#the lore is i was on the bus a couple of years back

[italiantea]

underrated language learning milestone is seeing an awkward translation and being able to reverse engineer the original text in your head

[charlidos]

THE CHRONICLES OF THE CUNTYBAGO

I love the lore of the Fellowship, I can't get enough of it. And it's really turned into a kind of myth, hasn't it? The stories have been established, from being told again and again. Regardless if it's not the whole truth, or even not true at all. The lore has a life of its own. And it changes, depedning on who's talking, and over time.

The lore of the (inappropriately named) Cuntybago is a favourite; that famed make-up trailer bus where Orlando spent so much time with Viggo (hours and hours for years and years if you listen to Orlando) absorbing everything Viggo did.

So here's the Ultimate (very long) Cuntybago Post.

The Cuntybago is apparently where all the after-work parties happened. Most of what actually happened on it is still secret, private events not to be shared; after hours, after some wine/whisky drinking. What kind of special stuff was in the drawers? What did they really smoke? And, most intriguingly, who exactly was left onboard when everyone were ordered to get out... (Erm, V&O, perhaps?)I'm sure there are many more photos from the bus. Like a photo of Viggo & Orlando - which has yet to be seen. Oh, to have been a fly on that wall!

(A clip from the last day of the reshoots, in 2003. Because it's the time the bus has been talked about the most. Even if I'm unsure if this is the actual Cuntybago or not. Since it doesn't look green...)

Mortensen and Orlando Bloom spent much of their off-time on a green bus they named the "Cunty-Bago." Instead of the standard luxury lodging demanded by most stars on set, Viggo and co-star Orlando Bloom shared a converted bus while filming Rings. Viggo stocked the bus with a wine cellar and wallpapered the inside with candid behind-the-scenes photos. A source on the set said the bus was the site of frequent cast parties, with the motto, "Everyone is welcome, but when it's time to go, get out!" Indeed, they formed a club — The Cunty-Bago Club. [Viggo, Sean and Orlando] shared a make-up Winnebago, and through hours of beard and pointy-ear application formulated the rules of their society — most of which boil down to getting gossip and posting it on. [on what? I think the text is cut?]

There are very few quotes from Viggo. If you read his old interviews about life on set it sounds like he mostly worked 6 days a week, 14 hours a day. And in his free time, he went camping and fishing by himself and just drove around to get some me-time. That's it. It all sounds like mostly work and no play for Viggo. Cementing this image of him being ever serene, wise and a hard working method actor who never stopped being Aragorn. But then, we have the stories of this bus, which shows his wilder side...

(Viggo in ponytails, with a glass of wine and banana, in front of that mirror covered in photographs. They both took a lot of photos on set, so I guess a bunch of those photos are Orlando's.)

All Viggo's said is this:

"It was a crazy small bus." "Everything had cunt. It was 'cunt this' and 'cunt that'. We had a cuntmas tree, and we had cuntmas angels."

(Orlando on the makeup bus. )

Orlando has mostly mentioned the bus in passing, as he loves on Viggo, his great hero. And in his words, it always sounds like it was just the two of them... (when in fact it was from time to time also shared with Sean B, Bernard and Liv - but only Viggo & Orlando were there the whole time).

[Me and Viggo would] sit next to each other for a couple or hours each morning in a make-up truck. You get to know someone that way, more than by being in scenes with them. I used to sit next to him on the make-up bus, and find myself just staring at him while he was having his make-up done and drawing in his book or writing his notes. I would find myself fascinated. When I went back for re-shoots, I was on my own and he wasn't sitting there, and I suddenly was sitting in the makeup bus that we'd been driving around in for 18 months in New Zealand and got really emotional and felt that it was kind of weird to be there without him there and sort of reflected on all of the happy conversations and chats and glasses of wine and talks that we would have at the end of the day or whatever. He really had a huge impact on my life as an actor.

But he did say a few specific things too:

"Ahhh yes, the bus. It was mine, all mine. It was my precious." Bloom christened the bus the "C-word" when the makeup artist was fuming about someone and asked Bloom's advice. "You should kick him in the cunt and tell him to fuck off!" Viggo just lost it for half an hour. He kept saying, 'What did you say?' [The bus] became all about "the word. We took that word and took all of its power away. We made it the most loving word in the world. If you were a true cunt, you were the most amazing person in the world. It was a very free-spirited bus. It came about because me and Viggo kept being moved around, and we ended up on this bus one day. And the actors were fed up and we said, "This is it. This is our home and we are not moving. If they come, tell them to go away."

And finally from Orlando's IG in 2019 (obviously, to this day, a very important part of his life):

Our fondly named makeup bus, christened by Noreen my makeup artist and Viggo Mortensen, was, and remains in my heart and memory the most female and male empowered, joyful, disreputable and yet totally respectful place of work and creativity ever. Hours spent in the the makeup chair to apply ear’s and wigs and contacts." (They can't even agree who named it, Noreen never got any credit back then...)

(From the reshoots in 2003, Viggo gives Orlando some love and points out the photo message from Orlando on the mirror. But I want to know, who put up the pic of O with Brad Pitt? From this clip.)

The comments from everyone else in the cast about life on the Cuntybago are actually more enlightening. The rowdy gang reveal another side of life on set and of Viggo: as a drinking, partying prankster who loves crude language. It's definitely part of the fascination with Viggo. He's never one to talk about these things himself.

(I think they're wearing the special cuntebago t-shirts here. No idea from whence.)

Bernard Hill:

You are not supposed to know about it!" "There were five or six of us - Viggo, Orlando and Sean [Bean]. Liv came in and out [of the group]. Viggo has this special kind of crudeness that he is capable of. We were in the same make up bus [along with Bloom]. When I came back [from a break] it was called the Cuntybago. It was our private club. We had wine tasting sessions and had lots of parties. We also kept lots of food in there. Anything that was out [on the table], you could have. You could drink it, eat it, borrow it, smoke it… but don´t go looking in any drawers. That´s where we kept our 'special stuff'! [The Cuntybago bar would on occasion open very early] like 6:30am. There were days that we needed it. [I've made life-long friends with] everybody who was in the Cuntybago. Leaving the first time was such a huge wrench. Especially because of the Cuntybago, it was like our club. Fortunately we managed to get it back for Return of the king reshoots, so ROTK was the Return of the Cuntybago. We actually drove it out onto the streets for Viggo’s farewell. Viggo didn’t know we were going to do it, and when it started moving, you should have seen his face. I kept shouting, “Cunty libre! Cunty libre!” And the bus start leaving—we were breaking free. For propriety’s sake it was called the C-Bago Club, because you couldn’t put Cunty on the call sheet. Sean Bean came in, Liv was also a part of it. As soon as I get back to England I’m going to start the C-Bago web site: Orlando will do fashion and Viggo will do current affairs. I’ll probably do gossip — you know, the social calendar. Liv will do Hollywood and Sean Bean will do the art of war. It’ll be our little corner of the world.

(Bernard & Orlando Bloom getting make-up done. Here's the green bus again.)

Elijah:

Cuntybago is an amalgamation of 'Winnebago' and Viggo Mortensen´s cuss word of choice. I've gained an appreciation of the word cunt. Negative words - the best thing is to diffuse them by using and taking the meaning away. Cunt! Cunt! It's a great, great word. Very forceful. [Viggo] became utterly fascinated with it and it became the word of the film. Their Winnebago for makeup was called the Cuntybago. I was not a part of the Cuntybago unfortunately - it was the makeup room of Orlando, Viggo and Sean Bean - but it was a lovely place to visit. Cuntybago T-shirts were made up. There was a Cunty Christmas and we had a Cunty Christmas tree, all this stuff. Cate Blanchett [who plays the elf queen Galadriel] was deemed Her Cuntliness. I think we were all secretly jealous of the Cuntybago. I was anyway. I loved the atmosphere. Any place that had Viggo in the centre was always an interesting place to be… And that was where all the alcohol was. It was just spending all of that time with brits and Aussies. The word ‘Cunt’ came up quite a lot. I was fascinated by that and how it could become not so dirty. It’s one of the few swear words that still shock people." Is that why you called Cate Blanchett “Her Cuntliness? “Not my creation. She was called that by Viggo Mortensen. I put the blame on him. It was used during the making of the movie and seems a bit silly now. Wood says that his Cuntybago T-shirt is home in a drawer. "It's too big for me. I'm a small guy."

(A few photos up on the mirror in front of Viggo. I'm guessing it's Henry on the toilet (aww!), and Viggo and Orlando doing something something... Sharing a cigarette? Extinguishing a cigarette on Viggo's tongue? It looks kind of erotic. And who's the other dude?)

Billy:

"On Lord of the rings we'd go to Viggo and Orlando's trailer which was called The Cuntybago. Viggo was good for getting Irish whiskey, which was great but I keep trying to educate him on malt whisky. (To Billy it was just V&O's trailer. Like it's where they lived together...) Hobbits, an elf, a King of Men, maybe a dwarf. And quite a few times a wizard, sometimes a princess. Ha ha! That's enough to make anyone feel pissed. We had some good times on that one, some great times."

Peter Jackson:

"The actors had a spiritual connection to it. I liked the way they had photographs [Mortensen and Bloom] taken behind-the-scenes, plastered all over the walls."

(From the reshoots, I think. Beautifully blurry.)

Liv Tyler:

I can't believe he [Mortensen] talked about that. That was our private world. There was a lot of liquor on that bus. But the funniest thing about this bus is that this thing was a beast. It was so tiny; nothing worked. If they ever washed our hair it would go from scalding hot to freezing cold. There was no heat. Our makeup trailer became the center of things. It was given a really bad name that I cannot repeat. There were pranks, most of them also too dirty to tell. I love them all, all my costars. We would hang out mostly in the hair-and-makeup trailer, and after work at dinner. We would eat all the time and drink wine and laugh.  I think that a lot of that was the friendships that we made with each other and the fact that we all needed each other. It was vital that we all had each other to survive and to be able to laugh. Everybody had a really good sense of humor, thank God. We'd be constantly making jokes and decorating the trailer with ridiculous things and being rude and that was our sort of little bubble of escape in our makeup trailer.

