#such a genuinely great event! i had a blast

[braisedhoney]

i had the pleasure of being a part of ecto-implosion 2023! this was my contribution o7

i was also given the opportunity to have TWO wonderful writers make a fic based off of this mini-comic, so please check them out below—they're both genuinely outstanding and i feel honored they picked my art to write for ;;

First Meeting by @kuzann! (also on ao3!)

Justice In Time by @alumbianchronicler (tumblr post summary here!)

[collapsedglasshouses]

Like The Movies || Vinny Mauro x fem!Reader

PICTURE FOUND ON PINTEREST

SUMMARY: When Vinny and his childhood best friend Y/n jokingly decide to watch adult movies together, things escalate rather quickly.

WARNINGS: smut, MDNI, watching porn together, mutual masturbation, mutual pining, mentions of drug consumption, friends to fwb sorta, …

A/N: I wrote this last night, I don’t know where it came from… Maybe I’ll write another part. I don’t know yet! This is not proofread sorryyy

TAGLIST: @measuredingold @cncohshit @nerdraging4point0 @circle-with-me @tearfallpixie (i hope you dont mind me tagging you, i thought you would like to read this ♡)

Vinny was glad tour was over. Not that he didn’t enjoy it, he had a blast. But coming back home meant one thing for him. He would see you again. Vinny couldn’t remember a time where he hadn’t known you. Since he could remember, you were there. From kindergarten, where you beat up a guy that stole him a shovel while building a sand castle, to high school, where you were there for each other during the worst heartbreaks.

Even when he became the drummer for Motionless in White, you were there. You supported him through every life stage he was going through and it even came to the point where you bought the house next to his. You two were basically attached at the hip.

It was no wonder that when he was back in town, he visited you the second he had settled back in. There was this tradition, where to two of you would meet up, smoke some weed and talk about everything that happened during the time you couldn’t see each other. Nothing was out of the usual. Except… Everything was out of the usual this time…

It was a warm Saturday evening in July. The sun was slowly setting down and he had just come over to your house. Of course, it meant he would be here until late at night. As always.

Since the temperature reached their peak at this point, it was no wonder you only wore shorts and a crop top. Nothing Vinny hadn’t seen you in before, but this time he took a great notice in how good it actually fitted you.

As usual, you both had been smoking for almost an hour at this point and you were currently babbling about the most random shit that came to your mind. You enjoyed your time together as always. But you actually didn’t know how you got to the topic you were currently talking about.

“Oh, come on! You can’t be serious.” You exclaimed while handing him the joint. His cheeks were almost crimson red at this point. He was nervous. “You can’t tell me you really enjoy these overdramatic movies.”

“It’s not like I enjoy enjoy it, I just skip videos until I reach one that I can, you know, finish to.” He mumbled and let out a small giggle before he inhaled again.

“And you decided an old and corny eighty’s porn was the right choice?” You giggled and let your head fall onto the backrest of the couch for a second. It wasn’t unusual for you to talk about sexual events in your lives, considering you had gone through so much together, but hearing that he jerked of to something like that made you giggle almost uncontrollably.

“Oh, don’t make fun of me, I bet you watch that shit all the time.” He threw back at you, before putting the joint, or what was left of it, out.

“I’m not saying, I don’t watch porn, I’m just saying I try to keep my taste… Authentic.” You answered him honestly and shifted in your place for a second. Vinny did not miss how your crop top rode up a little and how it warmed his cheeks even more, but he decided to blame it on the drug running through his system.

“So, what’s authentic in your eyes?”

That’s when you noticed something changed. The energy in the room shifted. You looked into your best friend's greenish eyes and you noticed how they seemingly became darker. You knew he just wanted to tease you but something in his tone sparked your curiosity. Something in his attitude made you think he was genuinely interested in your taste in adult films; curious even.

“Should I show you?” You almost whispered, after contemplating your answer for what seemed like eternity. You thought about if it would make things between you and Vinny awkward but you ultimately decided against it. Nothing ever could make things between the two of you awkward.

You saw how his Adam's apple bobbed and you felt strange. There was this feeling in your gut, you couldn’t quite describe. A feeling you had never felt before when you were around him but you just blamed it on your not-sober state.

“Why not?” He mumbled quietly and you could have sworn how his gaze went to your lips for a second.

“Okay.”

Around twenty minutes later, you were gathered around your tiny laptop screen. You had finally decided on a movie to show Vinny but now that you were really sitting there, you were strangely unprepared and vulnerable.

A shaky breath escaped your lips, and you felt hot all of a sudden. There was something weirdly intimate about this thing. You felt dirty to some extent. You were about to show your best friend your taste in adult movies. You turned to face Vinny for a second, his gaze filled with an anticipating and curious expression.

“What if you find it weird?” You mumbled and his eyes immediately found yours.

“There is literally nothing about you that could surprise me in the slightest, Y/n.” He reassured you with a slight teasing tone. It took you a second to believe his words. But he was right. He knew everything about you. There was nothing weird about two best friends watching that stuff together.

“We can make a deal.” He then exclaimed and you blinked at him. “If we feel weird at any point, we just put it out and watch some dinosaur documentary or something.”

You laughed at the randomness of his media choice.

“What?” – “Dinosaur documentaries? Seriously, Vin?” Vinny smirked for a second before he lifted his hands in defends. “If you find it more comfortable, we can also sit in silence and stare at the wall.”

“No, no. You are right.” You exclaimed before holding out your hand which he took and shook lightly. “Deal.”

When you leaned down to load the video, you noticed how Vinny shuffles in this place. It felt like your heart was going to explode out of your chest.

Breathe, Y/n, breathe.

After a short intro that promoted the person’s OF the video cut to a couple in a bedroom. The naked guy was sitting on the edge of the bed, almost shaking in anticipation as the girl was slowly kneeing down in between his legs. Even though the video was filmed in third person, you could clearly see how she looked up at him through her lashes. Then she began to blow him.

You swallowed hard, not really knowing what to do. You sat stiff, not daring to look at Vinny for a solid minute. The only noise filling the room being the guy’s small moans and whimpers.

“Do you like when guys moan?” Vinny then asked, causing you to look at him with a surprised look on your face.

“What?” - “I-… I mean you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to but-…”

“Yeah… I-… I think I like it. When it comes naturally of course.” You mumbled and felt how your cheeks grew warmer.

You looked each other in the eyes for a second before he nodded slightly. The scene cut to him eating her out, their positions switched.

Out of the corner of your eyes, you saw that Vinny‘s eyes were completely glued to the screen. His eyes were wide. His mouth slightly open and he occasionally sucked his lip in to dampen it. You wondered if he enjoyed it.

You took a deep breath, trying to forget about Vinny sitting next to you, before looking at the screen again. They began fucking at this point. It was the first time you even noticed what watching porn was even like. You watched strangers chase each other’s high for your own entertainment.

You noticed the way the woman threw her head back as the guy pounded into her. She wasn’t fake-moaning, slight noises of enjoyment leaving her pink lips. Occasionally, there were words of praise exchanged between the two of them and you couldn’t help your mind wondering off again. You felt how your stomach started to heat up. You felt yourself shifting in your seat. You felt the way your mouth felt dry and you had to keep licking your lip to feel comfortable. The same way Vinny had to. You noticed how your nipples perked up slightly. How your crop top started to feel tight.

