#the set design for this very short video was insane

[maximura]

NI-KI | Behind the scenes of 'Brought The Heat Back'

[3terna15unshin3]

Consumption

Este sees 'Consumption' in person

2259 words

warnings: !! 18+ !! smut, minors dni, public unprotected sex, dom!matty if u squint, filth in general

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a/n: Heyyyyy nobody requested even anything similar to this but I had a vision and needed to fulfil it ok thank u love u enjoy

(I wrote an entire 15 chapter fic of this universe! Read it here if you want more Matty and Este😌)

—

Luckily, by the time the UK and Ireland leg of their tour came around, Este was able to work remotely and travel along with them. It was cold and gloomy—London pulling through with its regular dreariness—so she was happy to have at least a bit of a change of scenery.

Until now, she was forced to watch from afar, only seeing photos and videos of the North American shows back in autumn. But of course, Matty was completely open with her as the show as a whole came to fruition; its set design and artistic concepts always shared between the couple. So none of it (even the parts that were as jarring as watching footage of her boyfriend chowing down on raw meat) came as a surprise for Este. That was until she got to experience it in front of her own two eyes.

Brighton was the first show. 8th of January. Her feet were perched to the side of the stage, swaying happily to the familiar songs and watching Matty perform them with an inflated ego and sly smirk on his face.

She thought the persona was quite hot. The heat in her cheeks heightened every time he made cocky gestures and pranced around with purposeful pride. Este had already seen plenty of videos of ‘consumption’, and had her own fun with them; teasing Matty about how much the concept exposed him and how crazy it made the crowd go. They were feral for him. So was she, to be fair.

Seeing his bare chest heave up and down—too similarly to how Este easily made it move when they were alone together—made her go insane. Her eyes stung when she refused to blink, busy staring at Matty’s hand trailing over his crotch. Este wasn’t expecting it to have such a strong effect on her, assuming that either the thousands of people also watching him or the fairly profound purpose of the act would water down the sensuality of it. But fuck, it was hot. She could practically hear the sound of his moans in the back of her ear even though he was metres away.

That first night was difficult enough; having to stand and look as if she wasn’t hot and bothered by what went on in front of her eyes. Watching it over and over, night after night, served even harder.

So over half way through the leg, now in Glasgow, Este couldn’t help herself. She’d been particularly touchy during the day but that wasn’t all that unusual, so Matty still wasn’t expecting her to whisper “Come fuck me after consumption,” in his ear before he went on. She meant business. The sentence replayed in the back of his mind as he strummed at his guitar, internally begging the set to move faster so he could climb through the little telly and flip the place upside down to find Este.

When the time finally arrived and he plonked his bum on the sofa, Matty imagined it was her hand on his skin and slipping past the waistband of his pants. He even discretely gave his nipple a quick squeeze and whined at the sensation. It wasn’t very convincing, feeling the roughness of his hand and how it contrasted to how delicate hers were, but fantasizing about Este wasn’t anything new to him—so he had to snap himself out of it before his arousal began to show.

Matty shook his head and chuckled to himself as he did press up after press up. The power those short 5 words uttered by his girlfriend was unfathomable. She knew it would make him less focused and throw him off his game; but that’s why she did it, and he could tell. Este wanted the upper hand. He considered giving in to it—but today he wanted to toy with her. It was only fair if she was clearly trying to toy with him.

So, right as he stood up after crawling off stage, he grabbed George and the first stage manager in sight.

“Loop the Too Shy intro. I need it to play twice,” Matty instructed.

They looked as confused as ever. “What are you on about?” asked the drummer.

Matty glanced past George and caught sight of Este. Leaning against a random doorway and burning her gaze into his. He didn’t waste any time and bee-lined towards her.

“Just do it. And maybe a warning through my ears at 90 seconds out? Please? I owe you one!” He trailed off, eventually turning fully away from them and jogging to Este with desperation. Before he could leave completely, Matty remembered to grab the small pile of clothes that sat ready for him, taking them with.

Este grinned at the conversation she overheard and at the state of Matty, who suddenly yanked her hand to drag them both into the room she stood in front of. It seemed to be a storage room, cramped full of random stage equipment and dimly lit. He slammed the door behind them.

“You found me.” She commented.

Instead of responding, Matty pulled her in by the back of her neck and kissed her with an open mouth. His new outfit for when he had to re-enter the stage was discarded to the floor. She smiled into him, grabbing his hips so they were flush against hers. Her back thumped onto the back of the door, Matty holding her there as their mouths moved in sync with hungriness.

They broke apart to gasp for air. “The fuck are you doing asking me to fuck you right before I go on?” he intensely whispered, dipping his lips down to her neck. Este panted and clenched her thighs together.

“I didn’t ask you to fuck me, I told you to.”

He continued nipping at her skin, then shoved his leg between Este’s—the top of his thigh rubbing her clit through her pants. She moaned, reaching her hand to grip him over his pants.

Matty shook his head and removed her hand from his crotch. “Uh uh uh. You don’t get to touch me,” he scolded, hearing her giggle in response. “Think it’s funny? Making me have to try and not get hard in front of all those people?”

She nodded.

Warmth grew in Este’s stomach within seconds, already wet beneath her knickers. His thigh kept at it as their lips reconnected and their tongues licked into each other’s mouths, before he reached a hand into the front of her pants, using his fingers against her instead. She moaned loudly, making Matty clamp his other hand over her lips. Even the now muffled noise made blood rush to his cock.

“I bet you always get this wet when you watch me up there,” He rubbed circles on her clit at a dizzying speed.

“I do,” Este whispered behind his hand, choking her words out as she tried to hold in her moans. “There’s no time to faff around. Fuck me, baby, please—“

Matty abruptly turned her around with his arm still wrapped around her and hand still down her knickers. His swollen lips pressed to the side of her jaw.

“Beg for it, then.” he breathily called next to her ear.

Mouth slack and gasping now that Matty’s hand was no longer trapping it, Este’s eyes rolled back into her head as he increased the pressure on her clit and teased further south to her entrance. It was slick with wetness and she clenched with need, whining at how empty she was.