(Photo by Liv, in the bus. You can see all the polaroids and stuff behind the unicorn elf.)

Cate Blanchett:

Viggo is the funkiest person I've ever met. I am far too polite to . . . he had this thing he called "the cunty-bago" . . . no, I guess I shouldn't go into that. So, yeah, he's incredible, very funny.

So, I can't quite figure out which bus The Cuntybago actually is: the green one Orlando is seen exiting? Or the yellow-ish one seen in the vids from the reshoots? Because they aren't the same. And in the vid from the final day, Bernard says the bus he drove on that last day was the same they'd had "for years" and which never moved before. While Orlando said they drove The Cuntybago around "for 18 months". So which bus was it? And did they drive the bus around or not? Or was it stationary? It's a mystery.

(This is the green bus - but is it the make-up trailer? Same as in the vid with Bernard.)

(Here in the reshoots, the bus is yellow-ish? And completely different. Looks more like a Winnebago than the green one really... So which one is The Cuntybago?)

ETA: it's the green striped one! Here's it's on the Cuntybago shirt:

ETA 2:

All my memories from that time is filtered through our bus, the famous C-bago. That was our haven, our social club and our home: it was our special place. We christened it the Cuntebago, but it had to be shortened to C-bago because Cuntebago couldn't go on the call sheets. It was a big make-up bus, and in one of its previous existences it obviously took people to and from places on a commercial basis, so it had the little place in the front that said where it was going, and we wanted Cuntebago on there: "Cuntebago - everywhere!" That was me, Viggo and Orlando. We were the cunts in the Cuntebago.

-Bernard Hill in Empire Magazine 2011.

That's all I have found about this infamous, mythical place, where all the magic happened, as they say. If anyone has info to add, please do! I want this post to be comprehensive!

[genericpuff]

Lore Olympus Art Analysis - Getting to the Bottom of It

For ages now it's been a common point of discussion - what's the process involved in Rachel's creation of Lore Olympus?

As a community, we've all discussed and speculated Rachel's process among herself and her assistants and how it seems to result in cheaper art each week. Same face syndrome, the overuse of the multiply tool, the dull backgrounds that often enter nightmare fuel territory, the lack of color vibrancy compared to Season 1, the repetitive poses and shots, the theories that different assistants are handling different aspects of individual panels, the clear lack of buffer, the list goes on and on.

But I think we've finally gotten to the bottom of what's going on. Or at least, deeper than we've gotten before and it feels like now we're closer to fully understanding Rachel's process than ever before.

Normally, I wouldn't care this much about dissecting the steps of creating a comic. Everyone's process is different, and when you're working with a team, that can introduce a whole new layer of understanding. I've worked with my own assistants in the past, trained to work in the animation industry which relies on coordination between people, and fully understand what's required to go into making a finalized piece of work put together by multiple people. All that's to say, having assistants doesn't necessarily mean you do less work.

When it comes to LO, though, I do feel this compulsion to tear into it more because Rachel seems to completely lack this understanding, and it shows in her work.

Before I continue, I want to throw in a quick disclaimer - when we criticize Rachel's art, it's not to throw any of her assistants under the bus. All of her assistants are incredibly skilled in their own right. When I criticize Rachel's art as a whole - regardless of who helped shape it into its final form - I'm criticizing not just the art itself, but her direction. Rachel is, essentially, a director of a team, and how she manages that team reflects how her work looks in the end after it's all been put together. I will be showing pieces of art from her assistants in this essay, none of this is to promote any shame or hate towards these people. This is purely an essay speculating on Rachel's directing capability and how she manages her team and is not meant to be taken as objective fact beyond what I am capable of proving as an outsider looking in. I consider her assistants people who are just being hired to do a job, I do not condone holding them responsible for the nosedive Lore Olympus has taken in quality over the past few years. These are simply points and speculations that myself and the ULO community came to after discussing it at length.

Alright, so, where to begin?

This essay started with me having a simple conversation with @loreolympusminoredits over on Instagram. They had pointed out a couple panels from a recent free episode where you could see the texturing wasn't being applied properly. You have to look really closely, but once you spot it, you can clearly see the outline of a square where the texturing block wasn't repeated.

It's VERY obvious in this last panel of Hades, look along the back of his shirt, you can clearly see the color warping from the texture block overlaid on top of him.

Now, I have a few theories for this on its own, it really depends on what drawing program these assistants are using. Some of them use Clip Studio. Others use Procreate. There is no consistent requirement in workstations or software among the team, which is Rachel's first mistake. There's a reason why the animation and film industry requires everyone to be using Adobe products whether they like it or not - because it keeps things consistent across the board. It doesn't matter how good you are at Clip Studio or how much you like Procreate, you need to be on the same software and hardware as everyone else to ensure that you can access the same tools, brushes, and workflow as the rest of the team. No one wants to have someone working primarily in Clip Studio who can't access the same brushes or files as the people working in Adobe. As much as I personally hate working in Photoshop, if I were to get an industry job, I would be expected to work in Photoshop, no questions asked. It's part of the job.

Moving on from that, this led me to wonder which assistant was doing these panels, because it's clear that this texturing problem is mostly at the end of Episode 242 during the Persephone / Hades conversation. There's also one stand-out feature that tells us it's the same person making these panels - the bobblehead necks.

Bobblehead necks have been a very noticeable feature in the comic's art decline over the past while. They typically happen when a character - especially a female one - is being drawn from the front. They're usually also defined with noticeable jugular and collarbone lines.

So, which assistant is it drawing the bobblehead necks?

Rachel's art team switches up a lot. Sometimes she has 3, sometimes she has as many as 8. Some assistants tag in, others are consistent.

So far the most noticeably consistent assistants in terms of participation since S2.2 (i.e. post-time skip S2) are Dnaeri, HardHeadedWoman, AmyKing89, and HeyItsJaki (as credited on their episodes). They're the usual team credited at the end of episodes, with the exception of maybe one artist not being present or an extra artist tagging in.

Upon checking their Instagrams, I am becoming way more certain of who does what and how Rachel does her process.

Let's start with HeyItsJaki:

Very thick lineart, distinguished collarbones, defined fingernails/fingers. Thick shading underneath the neck. Sometimes pouty lips if the expression calls for it.

Now let's look at HardHeadedWoman:

Very Disney/Warner Bros reminiscent art, with most notably, thick necks and distinguished jawline features on guys and hourglass figures/thin wrists/thin fingers on women.

And then we have Dnaeri:

It's harder to pin down her style because she seems to just draw whatever she's feeling like, but most notably are how she draws hands and collarbones, very similarly to Jaki, but with one noticeable difference - softer and rounder lines and shapes.

The irony is that Dnaeri and HeyItsJaki both have the same name - Jaki - so them having similar tells in their styles is just something I wanted to point out. Just a funny thought.

That said, Dnaeri DID post a drawing of Persephone once in her own style/interpretation, and there are definitely things to note here.

The collarbone distinction. The anatomy of the fingers and toes. The lighter lineart. The little 'dip' along the edge of the smile.

Moving on. Let's talk about the last assistant who I feel deserves a specific mention - AmyKim89.

You see, Amy is what I'm going to call the smoking gun. All thanks to this post:

Recognize that panel? That's the flat of Dream Persephone from Episode 204.

And this is what the final panel looked like.

Now, Webtoons cropping aside (don't mind the seam running through Persephone's chest) this confirms multiple things for us.

1. AmyKim89 was not the one to shade this panel.

2. The assistants are working purely off Rachel's sketches.

3. The assistants can be in charge of their own lining, which would explain the inconsistent lineart throughout each episode.

4. There are no backgrounds present meaning someone else is in charge of the backgrounds.

5. Flats can be changed and added to after the assistant has already done their job.

To talk about #5 first, notice the pantyhose that were added that make her legs disappear into her cloak. The baby's face changing. The added flower and necklace. Her eyes changing direction.

Regarding #1, look at how the shading makes the art so much more dull. The previous version of this panel with just the flats genuinely looks so much better than the finished piece.

This was, as I'm sure you can imagine, a pretty big find. While I'm sure Amy would probably not be happy to see me using her innocent post as proof for my hyperfocused ramblings tearing apart Rachel's process, I'm glad she posted it nonetheless because it finally shows us a smidge of what the process might be like during production.

Going back to the shading really quick - Amy was not the one who shaded that panel. But I did notice that out of every little inconsistent thing in LO, the shading is some of the most consistent, and it's consistently awful. Dull muddy tones, lack of consideration of space or lighting, clearly the multiply tool being used even when it really shouldn't be, placement of shading primarily under the eyes even when it makes the face look too dim to look good.

It's always being done with the same watercolor-like brush, with the same multiplied tones, and the same 'edges' along where the shading hits the light.

We also know that Rachel eyedrops her colors.

I don't think it's farfetched to believe that her assistants likely do too to a degree. Or they're working off color palettes from previous episodes they've done before which is resulting in this color dissonance where characters change colors, sometimes in between panels.

Considering the constant muddy shading, and the fact that the assistants may not be doing it, I believe it's Rachel doing the shading in the post-production. If you need more proof, here's a reel of her shading in Hades with the exact same techniques seen in finalized panels.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Rachel Smythe (@usedbandaid)

Otherwise, if it's not Rachel doing the shading, it could very likely be Dnaeri, as they're one of the longest-running assistants on the team (they came on during S1).

Moving on from that, let's circle back to AmyKim89's drawing of Persephone. She specifies she did the flats and lines for that panel, working off Rachel's sketches. But one noticeable thing is that there's no background.

This lead a bunch of us in ULO to speculate that Rachel is also the one throwing in the background and throwing PNG's of the characters on top.

Proof? How about the fact that there are panels out there with crunchy characters and pristine backgrounds?

I already suspected that the character was zoomed in and the background wasn't, but Amy's post confirms more than that - that the assistants are essentially drawing PNG's which don't get backgrounds until Rachel - or another one of her assistants - adds them.

Here's another panel that I strongly suspect was done by Amy judging by the colors (but the lineart feels like it could be Jaki):

Look at how she's floating in empty space. This wasn't drawn background first and Hestia second, this was drawn with Hestia first and they slapped a background behind her.