You were starting to get worked up and even though you put great afford into it, you couldn’t help but peak a glance at Vinny once in a while. His cheeks were tinted in a red tone and even though you tried not to, your gaze wondered to his pants. He was hard.

Your entire face and stomach went incredible hot at this sight, like you’d been suddenly standing in the hot summer sun. His hands that had become much more defined due to playing the drums so frequently, were laying on his thighs and he occasionally rubbed them against his black shorts like he was desperate to move them.

What shook you the most, though, was that you wanted him to move his hands.

You took a deep breath again, trying to calm your nerves. You couldn’t believe you just thought about your best friend masturbating next to you. You tried your utter best to lock those thoughts away but it didn’t even take a minute until your eyes settled back onto his figure. It intrigued you. He intrigued you.

You didn’t know how to ask him if he wanted to touch himself. You didn’t want to make it weird. But you desperately wanted to ease the tension in the room. You knew you yourself couldn’t hold back for much longer. Not that you didn’t have self-control but seeing him being so turned on by the movie, made you feel even more desperate.

Onscreen, the scene had totally changed a couple of times but you didn’t even notice one bit of it.

“Vinny?” You said, your voice sounding raspy. He made a quiet noise in response, almost sounding like a whimper. Fuck.

“You… I… I'm mean y-… You can…” You sighed before starting the sentence over. “You can touch yourself if you want.”

He swallowed and glanced over at you, looking at you for the first time since your whole dilemma had started. His beautiful eyes were dark and mirrored some kind of hunger, his cheeks flushed and you couldn’t deny how gorgeous he looked. “I-… I mean, you can too.”

“Yeah,” you gasped in response. “Yeah, it’s not weird.” 

With that the dam was broken. Any clear thought in your head that would have held you back even in the slightest, was washed over by how ridiculously turned on you were.

You took a deep breath before you fingers slipped past the waistband of your shorts. You were soaking wet at this point. For a short second you coated your fingers with your arousal before placing them on your clit. There was no going back. You began to circle your clit, chasing your high as you closed your eyes.

“Shit.” You slightly moaned and threw your head back on the backrest. Even though your common sense tried to ignore the presence of your best friend next to you, you couldn’t help but focus entirely on the fact he was there. You slightly looked at him again.

You were hearing him. Soft noises slipped past his lips, his hand slightly rubbing along his clothed erection.

“You don’t have to be shy, Vinny.” You breathed out, “I won’t mind.”

“Really?” He asked. You nodded quickly and he let out a relieved sigh. He leaned forward for a second and slipped out of his shirt, earning himself a surprised look of you.

“I don’t wanna wash it, I have just put it on before coming over.” He explained and you nodded with a sheepish smile, realizing what he implied. You tried to hide how you swallowed hard. You knew you shouldn’t have watched him. It was crossing the lines of what friends should and should not do, but you couldn’t help but realize how fucking good he looked.

He basically shoved his hand into his briefs to get some relief.

Onscreen, the girl gripped the sheets of the bed to hold herself together, while you realized your hand at grabbed the small blanket laying next to you, doing the exact same thing.

Your mind was racing. You didn’t know if you should blend Vinny out completely or let your thoughts win. It was like you needed him to be there and at the same time wondered if this would change anything. You knew this was wrong deep down, you knew this was crossing a line but then he made this noise. This sweet and soft moan that escaped his lips made your head go blank.

You peaked over at him and noticed his gaze was on you. On your hand that was between your lips. You were on fire, your chest heaving.

You knew both of you should have looked away, but you didn’t want to. You wanted to watch Vinny. You lifted your fingers to your lips for a second and licked them, causing him to let out a loader moan. You couldn’t do this anymore.

When you moved them between your thighs again and pushed them inside of you, you felt like Vinny was about to crumble into a million little pieces. The pace of his hand became faster and you couldn’t help but look at his member for a second. God, he was big.

As you curled your fingers to find the delicate spots inside of you, you feared this moment would be over any second. You wanted to stay like this for eternity. Watching Vinny get off to the scene of you doing the same. You loved how he looked.

“Don’t stop, Y/n.” He moaned out when he saw you slowing down for a second and that alone almost drove you over the edge. You didn’t know if it was your horniness but you wanted nothing but to kiss him. It felt like his whines and whimpers turned you into some sort of monster that craved him but right now you weren’t even clear enough to filter out your own thoughts.

The sight of Vinny with his member in his hand felt like an intense experience. The sort of experience that made you want to change your thoughts on life completely

“You’re so fucking pretty, Vin.” You moaned out, not holding back in the slightest. “I wish I could feel you.”

If it was even possible, his cheeks turned even more red. You felt your whole skin prickling. The movie in the background long forgotten. You were staring into each other’s souls at this point. If he hadn’t known everything about you at this point, now he definitely did. And so did you.

It felt like a long-awaited event when you finally reached your high. All the tension leaving your body in such immense waves you feared you would collapse. You moaned his name loudly as your head fell back in the backrest.

Then the moans fell from his lips. It almost felt like you would cum again when you saw him cum on his chest for a second, but you pressed your eyes closed for second to calm your thoughts.

You didn’t open them for a couple of minutes until the volume of the movie in front of you was turned down a little. You peaked through your eyelashes, seeing Vinny had cleaned himself and put his shirt on again.

You slowly leaned forward and stroked over your clothes, trying to smooth them out, in an attempt to drown out your incoming thoughts. You were hyper-aware of Vinny’s gaze.

“Everything alright?” You mumbled, trying to ease the tension between you.

“Yeah…” He mumbled and ran a hand through his hair. “Good movie… I guess.”

You didn’t really exchange any words, before Vinny sighed and mumbled. “I need to go home. Ricky asked if we would hangout on Discord after I get home from yours and I don’t want to leave him hanging for too long.”

You nodded, trying to gift him a small smile but all of the sudden you couldn’t look at him anymore. Not that you felt guilty or something, you just feared that those feelings would bubble up again.

“If you want I can call you afterwards and we can watch some dinosaur documentaries together.” Vinny then suggested and you laughed for a second.

“Yeah… okay.” You mumbled and put a strand of her behind your ear.

After that he quickly got up and left, leaving you with your thoughts.

After you cleaned up your living room and showered you quickly got ready for bed and awaited Vinny’s call when you realized he had texted you the second he had left.

Vin: god this was so hot

He was going to be your death.

DIVIDERS BY @saradika-graphics

[nian-7]

hey! i see ur reqs are open, may i req pjsk boys (separate) taking fem reader to prom? like obvs established relationship, but like them reacting to her dress, the actual experience itself, and all that fun stuff. if you have to, you can make it gn reader! have a good day :)

sure, this sounds super cute! enjoy!

Akito, Tsukasa, Toya, Rui x fem!reader

✧taking their gf (you!) to prom

✧fluff

-Honestly, he's only going because you asked him. He wasn't really all that interested in it and wasn't planning on asking you to go until you showed an interest in it.