“Fuck me now, Matty. Please, I need more. I need you,”

“So fucking needy. Such a slut for me,” He saw her face twist with at his words. “Think you can take it?”

He bent her over and held her wrists behind her back. With his other hand, Matty took down her trousers—pulling her underwear to one side and revealing her dripping core.

“Yes, I can take it,” she panted, “Use me however you want, please,”

Este looked over her shoulder to see him then free his cock; so hard it looked painful. He gave himself a few pumps before sliding in at an annoyingly slow pace. She gasped at how he filled her up.

“Fuck,” groaned Matty, revelling at the tight feeling around him. “Always so tight.”

He pulled out almost all the way just to shove himself back in at the same speed.

“More, baby,” Este begged, beginning to lean back to meet his sluggish thrusts half way, desperate for a quicker release. Matty listened, suddenly pounding into her relentlessly. He still had her wrists in the grip of his left hand while his right steadied her hips. In complete control, like he wanted.

The new speed and the sound of his hips slapping against hers slipped Este deeper into the trance of pleasure she was buried in. She felt him deep inside of her, grazing all of the right places over and over. Mindlessly, Este clenched around him, craving every inch of his cock and wanting to feel even closer to him.

The action drew a low groan from Matty’s throat and encouraged him to mutter, “You’re perfect, E,” with passion. He stared down at the way he disappeared inside of her and snapped his hips even harder.

Their heads were so hazy that they couldn’t tell if there were minutes until Matty had to be back onstage or if they’d been fucking for far too long. And at that point, neither of them really cared. But the thrill of having only a few thin walls and a bit of stuffy space between the two of them and thousands of other people had them both not lasting very long. The door wasn’t even locked.

Matty finally set her arms free, pulling her upright and sitting her head in the crook of his neck and shoulder. His chest pressed against her back. One hand found itself wrapped around her throat while the other teased her clit again as he railed into her. Este cried out at the sudden pressure on her sensitive core and leaned her head over to bite on his neck, in attempts to silence herself.

“Keep going and you’ll make me come,” she spluttered through the euphoria.

His bottom lip sat pinned behind his teeth, eyes closed in pleasure. “Good girl.” whispered Matty. He was focused—chasing his high as his girl milked him��wanting the same for her.

Este’s legs began to quiver, knees almost buckling beneath her, but the rush of Matty’s fingers pressing firmly on either side of her throat pushed her over the edge. The ecstasy in her lower belly snapped and she leaned further back in his neck, whimpering his name as she came.

He wasn’t far behind her; only seconds going by before he struggled to sustain the pace and force he’d set for himself, feeling the edge of his climax. The slickness that grew within her cunt as she was coming felt unreal around him.

“Where do you want me, love?” Matty grunted, now holding most of Este’s body weight up with an arm across her lower stomach—overstimulated and in so much pleasure it was painful.

“Inside me. Come inside me,” she pleaded messily, peering over her shoulder at him again. A few pieces of his hair stuck to his forehead with the layer of sweat that built there. He breathed with an open mouth and stared back at her, completely fucked out and looking like sex itself.

He listened, thrusting one last time and shooting his cum far into her. Este moaned at the warmth she felt when it happened. “Shit,” Matty said with a shriek.

Their hot and heavy breaths fell into sync with one another as they attempted to catch them, Matty still buried inside her. She grabbed his jaw to turn it and sloppily tangle her lips in his.

And before he could even pull out, he heard the stage manager through his inears, followed by Too Shy’s instrumental.

“90 seconds. Matty stand by, please.”

They froze in panic for a second but quickly realised that stopping was the opposite of what needed to be done. So, he pulled out—though he really didn’t want to—Este hissing at the overload of sensation. She bent back over, knowing the sight of his seed dripping out of her would rile Matty back up.

It did. And he didn’t appreciate her teasing him when he had seconds to get himself stage-ready. Getting hard again would be extremely inconvenient, unfortunately, thought Matty, as he tucked himself back into his boxers and began stripping completely to get into his second outfit.

Watching his white cum flow out of Este did hypnotise him. So the only thought that popped into his foggy post-sex brain was to take his tongue and lick it up.

Este gasped and whimpered once more at the feeling, before Matty turned her around and tugged her jaw open. Then, he forcefully spit it—a combination of his saliva and both of their cum that he’d just cleaned up—onto her tongue.

“Swallow it.” he commanded. She followed his word. “We always taste so good together, don’t you think?”

Slightly stunned, Este nodded her head up and down to agree. He pecked her on the lips, all while doing up the final buttons on his shirt and shrugging on the suit jacket. Then, he slipped out of the door.

“Break a leg,” she joked before it shut behind him.

Matty rolled his eyes with a smile and Este heard his hurried footsteps disappear towards the sea of Scottish fans.

[madhogthymaster]

Master Recs: The "N64" Trilogy (2023)

Pseudoregalia

Let us muse over a very small, three-dimensional Metroidvania game stylistically fashioned after the Nintendo 64 era of graphical fidelity. It stars a deliciously polygonal rabbit-y, goat-y, cat-like girl.

Now, I am playing this on the fabled Steam Deck. It runs and controls smoothly on the platform but you might require to fiddle with the video settings as the default configuration is slightly blurry due to a very specific and fascinating reason. It turns out Pseudoregalia vaunts a certain level of depth in its technical customization, one that's surprisingly fun to manipulate. There's an option to toggle on or off a retro graphical scale and character movement rate, which graciously emulate the old school console experience. You can also manually reduce or augment the maximum framerate for the whole game. You could theoretically play something that looks like a 30 fps 3D Platformer from 1997 or the most HD upscaled version thereof at 144 fps, or everything in between! The default, blurry configuration comes as a result of the aforementioned retro scaling clashing with the 4K resolution in full screen mode. This is the first and last time in recorded human history that I will ever be this enamoured with "specs talk."

The point is, we have a darling gem with a cultivated aesthetic, a good level of polish: it will look "right" regardless of your favoured settings. I'm impressed by the extra layer of work placed in the subtle use of limited framerates for the character's movement.