It would also explain why we get panels of characters missing their bottom halves or their limbs - because the backgrounds ended up being larger than they were anticipating in the final shot.

There are a whole bunch of things we can speculate on here knowing what we know from past essays and what I've laid out here.

Rachel may only be involved in the beginning and end of these episodes. She does the roughs, hands the sketches out to her assistants, which they flat and line, and she puts in the shading, dialogue/speech bubbles, texturing, and last details after they're all handed in. This would also explain why there are so many typos - lack of time to edit/proofread - and why sometimes there will be characters speaking but their mouths won't be open.

Rachel hands out the sketches to her assistants individually who flat and line it and hand them back. Sometimes they're handed individual panels, other times they're handed entire pages with a few panels on them. This would explain why we can go an entire scene with a character looking one way and then looking completely different by the next.

Think back to all those previous essays. Everything we've learned so far - that Rachel's buffer is miniscule, that she's shading with the multiply tool, that she's clearly only contributing the roughs and few panels that she makes from random drawings she did on a whim and waits until she can find a chance to shoehorn it into the comic.

Rachel started off drawing this comic just on her own. When she took on assistants, there were only two - AmbitiousIcarus and Madd_Joey.

But eventually, she took on more and more. Two became three, three became five, and nowadays, she maintains a consistent art team of 4-6 people per episode, not including herself or the rotating artists who come and go every now and then.

This has been happening steadily since the Episode 50's range of S1.

The summer when Lore Olympus' licensing rights for animation were sold to the Jim Henson Company.

I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that the assistants were the downfall of LO. I think they're all amazing artists, each in their own right - but their art is clearly failing to shine through in the wake of Rachel's poor management and organization. Rather than delegating single people to single roles - lines, flats, shading, texturing, etc. - she's handing things out panel by panel as she sketches them out... and considering how poor her time management is as we've all seen, it's not hard to come to the conclusion that these assistants are all being put in positions where they have to rush out lower quality work. Rachel is haphazardly dividing up the work between more people all the while contributing less and less on her own end in pre-production, post-production, and quality checking as time goes on. The final episodes weren't immediately noticeably bad as soon as she started taking on more assistants, but it's clear Rachel's involvement in the comic and its quality control has been declining rapidly since the Jim Henson purchase.

Again, this isn't to point fingers or assume the worst of anyone, but it really is food for thought. I hope that this was, at the very least, informative for those of us who've wondered over the years what Rachel's process is like. It definitely seems messy from what we can tell on the surface and frankly, if I could be in the same room as Rachel, I'd be using all this as an example of why she needs to manage her team and her time better. But that's not my place to do so. All I can do is speculate on it and spend way too much time writing an essay about it LMAO None of what I've written here is 'proof' of anything, as I'm not in the position to be able to do such a thing - that's reserved solely for Rachel and her assistants - but it's becoming plainly obvious what the workflow looks like and why the comic looks shittier and shittier every week.

All that said, I don't feel like her assistants get nearly enough credit for the work they do for Rachel. She can't even be bothered to remember the name of the guy who edited the books for her (it's Edwin, by the way) and you never see her bring up her assistants when she talks on interviews about how hard she works or how difficult it is to make a webcomic. At this point, Rachel may as well be the Queen of England - all the pomp and reward and credit, with nothing to show for leadership or actual work ethic.

It's not your work we're seeing each week - it's the work of people who are rushing to meet your deadlines, win your awards, and do your homework.

You are the sum of the parts you utilize in your workflow. You are not here purely of your own efforts. It can barely be called 'your work' at this point. Lore Olympus has become the Ship of Theseus - barely recognizable for what it once was after being haphazardly pieced together by the efforts of others.

And that's all I'm gonna say on that.

[wavernot4love]

hello fun 2ourdust albany things (note i typed this at like 4:30 am last night when i simply couldn't sleep but then passed out before i could post it so it may not be the most coherent)

- pete talking about upstate being special 2 him due to memories of taking a bus to a tattoo parlor in syracuse and feeling inspired by all these cool achc dudes... god i love hardcore scene lore fob stuff ESPECIALLY when upstate gets brought into it

- reinventing the wheel for the first time in apparently seventeen YEARS (i take full responsibility for making this happen due to my showing up in my tttyg crewneck /s)

- andy waved to us!! long story short about 30 of us were waiting by the wrong buses sadly & just barely missed pete & patrick meeting folks by the right ones. we were pretty heartbroken when we came over & found out, but a combination of the andy thing & meeting/trading bracelets/caroling along to folie songs (if ya know ya know) with cool folks turned waiting after the show into a fond memory regardless. i love the fob community, dude. t/2ourdust has changed everything for me.

and still i just find it worth noting how sick it is that this tour pete & patrick have been taking the time to come out & talk w folks. you don't see that much with bands playing arena shows and it makes me happy to see.

- lots of celebration for the smfs anniversary!

muse live (shit is INCREDIBLE live dude), kintsugi & what a time to be alive for medley, lil pete speech about the record.

- ginasfs instead of sixteen candles as a wild card again!!! i cannot believe i have heard her three times now when if you asked me two years ago i never would have thought i'd hear her once!

- smfs is definitely a worthy replacememt for srar in every sense. i appreciate both similarly, and i love that they recall tourdust's srar performance in the sense of it serving as a great medley transition, also in regard a to collaboration (everyone joining in to sing at the end, in this case joe especially)

- that reminds me, it seemed like pete did a lot of backing vox tonight which was nice

- i may only really know a handful of jimmy songs well but great band and jim adkins is one of those people that just seems nice. i like watching the dude do his thing.

- seeing hot mully in an arena was crazy. was pretty sad they cut featuring mark hoppus but still was nice 2 see them

- i remain wholly not a fan of seated shows, at least not for this kinda music, that did get me down at a couple points as i just can't move the way i wanna (not being able to mosh to cbts etc like at tourdust sucked, as well as just being confined to my seat/row all night) & also it seems to keep the crowd in general way more stagnant.

but at least i could see well + no one around me was particularly disrespectful!!

i also respect fob's ability to make a concert at an arena like this still feel like a SHOW (in the scene sense)

- and finally, have nightmare quality pete randomly crawling inside the inflatable dog (i am currently forgetting dude's name)

[shirolian]

Star Crossed Myth - Review of Zyglavis, Hue and Scorpio

My current Star Crossed Myth career is at its peak - I wholly finished three routes (yes, that much, envious?) and now I need to unleash my brainrot. The finished routes: Zyglavis, Hue, Scorpio - in this order. 2:1 for Punishments but I suppose that is not surprise given that this game subverts the expectations of how gods should be and Punishments gods are mostly mewling kittens.

Zyglavis route as whole was, how to put it, felt like I dated a man who is older than me by 20 years. Comforting, reliable but also very lonesome and sometimes distant experience. His later parts of story were frustrating but this time the meme "my life is living hell and I have nobody but myself to blame" applies. The King shockingly is not the antagonist in this route, Zyglavis rigidity is. As much as I love strict meganes who are kind souls inside, I couldn't feel the real love and connection between him and his MC. Favorite scene in his route: The realization in his main story, where he finally acknowledged that he loves MC. The tenderness was palapable as he wiped her tears and whispered "you cry for others?" - it was very defining moment that rekindled his faith in humanity Favorite scene with Zyglavis overall: His infamous arrival in Hue's route where he breaks through window 😂 Route rating: 7,5/10

Hue... I kind of regret that I did his second. I should definitely do him last. So if you plan to play, don't do the same stupid mistake like I did. His route is full of lore and background about MC. The background especially will cause you LOTS of pain if you do his route early and then proceed to other gods. Relationship with Hue felt just right. Like two halves of one soul united and in a sense, it's true. Two halves of stars reunited 😭 I mean how much more of "their love is destiny" vibes can this get? Their banter was entertaining and witty, ocassionaly MC really flipped the tables back on Hue and it was amusing to see his reaction. Hue is definitely the brain in this relationship but his MC is not stupid either - rather, she is jealous and insecure. If you read my previous post where I ranted about this, you will understand what I mean. The ending of whole route was very unsatisfactory and the jelaousy plot of MC's was dominant arc, which annoyed the hell out of me. You know what would be absolutely perfect ending for Hue? If he got Scorpio's ending. Here, I said it. Favorite scene in his route: When MC travels back in time and is Clotho. Then she dies and we can see the aftermath - Hue, standing in the darkness of his room and MC clinging to his lifeless, breathing body. He just pulled out his eye for her, effectively crippling himself in the name of love even if the result was uncertain. The sheer rawness of the moment, the despair and mourning - it all deeply resonated with me. Favorite scene with Hue overall: The sequel (?) ending where Hue and MC talk their feelings and MC admits that she thought the source of Hue's uneasiness was his dissatisfaction with their lovemaking. Hue is literally speechless for a moment because it would never ever occur to him that THIS was one of MC's concerns. The aftermath to this scene is 🌶️🌶️🌶️

Rating: 9,5/10 - I blame overused jelaousy plot. Once, it was nice. Using it all the time was rather tiresome.

Scorpio, the local tsundere god from Wish- ahem, Heavens. He definitely is the most rude LI that I had the honor to date 😂 I don't really like tsundere types and at first, I really couldn't warm up to Scorpio. But his scene with train tickets won me over - man was extremely cute 😂 However, in terms of relationship, his and MC's reminds me of italian couple - they argue, loudly and violently, and then they probably hate-fuck or make up. Not the most healthy dynamic on the market but hey, it's otome, red flags are welcome. Needless to say, that Scorpio became green flag in disguise. His explosive vocabulary and prickliness won't go ever away but he softens significantly and opens up to MC. It was very heartwarming to see the progress fromt he begining, where he couldn't read MC's emotions at all to the end, where one look at her face was enough for him to deduce what she is thinking. The constant source of comedy in this route was Scorpio's mind reading ability and his open defiance to the King. Yes, the King. If I thought that the King was extremely tame in Hue's route, in Scorpio's the King is main antagonist and the biggest dick in universe. "Sparkly bastard. Sorry excuse for a king. That bitch." - Scorpio, circa 2015 This route had absolutely the best ending of all three - literally the ideal outcome that I wished would happen in Hue's. The real promise of Infinity together. I don't know what I expected but it really was not the most romantic rendition of Sleeping Beauty. Favorite scene in this route: Rabbit. Apples. The first time when they come up, the scene is SO darn cute. Then the apples become the staple of the route and source of comfort between MC and Scorpio. CUTE. Favorite scene with Scorpio overall: My knees went weak from that CG and moment where Scorpio and MC couldn't touch each other. They were in MC's apartment and Scorpio was about to leave. The longing, the love, the passion when they touched and kissed as the glass window separated them... *slaps seal of forbbiden longing* This is how it should be done. Rating: 10/10, no regrets. They said fuck the King and really did it.