-He tries his best to be gentlemanly and formal but you just end up laughing a little at his attempts. He kisses your hand when he picks you up at your house and would rather get there when you finish rather than waiting for you to finish getting ready.

-Akito holds your hand for 90% of the night. The only times he lets go is when you decide to go dance with your friends or are eating. He doesn't really want to leave your side just because he's not particularly a fan of this whole thing. He wants you to enjoy yourself though!

-Terrible slow dancer honestly. Even though it's at such a slower pace than what he normally does, he can't help but mess up. He's a bit nervous and so he's almost stepped on your foot more than once.

-The most you'll get out of him for a compliment is "Nice dress." or "I like your makeup/hair". He's trying to save himself from the embarrassment of having thought how pretty you are and how much it's made him feel all fuzzy inside.

-It's such a blast with Tsukasa. You both have so much fun. Whenever a popular song comes on, he'll take you to dance with him to it. Genuinely you both have the best time and it's an overall super fun experience.

-He talks to your parents while you finish getting ready and you're honestly not sure if you should feel embarrassed or happy that they get along but you can't help but over hear your parents saying something embarrassing about you..

-Both him and Saki went with you to pick out your dress and his suit for the night. Even though you can't say that they were much help because each one you tried on, you got lots of compliments and encouragement from the two. It ended up being a hard decision since Tsukasa agreed on liking nearly every single one.

-Matches his tie with whatever color dress you've picked. He takes so many pictures of the two of you as well. A lot of them are just silly ones but there's a few actual ones sprinkled in.

-He would like to take you out to dinner before the actual dance starts. It's a bit more special when it's just the two of you together at a restaurant rather than sitting with a bunch of other people at prom to eat dinner.

-He's such a gentleman. He meets you at your house before you both go and sits patiently while you finish getting ready. He is in no hurry at all and honestly, he'd be lying if he said he wasn't nervous about the whole experience.

-100% matched his suit with your dress. He would like the dress itself to be a surprise but he also wanted to match with you so you both had to decide on a color to go with. Toya is truly okay with whatever colors you pick but, he'd likely go for a blue and black color scheme.

-At a loss for words when you come out of your room when you've finished. All he can do is clear his throat once he feels like he's stared too long and made it awkward. He's never been to such a formal event before so it's a first for him seeing you in such a formal outfit.

-Toya will slow dance with you when the right song comes on. He's surprisingly good at it and it makes you think he practiced before that night (he probably did..). A bit hesitant with his hands but he'll ease up and rest them on your lower back.

-He's the perfect date for prom in all. He makes it such a great experience for you without even trying. Toya just has a great time because you're there, he doesn't particularly care about the music or the food or anything as much as he does for you that night.

-Again, Rui wouldn't really be all that big on prom or very interested in it unless you showed an interest. He'll ask you to prom only if you show that you are interested in it.

-He took a picture of the two of you at prom and then you noticed later in the night that he actually had made it his lockscreen. He thought it was a good picture so he just decided to make it his lockscreen for his phone!

-Super chill about the whole thing. Yes, he's having fun with you, he just doesn't particularly have an interest in most of the activities. He'll follow you around, dancing with you if you ask him to or participate in any of the activities they have.

-He sure as hell flustered you quite a few times during the night. Whether it be with a kiss or his words, he truly did it unintentionally the first few times!

-Rui doesn't mind if you want to go hang out with your friends for a bit during prom, he'll wander till he finds Nene or Tsukasa (if they're even there) and chat with them till you come and find him again.

please do not repost any of my work without my permission, thank you for reading.

[wyrdle]

cost and reward

Some musings about Takeharu knowing of his father's projects, and even continuing some of them. A) for the sake of sparing Mitsuru from being the subject of them, B) because it's the only way to test and figure out how to resolve Dark Hour (Something about acceptable sacrifices.)

More musings under the cut

Tbh this only arose out of some thought about how murky the entire timeline of events pre-P3 present day is. Eg. When did the experiments on kids start and 'end'? How do you learn of persona and potential when no one had it till after the formation of tartarus and Dark Hour as a phenomena? How did Shuji continue to get away with his heinous research when Kirijo group is supposedly cleaning up its act after the explosion lol.

Also, blaming everything on Eiichirou Takeba is such a great way to clean up things haha.

I'm sure the game didn't want to frame Takeharu as this character, nor muddy up Ikutsuki's lack of humanity.... but it's too much fun lol. Also, I love the thought of Ikutsuki not being a total black hole for forming bonds, eg with Takeharu or with Sho. Love love love Ikutsuki holding some genuine attachment, all whilst still doing things that go against that as is his fatal flaw.

Anyway, in my Dad Shuji AU, I actually attempted to fill the above plot questions haha. Shuji and some others in the blast vicinity gain potential "naturally" and thus study on it themselves, which is what I like to think happened in canon too. Some mumbo jumbo about shadow influence etc. Still leaves a lot blank but eh

[escapism-from-the-real-world]

So, I watched red vs blue on a whim because of a youtube short up to season 12.

Like I binged that shit in a week.

And I just, have so many feelings.

Which means it’s posting time!

I fucking hate that this show makes me care and like and feel for these absolute idiotic assholes who sometimes go through really great character arcs and changes and sometimes back track on their growth so hard their backs crack while also making witty and shitty one liners and running jokes that have me cackling because I was not expecting that joke and for it to come back or, in a genuinely shocking turn of events, make me emotional.

I hate how my favorite character for most of the blood gulch arc was Church because we was sarcastic and bitchy and make me giggle and his relationship with Tucker reminded me if how me and my siblings bicker and fight and then he ends up having one if the most traumatic and complicated backstory ever with a really interesting dynamic with Tex that’s all about grief and saying goodbye and bringing people back but they don’t come back to the same expectations you’ve been holding for them while also dealing with the fact that Church was psychologically and quite possibly physically tortured into different parts of himself for a government program.

I hate how Tucker, the guy who keeps flirting and making unwelcome sexual comments to and about women in a very early 2000s way of giving your characters flaws, has ended up with a very odd but special place in my heart because he grows and changes as a character and develops beyond his flaws and is so painfully human and makes mistakes and is genuinely hilarious at times and cares so fucking much but he can’t show it because toxic masculinity but he fights anyways and is lowkey highkey the best soldier of them all and why do I like his character so much???

And just everyone’s chemistry with each other and the fact that I kept rewinding to rewatch scenes and jokes because they’re amazing or funny and I can’t tell you how ling it took me to get through some of those seasons I kept rewinding so much.

Like, how did they make a bit about them driving a military grade vehicle called the warthog with hispanic (?) music blasting through the radio as they crash into unsuspecting victims so fucking funny? I love this batshit crazy show.

I also hate how it makes me emotional. Sarge’s speech at the end of season 8? I almost cried. I chocked up. How fucking dare you. This is a show about a video game that came out before I was born. With jokes that would make a middle schooler proud and a plot that honestly had me baffled and craving more each season (up to season 12).

And they’re assholes! Like, they care about their shitty little group of friends so much that they are willing to commit various war heroics/crimes in order to save them, but they’re still assholes. But that’s what makes them great! They’re human and they mess up and make mistakes and say the wrong thing and make up and care and boy does it hurt to care.

