#session breakdown

[poppyberry]

Everybody NEEDS to listen to the new Wild Life retrospective on Imp and Skizz's podcast. They got Grian called in and they give so many cool insights into the series (and honestly say so many things I think people need to hear)

Highlights for me:

Grian designed each wild card to be weaponized and wanted everyone to take advantage of them. He goes over each individually and all the thought he put into them and all the work the backend team put into their execution. He's rightfully really proud of them. Him gushing about Trivia Bot and how excited he was to show his friends the "coolest snail ever" is particularly sweet.

Skizz says discovering each wild card was a LOT of fun. He says something like "I can't believe as an adult I get to have so much fun." Impulse is really impressed with the execution of each, citing stuff like making it rain when the time one activated and the passive mobs spawning in before being replaced, and how the little details like that built excitement and tension.

Grian says how he understands that some viewers maybe just want more seasons of the essentially the same series, ie six seasons of just Third Life, but it's more important to him that the Lifers get to experience something new and fresh. He also doesn't like comparing each series, preferring to consider each one as its own thing.

Impulse can't wait to do another Life series, Skizz is equally excited but tries to hold discussion about it back since he doesn't want anyone pressuring Grian, who is palpably burned out. Like, you can hear how tired this man is. Grian says there will probably be more series since everyone is still enjoying it, but he's not trying to outdo himself and not to expect him to keep escalating.

Skizz always tries to do something new each season yet feels like he always falls back into the same habits and dynamics, but not this time: he feels like he got to explore a new dynamic with the Spanners and had a blast doing it. He and Grian gush about how much fun they had with their "big brother trying to keep his little brothers alive" routine.

They have a grand time making fun of Impulse and his "Sweats". Impulse is unabashedly still hungry to win a series.

Impulse didn't want to kill zombie Skizz, because of the five minute cooldown, but Skizz makes clear that he was really happy with being a zombie, even if there was a lot of doing nothing in between summons. He says it means a lot to him that he got to help with the burden of facilitating the series, even just a little bit.

Grian gives good insight into his personal life strategy: he does some things to deliberately test his relationship with other players. Standing in the Danger Zone was a trust exercise, testing Jimmy and Scar. Jimmy and Scar failed.

Despite Scar failing the trust exercise, Grian heard the disappointment in Scar's voice about the Snail Bot thing and immediately caved, but he's really happy that it led them to in-canon reconciling and becoming strong allies again.

Grian's favorite moment was making Jimmy pay for the failed trust exercise by blowing up the bunker, particularly pleased with his one liner of "it was always gonna be like this". He says Wild Life as a whole has been the most enjoyable series for him, even though he didn't get to have as much fun as the other players due to knowing all the wild cards.

All three of them gush over the scene of everybody failing to kill Joel as he teleports around, laughing about how it was straight out of a movie or an anime. Impulse feels like Joel took his superpower to a new level, but Grian reminds him the he didn't have an army chasing him around trying to kill him. They're all super impressed with how the finale turned out.

Some of the powers were assigned (Cleo, BigB, BDubs, Scar, Lizzie), some were random (Impulse, Martyn). Some were based on players' names, others on their personal narratives, but coming up with ~16 different powers without including any that would just be exploited for cheap instakills was really difficult, which is why there were so many espionage ones. Hilariously, Grian was hoping Scar would accidentally kill Jimmy by punching him off a cliff because of their ritual of trying punching in the earlier episodes. He also gave Scar that power because he knew Scar wouldn't feel bad about killing people with it.

Grian chose to give himself the mimic so he could show people how their powers worked if he needed to, and so that it wasn't given to somebody else who'd have to spend the whole session figuring out the mechanics of 15 separate superpowers and potentially dying because of it. And because he thinks its the coolest one and he wanted it (lol)

All around there's tons of fun details and stuff in this episode of the podcast and absolutely everybody should listen to it all the way through.

[whumpster-dumpster]

I love seeing the Strong One break down but I also want to see instances where they burst. Just suddenly burst into the gut-wrenching explosive messy tears they've been suppressing for so long that it both stuns and alarms anyone there to witness it

[hethinkslikeaking]

"omg homophobia :( the lesbian ship i want to kiss didn't kiss in an episode that was obviously going to be the backstory of another main character :( hes EXPLICITLY gay in a MARVEL DISNEY+ show and kisses his boyfriend but its still so homophobic :( the episode wasn't straight out of my headcannon so i hate it :("

do you know how dumb u sound rn

[idontmindifuforgetme]

Can’t believe I ever functioned without going to therapy every week omg. The sheer delusion of thinking I can last in this life without therapy

[luposlipaphobya]

Ok google how to date your boss when you’re haunted by eldritch entities. Asking for a friend.