Pseudoregalia captures the idea, the abstract concept and low-poly charm of a N64 title with a gameplay that recalls your memory of it, rather than the unwieldy reality. I say this as someone who doesn't have nostalgia for early 3D graphics: the game makes them look spiffy.

I shall be honest, this is normally not the sort of title I would enjoy playing, as precise platforming and traversal puzzles are my nemesis. I mentioned afore the level of polish, which is generally consistent, but some of the movement upgrades you get (such as the jump/wall kick) can be rather finicky to master. In that sense, be wary that the game does not openly provide you with tutorials for the moves that require more finesse, choosing instead to hide an additional set of instructions in the inventory descriptions. It's "old school", you see. Older versions were bereft of maps thus making exploration a burden for those like me who are directionally challenged - both in games and in real life. Regardless, I kept getting drawn by its world, its somber atmosphere, its tight gameplay and especially its protagonist, Sybil.

An appealing design for your avatars goes a long way in ensuring an emotional connection to them and Sybil just so happens to have one of the most striking and instantly recognizable appearances I can fathom. It's a pleasure to look at her go! Furthermore, I would posit that she has a lot in common with my precious videogame fluffy boy, Klonoa - and I do I mean, a lot. I will not elaborate. If you get it, you get it. In conclusion, Pseudoregalia is an impressively put together jam. It's easy to pick up yet punishing to handle, it's fun and fascinating in spite of its more irritating aspects. The best overall critique I can give it is that it made me want to keep trying, and trying, and trying, until I eventually became good enough to complete it several times and even beat the insanely hard Time Attacks. In short: game is good. Play it.

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Corn Kidz 64

If I had a nickel for every time a throwback 3D Platform game starring a cute goat-like creature managed to grab my attention, I would have a whopping three nickels! Anyway, here is Corn Kidz 64, an artistically verosimile homage to the Rareware games you probably remember.

Deliciously stylized polygons welcome both you and I into a quirky mindscape. You play as a rude little prick named Seve who's having a vivid nachos related dream but has to contend with various bollocks - as it's often the case.

If you are even marginally familiar with all the Kanjo-Bazooies and Konkey Dongs out there then you will recognize its sphere of influences right away. It's a proper tribute to that era of gaming up to the inclusion of the "correct" low video resolution settings and insane completion requirements. There is much puzzling and platforming to be had, tactical traversal and secrets-within-secrets to bamboozle and titillate your gamer's lizard brain. Genre freaks will feel very welcome here.

I will say that I find the character design especially pleasing. Aesthetically, I would place it somewhere in between Rayman. Belgian comic book artist André Franquin and web strips from twenty years ago or more. It's expressive, to say the least.

As a sign of good will from the game's part, this is the track that greets you as you plunge into the realm of your dreams of childhood:

Corn Kidz 64 is a short, fun experience, bedazzled by tight controls, surreal atmosphere and "Early Internet" humour. It does not overstate its welcome and only occasionally gets immensely frustrating. Its dedication to the N64 ethos is both a boon and a detriment, in that sense. Let me put it this way: I shall not be doing a 110% completion run any time soon.

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Cavern of Dreams

As a direct result of me wanting more, here is Cavern of Dreams. Yet another N64 aesthetically driven title that came out last year but was promptly overshadowed by Funny Goat Game and Sexy Goat Game - as far as my own pop cultural myopia is concerned, that is.

It is a small yet multilayered Collect-A-Thon with an emphasis on exploration rather than combat or complex platforming. There is no health bar and there are no traditional enemies. There is a handful of puzzles here and there, some of which might be legitimate head scratchers. The dragon baby is cute. I do have a couple of gripes with this one.

Playing this game is, in a word, annoying. It is bothersome how weighted and limited the movement is, it is fastidious how the character collision is in relation to the environment, it is aggravating how it all affects the gameplay in small yet noticeable ways. Here's an example: you can use the traditional ground pound to gain extra height. However, in order to do so, you have to keep pressing the attack button while in midair. The problem with that is the game still registers it as an attack when you do so. As such, if you happen to be hugging a wall, atop a small ledge, this action will inevitably cause your character to hit said wall and propel you backwards, resulting in you falling to your doom. This happened constantly. Generally speaking, the control scheme doesn't feel ideally tailored to an experience that requires precise platforming. A repeated offender would be grabbing onto climbable ropes. Which is to say, sometimes it just doesn't happen. You'll float towards a rope and, if the collision isn't pixel-perfect, you will miss it entirely. Also, Baby is unable to jump above once he climbs all the way to the top, half the time. The later levels are worse in that regard as they need some amount of skill.

Speaking of which, something that will always make me consider quitting a game in a fit of rage is being sucked down a drain that expels me into a different area, forcing me to walk all the way back to where I was before. Once again, annoying is the word.

All that said, the saving grace of Cavern of Dreams lies in the exquisitely crafted, imaginative stages that compose the dreamlike tapestry of the game's aesthetics: living airborne vessels, desolate ice kingdoms, nightmarish art galleries that twist and distort your senses.

The use of colour hues, sounds and deliberately non-contiguous spaces create this palpable atmosphere of both wonder and anxiety. A welcoming world may turn weird and alienating. A dream may turn into a nightmare. There is a depth beneath the surface presentation that is absolutely worth experiencing. I really wanted to like this game but, alas, I'm left with mostly mixed feelings. Regardless, it's an adorable title with some tinges of darkness and it might just be for you!

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As a conclusive note, I find myself enthralled by the subtle similarities these games share as well as their abundant differences. All of them are stylistically reminiscent of a specific bygone era whilst being perfectly distinct in presentation, and they all are about Dreams...

They are about exploring dreamscapes, lands where subconscious thoughts and memories materialize in daunting vistas of a forlorn past, comically bizarre hyper-realities from an active imagination or an infant's idea of the world around itself. Pondering about the familiarity of it all fills me both with comfort and melancholy: the parallelism of Dream, Childhood and Gaming. The distant memories of youth in correlation to the experience of videogame escapism are akin to a dream from which we are expected to wake... Well, now I just want to gush about Klonoa again!

