#prioritize more.

[jq37]

You gotta hand it to Fig. All of the Bad Kids were given foils this season and they got to decide how much they wanted to engage with that part of the plot. Gorgug only interacted with Mary Ann in passing despite them both being on the Owlbears. Fabian noped out of chatting up Ivy once she crossed a line with Mazey. Riz was so busy that he truly had no time to engage with Kipperlilly even though she's obsessed with him. Kristen interacted a bit with Buddy but spent way more time verbally sparring with Kipperlilly. And Adaine was somewhat interested in Oisin but never overtly acted on it.

But Fig?

She's in Ruben's WALLS. She's in his DREAMS. She's faking her alter emo's death. She's got the Fantasy FBI after her. She's SO SO tiny. No one is doing it like Fig's doing it.

[holydramon]

once again falling into the textile craft pit hole of being like “I need to learn how to sew right fucking now or I’ll explode”

[bixels]

It's crazy how Dungeon Meshi's manga can feel more cinematic and emotional than the anime to me, even when they're practically the same. Compared to the anime, this moment is such a heartbreaking gut-drop. The way Kui uses negative space and flat compositions to create a sense of horrific stillness is so key.

The way the text (Senshi's monologue) is sequestered to an empty corner of a panel or huddled away from the edge of its text box is not only a great way of showing Senshi's headspace (fearful, isolated, dissociating), but creates a visual representation of pause, as if you hold your breathe after each line. The first panel puts us directly in Senshi's perspective too (compared to in the anime, which puts us as an outside observer over Senshi's shoulder). The detail of the door and bricks so effectively implies that he stared at it for so long, waiting and hoping, that its image is burned in his memory. The wood grain, the brick arch, the number of rivets. The lack of dialogue in the second panel shows a moment of realization too –– "he's dead" (also a great example of the Kuleshov effect). And it's that pause that creates a beat and sets a great rhythm to his headspace, like a music rest: "He never came back." (oh god.) "I'm all alone." Finally, the third panel's negative space, cropping Senshi, shows how truly alone he feels. Without his family, the world ceases to exists. Under shock, he traps himself in a 1-foot radius, too scared to even perceive a world outside its boundaries; a world that can hurt him, kill him, make him disappear with it. There is only his body, the stone beneath his feet and against his back, his thoughts, and that awful bowl of soup.

Even though they're a series of flat images, there's an implicit reading of silence in Senshi's realization and horror. Kui influences your experience to slow down and take your time.

Compare this to the anime, which fills every shot with dialogue. The pacing is fast; we never get to sit in silence like we do with the manga. The horizontal frame allowed the boarders to add Senshi, turning the composition into an over-the-shoulder shot, which takes us out of Senshi's POV. They also added a zoom-out in shot one, which adds unnecessary energy to a very somber scene. The tightening on Senshi as a close-up reaction shot also dulls the moment. In the original panel, Senshi stares ahead at the empty space to his left as a shadow surrounds his mind. It not only shows how Senshi's senses are dulling and his world is shrinking (setting up panel three), but shows how terrified Senshi is of what's in front of him, how the air itself becomes pitch black and opaque, how Senshi is surrendering himself to fear. The pacing is understandable and necessary; this episode packed a lot of story content together. It's just a shame because it really (imo) deflated one of the most nauseating moments in Dungeon Meshi.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

while teen while goblin while aroace while injured while doing your best

[jesuistrestriste]

Art Donaldson with literal loser reader? This is for the netizens of the world who don’t do anything but homely activities. Like for the depraved girls/nbs/boys whoever frfr like? Reader who’s obsessed w him, met him through a friend or sm??

art knows you don’t get out much.

he knows you’d prefer to stay inside and obsessively scroll twitter or tumblr or play video games as opposed to accompanying him to a party on campus.

by now, he knows all of your little habits that you’ve developed through your early youth and have grown to enjoy more than anything. he accepts them, because he accepts you.

but he also can’t deny that he’d love to take you out more than you usually let him.

he wants to take you out to a club and grab your hips and rut into your backside while you two drunkenly dance. and he wants to show you off to his friends when they all go out to the bar.

so when he fucks you.. he sometimes lets this stuff slip.

he’s pushing you down into the bedding and moaning into your neck, little gasps punctuating each roll of his hips against yours as he fills you with every single girthy inch of him. he reaches down for one of your hands and directs it to the back of his blonde locks, silently pleading with you to tug on them the way he likes.

“fuh-fuck,” he groans, his eyes rolling back as he gets close, “nobody even knows we’re dating… you— mngh—! you gotta come out with me this weekend… ohh god..”

and you pull on his hair and wrap your legs around him; your insides too stirred up to form a response. you feel him pummeling the deepest parts of your walls with an intensity that only washes in when he’s aching for something.

“… but.. ungh, fuck fuck fuck, i.. i think you like it, don’t you? staying in when im out… letting me come back to you at the end of the night and stuff my dick into this pretty hole of yours… letting me use you… AH— baby—! fuckkk, i’m gonna come inside you— i’m gonna come inside you, ’m gonna fucking— ohh god, please—“

and then he’s pulling himself out and slamming back in once, twice, three times before he lets out an anguished moan and spills warmly into your body; coating your parts in a thick, sticky, milky dose of desperation and longing as he pulls your back up into an arch while you yelp under him. he presses his stomach to yours as he rides out his high.

he so desperately wants you to quit the internet so that he can take you out properly and show you all of the ways he can make you happy.

he knows you liked him first—he was told that you’d had a huge crush on him—but none of it really mattered now. he’s obsessed with you too, so..

why won’t you let him show the world?

