in no rush.)

[vedurnan]

how did you find the overall experience of ffs and recovery and stuff? i'm starting to kinda think about it a little more seriously of late

in the moment the experience was pretty unpleasant, definitely one of the more memorable body suffering experiences i have had! although looking back now it all seems not so bad in hindsight, it was just like being really scarily sick for a bit. it feels really weird and scary to have your whole face swell up and be all numb and bloody and you just feel really fragile and, i don't know how else to put it, like your face was ripped off. i didn't get any nose work done which i think made my experience easier than some but i caught a cold right after getting out of the hospital and had a nasty reaction to some of the stitches in my head so all that was really unpleasant! but overall i think it's true what they say, the first 4 or so days are really hard and then it starts to dramatically get easier.

waking up in the hospital was also really unpleasant, i've always enjoyed waking up from general anesthesia before but i've never been out so long for such a major surgery before. i felt really sick and weak and hurt and supremely nauseous, it was like one of the most unpleasant body-states i can remember feeling myself being in. i'm glad i don't remember it very well & i'm very grateful to the hospital workers who dutifully medicated me! i went home from ffs the same day and i think i would have had an easier time if they let me stay overnight.

i think for me the most surprising and noticeable negative part has been the facial numbness, i didn't anticipate how much it would affect my ability to feel comfortable and confident in my body to not be able to feel part of my face... i think in a weird way the surgery had a negative impact on my confidence and self-esteem that i feel i am still recovering from somewhat. i'm glad i had it done, i feel less negative about my face now which was the goal of the whole thing. but at the same time i feel like i look the same as i always did hahaha

i think the best advice i can give you is to consult multiple surgeons and do a lot of your own research and have more conversations with people who have had the surgery themselves. i was originally gonna see this ffs surgeon who was covered by my parents' health insurance, but i ended up canceling with him and using my own health insurance to see a different surgeon who did a friend's ffs. i'm very glad i waited and shopped around a little bit before making a final decision because i felt a lot more comfortable with the 2nd guy than the 1st guy i was gonna go to. i think finding a surgeon you feel comfortable with and are able to trust (as much as those things are possible with doctors) is really important for a major surgery like this. it's best to expect there to be complications, scary moments, pain, frustrations and sadness during the process of recovery and you want to have the best support you possibly can both from the people in your life and from the actual medical professionals responsible for your surgical care

if you have any other questions about anything specific you can direct message me on here, i hope my answer was helpful in some way!

[alienteashop]

ALIEN ROMULUS

SPOILER WARNING

From Below the Cut

just want to say this is all my opinion but let's get into a rating from me lol

So overall I set a rating for Alien Romulus to a 8.5/10

This movie to me was great. there were a few drawbacks overall in which I feel took away from some of the horror elements in this movie like the amount of references to all of the other movies before it, and when I say all, I mean ALL of the movies both new and old

The thing about this movie is that I both hated and loved the fact that it was a mash up of every single alien movie before it, love in the fact that the tech was the same as the original movies (something people complained about in Prometheus) and that the original alien designs stayed the same in both looks and mannerisms

The thing I mainly disliked was the fact it was a mash up of every single movie, don't get me wrong some were really good and well done but others were kinda... cringe? In a way that you almost get second hand embarrassment from knowing them but in a laughing way

The actors I think did an amazing job and the general cinematography is great, it feels modern without taking away the old charm and tricks

The settings and placement of the general look and feel of everything was great with certain references to all movies and I believe even the game

Now I'm going to talk about the scenes in specific

just so everyone knows I'm not doing a summery I'm just talking about my favorite and or least favorite scenes

--

So in the beginning I just want to praise the use of the colony, an ALIVE colony I might add, and even though it's only a short part I do like the little insight you learn about the lives of the people and main characters, I also do like the clothes and lighting of these scene(s)

However in the beginning beginning aka the opening, they get transported fossilized rock and take it into research or whatever, not much is known other than the fact that the alien is back lol, it did kinda remind me of dead space with the artifact and it bringing the aliens along

And I think it was coolI also love the use of the androids in this film, with Andy being known as an android in the very beginning which proves to be useful later (Also I might add I do find the brother sister dynamic of the two bittersweet)