In fact, I would go as far as to say that Corn Kidz 64's "plot resolution" feels like a direct parody of Door to Phantomile's ending, and it gets funnier the more I think about it.

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A/N:

Thank you for reading.

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[vluisasantiago]

Hey Valeria! First of all thanks for being such a big inspiration to slenderverse creators and cringey fanboys and girls (and other I just don't know what the gender neutral term for fanboy would be)

When you made the concept for Stan Frederick or Carmen Estrada did you ever struggle with envisioning the characters looking a certain way that is different from how you look? I'd so.. how did you deal with it?

Also.. consistency, say your appearance changes in real life in a way it shouldn't in the series (like if you get acne but all the videos should be during the same day so you can't have spots on your face switching places) how do you deal with that?

Sincerely, someone who wants to play a very consistently characterized character and is currently going insane

This is a cool set of questions!

1. Personally I always approached the Slenderman stuff especially (but also most of my short film stuff) in reverse, for the sake of minimalism—creating stories and characters that I myself feel like I could visibly appear in, fit in, in some capacity.

Having little resources and actors at my disposal growing up has made me default to myself being my best artistic tool, so I have always tended to start with me. Even in non-film-works, characters like Vira in the Moorters comic are very similar—injecting my own personal design into characters to ground myself in the story I’m telling. It’s never 1:1—these folks aren’t me—but it gives me a foundation.

Stan had a look that I started with based on where I was at in 2016; then, as the story went on and Stan began deteriorating, I would make only slight changes (let his goatee/hair grow out, take less care of himself) until the third season no longer really needed that.

Carmen is more particular; I envisioned the start of the story displaying her as an idealized version of me/my situation—after all, the conceit for the series having been born a while before my own homelessness but only really realized in the wake of it, saw me having to rework a lot of the idealistic ways I saw simply “not being home”, or “being free”, even if that meant the more literal layer of homelessness.

That’s why the series starts the way it does—romantically displaying Carmen’s situation as cool and fun—and it all falling apart by the fourth video. And so I get to play with her own deterioration from that ideal into a more “real” person. Dysphoric, rash, untrusting, at times unkempt—and still human, despite that. Playing with a version of yourself that you can then alter makes for some wonderful self-reflection exercises, I think. That’s one way of looking at it, anyway.

2. Production-wise, I have always fought hard with maintaining a continuity based on my physical appearance; it’s one of the reasons I am becoming more actively focused on doing my current series in real-time. In RRH, you’re going to be seeing clips coming up that I took in the summer, and I am now using in the fall/winter. The answer to this is twofold:

- Do the best you can to film again, when you can. I’ve found that letting a shot/scene sit and re-doing it later can only make the scene better, since you’ve had time to develop it. That and, it’ll match the real-time circumstances that the change can naturally require. “Oh—they dyed their hair/did their nails/are wearing heavier clothes” are easy enough to explain away if the events are happening as we experience them.

- Just, ask of your audience sometimes. There will be continuity moments, in film and television, that can’t always be circumvented by even the most well-funded folks in the most major industries. Develop a comfort with the story and themes and character traits being the first things you keep consistent, and allow for the things you have no control over to stay outside your control. Most issues like this go unnoticed, or, in the case of ARGs, become a whole new layer for speculation. I know Stan had acne on and off throughout his entire run, and there’s an easy explanation for that—acne does that.

Appearance can feed into characterization, I do get that—but writing around the difficulties of that lack of consistency can only help flesh out your character even more.

I hope this was helpful? Truly??

[pinkpinkmermayyy]

I finally watched Wish. And I gotta say, it's not as bad as people say it is. Don't get me wrong, it's not good by any means. But it's still not so awful I felt frustrated and sick to my stomach after watching it. But it's also not so bad it's good to the point where it becomes a guilty pleasure for me like the live-action Bratz movie. It's just...bad. But not horrible. It had potential. It COULD'VE been good if the writers actually gave a single damn, and knew what they were doing. Or, alternatively, if they simply spent a few more hours on the damn movie. But alas, they did not, and since we're in the bad timeline, this is what we got. The music is what really weighs it down, with just about every song being meaningless, badly-written, and having terrible grammar/confusing metaphors that don't hold up under a microscope or even make any sense at all, really. The only thing stopping them from being completely insufferable is the fact that the actors are legitimately good singers, making it a crying shame that none of them weren't given better material to work with.

The characters themselves, though, are unfortunately very boring, one-dimensional, and contradictory/confusing in their writing. The setting, plot, and worldbuilding are all very bland and haphazard as well, to the point where I actually laughed out loud during the climactic scene at the end where the king brutalizes Asha with his evil magic. It was that ridiculous! The side characters, both human, animal, and star, were all boring and pointless(except for the Star ig) and I really have a bone to pick with Gabo especially. He goes from thinking that Asha killed her family(for no reason, mind you) to shaming Simon for being a bad friend and betraying Asha to the king, both in the SAME SCENE!!! It's like...all of the characters are this inconsistent honestly.

And I don't buy that people would be happy to "forget without regret" when it comes to their wishes. It just makes no sense to me. The writers should've come up with a better excuse for why the people of Rosas put their faith in the wishing system rather than "they forget what they wanted in the first place but are totally all right with that!" especially when Asha acts like this is a new revelation. Like come on, guys, you work at Disney! Give us something! But they gave us nothing. Because they are lazy. A shame.