[salemoleander]

Chaos vs. Patronage: How Life Series winners grapple with skill disparity

As the Life Series has gone on and matured into more noticeable patterns, some winners have pivoted to a mentorship/support role to their chosen 'champion'/ a favored player.

Scott spent Limited Life as a duo with Martyn, and then joined a high-skill group in Secret Life that ultimately saw him sacrifice himself trying to get Gem the win. Pearl spent Secret Life with her stated goal being one of her teammates winning, pivoting to support Scar at the end when they'd died. Now in Wild Life, she has outright stated her intent to support Impulse to get the win. (Scar supporting Jimmy in Wild Life may also fit this pattern; we'll get to that.)

In contrast, winners Grian and Martyn² are not sticking to that single-minded attempt to get a player to win, whatever it takes. They will express support for teammates winning, but generally do not take actions that would worsen their own chances of winning/surviving to help a teammate. They aren't playing "meta", which here means putting all their resources into one person.

These two categories of behavior ultimately reflect the Winners' approaches to answering the question of how to balance disparate skill levels in the series cast. (Second half of writing + footnotes under cut.)

Grian has spent game after game altering mechanics & playing with randomization to try to level the playing field without directly intervening against specific players.³ Martyn is invested enough in the narrative/story that making less-than-optimal decisions isn't hard for him or atypical (this is the player who beelines for the Nether every single season).

It seems like Scott and Pearl realized they're very strong players and are interested in nerfing themselves more actively... but they still don't want to throw the match. The compromise there is to put their effort & skill towards helping another player achieve victory.

A case could be argued that Scar is moreso the former group by nature (he's similar to Martyn in his penchant for making entertainingly bad decisions that render nerfing unecessary). However, after witnessing multiple seasons of Scott & Pearl acting as mentors, seeing them compete head-to-head in the game he ultimately won, mentorship now seems like a normalized route to take once you're a winner.⁴

¹ Unsure if BigB in LimL counts? They were a duo, but Scott fomenting Martyn's win seems to be what kicked off Pearl's dedication to support another player.

² Cleo is a winner but they do not fit this analysis for a variety of reasons I don't want to get into. So I won't, bc this is a tumblr post & not an academic paper. Ignore that there are footnotes and an academic-ass title

³ Grian seeing Scott win: "Oh no I've created an unbalanced game. Ok lets randomly assign players together to try to balance things... why has RNG betrayed me?!" RNG does not stop betraying him btw. I have another post in draft about this but it's kind of nuts how dedicated Grian is to Not Rigging The Game Even A Little.

⁴ Incidentally imo this is what will force Grian in the next few games to either end the series, create dual winners/some other atypical win structure, or bust his ass trying to get a second win & break that taboo. Based on his game design so far, he can put up with a bit of interference, but ultimately will not abide "we all do schoolyard tradesies on who gets to win until everyone gets one".

[julijbee]

girlbossing too close to the sun.

[egophiliac]

Do you play genshin impact or honkak a

Star rail?

I don't play Honkai, but I've just started looking into Genshin Impact's story (someone described Neuvillette's character to me and I was like. hmm. HMM.) I haven't gotten far yet -- really JUST started looking at it -- but I'm looking forward to more! :D

(I know almost nothing about these characters yet, I'm probably drawing them SUPER wrong, sorry)

[ilynpilled]

jaime turning women down constantly more bc he is very monogamous and in love with someone else right now for the first time and is also kinda scared of actually having sex with someone other than cersei is sm better to me than “i respect the kg vows of chastity so intensely rn actually because i changed into a good and serious person” or whatever lol

[fjordfolk]

Its late so she's sleepy but we're also in the final days of me working as many hours as I can physically bear, so enjoy:

Acutely understimulated Spart

[epiphainie]

do yall sometimes think about how buck has a boyfriend who shows up for him after fighting a wildfire the entire day just bc buck asked him to

[souvenir116]

still cant let this go when Charles says his biggest victory is max being safe after Silverstone 21 and not him being on the podium. even when they werent that close back in 21

[cologona]

I am just so fundamentally uninterested in the story where Jason is in the wrong and needs to Gain Perspective or whatever. God what a snore. What an absolute waste of my time.

[bixels]

tarpit site.

[mischiefbuckley]

the priest saying “there’s nothing I haven’t heard before” because Bobby casual dropped the I killed 148 people in an apartment fire in Minnesota on him and also I am a recovering alcoholic and Eddie Diaz really came into that confessional and was like so let me tell you about the telenovela that I was in last season where I have a best friend and ex-girlfriend in that order and my son who currently is living with my parents because they all caught me while I was lying and seeing my son’s dead mother and I got caught because actually father I am in love with my best friend but I still haven’t realized that and I never actually was in love with my wife more like we were forced into a marriage because she got pregnant and then I decided to run off to join the Army and become an Army Medic for two tours so I wasn’t ready to be in a ready made family with her and I love my son so much don’t get me wrong but I wasn’t in love with his mother but lets go back to talking about my son and my best friend please father

[dykedvonte]

Curly's attempt to prioritize the crew's happiness over safety is very in line with the internal struggles he is going through with wondering if he is happy in his life and path or should he forfeit that security.

It's upsetting cause while as understandable as that projection is, the want to be happy in something you don't feel secure in, he can't see past it and allows it to clog his judgement. This is no longer a matter of happiness but safety, but he in the end was the safest member of the crew in practically every aspect. It's not something he's going to understand the weight of from his position.

His current state is also a reflection and inversion of his mindset at the beginning of the game as well as a metaphor for the exact type of endangerment Anya felt. Where as with Jimmy, he gets to feel that "safety" Curly felt with the position but the lack of happiness he perceived he had.