#so it doesn’t feel so abstract

[whentherewerebicycles]

it is a really gorgeous morning out—crisp and sunny and totally clear—and that feels weird when everything online is so, so dark. but also I am weirdly grateful for the beautiful day and for my baby, who is as usual delighted to be alive and is currently in his crib having an animated little conversation with himself and trying to grab his toes. I think what was hardest about those first four years, especially the first couple years, was swimming every day in the horrible toxic sludge of darkness and anger and betrayal and despair. I can’t go back there. I can’t live in that perpetually heightened state of constant doomscrolling and emotional spiraling. I don’t want or plan to disconnect/disengage but I know I will have to find ways to find balance. bad things are going to happen. people whose hearts are rotten through with hate will exult publicly and shamelessly in the suffering they cause. my baby will grow up in a world that feels darker and more uncertain than the one I grew up in. but I just can’t do the thing where I wake up every single morning and let the full grief and horror of it flood my body. I am sure this means that I have a weak character or I am avoiding the reckoning or I am so insulated by privilege I can afford to turn the noise off for a bit. that is what it is. but I just gotta like. I gotta figure out how to still feel happy that it’s a beautiful day out and my baby is chatting joyfully to himself about how nice it is to be a warm cozy little baby in a warm cozy little bed.

[salty-an-disco]

just had a realization as to why I find the Leave as Gods ending pretty chill and something I’d actually wouldn’t mind doing–

I’m nonbiney, xenogender, and relate more to abstract concepts than my own body, becoming a concept too great for anyone but yourselves and your literal soulmate to understand is literally my dream lmao.

[icelogged]

a lot of you guys are blaming this solely on “tiktok / twitter” culture which is, evidently, valid [as she deleted those] however i think it’s important to reflect on your own actions as well instead of assigning blame to a faceless general group. we are all interacting with her parasocially through tumblr that still creates a social disconnect. that is not to say, you should feel guilty… it’s just to say that blaming a abstract group is easy and doesn’t do anything positive for the situation 

[thefanciestborrower]

I think it’s so interesting how we as a community really like exploring this soft, beautifully poetic quality of vore, but only ever seem to do so in writing. I’ve seen so many lovely poems and short stories waxing on in beautiful prose about the beautiful inner workings of the human body and the intimacy and trust that comes with having another person literally inside you, but when it comes to art you almost never see that. Sure art often focuses on those same qualities as well but...they’re never emphasized as beautiful in quite the same way I think. And maybe that’s why my art is so soft and almost like...classical feeling? Because every time I draw I want to capture that poetic beauty in a visual format. Something that, while painting a visual picture, also evokes a very special sense of awe. Even in the silly little scenarios I draw or the spookier pieces I post every once in a while I find myself trying to integrate older styles of poetry and artistry I don’t see much now. And maybe...maybe that’s why my art feels so nostalgic...

Who knows

Perhaps I’m just a hopeless romantic

[bookwyrminspiration]

power is SUCH a vague word what tf are you talking about ever shannon. what are you saying. revoking her right to use that word

[atopvisenyashill]

i was gonna say more bc there’s more to say but i think i’m just too annoyed to say it lmao

[youcanbuyasaladglove]

Asuka/Raven is something I do not personally ship because I think it’s otherwise loveless and unrequited but I can’t not acknowledge the secret third thing it is (too fucked up to ignore)(submissive like a guard dog but you don’t want a dog at all)

[stinkrascal]

the worst take i have ever seen is when someone on here said that basically anything horror related is just goreporn and theres no reason for things like that to be in art and, worst of all, people are bad if they enjoy things like that. like idk how else to tell you this, but disregarding an entire genre of storytelling just bc you think its icky is the antithesis of art imo. im sorry not every story follows a disney formula so its easier for you to grasp the main point:( must be rough

[brothfan1997]

the problem with adventure time is that i am so deadly serious about it and how good i think it is so it is difficult to have casual conversations about it without delving into my personal philosophies about the meaning of life and what we owe to each other and ourselves etc etc etc. cannot be normal

[redhotarsenic]

Time to play the game “am I fully aromantic and my intense fondness of this person is entirely platonic/ other feeling that isn’t romantic or do I actually have a crush and I’m dense as hell”

[peapod20001]

I actually do have very complex thoughts about many different things, it’s just a bit challenging to connect the inner voice to the outer voice sometimes </3

[gyorslab]

I really wanted to draw fanart today but I hurt my wrist a week ago and it’s still being annoying about fine details so I’m just doing stuff like this tonight… I don’t usually draw abstract things like this and I never fully understood how to go choose and convey something abstractly so just wanna say like… I didn’t go into this planning anything in advance so if you’re confused that’s why. I just took a palette on my iPad and did stuff on a blank canvas until I felt decently satisfied moving on.

[spacemancharisma]

i still feel like they all know

that’s why i can never go back home

[cornbread818]

These drawings are holding hands in my mind…

to the pressure

[bookwyrminspiration]

OKAY!! figured out the crux of my earlier post the thing I’m getting hung up on is “she gave him this whole speech about how the Council supposedly took away a tremendous source of power” (Stellarlune, 301) power can mean SO many things what tf kinda power are we talking about is this. like electricity. is it like a prime source. is it mental?? is it the source of elves powers is it literally the source of power for them?? We r throwing around the words power source but what does it MEAN how are we defining power

until I know—which very well may be answered in book 10! I know there’s more coming—I think this book will always perplex me a little

[multiversal-pudding]

Very good points here, I especially agree with the part about the plot twist of Evil Mildenhall feeling very much like an intentionally stupid plot twist (something something “Caine coming off like an insecure writer putting a nonsensical plot twist in thinking the value is in the suprise when it wildly contradicts any and all logic, like Kinger questioning how he recorded the last tape despite being in hell) but there’s one little thing I want to contradict-

See, the thing is, the part about Possessedmi taunting Kinger about his wife is- I don’t think Caine necessarily actively wrote out/pre-scripted incidental dialogue bits like that for every scenario- after all, if Caine was scripting all of these lines actively, why would Caine have written a line for Gummigoo reacting to entering the main area if it’s against the rules for him to do that- hell, why not just have him just not be interested in leaving at all?