Another scene from our dnd campaign. Melisande (guy with the braids) belongs to @the-nothing-maker ✨ and Lazuli is my npc!

[fridayvelvet]

seunghyo’s mental breakdown

[bladebestie]

..... @yourlocalcultist what did you do to elliot and his partner

Subsequently, what does @clinicallyexhausted and @epsiloncarinae87 mean when they talk about a hellscape

[ghost-bard]

Might see if i cant do a little reload to the neve/bellara choice in act 3 (??? Or is it late act 2 i fr do not know) just so i can record davrin stopping deirdre from going after bellara bc that scene and the 3 of them in general live rent free in my head and i was paused right after for so long that the recording i thought i saved was just. My paused screen of elgarnan lmao

[thealpacaavenger]

Angsty little bitch (affectionate)

[rastronomicals]

5:27 PM EDT September 7, 2024:

Led Zeppelin - "Communication Breakdown" From the album BBC Sessions (November 11, 1997)

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm

File under:    Bands That Were, Like, Really Into Tolkien

[zionanelequaso]

I’ve already decided I’m yapping. batman x bill cipher lore BEAM!!!!

warnings: yaoi, gravity falls spoilers, angst, yaoi, yaoi, did i mention yaoi, tbob spoilers(???)

okay. so. all the shit in gravity falls IS canon, but after stan punched bill into oblivion, bill met the axolotl and they made a deal. if bill somehow redeemed himself to the point of at least only being a little prankster, the axolotl would send him back to earth. so, the axolotl sent him to the theraprism, where 1 second in our world is 100 years there (this comes in handy for me). I still haven’t decided how many seconds in our world he was in there.

eventually he managed to redeem himself to the point of just being a mischievous being. so, the axolotl decided to send him somewhere that wasn’t gravity falls so he could have time to choose if he wanted to say sorry or not (keep this in mind). also bill got his powers back because the axolotl was feeling nice. bill got sent to gotham, and was just floating around before he met Batman. Immediately, he was quite enamored! having long moved on from ford (somehow.), he decided to start watching batman like a hawk. and follow him everywhere. and I mean everywhere. from the start, he knew Batman was bruce, yes, but he didn’t let him know that until the second time they crossed paths. yes, the second. so then, when batman was like “wait what” he went “ok so now you know I know who you are I’m gonna follow you like everywhere mk??” and for some reason, bruce (i switch between calling him either batman or bruce it just depends on how I feel okay) could find himself taking a slight “liking” to bill as well.

spoiler alert, they do get freaky on multiple occasions I’m just not writing about that stuff because I’m a minrorooririijhehjdjshdjia. leave that to your imagination FREAKS!!! (the only reason I’ve even included this fact is because I’m hypersexual!!! I won’t talk about them actually being freaks I’ll just include suggestive stuff leave me alone!!! [sorry I feel the need to apologize and explain myself a lot ok])

okay so there are multiple different ways this can go, but I mostly include 2 (with an occasional secret 3rd and 4th option)

option 1 which is actually the secret third option: since I haven’t watched or read anything with genuinely serious robins + I love love love silly robin with all my heart and soul, there’s this one, where robin (based off of Lego robin) has to just watch bill go BAZINGA over batman and be very confused.

option 2 which is actually the secret 4th option: everything basically stays the same, except ford somehow also got sent to gotham by the axolotl (with intent of having bill and ford meet up or something to see how bill reacts.) depending on how you’d feel, they can either meet pre-batman and get their yaoi back, or stanford can meet joker, have yaoi with that guy, meet bill and go “fuck off,” or they can just never meet and at some point stanford gets super close to redeeming joker. this part is a big joke my friend from school made that I expanded on but I think it’s super funny

option 3: everything stays the same, it’s just bill, batman, and the rogues.

option 4: bill comes in contact with the Justice league and somehow becomes a part of them. not explicitly, but yk he’s just there. this is probably my favorite

so, however this goes, there will always be a thing where bill gets sent back to gravity falls WITH batman (and others, depending on which interpretation you’re talking about [UNLESS you’re talking about the thing where stanford and bill DO cross paths]), and dipper gets the whole fam out, stanford tells batman everything, and bill just LOSES IT.

everything he’s worked for, just gone down the drain.