Just AAAGGHH

This show has me shaking people aggressively by the shoulders and biting hard enough to bleed goddamnit.

[fernsnailz]

January 2024 Review Roundup

hello everypony‼️ something i want to do through 2024 is a mini review series where i recap some of the media i watched/played/read at the end of every month. this was inspired by tumblr user ponett’s 2023 media wrap-up, it's a great collection of quick reviews so go check it out!

i’m doing this partially as writing/analysis practice, but mostly because my memory is really bad and i want to keep track of what i've seen this year. with that said, my thoughts on everything i finished in january 2024 is under the cut :]

Portal 1 + 2

yyyup i beat Portal and it only took me (checks watch) 13 years

the first time i played Portal 2 was at a friend’s house when i was in middle school, and i had a fuckin blast. but after all that time... it still holds up! i don’t think anything i have to say about Portal will be particularly new since people have been praising this series since it came out. the writing, the level design, even the controls feel tight and engaging the whole way through. i played on switch and expected a bit of jank, but i was pleasantly surprised at how smooth it felt to play. the only part that dragged for me were the levels through the old aperture labs, but i think i would like them a lot more on a second replay. Portal 2 is fantastic and one of my new favorite games, the artistry behind it is truly incredible and i’m really glad i finally finished it. while i was playing Portal 2, i described Glados and Wheatly to a friend and said “they’re like if a ceiling fan could be passive aggressive and if Fozzie Bear was an evil golf ball”

I Think You Should Leave

finally. i can truly understand and appreciate Subspace Dubbed Over

i think one of my favorite things about I Think You Should Leave is how it utilizes horror. beyond sitting slack-jawed in disbelief at the crazy events unfolding before my eyes, a number of the sketches dipped into bits that genuinely kinda scared me. like the one sketch that circulates on here where the guy (pig?) in a mask crawls through a dog door, which is. genuinely terrifying. but so many of the other sketches have slow, nerve-racking pacing leading to crazy shit that would be perfect in a horror film were the context different. idk i like dissecting how horror and comedy are essentially the same thing and I Think You Should Leave was very good at enabling that <3 favorite sketches are probably “then let my wife eat the damn receipt” and “55 BURGERS 55 HOTDOGS 100 FRIES 100 TATER TOTS”

Sonic Prime Season 3

man. ohhhh man. i didn’t go into this with high expectations and i still feel let down. Sonic Prime Season 3 was definitely my least favorite “season” of the batch - abysmal pacing, very few character moments i actually enjoyed, and the things i praised about the show felt very underutilized through these episodes. Nine is the shining star of Sonic Prime and i was looking forward to seeing his more villainous side, but his character took such a sharp turn into pure evil and it felt like he spent the entire season repeating the same three lines. and as much as i praise Shadow’s writing in Prime, it doesn’t really matter when he spends half of the season trapped in a hole that he just… runs out of later.

lastly, i cannot stop thinking about how bad the pacing of this season is. three episodes for a repetitive final battle feels like such a waste of time when you see just how much they rush the emotional resolutions in the last episode. however, there is one thing i truly love about Sonic Prime Season 3 - i love the Sails and Mangey fakeout death. it's so fucking funny. like you really expect me to believe that two cartoon animals in this Y-7 rated show EXPLODED?????? absolute comedy gold.

overall, i just… don’t really know what to think of Sonic Prime. anything i enjoyed in the show was often fleeting, and much of it felt like its only purpose was to waste my time. also Rouge i can’t believe they did you so dirty oh my god

Ghost Trick

i was so proud that i figured out the secret behind Sissel’s memory loss like halfway through the game. however i also kept getting caught during the prison escape sequence like an idiot

Ghost Trick is in a similar situation as Portal where 1. it’s incredible and one of my new favorite games, and 2. there’s nothing i can really say about it that hasn’t already been said or just. shouldn’t be said. Ghost Trick is a fantastic mystery game, and because of that i think it’s best to go into its story as blind as possible. the narrative unfolds in such fascinating ways - even though the actual object manipulation gameplay isn’t directly about solving the mystery (like in Ace Attorney or other mystery games), it still ties wonderfully into the story in some incredibly unique ways.

i also really love the artstyle of Ghost Trick - i love 2D character artwork with that sharp lineweight, it reminded me a lot of Sonic Battle (another game with an artstyle i love). i was also really impressed by the 3D character models and animation - despite the limitations of the camera, you get a wonderful sense of everyone’s personality from the limited body language expressed in the overworld (even though the models lack much facial expression which. i guess they don’t really need? idk that was the only thing that threw me off). anyways yeah everyone should play Ghost Trick so Ghost Trick fans can be freed from their curse and talk about it without having to tag like 10 different spoiler tags. and for Missile

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off

ok bear with me. i went into Scott Pilgrim Takes Off without reading the comics first. and i fuckin loved it

my understanding of Scott Pilgrim before SPTO was mostly from the movie (I KNOW I’M SORRY), but even with my base understanding of the series i really enjoyed this show for what it was. i found myself appreciating the time they dedicated to further develop every single character in the show - especially Ramona. she’s fantastic as the lead, i really loved watching her reconcile with her exes and seeing all of them grow instead of exploding into coins. my favorite episode was probably the one with her and Roxie - not only did i adore the movie-jumping set pieces, but you really understand the weight of Ramona’s mistakes in their past relationship and how much it hurt Roxie. despite the big climactic fight, the flashbacks are quiet, subtle, heartbreaking. Ramona’s apology is genuine, and it feels so wonderful to watch her confront her past throughout the show. also i think it’s really funny that for all these characters to become the best versions of themselves, they had to kill off Scott for most of the story

and holy shit the artstyle and animation. oh my god. i love watching something that makes me immediately go “i need to see the storyboards for this RIGHT NOW.” SPTO is such a visual delight to watch, it elevates the artstyle of the comics while also keeping what makes that style so appealing - i love the line weight on the characters, i love how much forward energy the animation has, i love the fucking. virtual boy section. as soon as i found out Science Saru was also behind Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken, everything made immediate sense. i was destined to love this show.

another worry i had going into SPTO (besides the fact that i hadn’t read the comics lol) is that the original cast from the movie was returning. i think the movie cast is fine, but i wasn’t sure how some of them would fare with voice acting for animation. however, i thought they all did a good job - i think the whole cast loves these characters and would be able to fit into them fairly easily no matter what form their performance takes, and they definitely had a good voice director in the studio with them. the only thing that felt off about the voice performances to me was that sometimes it sounded like some of their mics kept peaking?? idk some of these episodes i watched high as balls and i felt like i could hear and see every single sound and frame of the show. so that might have just been me.

god i did not. expect to have this much to say about Scott Pilgrim. i really loved this show and i’m currently reading the comics to fully catch up on the general Scott Pilgrim experience - i think reading the comics AFTER Takes Off is making me appreciate even more of the character work that went into the show. like they do so much with Mathew Patel in SPTO, a character that was. not originally around for a long time from what i’ve gathered? also i like the funny little robot. oh my GOD i cannot talk about this show anymore whatever it’s good get me out of here