[x-on-the-calendar-business]

ryan ross iceberg (tier 8)

tier 1, tier 2, tier 3, tier 4, tier 5, tier 6, tier 7

darkest waters (final tier):

teen ryan’s pimples:

i���m so sorry for this one.

it refers to a set of tweets from twitter user prettynpuunk (i’m so sorry to her for bringing them back up but it’s lore).

honestly these are just so iconic. they will always live in my head rent free

“is is true you have a monster cock:”

this is something a fan genuinely asked ryan once (which is so gross and i hope that person is having a terrible day).

allegedly, it has been said by ryan’s exes that he is well endowed. also, i can’t find a source for this, but i swear that once shane morris said that about ryan as well. according to twitter searches, the rumor of ryan having a monster cock goes back as far as 2009 [i]. there’s another rumor that a picture was leaked at one point (i think?), but i’m not going to search that out. if any of you were around in those days, let me know if that’s unfounded or not.

i think the term “monster cock” comes from a picspam on livejournal, referenced here; however, the picspam itself is no longer available [ii].

edit: i actually did end up coming across shane morris' dm about this

target fruit aisle:

apparently there was an “incident” from teenage ryan in the target fruit aisle, which led to him getting banned from the store. it’s unknown exactly what happened, but it’s theorized that either a) he and his friends were throwing fruit at each other, or b) he knocked over a display of fruit.

he’s not actually GRRIII:

if you don’t know what GRRIII means, you’re too far down in the iceberg.

according to obituaries and genealogy trees, discussed in this livejournal posts and its comments, ryan’s grandfather and his dad are actually named george hammond ross sr and jr respectively [iii]. since neither of their middle names are ryan, that means ryan is technically not the third. he is still the third george ross, though.

pissing on tour bus furniture:

according to a tweet, brendon said in an interview that ryan pissed on tour bus furniture, but ryan said it was an accident [iv]. they say it was hard to tell if it was a joke or not, but it was. it's at 2:40 in this interview.

(thank you to the anon who sent me this video!)

romp movie:

this refers to a phone interview in which ryan says that he and brendon went to see a romp movie, and then they both say that ryan’s other hand was uh…busy [v]. it was also definitely a joke. they talk about it in this interview at 8:55.

(the same anon sent me this video, so thanks again!)

the Q stands for quintessence:

remember ryan’s Q tattoo and the cult theory? we’re back to that. in other pictures from that night, you can see that ryan has things representing the 4 elements: earth, air, wind, and fire. the Q could stand for quintessence, which is also called the 5th element [vi]. so, it relates to spirituality, not a cult.

if you’re interested in reading more about this, you can do so here:

bugs in his ass:

the first line in cape town is “took you in the vineyard a couple hours after i met you.” it’s easy to read this as he took her TO the vineyard, but he says IN the vineyard, implying that they might have had sex in this vineyard. and whilst doing that, ryan probably got bugs in his ass.

he can’t park:

this is another reason why ryan ross is a queer icon.

someone parked next to ryan’s car once (his trans am) and provided this picture:

i think there have been other reports of fans who said he cannot park.

panic! wouldn’t exist if ryan wasn’t playing fisher price in his yard the day he met spencer:

this is self-explanatory, but the day ryan and spencer met, which was when they were around 5-6 years old, ryan was playing with a fisher price toy in his yard. of course, had this not happened, we wouldn’t have panic!, the young veins, high hopes (which would be nice, i think), this iceberg, amongst many other things. it’s the butterfly effect.

personal bit about this, panic! is THE hyperfixation for me. no matter how many others i’ve had, nothing has me in the same chokehold that panic! and ryan ross do. with my panic! phase, it is never a matter of if i will enter it again, but a matter of when. because it will happen. but since that band has been such a huge part of my life, it’s so weird to reflect on this entry and imagine what the world would be like without it.

anyway, it just felt right to end this on a sappy note.

also i want to give an honorable mention to corky b roll. i can’t believe i forgot to include it, especially because it was a HUGE ryan meme when i first got into panic!:

thank you so, so much to everyone for the notes! and thank you to anyone who read any of this, especially those of you who made it through every entry. it really means the world that anyone would take time out of their day to read what i have to say about this man lol

another thanks to anyone whose posts i referenced throughout; your service and contribution to the ryan ross lore will not be forgotten.

and with that, this is the end of the ryan ross iceberg explained.

references:

[i] https://twitter.com/search?q=ryan%20ross%20monster%20cock&src=typed_query&f=top

[ii] https://bandfandom-ref.livejournal.com/134497.html

[iii] https://bandfandom-ref.livejournal.com/71193.html

[iv] https://twitter.com/checkyesjuul/status/1369125668726865922

[v] https://twitter.com/checkyesjuul/status/1456098187416989702

[vi] https://pathetic-at-the-disco.tumblr.com/post/175514546326/was-ryan-ross-in-a-satanic-cult

[fruitylittledrink]

//contains Fionna & Cake e8 spoilers

I know nobody cares about my opinion but I've been seeing a lot of posts about Simon and Betty as either 'toxic' or 'perfectly healthy' and I wanted to write down what I think as a big-ass Petrigrof fan.

Betty is probably the biggest red flag for watchers because she's literally the definition of madness throughout AT. On Mars, she was shown how her life would change if Simon never stopped her from getting on that bus and her past self is like "it's too late to save YOU" but we could save Simon; Magic Woman was devoted to Simon with complete disregard for her own life - a situation that began long before the madness started. And that time she almost killed Ice King in Elements to try to bring back Simon, felt guilty about it, but was still going through with it before she was stopped - BE NORMAL.

I think the craziest part is when Simon used Hambo to talk to her about how she was about to leave him and she asked "But where would I go without you?" LIKE GET SOME FRIENDS??

And their LOVE SONG. She wanted him to succeed - she let him take all the fame for the Enchiridion (it makes me so happy they revealed why Betty was in that photo but hiding in the car - my GOD dude their lore is like years-in-the-making) cause she wanted him to achieve recognition. In a way it makes sense, her career barely even started, she's already admired him for years, she sees how others disrespect him, she likes working with him. Couple that with their chemistry and mutuality and I understand why she chose him over her trip. She must have fallen too fast too quickly. Then she gave up everything for his sake - he already had plans in his career, she hasn't even started.

Meanwhile, Simon is almost oblivious to this imbalance. I feel like the best example of this is the small pause after he says "I want you..." before "...by my side." The writers put specific emphasis on him saying he wants her by HIS side as he drags her in a hug away from her own life/career. He even says "What? No! Why would I-?" after Fionna asks if he went on the trip with her. I've heard people saying that he sees their story through rose-tinted lenses and I can see that. It's just a love story to him cause he didn't give up much in comparison - he just gained a companion. But what should he have done? Betty was so fucking down, she wanted him more than she wanted to go on that trip. He wasn't manipulative, he just found the love of his life (and BOY is it a damn long life) and didn't want to let her go. (He just found love with her too early really but it's better than never loving her at all (which might be a Winter King situation))

They both obviously love each other and I wouldn't even call it damaging, they support one another and want to keep each other safe (I mean I wouldn't say their mutual obsession is healthy but I gotta give these straight couples something or I won't be engaged). I don't think there's an age gap since you can start a Grad program at any age. Being called Doctor by a Grad student isn't the issue either - it's more of being an experienced researcher with an inexperienced admirer. Betty is a grown-ass woman but I think she should have let herself chase her own dreams instead of following her love's. She probably didn't even know what she wanted out of life before meeting him. And then they met each other and they found happiness together and it's like what more could you want without sacrificing what you have? And if you lose the ONLY thing that gives you happiness, why wouldn't you give up everything to get it back?

AT is depicting grief and loss from the view of blind devotion and I'm so /fucking/ for it.

[denizenhardwick]

Hi. What the hell is this timeloop bts game you’re playing and where can I find it

the time loop bts game was called bts universe story but it got shut down :( so i'm watching the story bits on youtube. there's a playlist here, but if you're new to the bangtan universe lore, i don't recommend starting there because this whole thing is very expansive and very confusing and the game just dives into it. the i need u and run mvs are where the whole thing started and provide a basic groundwork for the world and characters, so that's my recommendation. other videos connected to the bu are young forever, all of the wings short films x, blood sweat & tears (and the japanese version), all the highlight reels, euphoria, fake love (extended version) (and the teaser), epiphany, and the bts universe story teaser.

there is also the save me webtoon which covers the first couple loops in chronological order and could be a good starting point, but you apparently have to wait for a new chapter each day, which is annoying. and there are a couple books called The Notes, but i don't have a link for them yet, though i doubt they'll be hard to find this is bts we're talking about lol

basically, the bangtan universe (bu), often also called hyyh, is a story that bts has been building for years, including many of their mvs, promotional materials, a webtoon, books, and an app that was shut down earlier this year. there is also a tv show called youth that will be coming out... at some point, i haven't found an actual release date for it, based on the bu.

the bu revolves around seven boys (who currently share names and appearances with the members of bts) who met in high school when they were all late on the first day of class and given detention together. they were tasked with cleaning an old storage classroom, which later became their hideout as they became friends. a couple years after graduating high school, and after the group fell apart due to yoongi's expulsion from school, seokjin returns to korea from the states. he sees namjoon working at a gas station but decides not to say hi until a month or so later, when he learns that namjoon is in jail. from there, he discovers that yoongi and jungkook are dead, hoseok collapsed and was taken to the hospital, and no one knows where jimin and taehyung are.

seokjin wonders, if he had just talked to namjoon that first day, would he have prevented this? would he have been able to save his friends from their horrible fates? and something else asks, "if you could turn back time... do you believe you can straighten out the errors and mistakes... and save everyone?"

and thus begins the time loop.

the storyline touches on a lot of heavy subjects and i especially want to give a trigger warning for suicide. suicide is regularly discussed and depicted, jungkook and yoongi both kill themselves and since this is a time loop it happens over and over.

but yeah! there's a lot here, but if you're interested and willing to go on a bit of a scavenger hunt, it is a really interesting story and super cool multimedia experience, with a lot to sink your teeth into!