so, he can either become evil again and have to get ANOTHER redemption arc (but this time without the axolotl), or he can have a breakdown on the spot and beg for forgiveness.

if you choose the first option, he will get forgiven by his peers, but the pines family will still be wary. also, he’ll get the fuck out of gravity falls as soon as he can

if you choose the second option, bruce can either forgive him or not forgive him, which then evolves into either the 1st option or even more of a breakdown until either the 1st option or batman forgives him. that make sense??

and that’s basically it! here’s some stuff about bill

1. he actually did care about stanford or something in the past, he just felt like he had to purposefully hurt him so it wouldn’t have to be on accident (like his family)

2. he finally learned how to not feel the need to push people away!! yay!!!

3. he would get married to bruce. this is canon I’m bill’s 3rd eyelash

I wonder how alex hirsch would feel if he knew that someone out there shipped bill cipher x batman. that someone is me.

also jfc that was a lot more than I was expecting but it was super fun to write!!

[mustlovewillgrahamsdogs]

it's so deeply satisfying to watch will confront hannibal openly and honestly. like he really does see him for what he is. he acknowledges the forcible removal of attachment and that hannibal's influence has caused him to alienate everyone, further isolating himself, ripe for hannibal's picking.

so will throws his words back in his face, but it sounds like a surrendering. it sounds romantic. will's so caught up in his honeytrap, he accidentally gets himself stuck

you're right

we are just alike

you're as alone as i am

and we're both alone without each other

[tagidearte-spam-sb]

I find it funny how the fandom (or, at least, a part of the fandom I see a lot) has latched onto the "Moon is obsessed with rules" headcanon. True, he's the one that comes after Gregory for "punishment time", but...

Sun is the one calling the player a rulebreaker and kicking a literal kid straight into the less-than-friendly Glamrocks' waiting arms (for accidentally turning the lights off. As if Gregory would know touching a Freddy shaped security box would do that. If it even was Gregory and, idk, ""someone"" disabling the power in the daycare on purpose). Sun is the one nearly popping his circuits if you don't follow his instructions. Sun is the one threatening to release Moon on you if you so much as colour a page wrong. Sun is the one getting frustrated with Cassie if she screws up somehow (haven't played Ruin in a while, but I do think he freaks out if you approach him in the VR world after only disabling one - or zero - generators).

Moon on the other hand? Moon is fizzyfazzing vibing (well, not in Ruin for obvious reasons). Fulfilling his task and getting the kid? Sure sure, let him just jump from leg to leg first, and walk in a goofy way at an extremely slow pace (even Monty with no legs balancing himself on crutches would probably move faster), while giggling and alerting the entirety of the daycare to his precise jingly location. He only starts taking it seriously and entering the structures when you get some generators on, and even then he's still messing around. The robot cares more about his jester theatrics than his goddamn job. If Moon really does security patrols like many people believe he does, half of them are (or were, prior to the virus) probably him tormenting a poor overworked security guard (rip Vanessa, if you're out there...).

Don't take me wrong. I love a Moon who follows the rules to a malicious degree as much as the next person. And he does seem set on putting Gregory down to sleep and punishing him. He does seem intent on harming you in HW2. But let's be real, Moon doesn't give a shit about his job half the time - doing a goofy walk, riding a carousel... those are much better. If he gets to scare someone while doing it, jackpot for him. We only really see him struggle in Ruin, as far as I recall. Sun is the one running around like a bossy headless chicken trying to get everything in order.

I think it's because Moon is the one who directly says "you must be punished" and harms you? But even then my man jumps on the table, does a goofy move, and flies off to give Gregory some time to hide for their little hide and seek game. Sun is the one getting freaked out and throwing you out without any preamble after the lights turn on.

Again, not shitting on anyone. I just think it's so funny. I legitimately cannot imagine Moon being that serious unless 1) a real intruder is at the pizzaplex, not some snotty kid; 2) Vanny tells him to; 3) something actually dangerous is happening and he's not high on whatever virus is going around.

[breakingdiamondboi]

ohh picture this - Earthspark Breakdown rolling up to the Malto's house with Vroom Vroom by Charli XCX blaring out of his speakers while Bumblebee glaring at him while he desperately and unsuccessfully tries to get the Terrans to turn off their audials

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

Led Zeppelin - Communication Breakdown

[squorttle-pox]

AND IF HE'S ONLY HERE AS A PRISONER WHAT KIND OF MONSTER DOES THAT MAKE ME