Also the costumes in this movie were boring and bland af, and everything was really monochrome and lifeless. It definitely fails in comparison to the costume designs in Encanto, The Princess and the Frog, and even Tangled. Everything just feels so dull, cheap, lazy, and uninspired. Though I do like Asha's design aside from her outfit, she is very pretty and it's sad what this movie does to her. This movie in short didn't feel like a Disney 100 Anniversary. In fact, it didn't even feel like a Disney movie at all. It felt like a student film that was inspired by Disney, or like those direct to video films made for really little kids that have a low budget and even lower-quality CGI. Just a massive disappointment. I'm afraid that Disney is no longer the gold standard of animation that it used to be. Oh well. 😔

this is what really ticks me off about wish. I would be fine if it was just terrible if it ended up not being amazing or even good, but it’s mediocre. And that drives me INSANE because I see so much potential in the story and characters and the villains but they just let it bite the dust and left us with this infuriatingly mediocre movie that was supposed to be the 100 YEAR ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL FOR DISNEY! That’s supposed to be something fantastical and amazing and have that wow factor but it’s just so bland and it makes me angry. Also the fact that it was originally supposed to be traditionally animated but they changed that also makes my blood boil.

[luxlightly]

I truly wish I could prevent myself from having Sebastian Solace and Pressure be my special interest. It's just so clear I want the game to be something it isn't and it's just going to constantly fall short of that.

Being autistic means I notice patterns really well. I recognize repeated symbols and extrapolate information from them very well. It's why I always seem like I'm clairvoyant when it comes to video games. I recognize themes and extrapolate from them and often end up doing so very accurately. I enjoy doing that.

And Pressure is based off of games that heavily encourage doing that, Ultrakill and SCP foundation. Games where there's a huge underlying lore going on that every design and writing choice is meant to contribute to.

Pressure does that to an extent, but the world is only really as deep as what's on screen and not much further. Which, to be clear IS NOT A BAD THING. There's nothing wrong with implying a larger world but not actually having it fleshed out and just leaving it up to player interpretation.

But, as someone who enjoys digging deeper and who expects the game to be more like something like Ultrakill, it's driving me insane.

There's so many things that have the potential to be so interesting and hint towards really really cool possibilities, but none of them mean anything and they by and large boil down to "it looked cool" or "it would be funny".

For instance, there's a monster called The Angler which is a sort of angler fish face with 3 light blue glowing eyes, two in the normal positions and one extra above the right. Sebastian also is an angler fish creature with 3 light blue glowing eyes in the exact same position. They're the only 2 characters in the game to have this eye set up and the only two characters (aside from other variants of the angler monster) that are related to angler fish.

So I immediately assumed "clearly we're meant to draw a connection here. There's a redacted thing in Sebastian's file that he was combined with. We must be intended to assume it's the angler. That seems obvious."

Nope. No connection. Total coincidence. I don't even know if there IS an official answer for what the redacted entity in his file is. It may just be an excuse to include whatever design elements they want without needing to justify them. It feels like, if your most important npc and your most common enemy have such glaringly similar design elements but no connections at all, it's at least slightly bad design. The immediate assumption with two creatures based off the same animal is that there's a connection. If there's not, you need to be very specific about distancing them in terms of their design, not giving one the most defining feature of the other.

Sebastian also wears a coat he sewed an extra sleeve onto for his 3rd arm. Which is a little design element I really love. It shows he must have found this outfit. It wasn't made for him. It's an easy way to visually explain why he's not in a prison uniform. These aren't his normal clothes. He must have found or stolen them.

Except he's a 60 foot sea monster whose humanoid section is still at least double the size of a normal human being. So where on earth did he get the clothes??

In something like Ultrakill, those kind of design things would be there to tell a story. We'd immediately be told that something else in this place is Sebastian's size that isn't Sebastian.

Except we aren't being told that. And we aren't being told that there's a connection between him and the angler monster. We're not really being told anything more than what's in the document system. Anything beyond that is metaphorical set dressing. There's a constant feeling, for me anyway, of finding brightly colored boxes with bows on top and then being told "Why did you think there would be something inside? Why can't it just be a cool box with a bow?" Sure it can. It's just you made it look like something that would normally have something inside it. It makes it hard to appreciate the pretty box when it looks so much like a present.

Which, again, IS FINE. There's no reason a game has to have things that will never be relevant to the plot fleshed out behind the scenes. It's truly fine and sometimes even better for design and story decisions to be based on "it looked good" and "it sounded cool" instead of needing some big explanation for everything all the time. My qualms here aren't with the game itself, but with the fact I am fixating on it despite clearly wanting it to be something it isn't and isn't trying to be. It's extremely frustrating.

[chen-chen-chen-again-chen]

WIP Wednesday

Thank you for the tags, @martsonmars, @artsyunderstudy, @cutestkilla, @bookish-bogwitch, @sailorblossoms, and @hushed-chorus!!!

Once more, I bring shitpost energy to WIP Wednesday! I’ve been having Way Too Much Fun playing with Canva lately, so I mocked up some clothes from my ongoing WIP, Jelly Babies. Behold the shirt that Gregory stole from Simon: 

Hello tags, more clothes, stories about clothes, and a bonus pic of The Artist as a Victorian Baby (XD) under the cut!

And here is Sophie's sweatshirt, a Christmas present from Tyr:

I’m honestly furious that Canva doesn’t give me the option to make this entire sweatshirt tie-dye. COWARDS. The text is based on Lizzo’s Tiny Desk. 

Here is the shirt that Tyr is wearing at dinner:

This is a real shirt, and a shout out to my spouse's friend Tim, who will never read this or my fic. Hi Tim!!!! The first time I met Tim, he went on a long, intense monologue about Desert Bus (which New York Times called The Very Worst Video Game Ever Created) and the very cool charity event Desert Bus for Hope. Tim actually did design some art for DBfH, which is insanely awesome.

He's a very nice dude and the most wonderful DM; he did a one-off Christmas campaign for us a few years ago where he let me be Genji, a fuckboi YT influencer geisha/bard whose winter outfit was a red knitted thong, a cropped jacket, and no shirt (my nips were always tastefully covered).

I will always remember how, on the afternoon of his wedding, Tim said, "I feel like I'm DM'ing right now. I've set the context, gathered the players, and I'm just here to see this unfold."

Sadly, I don’t have a graphic yet of the God’s Gym shirt:

Gregory borrowed some of Simon’s clothes to sleep in, so he’s in old basketball shorts and a very soft, faded t-shirt that says “GOD’S GYM” and has a picture of Jacob wrestling with an angel. It’s extremely gay. 