Sword AF Season 1

i put on the Smosh cast’s D&D series to play in the background while i was drawing. i did not expect to think much of it. instead, i had one of the most enjoyable D&D podcast experiences since i listened to The Adventure Zone Balance???

i haven’t really enjoyed other D&D podcasts since i dropped off of The Adventure Zone, and i wasn’t expecting much from Sword AF of all things. then i saw that Shayne was playing as a druid warforged made of plants and his name was fucking Fernie and i sat my ass down and LISTENED. while i think Sword AF is currently lacking in its world and larger story, those things just. aren’t really what Sword AF is really trying to provide at the moment. it’s main focus is comedy, and the players are genuinely such a delight to watch play together and build off of each other. they mostly focus on bits and goofs for the sake of she show's comedic tone, but i still found it thoroughly enjoyable because every player embodies and performs their characters really well. idk Sword AF was an unexpected hit for me this month, i thought it was fun. and i love Fernie so much

Plastic Death - Glass Beach

so originally i wasn’t going to include music reviews in these roundups at all, but then i was entirely surprised by a new Glass Beach album and oh my god. holy shit. oh my fucking god jesus christ. holy shit. its preddy good

Plastic Death gets the low point of the album out of the way immediately. it starts with the “phone call/conversation audio” trope that i don’t particularly enjoy - HOWEVER despite me disliking this opening, 1. it sets up the overall themes of Plastic Death very quickly, and 2. the rest of the album blows this 40 second opening completely out of the water. from there, the album grows into something beautiful and uncontained, and i just. i really like it

Plastic Death captures the beauty of the temporary, asks what it means to be created for a cause you can’t fulfill, questions if you can reclaim yourself from cycles and constraints designed to destroy you. and is also about being transgender. the lyrics are abstract in a way that requires a conversation with the listener, many of the vocals obscured and smooth like waves - this album is definitely one that needs to be listened to a few times. i wasn’t sure how i felt about the vocal style at first before realizing the vocals were the main reason i was relistening to this album, allowing myself to find even more that i loved about it. the instrumentation is also incredible, i love the use of marimba in a number of songs - distant, eerie, almost skeletal. and the fucking. 8-bit section?? which kinda rules???? and that’s the only point in the album it ever shows up??????? incredible. a fleeting, somewhat silly moment that i love every time.

this album left my heart aching, in part from my connection to it and in part from the pure love and joy emanating from this music. i can feel just how much fun this music was to perform and create, a cohesion of time and sound that just clicked for me. Plastic Death made me miss playing music, which is something i haven’t felt in years. all from an album that starts with a conversation about CrankGameplay’s dead youtube channel. good lord

i like this album a normal amount. go listen to it a few times. my favorite tracks are cul-de-sac and commatose

Wish

i watched Wish with a couple of friends and knew i probably wasn't going to like it. with that in mind, i gave myself a challenge: i wanted to find one thing about this movie that i genuinely really loved. it could be anything, and loving it for ironic reasons was allowed.

here's the complete list of things i loved about Disney's Wish (2023):

i love the one shot where King Magnifico stirs an evil caldron evily. i thought it was hilarious. what was he cooking

i loved that the end credits included a reference to Dinosaur 2001 at all, and i loved that they paid homage to Big Hero 6 by showing the forgettable villain of that movie instead of their Baymax cashcow for some reason. my friends and i saw him show up in the credits and were like "who's the trenchcoat guy??"

you may notice that this list is very short and 50% of it is about the movie's credits. so yeah this movie is not very good

Wish is an empty husk of a movie. everything about it feels so, so hollow - lifeless town squares, uninspired character designs (to quote a friend: "i have all of these characters' hairstyles in The Sims"), characters whose existence is only justified to fill empty space or an overused archetype, and an "evil" villain who lacks charisma and spine in a futile effort to remind the audience of previous disney villains with actual character. even the artstyle lacks any sort of sauce, the watercolor effect they were trying to go for only makes the backgrounds and character textures run together, and the dull lighting makes things look even more faded. it's like disney was scared of making a movie that made its audience feel... anything. all to celebrate 100 years of Disney slop, baby!!!

Some YouTube videos I liked in January: 💥 An Exhaustive Look at Pokemon Brilliant Diamond 💥 TomSka's Guide to Plagiarism 💥 Paradise Bombed (this video is a great piece of journalism and i’m definitely not doing it justice by throwing it into the youtube vid list) 💥 Surprising Our Friends with Zoo Animals 💥 Did FNAF Ever Have a Good Story?

thanks for reading! next month’s roundup will be wild because i’ll likely be reviewing House of Leaves and Hazbin Hotel. can you guess which cursed house gives me a worse headache? WHO KNOWS! (hint: it's Hazbin Hotel)

[eldritch-spouse]

Happy belated birthday Pinnie!!! We share the same birth month😎🫵

I was gone for a while so I’ve been trying to catch up all the info I’ve missed and it’s been a blast. So I wanted to know what would Zizz do to fully break you down if you are fighting the process of becoming his Queen because as much as I love doing nothing I also feel guilty for doing nothing ya know?

Anyways love your stuff P and your wonderful self have a great day

[Ayy, welcum back!! And thenk you, have fun catching up. :}]

It vastly depends on how you fight him, but one thing that sets Zizz apart from most others here is his approach to punishment.

Zizz isn't likely to bruise or maim you. He wouldn't want to lay a claw on your figure normally. But there's nothing to say he won't make you wish he had.

Your energy is what fuels your resistance, isn't it? So the core of this whole issue will be resolved for the demonlord if he simply... Puts a cap on your energy levels by consistently feeding off you.

You get several soft warnings to stop resisting, to stop throwing your tiresome little tantrums, to go with the flow and let yourself relax. Until he simply tires of it one day and you feel yourself getting drained of all determination, all motivation to do something for yourself, to escape!

All you want to do is lie down. Your body's sore and sluggish. You can't think clearly at all, there's always a fog over your thoughts, the only thing able to break it being Zizz's lulling tone. You don't have an appetite or a desire to engage with anything around you, all you wish to do is sleep, live in your own dreams.

Now, he's not entirely heartless, so Zizz only does this for a moderate period of time before slowly letting you retain more energy. If it doesn't seem to click in your stubborn little head that he could keep you like that forever, then the King will conjugate this treatment with extreme night terrors.

Within dreams, you will experience great horrors. From mind-shattering panic to meltdowns to events that feel so real you retain genuine trauma from them. It could be anything, from playing with your phobias to subjecting you to the most degrading, horrifying torture, all at the hands of Zizz- Even if you don't see him in said dreams, even if he's the one there to hold you close when you wake up sobbing and shaking and unable to speak.

You'll soon grow so afraid of these nightly occurrences that you torture yourself by remaining awake for as long as possible. And everyone knows the dreadful consequences of sleep deprivation.

Zizz is extremely confident that you'll break eventually, but he's not afraid to use both at once and have you crawling around in absolute misery until you realize that there is only one choice for you.

Love him.

[gffa]

what order would you recommend reading the batman comics in? also where do you find the comics?