[xthelastknownsurvivorx]

It’s Beas nice ask day!

So my question for you: What is something you haven’t shared here (or shared very recently) that is so shocking and surprising nobody would believe it

hi beas!

can't believe I didn't think of this story immediately upon receiving your ask (probably because it's equal parts trauma, hilarity, and friendship) but here we go with some lee lore

it's a long story though so below the cut it goes

my freshman year of college two friends and I decided to go to karaoke together one weekend. it was going to be a fun trip without anything out of the ordinary happening. we took the bus out, had lunch and a lot of fun singing (since it was a restaurant with an old machine not a dedicated karaoke place), then returned to the bus stop.

unfortunately we had forgotten that this stretch of road had bus stops on either side and you had to go to the correct side, otherwise the bus would be going the wrong direction, and I think we saw the right bus leaving before we could cross over

it was the middle of winter and decently cold by that time (late afternoon) and there wasn't another bus on the right side due for a while. we could have gone back inside to the restaurant (and probably should have), but we didn't feel like it. so one of suggested we walk to the next stop while waiting

however, one stop became another, and then another, and then another, and then—well you get the point

soon enough we had basically committed to just walking home. and for context our school wasn't in the city—it was near a couple of towns but also bordered rural areas, meaning there wasn't sidewalks for the entire stretch of this decently size road that we were walking home on

eventually we came to a (literal) fork in the road and had to decide which way to go: the unlit bridge to the shopping center or the back road behind it, neither of which had a sidewalk. by that time it was dark and, not wanting to get hit by a car or fall into the ditch by trying to walk on the outside of the bridge, we decided on the back road

it probably was the better decision in the end, but the back road came with its own, uh, complications. there were far fewer street lights along the way and the journey was starting to take longer than it seemed like it should have (spoiler alert: the road was a diagonal away from the mall but we didn't fully realize it at the time). we did spot the back of the mall eventually, but it was completely blocked off by a high fence and I wasn't interested in accidentally getting electrocuted either, so we couldn't cut back unless we completely retraced our steps, which wasn't worth it at that point

the longer we walked in the endless cold dark night, the more insane I felt and the more certain I was that we were going to end up kidnapped or something. especially when we turned back onto a busier road and a car started slowing down, its headlights blinding and far to reminiscent of one of those spotlights during a chase scene in movies. there was also a randomly big rectangular hole in one of the yards me passed by, deep enough not to be able to see the bottom

anyway we made it back to the mall after around two hours of walking, breaking into fits of deranged laughter once we had reached relative safety. this time we waited and took the bus the rest of the way home, nothing else happening on the way back to campus or our dorms

it was the absolute wildest, most fever dream-like thing I've ever had happened to me. definitely falls under the is it really college if you don't almost die at least once experience. so, uh, there you go

[kittykittyanon]

🍓🥑🥤🧃❄️🦴🧩

HIII KITTY!!! I HOPE YOU ARE HAVING A GREAT DAY OR NIGHT OR WHATEVER TIME IT IS FOR YOU!!! I THINK YOU ARE SUPER RAD 😎😎 AND I LOVE INTERACTING WITH YOU!! (I gotta come with up with a tag for you, i just realized 🤔🤔)

ANYWAY DON'T FORGET TO DRINK WATER AND EAT IF YOU'RE HUNGRY OR USE THE BATHROOM IF YOU NEED!! LOTS OF HUGS AND KISSES (you can ignore the personal lore one if it makes you uncomfy :D)

GAH!! HAIII!! I GOT THIS ASK WHILE I WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF TYPING OUT MY COMMENT ON YOUR AO3 POST!!!! what great timing, amor!!

I LOVE INTERACTING WITH YOU TOO!!! gosh,, i was just about to add that into my ask to you!!!! i decided not to cause i already said it in a recent ask, but you're really very thumbs up!!! /pos!!!

and for the ask game;;

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

ooohhh,,, what a story. i had my start on wattpad!! i first found out about it when i was 8 and on my school bus, i stood on my seat to peek over a highschool girl's chair to look at her phone 'cause i was curious and a bit of a dumdum. she had wattpad opened and was reading a story and i was instantly hooked and reading alongside her without her knowing ☆⌒(>。<) when she noticed me, she exited out of it and i saw the app name and got it as soon as i got home. ever since i read my first bnha fic, i've been writing. ((but if you mean writing stories in general? i remember writing one with a friend back in first grade, but other instances of me writing before 2018 were very rare!! i've always had that want to do something creative since i've been able to hold a pen, so i guess it makes sense lmao))

🥑 - "you accidentally killed somebody, which mutual(s) do you text for help?"

cry, panic,, then run to @lykaiosthinks or @itsyagurlchip (*ﾉ∀`*)

🥤 - "recommend an author or fanfic you love"

OH ABSOLUTELY??? if i had to say my favorite writer here, it'd be @ziipzeepzop-eez,, and for my other recommended awesome writers whose works are DELICIOUS, they'd be @itsyagurlchip, @lykaios2, @sleepytime-fics, @tmnt-narratives, @oleander-nin, and @amorvincitomnia-14 ((YOU!!))

as for yummy yummy fics: whatever you do, don't get attached by @sleepytime-fics where reader gets yoinked into the rise universe after eating a very silly fruit, and every night the longest day by ashtreelane on ao3 where leo gets cursed by a mystic user during a fight that makes it so he cannot sleep. at all. ((VERY ANGSTY. HEED THE TAGS.))

🧃 - "share some personal lore you never posted about before"

my family's always been adoring of cats. my very first cat was a big fluffy grey cat, the only memory i have of said meow meow is when my dad had to give him away. i think my parents have a picture of me petting him? for the next couple years we'd always feed the cats outside, some of them even coming inside sometimes to chill with us, until my mom came home one day with a big tabby cat that followed her up the stairs and into our apartment where he is now part of our family, fondly named "chunky"!! then a year later, a pregnant cat we'd been feeding for a while gave birth to kittens, of which we took in as ours :3

❄️ - "what's your dream theme/plot for a fic, and who would write it best?"

mweeehhh,, i don't necessarily have a dream plot for anything, but if i had to have one? i'd pick something to do with me and donnie because of course i would /lh (though i prefer platonic a TON more than romantic) and i'd want myself to write it 'cause i know myself best. (similar to your answer, amor!!)

🦴 - "is there a piece of media that inspires your writing?"

ehhhh, not really?? i guess sometimes i get inspired by other writers' works, but if i had to pick some sort of media it would be music or games!!

🧩 - "what will make you click away from a fanfiction immediately?"

no paragraph breaks, and constant author's notes in the middle of the fic itself!! i'm not reading a screen-full of text without spaces— and i wanna read the fic uninterrupted thankyouverymuch (つω`｡)

this post's a long'un (attempted british accent /lh)

[kebriones]

are you against mythology retellings? if yes, would you mind telling me why? (in my opinion they are harmless and each one of them adds something new to the ‘source material’) just asking since i’ve seen a lot of classicists harassing people just minding their business and having fun 💀

-Absolutely not at all! I came very near to spending all my savings to go watch hadestown a couple years back, and at the very beginning I even enjoyed lore olympous (the story lost me at some point).

-Do I think they're harmless? No story is harmless and all of them are. It depends on what you consider harm.

-I don't think they add to the source material. If we're talking about ancient greek mythology specifically, it's been dead and burried for centuries. Whatever new is created, is a modern thing and seperate, in my opinion.

-However, it is the very nature of mythology, that people are meant to make their own stories inside it freely. If anything, I enjoy retellings, and even more than retellings I absolutely love the taking of characters (heroes gods, whatever) and making completely new stories with them. "retellings" as a concept can fall into the trap of trying to fix myths, to make them more palatable and enjoyable to a modern audience, which is what rubs me the wrong way.

-But there's no storytelling police so that's up to me to avoid reading those stories of course. Others may enjoy them, and not everyone has to care about the historical contexts or original messages of specific myths. I certainly think there are benefits to it and personally I find it adds to the enjoyment , but each person enjoys different things. I have spent many years stewing in my overprotective feelings towards ancient greek mythology but recently I decided I just want people to have a nice time. I'm also trying to teach myself to understand that other people are completely different to me, so if I find somethign sickeningly bad and others like it, that's just how subjective things work. So I might complain, half-jokingly always, about stuff but it's just to blow off steam and deep down i'm chill about everything.

I specifically don't like what I've heard about the song of achilles, plus I'm extremely, extremely biased when it comes to the iliad, so I am very picky about retellings for that specific part of mythology. the iliad has been my baby since I was very young and it's the one thing I allow myself to be completely crazy over, so when I say I cannot get through the movie troy because it's too painful, I 100% mean it. if you enjoy it, that's great. I will complain and bitch about it forever. I slept with that book under my pillow for my entire childhood and to have some randos come and spend millions to butcher it and drag its corpse like achilles dragged hector, for the whole world to see is too much.

As a last point. I think sometimes with retellings, especially of ancient greek mythology, we're a bit too sensitive because it has been too oftenly taken out of its cultural context and used willy-nilly to tell stories that reflect nothing greek, be it modern or ancient. It is a flashy topic for people to use however they want, and it's been changed to fit western cultures so so much, that I wish people would just leave it alone. Ancient greek mythology isn't about flashy god powers, it's about the values and experiences of a culture (or more correctly, multiple cultures), whether those align with modern ones or not, but when "retellings" are first and foremost made to be sold as products, the stories have to be altered to hell, to be nice and tame for the audience, to sell well. Which is a whole other discussion.

so yeah that's why I prefer all-new stories that maybe use mythological characters, over straight up retellings. But, as most ancient greek myths were very regional, had a million variations of which we know a tiny amount of, and were told and made for a long period of time, I don't think that retellings now are in any way inherently bad. But all the nice marble aesthetics (tm) and hot dudes will not fix a bad story, is what I wish people understood. Also I wish they didn't think they know or even claim to like the mythology from having read only retellings.