This is A REAL SHIRT, owned by a professor of one of my high school English teachers. I’ve never seen the shirt with my own human eyes; it exists in the sacred homoerotic theatre of my mind. At some point, I think I need to actually draw it / design it so I can wear it on my bod.

And lastly, as a bonus, here is a (very blurry, low-res picture of a) picture of The Artist as a Victorian Baby that inspired the photo of Baby!Swithin.

“He just,” Gregory chokes, “he somehow looks SO BORED and yet SO SERIOUS?? He’s just a baby and yet his eyes look a HUNDRED YEARS OLD?? Why does this photo look like it was taken in the Victorian era? How is he so adorable?” 

I wish I could share the entire photo, because part of what makes it hilarious is that the rest of my family looks perfectly normal and happy and very 90s. And then. There’s me. The Grim Spectre. But like, a baby.

TRUE STORY: My best friend did lose her tiny mind over this photo, and she did save it as her lock screen. Every once in a while, she’d catch people doing a double take at her phone. She’s white, and I’m sure people assumed she had adopted an Asian baby. Whenever anyone asked, she would just say, nonchalantly, “Oh yeah, that’s my best friend,” and refuse to explain any further.

As always, pressure-free hello tags! @captain-aralias, @excalisbury, @facewithoutheart, @fatalfangirl, @ionlydrinkhotwater, @johnwgrey, @larkral, @moodandmist, @nightimedreamersworld, @raenestee, @thewholelemon,  @whogaveyoupermission, @you-remind-me-of-the-babe  

[elixirvitae]

Heyy! How are you doing? Something that I wonder a lot and I see different angles floating around.. do you see Alucard as old fashioned, able to keep up with the times or a mix of both? In the manga he seems to be a mix but I would like to hear your thoughts... like he seems to keep up with technology but Im wondering when it comes to language (would he know the trendy words), would he watch Youtube, how would he court someone hes interested in (would he be the trad gentleman), would he play video games, would he wear more trendy clothing in a non professional setting, etc...

Ohhh I love talking about this subject!

I'm not fluent in Japanese, but between the official translation and the sub's dialogue, Alucard varies between old, formal speech patterns to crude, modern patterns, sometimes in the same scene. In the English version of the manga, and to a lesser extent, he uses shorthand words like "Do ya wanna come with me?" to Seras and "What are ya gonna do? Chew me to death?" to Anderson. His fashion sense is an interesting example of hybridization over the years, too. I posted about this earlier tonight, but he's usually in an upscaled state of dress, with a lot of influences from the (then) newer goth subculture. His short hair is very 80's goth, now called "trad goth". When it's long, it's usually long, straight, and sleek which was very typical of goth hair goals in the 90's. He's typically in black and red, and almost ALWAYS in a trench coat of varying styles. And then you have his leather gimp suit.

But to answer a specific question in your ask, I think he probably has a hard line between his taste and trends. I think he would flat out refuse to wear jeans and a t shirt, or Satan forbid, a hoodie or track suit. No trainers/sneakers. I do think he'd wear a less formal button down with a leather jacket, modern trousers and Docs. I'd pay good money to commission someone to draw him dressed as such.

His glasses are antique climbing glasses, polarized and designed to keep light out of his eyes. His crimson duster is very Victorian inspired, but his double breasted suits are VERY 90's and in fashion. In 1943 he was en vogue as well, and his Thompson was also very modern. His .454 Casull is custom designed based on a 1911 Colt pistol. He knows how to dial long distance, has the Hellsing manor phone number memorized most likely, he knows how to fly a top of the line fighter jet. I think it's safe to say he is ahead of the curve on military and warfare technology, but I think it's reasonable to expect him to be able to use most household technology. I have a persistent headcanon that started out as a joke that he finds entertainment in computer games that let him build and construct things, then break them down on a catastrophic level. I think each example of these sort of games would be entertaining only as long as it took for him to build something really well and then destroy it. There's a youtuber that makes videos of all sorts of insane ways to slowly kill a household of Sims, and that's the kind of energy I think suits him and video games, but he definitely wouldn't play them very often. And don't forget his fever dream constructed entirely of modern American action film callbacks. I bet he LOVED Fifth Element, but then I headcanon he probably thinks sci-fi is pretty fun, too. I don't think he watches Youtube for entertainment, but anything he can't figure out himself he knows how to find on Youtube and he picks up on instructional things very quickly because of his intellect. Even as a human, he was a gifted strategist.

I think while he's adaptable to the times, he has a high appreciation for a lot of older things. I wouldn't say traditional, because he's anything but. I can see him being comfortable at high end lounges, pubs, or modern nightclubs. Men dressed like Alucard frequent goth clubs pretty frequently, too, so I don't think he'd be out of place there either. I think he'd enjoy the vibe more than a trendy nightclub.

He's probably pretty capable of casually picking someone up at a modern nightclub, but serious courting is probably very old school. His (now) Romanian culture has survived in some aspects; he always shows up to pick the object of his affection with spirits, flowers, or food.

He opens doors and covers the check unless the other party(ies) insist otherwise. I would say he's very non-traditional in that he sees himself as the submissive party or servant to his partner's whims or pleasure. Serving his partners gives him great satisfaction, and he would never try to instill any level of control over his partner. So, really I guess based on my own experience of phasing out of youth culture, I imagine he cherry picks things he likes from different periods and there's probably some habits he's retained from his long life even unconsciously. But he's smart, and definitely capable of adapting to his surroundings within reason.

[mondaysjournal]

8/5/2023 - Gravity

Hi princess. It's probably obvious by now, but did you know that I'm incredibly, deeply, insanely in love with you? I'm always thinking about how much I just want to kiss you and how happy you make me. Life has been kind of boring here without you, but it's okay because you're less than three weeks away. It's really exciting!