As for the facehugger scenes I absolutely loved them, I do think it was a little cliche with the whole body temperature thing and the fact that they couldn't see them because Andy said that if they sweat at all they kinda die and I felt like you would definitely sweat at that temperature especially with that stress but honestly it's kinda the nerd in me

However for the alien scene I ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT I loved the use of a cacoon and the remembrance of acid for blood playing an important impact

I don't like the use of pressure in here I do feel like in space the pressure would definitely kill faster than it did/didn't but I appreciate the mention of it mainly in the ending scenes where her helmet is cracked and she didn't die? Maybe I need to catch up on space and pressure but idkkk anyway still the nerd in me

My favorite scenes were in the beginning they were walking down the halls and the lights was muahhh chefs kiss loved the tension and shot

I do genuinely like the lab part in the movie where the black liquid goop was shown as something good but was actually bad as seen with the rat transforming into its own thing

Because in the end although the Xenomorphic are parasites they are their own species in the end meaning they are going to be separate form whatever you put them in (idk if that made sense)

Now I will say I was a little hesitant when I realized in the end it was going to be a spin off of alien resurrection (aka alien 4) but I will say they did it amazingly

I do absolutely love their take of the human alien hybrid baby and the love the thing of the creature/baby eating its own mother like many species do and the creatures design is something that I will admit truthfully disturbed me the uncanny but also very human face and expressions made my skin chill a bit

I did not like the acid seen I feel like it could have been better

Final notes

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I wrote this in my car directly after the movie so it's a little scatter brained but I needed to get it out lol

Okay truthfully that was all I really wanted to talk about I genuinely love this movie and thought it was great, and I will say that I'm just waiting for fanfiction of xenos of that one scene in the elevator where it caught Rain with it's tail, I feel as if people are going to eat that up 😂

Overall 8.5/10

Some cringey lines and scenes which are sooo obviously ripped from the past movies along with concepts but I think the movie was great and a fun time for sure

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Also a thank you to @ozzgin for hyping the movie up for me 😆

[cattocavo]

Six sketch sunday

Thanks so much for tagging me @thewholelemon

I actually have something pretty exciting to share if i do say so myself!

In november 2022 i did a master study of romeo and juliet by frank bernard dicksee. I was very happy with it. But over time I’ve become less and less happy with it, specifically how baz looks :((

This is due to the fact that i traced A LOT in late 2022 (I was 15 ok, I’m sure we’ve all had one of those phases😭) I traced the whole painting, but baz was hard bc the original painting featured a woman, and her whole figure was covered by a white loose dress. 2022 me did their best interpreting the shapes and forming a new body for baz, but honestly they didn’t do it very well. Ive hated Baz’s face and body for a while now, but still loved simon and the painting in general. Which is why I came to the conclusion that for me to be at peace and happy with it again, I have to remaster it!

And again I’ve had this on my mind for a while now, mulling it over, because it’s quite a big project. But 7 days ago i finalized my decision and started looking at references and whatnot. It took me so long to find references bc I was confused of the angle of Juliet’s head in the original painting (so I’ve changed the angle whoops) and i needed to make sense of it all. Before i knew it i had spent 5 hours (according to procreates tracker) drawing, and literally nothing had changed.. but then i spent like 2 hours more and THAT did it. It was like digging a whole in the ground searching for water. You dig a little and nothing happens, and when you finally dig deep enough the water reveals itself like a goldmine.

Anyways, i haven’t gotten around to do any recoloring yet, so ill show you the sketch (ahem, traced) of my 2022 version versus what I have now

The one on the left is the 2022 version. The one on the right is the current sketch.

I’m trying to incorporate a lot more body language from baz this time around. I think the old sketch of baz was very rigid. His torso is very short 💀 my biggest issue was his face though. It was far too feminine. The bone structure wasn’t exactly giving baz, in fact the whole face didn’t look like baz to me. The expression also bothered me, it was too superficial. Like it’s exactly the predictable expression you expect him to have. I tried to spice it up in the new version by making him appear a bit more anguished. It’s romeo and juliet after all.

Im currently looking at references to what clothes he should be wearing (don’t worry, i wont cover up his sleeves. Even if it’s more time period accurate) so if y’all have any inspo or suggestions, feel free to share them with me!