Anyways I am not a classicist, I am a fine arts student, so I might be saying absolute nonsense, my brain is too fried. on the other hand, i am born and raised in greece, and I have grown up with these myths everywhere around me and I really like them, so I have a lot of feelings about them, but that doesn't really mean anything. And I haven't noticed much harassing going on (lots of complaining, but that's the lifeblood of the internet) but then again I'm here on tmblr only a very short time. That all said, I absolutely do not condone harassing people for what they enjoy, especially for things that can only "harm" the person doing it, like reading stories.

[poltergeist-coffee]

Etoiles in your college au is just so... Etoiles

Yeah, he a Philza are besties

Oh, how about Phil btw? I was wondering but forgot to ask

And maybe foolish and bbh if you have ideas for them

(Oh and Maximus and Quackity too or anyone else if you had any idea)

Unrelated to that

YOU NEVER HAD A PHYSICS CLASS???

Man, you're lucky, unfortunately I was forced by the brazilian scholar system to study physics on the moment I went to high school

But I went to a museum with my class

On the bus, it looked like it was a class of 11 years old students

It was fun

Also THERE'S A NEW CAPYBARA???

I have to see them when I find time

The capybara are one of the most random things on the qsmp and I love them for that

However had the ideas of put the capybaras is a genius

I hope I can manage to catch on lore since a lot of the ccs are in Las Vegas and hopefully things are a bit come more calm

Enfasis on the "hopefully"

Because there's already an dead federation employee(on the first day I think)

Btw do you know if they found out who did this? I saw some people talking about how could be federation trying to frame Cellbit but something was confirmed?

- 🍽️

Anon i lied because i 100% i took a physics class last year KNSAKJVNASKJD i nearly failed it tho which is probably why i forgot lmao but still it's the only physics class ive ever done

field trips are always fun!! i hope you had a good time with your class today :DD

qsmp lore + au rambling belowwww

the new capabara is named Alexandre and is played by a new admin who speaks Portugese!! they use teal/cyan signs and Bagi found them at cellbit's castle because they said they forgot the way back to the capabara island :(( i think bagi made them a room in her bunker right after meeting them and they helped her interior decorate all day lol i think you'll like them a lot since they reminded a lot of people of richas's admin at first (this capabaras admin is also the one who's been making all the mystery twins lore recently!! like the cucurucho who spoke to cellbit before he went to sleep and made the enigma bagi solves yesterday on stream)

yee bagi found a dead federation worker like...yesterday i think? or maybe it's been a couple days...i don't remember... (i am very bad with time) everyone is theorizing that it's cellbit but specifically it's f!cell!!! the reason is because bagi got a book she had to decode and all the writing inside sounded like f!cell!! some people think that it's the federation trying to frame cellbit because cucurucho said he'll have to pay the "consequences of his actions" just before cellbit went to sleep so..... it's very sus. if something was confirmed then i don't know? i didn't see anything like that >:00

---- now onto au silliness ----

i haven't thought much about philza in this au but he is 100% there kajnbkja he visits missa who works in the library a lot :DD

Foolish is an architecture major with a minor in sculpture and ceramics!! his current major project is called "The Titan" but he just doesn't want to work on it.... he keeps procrastinating and finding reasons not to work on it because it's frustrating him so much kekw BBh often hangs out in his studio and likes to bug foolish about how much progress he's made (zero progress).

I think almost everyone at the school knows bbh because he's so sweet and friendly plus he's like always willing to help if people need it :"))

i don't have many ideas for maxo and quackity.... but maxo would probably do something in programming/coding and quackity is double majoring in linguistics and law? maybe?

I can totally imagine there being a rumor among a lot of quackity's friends about him and wilbut because quackity keeps claiming they're dating but if you ask wilbur he's like "what" MVKADSJ maybe there's a bet on if people think it's really true or not lolol

[glassvines]

Thoughts on eps 1-4 of Murder Drones:

Pilot 1. Is the planet the bots are on supposed to be an alternate Earth? Or a different planet all together? (Answer: It's not Earth. Uzi mentions wanting to go to earth so she can "kill all humans". The planet they are on is Copper 9.) 2. "Untrained neural network" aka baby robots lmao. 3. While the meta dialogue was incredibly BAD in the first episode, the facial gags with words flashing across their faces is so funny. I am having to pause every two seconds to read everything. 4. Which is by design? Pausing to read the gags. This is a show that really wants it's audience to study it like the nerds we are. 5. I love that all the character relationships are purposely cliche, and played 100% straight. 6. Are we really supposed to believe Uzi's dad mercy-killed her mother? 7. I do love how they establish that the Disassembly Drones can regenerate. (N being blasted into oblivion.) 8. "OH MY, you sure are rebellious! It's kind of exciting! *fans self*" N LMAO WHAT. 9. N and Uzi are A+ mains and I love them. 10. Yeah, I missed so much lore discussion on the first watch. Particularly the bit about the ships only being capable of going one way. 11. Why is N hoisting Uzi onto his shoulders the cutest thing ever. He carry. He protec. 12. "I'd join you if the sun didn't kill me!" Hooow did I miss that.

Episode 2 / Heartbeat 1. God I love the haunted mansion flashback. It's so jarring. 2. Tessa... 3. The Disassembly Drones sleep upside down wrapped in their wings. 4. The show hinting at V knowing more than she's letting on combined with the flashbacks were when I started to realize how much of a gem this show was. 5. Episode starts establishing Lizzy and Doll a little more. (Did V disguise herself AS Lizzy? lol.) 6. Ah okay, they do explain what Uzi's powers are: AbsoluteSolver auto-repair initiative. 7. And Uzi DOES mention it's just like the Disassembly Drones' regenerative powers. 8. The weird human hand thing was great. 9. "Oh, J's not here." Huh. 10. "It hurts our feelings you don't remember us." It said via Uzi's Mum's face. Hmmmm. 11. I seriously went from "this could work as a series - good setup" to "I LOVE EVERYONE IN THIS ROOM UR ALL VERY PRECIOUS".

Episode 3 / The Promening 1. Okay, this was when I realized how purposely satirical the series is. PROM LOL. 2. Year 3,071! 3. I really want to understand the bug crushing motif. 4. "Thank you FOR BEING MY friend" STOP!!! 5. The skeleton prom outfit bit is so gd funny. 6. "What's best for you. Even if you hate me for it." V plz. 7. UZI UWUs 8. This whole episode is just good character development stuff. More focus on V, Doll and Lizzy. Uzi and N making up and doing a battle couple bit for a few seconds. A bit more background information on Uzi’s Mom too.

Episode 4 / Cabin Fever 1. The...school bus is being driven like a horse and buggy. I'm. 2. Uzi's bat-winged backpack :). 3. Lizzy and V just being friends now is delightful. 4. Neat to see a different type of environment being focused on in this episode. 5. "EVACUATE ALL DOGS" "Cool. We did that. That's canon." "Also, all dogs are immortal now!" LMAO I REALLY NEEDED TO PAUSE FOR THAT JOKE. 6. I don't really understand what's triggering Uzi's transformation though? Stress? Jealousy? 7. "Welcome back 02" Hmmmm. 8. V keeps comedically killing all these students and they are still 100% in love with her and N now ahaha. 9. N's development is so good man. I like that he’s standing up to V now. 10. The funniest part of this episode was that Liam thought it was necessary to grind twitter animation stans into dust and have N conspicuously proclaim that he and Uzi are the same age. I don’t have to be part of the fandom to know what that means. Genuinely cathartic seeing a show tell shipper drama weirdos to shut the fuck up. 11. OH! There's that mansion from episode 2. So this hints at what happened to everyone's memories and why they were wiped. 12. The information on zombie drones is on a VHS with 80s horror movie font. 13. Marshmallow batteries 14. "Okay, Mom." L M A O 15. "New body, same horrors. Huh Cyn?" ??? 16. "Can I talk to N?" Oof that hurt me actually :(. 17. HAND HOLDING *pointing Rick Dalton meme*

Even on a re-watch I feel like there's a lot going on under the surface of the series that I've missed. Very much looking forward to seeing where this show goes. 

[hahahahahangst]

Cold (Be The Young 26)

GIANT TW which will be valid for each episode for suicidal thoughts, SELF H*RM, violence, cursing, relatives dying, mentions of s*x, s*xual assault

All chapter titles are song titles, some of them translated from Italian songs. We start from the first season and make out way through the series. I will break canon (mostly from the S2 finale) but will try to get back into it for the sake of ✨ lore ✨ .

Summary: Emily's life used to be normal. Until one day, her family died, leaving behind just one letter.

"After reading this whole letter, call John Winchester. [...] He’s your real father."

A/N: sorry. lol.

MASTERLIST

Cold 

From the hell of this city This life has already almost killed us But we can get out of it if we stay close God, thank you for these few friends. Angry eyes under the moon, It’s in the darkest hours we’re alive. Frames of pure violence, Torture scenes: that’s how we grew up

Emily opened her eyes and felt warmth on her face. She had not felt it in a long, long time. Her first reaction was to take a big breath. The deepest she had drawn in a long, long time. So long she didn’t even remember how much. The last thing she remembered from being alive was taking a dozen pills and laying on the bed. Then there was hell. The realization she was not in hell anymore, at least not the one she had been experiencing for for what felt like years, decades, even, slowly settled in. How could it be over? She was dead. She had been in hell. She remembered it. Like the residual memories from a dream, the more she thought about it, the less she could remember. She looked around: squares and squares of headstones. She turned. Behind her, a white piece of stone. It looked new, clean. Way too clean. It said: “In loving memory of Emily Reed.” She stood up and clean herself from the dirt she was covered in. And then she walked, for what seemed like hours, until she saw a bar, entered and asked to make a call.