"What order would you recommend reading the Batman comics in?" only has one answer and that answer is for me to immediately burst into tears. Okay, this list is designed around what I think is most likely to get you into comics and having a good time, if you're enjoying the kind of posts that appear on this blog: - Nightwing 2016, you can start from issue #1 and just keep reading (well, once you hit the Ric Grayson arc, you can skim if you want) because it's a fun, light-hearted series that's just very easy to read and is my comfort series in a lot of ways. I enjoy Dick Grayson's character, it does a lot of work to establish him in his own city, but also touches on his relationships with his family, and I think is a great starting place. You can start with Better Than Batman, Back to Bludhaven, Nightwing Must Die, Blockbuster, Raptor's Revenge, The Untouchable, The Bleeding Edge, Knight Terrors (not to be confused with the 2023 event of the same name!), Burnback, The Gray Son Legacy, The Joker War, Fear State Then there's something of a 'soft reboot' where the volume numbering starts over (but issue #s keep going) with: Leaping into the Light, Get Grayson, The Battle for Blüdhaven's Heart - Robin & Batman (2022), a beautifully illustrated series from the early days of Bruce and Dick, where Bruce is not exactly the world's greatest parent, but he's trying, there's an amazingly emotionally satisfying hug, and it shows what a delightful hurricane child Dick Grayson was. - "The Murder Club" is just one story out of many in Batman: Urban Legends but it's a fantastic one, with beautiful art and a story that's about Thomas and Martha Wayne traveling forward in time to see what's become of their son, and they don't necessarily approve--until Dick and Damian are basically impossible to ignore and they see what Bruce is fighting for. For more general Batman stories (rather than ones focused on my Blorbo), I'm enjoying: - The Court of Owls [vol. 1][vol. 2] by Scott Snyder, which is a solid case story and introduces the Court of Owls, which I genuinely like as a relatively recent addition to Batman's rogues gallery! - Batman 2016 is a bit of a controversial pick, because not everyone enjoys the authors writing for this series, but I've had a blast with a lot of Tom King's writing, personally. I especially enjoyed a lot of the run-up to the Bruce/Selina wedding with Rebirth book 3 (there's a double date with Bruce/Selina and Clark/Lois that's just a silly, fun good time!), The Rules of Engagement, Bride or Burglar, The Wedding, and Cold Days. I wasn't really a big Bruce/Selina shipper before those issues, but they really won me over because I love a good hot mess of a couple that have a bunch of thorny issues between them, that Selina loves Bruce not as some mythic figure but as the dumbass guy she loves, and then some bonus quality content with Bruce's kids, especially once the wedding falls apart and he's in such a bad place and Dick Grayson is so good at stabilizing Bruce that it's unreal. (You can also read Preludes to the Wedding in around here, if nothing else the Dick + Hush one was really, really fun! Clark and Dick take Bruce to Batburger for his bachelor's party because they're horrible people who think they're funny, and it's DELIGHTFUL.) - Batman/Superman: World's Finest (2022) by Mark Waid is also more light-hearted, but is so much fun, the characters banter with each other, but you can see their genuine friendship and how it became to be one of foundational relationships in both their lives, and plus Dan Mora's art is always TOP NOTCH. (Plus, volume 2 is out as well.)

I limited myself to anything from the 2016 reboot ("Rebirth") because I think that's easiest to draw someone in and these are the starting places that I would enjoy, though, they do assume a fair amount of pre-knowledge about Batman characters, like personally I enjoyed Batman & Robin Eternal but I don't think it's a good starting point for what the comics are actually like. As always, if someone has a good suggestion for a newer fan, I'd love to hear them! Especially since I tend to be Nightwing-focused, that's where my area of expertise is, if you have some good Tim or Jason or Damian recs, feel free! Though, in general, I think you can pick up almost any trade paperback and it'll be designed to be read without too much confusion, so just find a character you think you'll like and jump in! :D (p.s. I'm linking to Hoopla pages because, if you have a library card with your local library, you can use it to sign in to Hoopla!)

[ursae-minoris-world]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. (If you feel like it, no pressure.) Spread the self-love ❤️

Aww, thanks for the tag!

I'm answering a million years late because I was so busy with projects with deadlines that I didn't allow myself to take time for this until now...

This was surprisingly hard!! I feel like my fics fulfill different needs for me so it's hard to compare them.

I'm going to go with:

Carry me away (sheith)

I'm just generally happy with this story, it has action, Shiro whump, mutual protectiveness, Keith going a little bit feral, and a sweet ending.

Flowers and Blood (sheith)

I had lots of fun with playing with the hanahaki trope and the world building, and I just love the h/c in this one. Not just in a romantic sense, but I do love the scenes with Lance, Hunk and the bits with Allura as well.

While some count sheep (vld gen, Hunk-centric)

Had to include that one, it was my very first fic and I'm still very fond of it. And the list had to have at least one Hunk-centric story! I enjoy how it dives into Hunk's anxiety and his kindness to others. And I like how it both shows Hunk's relationships with the other members of the team in the early days of Voltron and explore everyone's struggles.

Breaking point (sheith)

Had to mention this one, as it's my most popular this far, and I do enjoy it a lot. I loved exploring s4 sheith with all the tension and find a way to make it work for me. Also had a blast with writing Kolivan and Keith's relationship! I want to explore that more!

I have your back (vld gen, Keith & Lance)

It was just genuinely nice to focus on Keith and Lance and have Lance apologize to Keith. I just always enjoyed their dynamic and the tension and I always thought they could be great friends. They have some good scenes but I always felt they weren't given the development they could have had, and I enjoyed writing what I wanted for them. I might also be a bit biased towards this fic because I've become slightly obsessed with the playlist that "team fluff" put together for it in the context of the event this story was written for.

And... that's it for 5 fav fic. It was hard to chose, as I said, and I'm still kind of surprised that Event horizon, Scars, A little mouse told me, weren't on it in the end, and there are others that aren't in the top 5 but that I am still super fond of.

(Little reminder that most of my fics are archive-locked so you need to be logged in to AO3 to access them.)

What do you think? Which are your fav fics I wrote? Is there any that you would have expected to see on this list?

I'm off to send this to 5 writers but feel free to steal this is you want!

[pebblemae]

Buckle in, this one’s a long one.

I feel this image sums up the whole Tournament.

It had its great points! The idea of being able to root for your team and play, in my opinion, really fun mini games (I’m lookin at you, crab race) and play with friends in a big competition in the center of Skys huge arena in celebration of the Olympics? A real world event where countries from all over the world can come together? Was a great idea and, in some ways, worked really well.

On the other hand. This even was inherently unbalanced from the start. Team Forest (through no fault of their own, I’m confident) had an unfair advantage and was able to win all but one gold. Even my own team, Wasteland, was able to get every silver after the first couple days. Making the whole game no longer friendly competition, but an event to watch as two podiums grew, and two podiums fell behind. And though I didn’t experience this myself, I’ve also heard many people have bad player experiences with players who placed first gloating at the finish line and others piggybacking, making the races un fun to play.