While baz is the inly thing getting completely redone, I’m also touching up some other thins. Just giving it a more refined, finished look overall. The plants in the original were really messily done, so i’m gonna work a lot on those. 2022 me also slacked on the curtains, so I’m repainting those to match the original frank bernard painting.

Once I’m done with it all i think i might sell some prints. Ive gotten requests to sell prints of this one before, but never really got around to do more than research. If i do make prints, I’m a bit worried they’ll all go to waste bc they’ll have to be shipped from denmark, and shipping in expensive :(( (I’ve tried to set up middlemen and it didn’t work for me. Red bubble wont even allow me to add a credit card😬) but if y’all are still interested in prints, do let me know! Ill definitely put in more of an effort to make it happen if i know it wont be in vain :))

Thats all from me for today :3 see ya next time

(Also check out what my COBB partner @thewholelemon is doing! It’s gonna be so good!)

Tags! @monbons @raenestee @j-nipper-95 @orange-peony

Id love to see what y’all are doing!

[tokiro07]

Undead Unluck ep.23 thoughts

[Mamaaa! Didn't Mean to Make You Cryyy!]

I guess if any episodes had to be the best episodes, it's appropriate that they be the end of the season, but god dammit, why wasn't every episode this good???

The animation, the music, the emotional weight, this episode was a real all-rounder. Even with how comparatively little action there was, it was great!

I actually feel like there's nothing for me to say, it was so good. There weren't any big reinterpretations of the source material for me to latch onto, mostly just little details like the pages crumpling under Sean's feet to convey his presence or a subtle Easter egg when Rip cut off Anno Un's arm. The coolest detail was definitely that Akira couldn't narrate the preview anymore now that we know who he is, but I get the feeling I wouldn't have noticed that if other people hadn't pointed it out first

If we're lucky, maybe that'll mean there's no recap next week...

Something this episode did help me realize, though, was that Yuki Yase's style really lends itself well to dramatic weight rather than pulse-pounding action. As we saw, the latter is still possible, but I think the thing that killed the pacing for the season as a whole was the insistence on pregnant pauses and atmospheric shots over a consistent flow of events and ideas. The dark lighting and zoomed-out shots are both pretty indicative of this, and were definitely my least favorite elements of the season. Those moments that reduced visual clarity to presumably focus on what was being said were, ironically, very distracting for me, as I always found myself trying to figure out where the cast was (though I think they were usually hiding behind Hulu's garishly huge subtitles) instead of focusing on what was being said

As near as I remember, though, this episode didn't really have moments like that, and if it did, they went by quick enough that I didn't really notice them. I remember this episode being very bright with the exception of the brief moment of sepia with Akira sitting next to his grieving mother, which was extremely poignant without the directorial style I was complaining about. If I had to guess, aside from the amazing moments of sakuga, this was the biggest reason this episode left such a good impression

I'm not really good at understanding this sort of thing, but I hope to learn at some point who was in charge of what in each episode; Yuki Yase is the director of the series as a whole, not individual episodes, so it's possible that he's not responsible for most of my gripes this past half year, but it's also possible that his overall style overshadowed everyone else's decisions, so he may well be responsible either way. I hope that someone like Totally Not Mark will cover UU down the road so I can get insight on this from someone who's good at hunting down that kind of information and comparing one bit of an artist's works to the rest. I may not like researching that kind of thing, but I do love hearing about it!

With that, we have one final episode to go. Will it be up to snuff with the last two episodes, will it miss the landing, or will it go above and beyond and convince a million people to sit through 20 episodes of recaps just to see how it gets to this point? We'll find out next week, and I can't wait!

Until next time, let's enjoy life!