“Hello?” Said Bobby’s voice on the other side of the line. “Bobby, it’s me.” “Me who?” “Emily!” click “Oh, come on-” She whispered, redialing the number. The barman looked at her, nervous. She probably looked terrible but it was not the time to care for aesthetics. “Who is this?” Asked Bobby, upset. “Bobby, listen, it’s me!” “Yeah, good try, but she’s dead.” “Bobby-” click

She sighed and asked directions for the nearest bus stop. The bartender looked at her, his own phone already in hand, probably ready to call the police on that weird, thin, dirty girl who was stinking his bar, but did, eventually, give Emily the directions. About an hour later, she heard a voice calling her name behind her. She turned around, not recognizing it. Staring at her from a couple yards away from at her was a tall, pale man that she was sure wasn’t there before. He was wearing a gray, slightly reflective shirt which was loosely buttoned at the top. “Can I help you?” She asked, ready to attack him. “No, but maybe I can help you.” He said, with a very strong Italian accent. Emily immediately took a step back, whispering profanities. She was just back from hell and a creep was already trying to get to her. “Sorry pal, not interested.” She started walking again, hoping he would lose hope. “Are you not curious to know how you got back?” The man appeared in front of Emily, startling her. She stopped walking. “How-” She looked back. “I thought you would be happier.” He enquired, tightening his eyes. “Who the fuck are you?” Said Emily, bitter. “My name is Ramiel.” Right. Like the Evangelion angel. Very funny. “And I care why?” “Because I saved you from hell.” Emily raised her eyebrows. “Nobody asked you to.” She tried to overcome the man and keep walking. When she realized there was no way getting away, she crossed her arms. “Listen, I have a long way to go. What do you want from me?” She sighed. “You were destined to be brought back. God has work for you.” “Right.” She scoffed. “So you’re what, an angel? Are you going to drill into my Geofront of something?” “Not a believer. I see.” “Not a fan of Jesus, no. So, what are you?” “I am an angel, as you said.” He gestured. “Right. There’s no such thing.” “Then how do you explain this?” He smiled, flashing Emily a sight of his wings. “Nice trick. Gotta teach me how to do it.” She smirked. “Can I go now?” “Well.” Sighed the man. “It's not my problem if you believe me or not. My orders are just to keep you safe. Here-” He reached for her and she didn’t have time to react when she found herself in front of Bobby’s lot, alone.

“Well, here goes nothing.” She walked up to the door and knocked and waited. What was she expecting? She had been in hell for so long, she was lucky if Bobby was still alive. And Dean? He was probably dead as well.   She turned, but as she took a step back towards the street, she heard someone open the door. She turned. “Sam?!” “Emily?!” Then, Sam tried to attack her. “Woah, stop right there.” She said, trying to avoid getting punched. “Sam, it’s me. I’m not a monster.” You know a monster wouldn’t be able to do this, right? She communicated telepathically. Sam winced, surprised. “Oh my god, how-” Sam’s words were interrupted by Dean appearing behind him, about to ask who it was. A bad flashback from hell stranded her for a split second. Dean was there. He was in hell with her. The two stared at each other for a second. He knew. He remembered her as well. She could tell. As he tried to lead towards her to attack her, probably thinking she was a monster, Sam stopped him. “Sam, what’s going on?” Dean asked. “It’s her, Dean. It’s Emily.” Nobody spoke for a second. Emily took off her jacket. “Are you going to invite me in or- What…” She stopped, looking at her arm. Something she had not noticed before was that her wrist was a purple-ish color, swollen, even if not painful. ”...what is that?!” She tried touching it, but she didn’t feel any pain, even though it looked broken. ”...is this a handprint?” She looked up. Dean had a similar looking mark on his shoulder, which he was also inspecting. “Holy- Dean, what’s going on?” As if he was suddenly roused from a dream, he extracted a silver knife from his pocket and gave it to her. “You really don’t trust me?” By the time she was cutting her arm, showing to her brother she was not a shapeshifter, Bobby appeared next to Dean as well. Emily smiled at him. “You’re gonna give me a heart attack one of these days.” Then, it was time for the holy water. She drank it and looked at Dean. When nothing happened, she shrugged. “Told you, Dean. It’s me.” Sam smiled and he looked at Dean. He looked at Emily, still clearly suspicious, but gestured to him to go ahead. Emily jumped to hug Sam. “Wait!” She said, pulling back suddenly. “How did you come back?” She saw Dean and Sam look back and forth between each other, clearly trying to come up with an explanation. “Damn, I missed you.” She hugged him again. “It really sucked being here without you.” “I missed you too.” He said. She let go of Sam and walked over to Bobby to hug him. “It’s good to have you back.” He said to her. In the end it was time to say hello to Dean. She looked at him and tightly smiled before walking past him. They sat down in the living room and Bobby brought everyone a beer. The house looked dirtier and messier than the last time she was there, but everything else had remained the same. The piles of books surrounded by beer and liquor bottles, a linen for someone who had been sleeping on the couch and notebooks all over the place. Sam had not changed too much since the last time Emily saw him, which was still fresh in her mind, even if a lot of time had gone by. Dean, however, looked older. His gaze had become harder, colder. He was also missing a scar Emily distinctly remembered him having on his left cheek. “So. What did I miss?” Asked Emily, trying to hide the amount of questions she had. Bobby handed her a newspaper and Emily read the date. “2009?” She raised an eyebrow. “Wait, a year? That’s…” She hesitated. “That’s a long time.” She lied and threw the newspaper back on the table. She was expecting much more time. Of course, she had figured out the time outside of hell had passed differently than how she had felt, but she was not expecting that big of a difference. “What about you, Sam?” “I’ve been back 6 months, give or take.” Emily looked at Dean, her suspicion growing stronger. Dean accurately avoided her gaze and that was her cue to confirm her thoughts. “Interesting. So, about six months after I called it quits?” Sam seemed surprised at her question, but Dean, instead, sighed and traced his face with his hand. “You brought him back, didn’t you?” She asked him. “I did.” Dean admitted with a sigh. “Goddamn-” She sighed. “So. Let me get this straight.” Emily pointed at him, accusatively. “I kill myself and your first idea is to bring back Sam? The thing we spent literal months fighting about?!” The thought of Dean having sold years and years of his life to bring back Sam after all those months they spent trying to get over his death made Emily almost nauseous. Or maybe it was the hell flashbacks. “You said-” “I know what I said! And I believe my exact words were ‘go live your life’, not ‘throw your life down the drain’!” She finished the rest of her beer in one big gulp. “God, you’re an idiot.” She sighed. She dragged her hands down her face, trying to recollect herself. “How much do you have left?” She asked. “Nothing, I- I died 3 months ago. Came back yesterday.” “How?!” “I don't know, I- There's this guy, Castiel, he says he raised me from perdition or whatever, but-” “Did he tell you he's an angel?” She asked, raising her eyebrows, trying to connect all the dots. “Yes- How did you know that?” “I met a guy this morning. His name is Ramiel. He told me the same thing.” Sam interrupted them. “Emily, sorry, wait. Backup a little.” He looked back and forth between her and Dean, who rolled his eyes and stood up. “Did you just- did you just say you killed yourself? As in committing suicide?” Asked Sam. Dean walked behind his chair and leaned on it, letting his head dangle in between his shoulders. “Well, yes.” She said, confused. “That’s how…“ She dangled her words, slowly realizing if Sam didn't know how she died, it could only be because of the lies of one single human: “Dean?!” She turned to him and stood up, angry. “What did you tell him?” he sighed, but did not answer. Emily looked at Bobby, who raised his hands, asking to be kept out of it. She then looked back at Sam. “Demons, that’s what he told me.” He explained. “He told me you died while fighting with some demons!” Emily took a big breath, trying to not go all out punching Dean their first day back together. “Why?” She asked. “Why would you lie about something like that?” “I don’t know, okay? I guess it was easier than-” She cut him short. “Right.” She sat back down. Sam looked at her and swallowed all of his questions. For a second she made the mistake of thinking about the hours before her death. The pain, the inability to move, the confusion. People coming and going as they liked and using her an object, just made for their pleasure, for their entertainment. The humiliation and the panic making their way inside of her. The realization that escaping was putting all the people she loved in danger. That the Russians were going to look for her. The traveling across the country, not caring about leaving or not a track, landing into a motel. Her hand shaking while she wrote a letter to Dean and the realization that she was really going to die that night, slowly settling in. She felt her heart racing and her mind getting foggier and foggier, when she looked at Sam, her eyes filling with tears, she realized that if her powers were still working, he could probably still see and feel what she was thinking. She gazed at him, which was staring in front of him, visibly scared. Sam, don’t- Sorry. She was interrupted by a gag and had to run to the bathroom, where she vomited her panic away. She wasn't able to cry, it felt like her tears got stuck somewhere behind her eyes, the pressure growing stronger but never being released. She felt a hand on her shoulder and instinctively shoved it away, trapped in a memory loop. “Emily, it's me.” Said a very muffled and familiar voice. “Emily!” She turned and it was Sam. She immediately reached for his hand again, begging with her eyes to help her. “It's alright, kid, you're safe.” He stroked her shoulders and helped her hair off her face as she gagged one final time.