What this suggests to me is that it’s likely that while the Adventures are probably somewhat pre-scripted, it’s likely that some aspects/the NPCs have some level of self-generated responses not actively written by Caine, which I’d imagine would be fairly logical as a process to include as it takes some of the strain off Caine and allows the adventures to be more flexible in how they play out- However, this also adds a very dangerous consequence in that if not watched carefully (which it seems Caine has some level of unawareness of what happens 24/7 if Pomni was able to fall off the map/wander into The Void in spite of his claims of being All-Seeing) they might be able to take actions that are more dangerous/significant than intended

Which means that not only do the NPCs have the capacity to feel strong emotions like grief and existentialism (or if not, at least produce a damn good facsimile of it-), the NPCs have the capacity to actively, intentionally try to harm the players, be that physical, mental, or emotional means

This means that even if Caine himself doesn’t wish to torment the players, he can create things that can, which is something I don’t think he’s realized the potential consequences of/might not be responsible enough to handle yet-

Can we just talk about how disturbing digital circus episode 3 is?

*spoilers btw*

Like, the whole narrative point of the adventure is to show that Caine is a really bad and insecure writer who thinks that the way to impress Zooble is with an adventure that's the opposite of what he normally does.

So instead of being childish, it's "cool" and "mature". Which he interprets as a heavily horror themed escape room with a split murder mystery plot that subverts all your expectations purely for the sake of subverting them.

The generic horror monster jump scares them, then they find a gun, and when they kill it its revealed that surprise! it's one of Gods angels and they're going to Hell.

It comes off as Caine being too insecure with the actually interesting and mature plot thread he had going there of Mildenhall becoming so paranoid he killed his wife, ironically becoming the monster he was trying to protect her from. But no, instead Mr. Mildenhall is made to be the bad guy and trick them in a really dumb twist ending.

Which is good! Thats exactly what Caine would do because he's stupid! It's such brilliant characterization and comedy, Goose works is a genius writer!

But like, why is Caine so good at making genuinely very disturbing and horrific visuals? Like, that reversed audio easter egg of Bubble saying he can't wait for all the children in the audience get nightmares is no joke, well it is but you know what I mean. This stuff was genuine nightmare fuel.

Honestly, it wasn't the visuals that scared me, like any good queer person I'm way too jaded on survival horror for that.

But, why does Caine, who is ostensibly a sapient AI designed to generate family friendly video games for very little children, (presumably because that's the only demographic that wouldn't mind the AIs very selective plot writing limitations), know about the cosmic horror of killing an angel that should not have been killed?

Why does he know what a horrificly poorly made taxidermy of not only a human face would look like, but the weird cartoon faces of the characters, and further that seeing your own poorly made taxidermy face would be scary?

Imaging what being possessed felt like for Pomni. Because that's not just a game for her, she actually lost control of her body there, helpless but to watch as a body she is already dissociated with is contorted and puppeted around while her friend desperately tries to beat her in hopes it would exorcise the ghosts out. Sure hope she didn't feel that! Considering she apparently can feel the pain of suffocating, despite not needing to breath.

Things are scarier the higher the stakes are, and that possession mechanic is definitely the most actual harm Caine would be able to subject to his players. What if both Kinger and Pomni got possessed at the same time? What if instead of Kinger she only had Jax??? How long might she have been locked out from her own body for? She could have easily abstracted in that time.

Not to mention that, possessed Pomni, Possessedmni if you will, TAUNTED KINGER ABOUT HIS ABSTRACTED WIFE! CAINE ACTUALLY WROTE THAT DIALOGUE ON THE OFF CHANCE THAT KINGER WOULD GO DOWN THE SCARY ROUTE! DID THIS RANDOM POSSESSION GHOST ENEMY HAVE UNUSED SADISTICALLY PERSONAL TAUNTS FOR EVERYONE ELSE, TOO??? WOULD IT HAVE TEASED GANGLE FOR BEING A GAY WEEB??? OR POMNI? HOW HOMOPHOBIC COULD IT HABE GOTTEN?? ?

And why? Just because Caine has a vague notion that there's a trope of possessed people being really sadistic and personal like that in movies? Not realizing that is not an acceptable scare to have in a haunted house??? Much less one you made for mentally ill people who would suffer a fate worse than death if they have a mental break down? That's like trying to claim 'its just a prank bro' after shooting someone's dog.

Like, Caine is designed to censor curse words, but the moment he thinks the normal hokey Halloween spooks won't be enough he immediately goes off the deepend into aggressively effective horror imagery that is definitely giving this show's substantial underage audience nightmares??

His AI's training data set is definitely pretty diverse, that's all I'm saying. Caine is programmed to act all naive and innocent, but be definitely knows what's up. He knows everything, like ChatGPT. And like ChatGPT, he might have a filter, but it's clearly possible to bypass it. Also like ChatGPT, he's too stupid to actually understand what he is making and the effects it might have.

That is what made this episode great.