My thoughts? I did still enjoy the event despite this, though I recognize I probably had a better time with this than red or yellow because I was on the second place team. But even then, my heart sank for my fellow competitors who stopped putting in effort or even stopped playing all together because it just wasn’t fun to play anymore.

“Well it’s a competition! People are gonna lose!” Has that ever been what Sky is about? Sky is about team work, compassion, friendship and community. And I do think this event could have fit in that. It’s just unfortunate that it didn’t.

I don’t want to completely down talk this event. I did genuinely have fun and I even made a few new friends! I had a blast flying down the side of Prairie Peaks Mountian and racing through the Forest. My favorite game was hands down racing as crabs through Wasteland. Even the cosmetics (though the good ones were IAP, were not getting into that rn) were cute and very on theme! I made friends while waiting for games to start and, personally, had almost entirely positive interactions with players from other teams. And even having a team cape felt really nice.

I really hope TGC take this event, it’s good and it’s bad, and really learn from it if they want to try something like this in the future.

To all my competitors, it was truly a pleasure to compete with you. To my team, we really gave it our all. And while this certainly wasn’t the most fair competition, at least we can all laugh at how stupid that picture up there looks. We got some great memes out of this mess.

[wisecrackingeric-2]

Death Island Spoiler-Free Thoughts post!!!

I JUST finished seeing DI last night (In Aotearoa) and oh my GOD???????? It was S O G O O D????????? It ABSOLUTELY lived up to my expectations!!!!!!!! I’m gonna do a spoiler-free thoughts post first and then I’ll post my spoilers post!!!!!! And if anybody wants any clips of the movie I managed to sneak in, please just ask!!

Ok first off,,, holy FUCK that beginning was S O tense. My friend and I were gripping our seats the entire time and it takes place during a pretty important moment in RE history and I think people are gonna LOVE it

And the villains motivations????? His backstory???????? LITERALLY HEARTBREAKING. It’s ACTUALLY GENUIENLY COMPELLING AND INTERESTING. His backstory is all laid out in that beginning scene and dear GOD it’s SO SAD. I’m trying to keep it Spoiler-Free obviously but I will D I E on the hill that him and his “best friend” were actually gay lovers. You CANNOT convince me otherwise

He was also just genuinely pretty frightening of a villain. He has this one repeated ‘motion’ he does throughout the movie that really makes you tense up, and there’s this one scene with a doctor character that had my friend and I on the edge of our seats

Again, his motivations were actually interesting and made sense!!!!!! And him calling out the main gangs respective organisations (BSAA, DSO, Government, Terrasave, etc etc) for being hypocrites was actually a compelling argument!!!!!!!!! It actually made the characters think!!

I’m trying to word this as best as I can without giving any of the plot away, and @highball66 has talked about this in their posts too, but throughout the movie the main gang are called ‘Pawns’ or ‘The Governments Weapons’ repeatedly quite a lot, and it makes me wonder if that’s gonna come up as an important plot point in a future game or something???? It’s very interesting to think about coupled with the implications of their respective organisations being hypocrites

You’ll all be delighted to know there is SO MUCH shipping content in this movie my GOD. S O many good Chreon moments. So many good Valenfield (for both siblings) and Chamberfield moments (in fact, every scene Rebecca’s in, Claire’s in there too :)) Shippers will have a BLAST

Just as expected, Jill and Leon are the PERFECT duo. They’re SUCH GOOD BESTIES, they work off of each other repeatedly SO WELL. They’re constantly giving each other silly goofy one-liners and saying something sarcastic to make the other one laugh, it’s great

Also, I don’t think Leon has a single serious line in this movie HXNSHDNDHXN everytime he’s on screen he’s ALWAYS saying something goofy or silly or making a pun. It’s GREAT

Also, the characters traumas actually get explored in an interesting and compelling way!!!!!!!! ESPECIALLY Jills!!!! Which makes sense cuz the movies about her, but they all get their moments to talk about how X event effected them etc etc, unfortunately none of it really gets resolved but I’m assuming they’re saving that for a future game

Jill’s kinda does???? She has a Good-For-Her moment with the villain which is fantastic and her and Chris have a good heart to heart at the end

Also, Chris Redfield fans are gonna be delighted with his character exploration in this movie

LOTS of references to Re2 & 3. In fact a BIG plot point/ motivator of the movie all stems from RE2, so Raccoon City fans are gonna have a blast!!!!!

Also, HEAPS of old characters are either mentioned or do actually show up!!!!! Nobody that I think anyone would be screaming to be excited about, but still!!

Unfortunately, Rebecca does get the exact same treatment as she did in Vendetta, but like, in the opposite direction…… she dissapeares for basically the entire movie and randomly shows up to save the day. I can’t complain though cuz seeing her work together with everyone else was FANTASTIC

This truly did feel like the avengers endgame of the RE movies, but there were also PLENTY of hints and open ends to a sequel

Finally, this truly was JILLS movie. When I was told that Jill was gonna be the main character I wasn’t really convinced, but M A N she truly SLAYS in this film. She IS THE MOMENT. This is HER movie and it shows

Aside from Leon’s random goofy one liners, I think my favourite part of this movie was the villain. I WISH I could just spoil his motivations in this post because for resident evil standards they’re SO INTERESTING and AGAIN, his thoughts on the main gangs respective organisations leave a lot to think about when it comes to future instalments!!!!!

10/10 movie, would 10000000% recommend. Truly lives up to my standards. My only negative is that Rebecca was hardly in it for the middle half but that’s it. SO glad we FINALLY got to see everyone working together (Capcom, PLEASE put your characters together like this again!!!!!!)

Forgot to add this, but Jill is cannonically a Jurassic Park fan. In fact, the entire last half of the movie is just a giant Jurassic Park reference

And I can’t PROVE this, but,,,,,, I’m 90% sure there was a Mr Beast reference. You’ll know it when you see it

[shiroikabocha]

UPD8 on the HOMESTUCK WEDDING: we did it man. we made it hapen.

Details and pictures under the cut!

Everyone had a fucking BLAST! I didn't think it was possible to throw a party that would provide Fun Times for all our loved ones, from all their varied walks of life, but we DID, and it ROCKED! I rode that high for weeks. I felt like I had every positive party moodlet from the Sims active at once.

We rented out a science museum for the event, which was fucking RAD, since we got to have our ceremony in front of an actual dinosaur skeleton, which most wedding venues don't provide:

(these images are intentionally small and crappy. Both because smaller files load more quickly, and because no, I don't need to post high-res photos of all my friends faces online)

Despite being known On Here as The Homestuck Wedding, most guests who attended would probably refer to it as The Klingon Wedding. My one and only wedding wish was to marry my partner in a traditional Klingon ceremony, and my perfect, wonderful, amazing wife was willing to indulge me in this.

The role of officiant, aka Master of Screams, traditionally performed by the mother of the groom or the matron of the groom's house, went to our dear friend D who knocked it out of the park.

On the one hand, it's very silly to reenact the Klingon creation myth at the altar with your spouse, whacking each other with pool noodles (because the museum didn't let us bring in real batleths). On the other hand, I genuinely, truly love the Klingon wedding ritual. It emphasizes that marriage isn't only about love, it's about commitment and allegiance. It's about vowing to be on one anothers' team, to have each others' backs when times are hard, for as long as you both shall live. The combat's just a fun bonus.