[wumblr]

Hey for some reason I associate you with cool fragrances. Do you know of a perfume that smells of moldy oranges?

the reason is probably because i got into cologne samples for like 6mos last year until my fucking PERDRISAT GOT STOLEN OUT OF MY MAILBOX and i stopped ordering them lol

fragrantica is good enough for research, with the caveat that whoever's running the site is fucking bonkers and probably antivax, i don't remember exactly but i can't blame people who never touch it for that reason. you can browse by notes and search by combinations of notes, they don't have mold so you may need to expand out to things like mildew, musty, moss, loam, dirt, "earthy notes" etc. many people find patchouli to be in this realm, i think that's why it's so divisive. they've got a forum thread about mildew here with several recommendations. i would recommend rusak AEOOJ if it wasn't discontinued, but if you can get any, do NOT miss the opportunity, it will not be there in 5mins. no citrus notes but it's unparalleled for mossy scents

keep in mind that every other hygiene product you use is going to affect the overall end result, so you could try citrus shampoo or bodywash with something that has the moldy elements you're looking for. decant sites like scentsplit are great for testing before you commit to a full bottle (i would NEVER recommend blind-buying unless it's very cheap or you know you'll never find it again)

for exactly two notes and nothing else it would be easy to combine, say, demeter mildew with like, a citrus roll-on from whole foods or something. demeter seems well regarded for weird one-note scents but some may be better than others, you probably won't find one-note decants but demeter is like $20 each. don't be afraid of cheap, my best one-note is a $10 vetiver from marshalls. blending your own scents may not do exactly what you expect or it may become sublime with the addition of a third note. welcome to perfume lol

EDIT: acqua di gio

[system-of-a-feather]

this probably isn't what you meant when you said people could ask you about late stage recovery stuff, but i really have no idea where/who else to ask, so i hope this is okay

so i relate a lot to how people describe their own experiences with functional multiplicity (and to some degree final fusion as well, but to a lesser degree), but i've never been in any kind of actual treatment for anything. i'm not sure if i could have DID or another dissociative disorder at all (they aren't really seen as real by psych professionals in my country, so can't be assessed), but i know i experience myselves as more than one and people i've discussed it with irl don't really understand it at all.

so i was wondering if maybe you had any thoughts to what that could be..? i doubt it could be DID since no treatment and if i even have ptsd it's very mild, but i also know my experiences aren't normal and i haven't seen anyone but late stage recovery DID systems describe anything similar

i hope it is ok to ask, you seem knowledgeable and i have no idea where else to ask. thank you for reading

I might be saying a bit of an unpopular opinion to the online community here and might get shot in the foot for it (unfortunately, but I don't care really) but I don't think you have to pathologize it if you don't find benefit to it.

What I mean is largely just that it doesn't have to inherently be DID or a dissociative disorder to experience yourself as more than one and if you aren't experiencing distress from it, there is no real need to put a medical label on it. There is a lot of rhetoric about complex dissociative disorders being the only real way to experience one's self as more than one because DID is almost exclusively seen as a result of trauma - but that's just not true if SOLELY on the fact that the experience of being one or many in a largely subjective experience and a way of how one likes to look at themselves.

There is no real valid way to accurately measure "perception of multiple selves" because biological approaches ignore the actual and practical reports of individuals and self reports ignore the real biological underpinnings of things like DID and all. And thats a lot of jargon to say "No real study can properly examine the whole breath of human experiences across cultures and biological backgrounds through all research perspectives" and just that you really shouldn't sweat people saying XYZ is unscientific cause BOTH sides will say that and BOTH sides are equally right and wrong depending on your research perspective.

That said, if it is causing you distress or posing you problems, I do strongly recommend talking about it with a therapist. Yeah some can be a bit rough around the edges and the overall mental health system still kinda sucks, but really any therapist you can develop a good rapport with should be able to help you navigate it all from the place you currently are.

Either way, (and I apologize if this is a bit disorganized, I'm in the car and my fiance is sometimes talking to me as I type so it breaks my train of thought) my personal opinion and thought on the matter is that unless its causing you distress, I don't think you really need to stress about what exactly the "not normal" experience is cause "not normal"...

1) Doesn't exist cause "normal" doesn't really exist and the concept of normality, in my opinion, does little other than promote conformity and shame. (Plus in America its used to push white colonizer perspective and ideas on more subjective things like gender, experiences of self etc; experiencing yourself as more than one is actually not entirely abnormal in some cultures and I'd argue that as a Buddhist, experiencing yourself as more than one is an uncommon but absolutely normal experience)

2) Your experiences aren't defined by the labels and research of other people. Your experiences are defined inherently by how you experience them and labels are there to serve to describe you experiences, not the other way around. Same thing goes for research. Research exists to explain odd phenomenon, not to tell people that their experiences are wrong. Research should adapt to include things that don't fit in, not demands that said outliers change to fit the model / theory.