She took a shower. She realized it was her first shower since she got assaulted, the first shower in at least 18 thousands days. She had lost count after that and all memories were foggier. She enjoyed every single second of the shower, letting the water drop down her body and in the shower. She took her time to comb and dry her hair the right way. Just as she was doing so, Sam passed in front of the bathroom door, which Emily had left opened to let the steam out after she had dressed. “Hey.” Said Sam, leaning on the doorway. “Are you okay?” “Need the bathroom?” Emily ignored Sam’s question and looked at him, who shook his head. “I- Actually I wanted to say I’m sorry. The things I saw in-” He pointed to her head. “Well-” She tried her best to not feel sick again. “Let’s say it was a long year without you.” He nodded. “Well, if you want to-” “I know, just- not for now.” She tightly smiled and he did the same. She left Sam in front of the bathroom and headed back downstairs with her hair still slightly wet. Dean was sitting at the kitchen table. The same table they had fight after fight, without ever solving anything. “Hey.” she said, grabbing a glass and filling it with some alcoholic substance Dean had already helped himself with. “Everything alright?” “More or less.” Emily made an impressed face. “That’s the most sincere answer I’ve heard from you in years.” She sat on the counter. “Come on, give me a break.” He took another sip from his glass. “Alright. Then I am guessing you don’t want to talk about it?” “Nah.” “Okay.” “Actually there is something I would like to talk about.” Exhaled Dean. Emily raised her gaze from the indefinite point she was staring at and looked at her brother. “It’s about…“ He trailed off and sighed again. “What, Dean?” “It’s about what you wrote here.” Emily noticed a piece of paper on the table. She focused on it: it was the letter she had sent before she died. “Come on, I was literally about to die. Are you really going to hold that over my head?” Dean exhaled again. “I’m sorry.” He said unexpectedly. “What?” "What you wrote.. you were right. I should not have come to you." Emily stood there, in silence, looking for an appropriate response. Truth was, she had a long time to think about her life in hell. Still being conscious of time passing, of everything that had happened to her, that was the true torture. "Yeah." She sighed, shaking her thoughts away from her mind. “Really, I should have never come looking for you.” Emily rolled her eyes. “No, that’s not-” “Let me speak- You had it, man, you had the normal life you wanted and-” ”...are you serious?” Emily pushed herself off the counter. “Are you really trying to make this about you?!” “I’m not-” “You know what you should not have done?” She said, angry. “You should not have pushed me so far Bobby thought we couldn’t live under the same roof anymore. That he had to send me somewhere safer. You- We could have gotten over it, Dean. Instead, you chose to be a dick.” “Right.” He exhaled. “We spent months fighting to get over Sam’s death, and you threw it all out the window!” “You were dead, what was I supposed to do?!” “ANYTHING BUT THIS!” Emily walked towards the door and stopped in front of it. “ANYTHING! I did all I could to take care of you, but you never-” “I never what? You were gone, Emily, but I had to endure it. You have no idea what it feels like!” “I DON’T?” She scoffed. “I- I felt Sam die! I felt his heart stop beating while he bled to death on me, Dean-” She ran her hair through her hair. “Whatever.” She exhaled. “Nothing has changed, I don’t know why I ever thought it would have, you-” She gestured in front of her face for a while, trying to look for the right words. When she couldn’t find them, she finally stormed out of the room.

[lorz-ix]

Oops! All Contra

Remember first of all, these games can be a bit silly with their difficulty so use that Konami code if you're able!

Contra (arcade, 1987)

Super fun run and gun gameplay, very fast-paced, but the controls are very tight and responsive. Power-ups are adequately strong so it feels great to mow down enemies. I didn't think it was quite that hard, but it is very unforgiving, since you die in a single hit, and even in the arcade, your continues are limited. An insane limitation that I haven't seen in any other game, normally you'd be able to keep going as long as you can keep putting coins in the machine, but not here for whatever reason.

Pretty neat but I think there might be better alternatives.

Contra (NES, 1988)

A straight port of the arcade game, but it is exceedingly rare for a port like this to be, in my opinion, a genuine upgrade. The graphics and sound take a hit, because home consoles weren't that powerful, but everything else is here and then some. The Konami code does help, as it is much easier to finish this one.

Super Contra (1988)

A technically impressive sequel with really good sprites and animation for the time. Plays very similar, still really tough, still giving you limited continues, still very weird for an arcade to do that.

I'm not a fan of the top-down stages as the new stage type, but I gotta say, that final boss is pretty fucking cool.

It's a fine game I guess.

Super C (1990)

Again, a direct port of the arcade sequel, and again, the better version to play. Not only is it less punishing, I felt there was less "cheap arcade game design", with unfair deaths or overly difficult obstacles. I still don't like the top down stages that much.

Unlike the first game, Super C added a whole new level at the end, with a couple of new bosses. I like the final boss from the arcade version the most, it's not as climactic when there's something else afterwards, but if you know the crazy H.R. Giger-esque enemy design of these games, you can imagine how wild those new final bosses are gonna be.

Contra III: The Alien Wars (1992)

Damn, what a good looking threequel in a brand new system with very memorable setpieces and bosses. It would be a shame if it came with a jump in difficulty from previous games AND the removal of the Konami code outside of Japan (why???), so seeing this one all the way through to the end takes quite a bit more effort.

The top-down stages in this one are pretty bad, they shoehorned the SNES mode7 gimmick into it and the result ain't great. There are other kinds of gimmick stages, like riding on bikes or other vehicles, and thankfully those are better.

My beloved final boss from Super Contra (or someone who looks similar, don't ask me about the lore) is back for a great final battle here too.

Operation C (1991)

Leaving this one near the end as it is just a Game Boy spin-off of the originals. It's very competent, it captures the fun of those games very well, I'd be all over a game like this is I still was my 8 year old self with my GBC, but it's clearly not as important for the series.

Why did top down stages have to make it here too, shaking my head.

Contra: Hard Corps (1994)

This entry came out on the Sega Mega Drive rather than a Nintendo platform, and it shows. The setting is much different, being more futuristic, there's a clearer story with dialogue, branching paths and different endings, there's a cyborg furry in there, it's real good.

The positives are many, different characters with different weapons on top of different endings and bosses depending on your choices make this game very replayable, and as it is to be expected from this system, both visuals and sound are high quality and very Mega Drive™. Even if it's a departure from all previous games, it's probably the best one yet.

There is one catch though. One of the changes to the formula was adding a life bar to each playable character, even using this to add more diversity since some characters are smaller and harder to hit but have less health, or bigger but tankier. But for whatever god forsaken reason, they removed health bars in the western version and you still die in one hit, making the game much, much harder than originally intended, ruining an aspect of character variety and making them a lot less balanced, since the small one is flat out better now. To add insult to injury, some versions of the manual still mention health differences between characters, even if they're not present in the game. I have no clue why they made decisions like this to make the game less approachable.

This whole debacle makes it a bit tough to recommend. If you're willing to put up with the challenge, it's a fantastic game. If you can read japanese, you don't have to put up with the unnecesarily tough version, but if you can't and still want to understand the story, you'll have to try your hardest to get to each ending.

[midnightmisadventures]

...Hi union vlog

ughhhhhhh ive been avoiding this all day i really dont know why.

I had such! such such such a big Liam dream last night and all day ive treated it like chopped liver.

Um but it was like....holy shit. When it was going on and as soon as i woke up.

I can't even begin to tell you.....the context but ive been dreaming about waking up and going to school and missing the bus/and taking a new bus.

So the latest in the lore is that if i dont get out by like 7:15 - 7:18am im gonna miss it. And i keep *waking up* and seeing 7:22

So thats been happening over a couple dreams as well as....all the other stuff. Especially like the concert tonight in a field vibes.....camping under that back tree vibes.

Lmao GIBBERISH to someone who doesnt live in my mind.

Anyway, um, so i was with Jenna and we were going on the new bus in the morning. It picked us up in front of chip

and we go on the bus, its like 50% full. Like there was enough room for jenna and i to grab separate seats.

All of a sudden i remember kekeing and giggling it up in a squad of guys and liam was there??

He was so hot and beautiful and full of life. It was very warm summer day near the end of school year vibes. And it was so great, eventually he came to my seat.

And i could feel like....we hadnt talked about it. But suddenly it was communicated that we still love eachother ig? or that we both are still into eachother but obviously being the one rejected in this scenario i was taken aback by how aggressive he was being

Like it was happening so fast. Very much in a school crush cute way but regardless like....highschool me would be like omg blushing

So he went to my seat and was like started holding me, and moving hair out of my face type beat. And everyone else is laughing and joking so it was hard to focus, and i was happy that liam was being publicly affectionate so i didnt want anyone else to think that i didnt like it...or that it wasnt normal.

So i didnt have time to exactly be like.....uhh whats the change of heart to Liam. Like we hadnt talked at all and he was acting like it was fall 2021. Except actually acting like my boyfriend. And not like he wasnt aware that we werent on good terms he was just not addressing it lol

Which is fine we were on the school bus lmao?? paying homage to highschool me being so dramatic

It just caught me off guard. And i was scared to put on the spot.

In fact, when he came in my seat i kinda gave him a look like "okay?"and he just looked at me and pouted. SO hot. But it was almost like "forgive me?" and then he came closer

So now we're in the group convo but his arms are around me, im basically sitting on his lap, our backs basically against the window.

And we were laughing and he was looking at me, and our faces were so close and then he kissed me......AND THEN KEPT KISSING ME

And i was losing my mind i was soooo caught of guard. Cause now we were just casually making out....in front of everyone....and the only difference between me typing and me in the dream is a quick pouty face.

So whatever, we stopped, but now im just on top of him, being cuddly. And i start talking with him more straight up cause....like this man just kissed me out of nowhere i thought we were playing it up for the crowd

And then we got off the bus, and he immediately held my hand and started walking and as soon as we got a little bit of distance from everyone i was very laughy and jokingly like "okay wtff, whats up with you? what happened. Last i checked you hated me" and he was like being cheeky, "what do you mean, i dont know what your talking about" being sarcastic like he doesn't know.

All while pulling my arm, wearing sunglasses and looking up like we're a couple going on a stroll

So im like "im literally blocked?? on everything?? like liam!"

So he said something along the lines of? "oh okay, well thats easy. I;ll just unblock you" and then he said let's go out tomorrow, like lets meetup and go for lunch or dinner and you'll be unblocked.

and "oh okay, i'll just unblock you and then i'll message you about getting dinner"

Basically joking saying let me take you on a date and i'll unblock you

and i was just like i cant believe this is happening. So we go our separate ways. And im alone for the first time and im like...i dont even know what to do first. Do i freak out about Liam finally kissing me? or that im seeing him again tomorrow? Do i check if im still blocked

I was coming to tumblr like.....speechless on what to type here. Guys like...just made out with liam.

But i was like NO this needs a REAL doc. Hi FUCKING union vlog mutherfuckass

Um....i dont remember much else. I was freaking out, because

he finally did it.