I don't know if I did anything too interesting in the past week...on Thursday, I did manage to win a game with chun-li, which was also the first time I ever played that deck. It turns out that it's very difficult to deal with a hullbreaker horror when you have dozens of treasures from smothering tithe and you drew 16 cards from a blue sun's zenith. And I ended up applying to an urban designer assistant position on Friday. I don't know how far I'll make it in the process, since I don't have any actual experience doing stuff like architectural drawings in CAD or creative suite...but we'll see. It's fine since I already have a job, and maybe a position in planning will open up eventually. It would be cool to get this, though. You'll be the first to know if I do.

Today I went to fall river. Traffic wasn't horrible, and it wasn't as hot as previous weekends have been, though it wasn't as nice as ipswich was last week. I got there somewhat late, so I didn't really cover as much ground as I usually do. Of course, the first thing I did was go to the game store, but before that I had to take some pictures of the area around where I parked:

I think that was their city hall, or something like that.

These guys were squawking at each other for a bit in a very noticeable way.

This was Game King. It was a very large store, with lots of space that seemed to be dedicated for WH40k stuff. There was a good amount of interesting product, like old duel decks in japanese, old playmats and deckboxes, some foreign language singles, though I didn't get them. I just got a japanese magic origins pack and an LTR set booster. I got an alhammarets archive and a mithril coat, so I about broke even. After that, I got some chinese food for lunch, but I didnt realize they didnt give me any utensils until I was already gone, so I went to another chinese food place to get them, and then sat down at a park to eat it. There was this tree:

And to the left of me, the park looked like this:

After I was done eating, I decided to go and actually see if I could get close to the river. There was an overlook that wasn't very far from the park that I went to, though it wasn't entirely easy to actually get down to the river. It was still on a lower elevation, as shown here:

Some guy in one of the many cars that were parked in the area noticed I was looking for a way to get down, and he pointed out this path to me, but said he wasn't really sure about it. It was not exactly the safest path, but there were enough footholds to go down and get back up. I almost decided not to go down, but then I thought about how much I wanted you to see this, and kept going.

And then I finally was at the river.

The grass there is actually pretty tall, so I didn't go past it to try and actually touch the river. But I did get some good views of it.

It was a pretty long shore, being a river and all, but I decided to just keep within this small area for the few minutes I was there.

I stood on top of a rock and managed to get a picture of this guy hanging out.

And then I decided to take a short video so you could hear the wind and the waves, like I did.

I didn't get to see too much in town, but that's fine. This was enough for me. I don't know if I'll go back any time soon, but it wasn't bad at all. Soon we'll be able to go wherever you want, so I hope you get some ideas for little trips like this. I am so excited to see you again and share life with you.

I love you so much.

[television-pil0t]

POV: your a little too functional so your mental illness isn’t taken seriously

I’m one of the 15% of autistic people that can work a job. This makes it hard to “prove” I’m autistic. Im good enough at masking to not get exhausted and shut down easily and while having a quite personality to make it seem like I’m actually cool when I’m not. Im not ok a lot of the time. I can’t stand for long periods. I stress myself out. I think to much. I have outburst. I get overwhelmed and just sit in the bathroom. I’ve learned how to suppress my daily panic attack but sometimes it’s just to much and I cry. My eyes fill with tears and rub my eyes and blink aggressively to stim so nobody notices. My eyes are always red and puffy from how much I silently cry I just get a reputation for being high all the time. This combination of being blasian, red eyes, short, and already dressing extremely casually all the time has gotten me out of a lot of trouble. I have trouble pressing my emotions. I hate talking about my issues. I do repeating tasks all the time. Locking my door over and over and over, count the starts. Walking in a curtain pattern. Left foot always first. Breathing in a pattern. I give myself panic attacks by being alive I worry about so much. Everything can go wrong. I have my like set yet I’m to lazy to do any of it. I play games all day when I could be making them. I’ve cried while having sex so often I’m so good at hiding it. Even in person. I shake constantly. I choke on my own words. I try and not laugh because I hate how it sounds. My voice is awful. I hate my face and when I don’t look like who I really am. I’m scared of my reflection as much as I jump when I see my own shadow. I hear voices. So often. I hear whispers. Breathing that isn’t mine. Moaning and crying and laughing. I get dizzy thinking about it. I am hyper fixated on the government. My special interest is space and time and reality. I have a tendency to be hyper fixed on music, games and art more than anything. I will play the same game for days to months on end. Craving it. Thinking about it 24/7 watching videos of the game AS I play the game. I will listen to the same song over and over and over and over and over. I’ve gone a whole week listening to the same song and I still love it. I will look at artists and want to draw exactly like them. Studying them so harshly. I know so many art movements it’s insane. Im hard to be romantically intimate with because I hate being touched yet I need it so bad. I hold my breath and stiffened everything my own boyfriend touches me. I’m horrified. I shake. I stiffen and try to relax and breath until it’s over. But I don’t want it to be over. I love the smell of him. The taste of him. Even tho I find kissing disgusting. I love the taste of his tongue. I’m a extremely sexual person. By my own design? Maybe. I’m scared to be abandoned so I let it happen. Most of the time I push for it. I’m very rarely actually horny. I was today and yesterday. Excruciatingly so. Other than that.. eh. Im extremely optimistic while being real. I think corecore could be a genuinely movement. A nonverbal protest against globalization, capitalism, hate speech etc while my bf sees it as a tiktok trend and nothing more. I see the good in the bad as much as I possibly can. The good in the internet, in government, in police. Because you have to see every side to even begin to argue. I understand a lot yet play dumb because I’m both scared to be wrong and scared to impress beyond levels I can’t build upon. I think demons and gods exist just as much as I believe the universe itself is it’s own entity. I believe in rituals and prayer. Manifestations and more. I believe that I’m to codependent on my bf and once a year every year he realizes I’m not good for him yet he always comes back. That is something I understand. I know no matter how much I say “I won’t take him back next time” I will. I know I can be a push over just as much as I can be mean. I know nobody as ever seen me be mean to my fullest. I know I could make anyone cry if I wanted to. I know I can kill.