When we said our vows and kissed, our officiant announced that we were married, and invited our friends and family to attack us with their pool noodles as the DJ started playing the song for our first dance. The battle was glorious.

And my dad gave a speech that made everyone cry, and then my wife's sister gave a speech that made everyone laugh, and my new mother-in-law hugged us both and told us she loved us, and there was dancing and great food and also a ton of cool exhibits on North Carolina wildlife and prehistory (I mean, those are always there, but they are still very cool), and it was a great wedding.

Also, my florist is a god. 12+ unique centerpieces, all based on characters she doesn't know from a comic she hasn't read, all with different flowers and shapes and containers and-- dude just look at them, okay? They're amazing. I can't believe how awesome they came out. (this isn't quite all of them, unfortunately-- I thought I got pics of them all but I could only find these nine. Can you tell which ones were based on which characters?)

It was so much fun, and then we got to go on our honeymoon in Amsterdam and THAT was so much fun, and now I get to be married to WIFE!! for the rest of our lives! and THAT is going to be so much fun!!!

My sincerest wish for everyone reading this is that you, too, get to have a party some day that is filled with all your favorite people and all your favorite activities, whether it's a wedding or not, and that it goes so well you can't believe how much fun you're having.

p.s. the flower arrangements are, in order: Kanaya, Gamzee, Sollux, Tavros, Eridan, Terezi, Equius, Vriska, Feferi.

[nearsbday]

hello - this event is a wonderful idea, everything is so neatly organized, and i love the tumblr theme too! i would like to ask - am i mistaken in thinking an event like this pretty much consists of doing all this (wonderful) organization of the blog, the rules, the prompts - just leaving it all there for people to see, and then reblogging everyone's fanworks? (and of course, doing a great job at answering everyone's questions!) i've always been intimidated by how much work fandom events look to be, but it's occurred to me recently that a prompt-based, free-to-opt-in event like this doesn't involve all the job of putting out surveys and collecting their results, organizing teams of people, following up with unfulfilled submissions, etc. so i'm kind of hopeful i might be able to organize a similar event one day. you guys are doing it amazingly, it's no small job, but i was genuinely wondering because it also feels pretty achievable :) but of course that might be me being a bit naive. is there any other work behind the scenes? i'm honestly just curious to know how much work it takes either way! i've seen other people do a surprising amount of work for events like this - getting people to make countdown art, tons of surveys, interest checks, etc. did you guys also do something like that? do you think it is or is not strictly necessary for a prompt-based event? thank you so much in advance for replying, good luck with the event, and i hope it's a blast! (and i'm so sorry for being too long winded! i always get caught up in trying to clarify!)

HI! thank you for the question, and no worries about long-windedness. i'll do my best to answer your question. we did not do any surveys, because we had ideas for prompts already and wanted to use those! we also didn't really worry too much about doing a big interest check. i don't have a good explanation for that other than "personally knew enough people who were nominally interested to feel pretty good about it" lmao. if the event were more niche -- for example, if this were an event for a small ship, or a less popular character -- i think it would have been prudent / useful to do an interest check and to poll people for when they're available, but since Near is fairly popular (though arguably under-appreciated. in my totally non-biased opinion.) and his birthday is on a set date, interest wasn't too much of a concern, and the dates weren't too hard to land on, either.

so far, the graphics have been the largest amount of work, as well as thinking of how to organize and run things-- stuff like determining when to release prompts, how often / how to do promotion for the event, when to post reminders / countdowns, rules, submission guidelines, determining a tagging system for submissions once the event starts (we will be tagging with prompt, day, fan work format {fic vs art vs playlist etc}, whether or not it's sfw, username of the person submitting, and honestly probs at least one more thing i'm just forgetting rn)... so on and so forth. i have a lot of fun making graphics for fanfics and such, so i took charge of creating those, and what we have so far pretty easily took around... 14-16 hours? this is including things that aren't posted yet, like the graphics we have for each day of the event. i still have a few more graphics to make as well for things like the countdown :-)

it's hard for me to say how much work the rest will be, since it hasn't happened yet-- and since i imagine it'll depend on how much participation we get!! -- but, if you'd like to talk more about the set-up for an event like this, or if you'd like to hear what i think after the event is finished / listen to whatever lessons we end up learning from running our first event, feel free to reach out to me at @blondiest or @neallo <3 [i won't speak definitively for my co-runner, but i imagine she'd be happy to weigh in as well!]

[talisman975]

The end of the BelosFansTakeover event! (Or is it…?)

Everyone, this event has genuinely been a blast and I had a really great time with it this past month.

And I’ve noticed that a good number of you really like the tag! So I’ve decided:

If you would like to continue using the BelosFansTakeover tag after today, you are 100% free to do so! Wear that tag with pride!

And keep an eye out for any future similar events as well.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

[makuta-tobi]

So, obviously I have a lot of thoughts about MGSCon. But most of them boil down to "it was great." We had an incredible crew, amazing guests, fantastic events, and a venue staff that worked so hard to make our lives as easy as possible. I can't give a big enough shout out to everyone who helped me this a reality, from Amanda's vision, to the staff who organized and helped set up, to the Kickstarter backers and our lovely guests who helped get the word out, not to mention the talented artists who peppered our artist alley, and designed our merch (including Brandee, who made all the badges 👀)

This year had its hiccups, and a few ups and downs, but genuinely the only complaints I heard were more concerns of convenience than anything else (did you know Evo was this weekend? I sure didn't, but I'm small potatoes)

I'm so glad I got to see everyone again, all the folks who put this together are amazing and we managed to pull it off. Who knows what the future may hold, but no matter what, we did something awesome this year. Sadly, I wasn't able to do much of anything myself, due to schedule, followed by some personal stuff that threw a bit of a wrench in my hopeful endeavors, but I still had fun meeting everyone and watching people have a blast.

I love you all, and I'm glad we could all be together, thank you to everyone who attended, both in person and virtually (I CAN'T STRESS ENOUGH THAT VIRTUAL ATTENDEES THAT I COULDN'T SEE ARE A BACKBONE OF THIS CONVENTION lol), you have all done something beautiful

[mothgoddesss]

HAPPY 4 YEARS OF SKY: CHILDREN OF THE LIGHT!

The disco lights are ON! The stage is LIT! Everyone's dancin' and prancin' in the office! Even Telfoso adorns herself in the iconic teal hue as she twirls around on the dance floor! Baybei attempts to mimic her moves, and Moro busts a few moves, too!

While I normally don't make art like this, Sky means too much to me, to where it is literally a hemisphere of Brainne. While I've only been around for half of its total life, it has brought me countless memories, cherished friendships, helped me build a genuine and meaningful following, and made me realize two little stars of my own who shall be born someday. The event itself was a BLAST, I had a lot of fun jamming to the music conch shell with friends and my older sibling, and the vibes were truly pristine. They've just been knocking it off the ballpark with the events this year-!!

Here's to another year of greatness and many more! ♥

Got this done a while back, but I forgot to post it here ERRP