3) As long as there is held respect that your experiences of being more than one might not be the same as someone whose experiences of being more than one comes from complex trauma and/or a complex dissociative disorder, then I see little harm in just, ya know, existing as you naturally do.

I am hesitant to say "endogenic / plurality community might help you find similar people and navigate finding a label if that is important to you" cause I don't actually interact too much with the community myself and I have heard about some toxicity from there (don't touch sophie or cambrian), but I think it could be helpful with some caution.

Anyways, I am having trouble organizing my thoughts cause Im in the car and all so I'll leave it here. Feel free to ask away if you want to add anything or need clarification on my thoughts on this or whatever.

[bcbdrums]

🍓🕯️🔪

"🍓 ⇢ how did you get into writing fanfiction?"

well. one day in 2004 when visiting my cousin in the hospital after her car accident. i missed an episode of Bonanza, due to...you know, being at the hospital. this was back in ye olden days of TV guides, recording things on VCR's, and....no....wikis.... not like we have now. no sites to tell you everything, no screencaps, no youtube... and ye olde dial-up internet days. and anyway.... the TV guide descrip made that episode sound thrilling. and...and i just had to know!

and i knew... i remember, knowing in my heart. that if i went online and tried to find out what happened. i'd never get off the computer again. well, i was right. the short conclusion to this tale is i found specific Bonanza fansites loaded with fanfiction!!! and i devoured it. i wanna say within the same month? i was hand-writing fanfic in spiral notebooks for Bonanza. still have that spiral notebook and that unfinished fic, literally locked in a treasure chest. and i still remember the entire plot, what i planned to do with it... yeah.

no, i never did find out what was in that episode i missed/didn't get to record... like i said, no wikis or anything of that nature... (we had to leave from school that day so i didn't get to go home and program the VCR; i'd not known that morning we'd be going to the hospital later.) and they didn't re-run the episode again... so i've still not seen it... but, i started writing fanfic that summer. a defining moment in my life. and yes, my cousin is well!

"🕯️ ⇢ on a scale from 1 to 10, how much do you enjoy editing? why is that?"

ohhh, hmmm... idk if i could scale it. maybe right in the middle, a 5 or 6? this will make more sense if i describe my process perhaps.

so if i'm really in the writing zone, i just...plow ahead until i'm finished. and then i go back and edit. when i'm "in the zone" oftentimes i don't see things that could genuinely be improved by better phrasing, better language choices... they just elude me cuz i'm so hyperfixated on the story and it's so clear in my head, so, of course it's great on the page! (example: Forfeit was written this way.) usually i then just quickly fix obvious typos/grammar things and toss the fic into the void. then i'll return a few months later when it's no longer fresh, and then see soooo many things that could be better, and depending on my mood i'll go back and heavily edit, or, i won't.

the other process... if i'm not "in the zone" usually i write a few lines, get stuck, and to get myself unstuck i go back and edit what i've done. fixing things, adding things... and usually once those few lines are edited i have the next ones ready to be written in my head. it's a slower process overall.

editing for other people is a whole different ball game. i love doing that (as long as i'm in the mood/have the energy/time) because it helps me refine my writing craft too, in trying to assist someone with a totally different style than mine. it's great. and i've edited/beta-read for so many diff people now with such a variety of styles it's really making me more aware of my own, and how it's changed over the years. and i also just enjoy helping people.

the idea of something getting better just appeals to me i guess. it's a good feeling, it's productive. so in that sense, i enjoy editing. if i feel really stuck on a project, then it can become just another slow-down however. that would be the only negative i suppose.

"🔪 ⇢ what's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?"

haha, already answered this in a prior ask but i'll choose a different one.

i spent days learning how to waltz properly. all the techniques, and the process by which one learns... to write one character teaching another character, very, very methodically. and apparently i did it well, i received a comment about it from someone who actually waltzes professionally if i remember correctly who was very pleased with my writing of it! can i waltz? or dance at all? no, no i cannot. but i could probably talk someone else through how to learn!

thank you SO much for the ask!!! ^_^