[felixcosm]

Decorations:

check on pinterest for diy halloween ideas, they usually have a lot of kid stuff but if you dig around a bit you can find some cool ideas

cheap acrylic black and orange paint can turn ordinary household items or old toys into diy decorations

farmer's markets and plant shops often sell tiny deco pumpkins for very cheap

you can cut out spooky/witchy/occult images from magazines or old books and hang them up or make a collage poster

you can paint anything to make it look more spooky if you have black paint. old books, statues, jars, paper rolls - its easy to make paper mache with craft glue and toilet paper

if you're completely broke and cant buy ANYTHING, you can still use what you have: forage for leaves, acrons, pine cones out in nature, use white rags, marker and some string to make ghosts, draw or trace spooky designs on paper and color it in, dry flowers, use tea bags or coffee grounds to paint, you can even use halloween themed junk mail to cut out the pictures printed on them

Witchy decorations, you dont have to be wiccan or whatever to make an altar just for fun and a lot of witchy diy projects use what people find in nature as well

Costumes:

mandatory jeff the killer costume :3 (no this isnt propaganda i promiise) white hoodie, black pants, a kitchen knife

use your sick ass cloak!! its great for that witchy feel

paint or draw sigils on your arms (i prefer hands especially) or body

sexy vampire

bedsheet ghost

a witch (you can literally look like anything or just look super goth)

a goth

rejected addams family member

zombie (tear up some clothes and you can paint circles under your eyes)

Music:

GOTH MUSIC BABY

The Black Parade Album from MCR

Metal/Funeral metal/doom metal

Aurelio Voltaire

Eliza Rickman

Oingo Boingo

The Paper Chase (Now You Are One Of Us album specifically)

Creature Feature

Get Scared

Hollywood Undead (for that edgy teen feel)

FNAF Music

There are a lot of good Pov: You are in an 80s slasher playlists on youtube and spotify

Insane Clown Posse

Myuuji for spooky piano music

Set It Off

The Dresden Dolls

Nero's Day A Disneyland

Ethel Cain

Avenged Sevenfold

SKYND

GHOSTEMANE

Danny Gonzalez Spooky song series

Rusty Cage

Lemon Demon's Spirit Phone album is a MUST

I DONT KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME

Nicole Dollanganger

Kim Petras

Spooky Mood

Creepypasta narrations (MrCreepyPasta is the best but I'm biased, there are other narrators you can check out)

Ambiences (Myuuji has creepy ambiences on his channel, MiracleForest does creepy ASMR ambience videos)

Watch found footage, slenderverse series, ARG videos, lets plays of horror games, the classic movies like Halloween, Friday 13, Elm Street

Play horror games (vgperson has free horror rpg games, itchio also has free games (I love JOHN DOE), plus you can find a lot of game rips or just watch a lets player)

Hot beverages are a must. They dont have to be pumpkin spice, a sprinkle of cinnamon is enough if you like it simple

Goth makeup 🖤

Have a jar or a basket of candy just because

Burn as many candles as you can because lifes too short not to make use of them even if theyre really nice looking

Paint your nails halloween colors

Listen to horror podcasts (Storage Papers, Nine to Midnight, WTNV, Hello From The Hallowoods, NoSleep (featuring our beloved David Ault lol), Shadows at the Door)

Halloween doesnt have to be perfect, you can celebrate it literally any way you want whether thats full blown or simple! Hope this helps 🖤🧡

does anyone have advice for making halloween season fun again. time sensitive question

[illegiblewords]

FFXIV Lore Resources

Hey dudes! Lately I’ve been reaching out a bit to some FFXIV players who expressed interest in getting a hold of lore resources. I mentioned to them I’d try to set up a post making the most helpful ones I’ve encountered readily available, and this?

It’s that post.

MIRKEMENAGERIE: Easily one of (if not the) most complete and comprehensive collections of lore I’ve encountered online. Includes quotes from NPCs in-game, Encyclopedia Eorzea I and II, item references, and more. The Twelve posts and location lore are some of my favorites but really all of this is fantastic. Very accessible.

HARMONEA: Has assembled a HUGE collection of lets plays on youtube that are organized and well-paced, showing everything from MSQ to Ascian-lore specifically to Job quests and beyond. This has been truly helpful whenever I want to check a reference but don’t necessarily have time to New Game + or check the Unending Journey in-game. It’s easy to jump around to find exactly the scenes you’re looking for, and compare moments from different points during the game.

GARLAND TOOLS DATABASE: Sometimes I need lore details from specific quests, that aren’t in cutscenes or easily found in a video. Garland Tools helps with tracking down quotes, character information, and much more. Also contains data around NPC designs. Doesn’t have cutscene quotes, but does have enough info to find what cutscenes you’ll likely need to watch. Whether on youtube or in the Unending Journey, it gets much easier spotting references.

TALES FROM THE CALAMITY, TALES FROM THE DRAGONSONG WAR, TALES FROM THE STORM, CHRONICLES OF LIGHT: THE HUNT BEGINS, TALES FROM THE SHADOWS, TALES FROM THE TWILIGHT: These are official FFXIV short stories associated with A Realm Reborn, Heavensward, Stormblood, and Shadowbringers respectively. The story from Chronicles of Light is also canon but insanely difficult to locate, contains details surrounding Zenos’s backstory and psychology. These absolutely carry lore details! You don’t need them to understand and enjoy the game, but they give added information and context.

ALL FINAL FANTASY XIV 1.X MAIN SCENARIO CUTSCENES: I have not gone through all of this yet but you can bet your ass I have it saved.

FINAL FANTASY XIV 1.X LETS PLAY: Likewise haven’t gone through all of this yet but if you want really detailed 1.0 lore info, this has it.

OZMA’S ASCIAN REFERENCE PILE: Contains both concrete known information, game data, and speculation by Ozma as a longstanding Ascian fan. 1.0 WHITE MAGE QUESTLINE: This isn’t 100% canon anymore, but I’m including it because it actually shows the Elementals in voiced roles and that is a huge deal. Worth noting this youtuber has other 1.0 videos documented too.

BOTANICA EORZEA: This contains all lore surrounding the plants of Eorzea, organized and accessible.

MINERICA EORZEA: Sent by @firecattebird, A fully searchable, organized, and accessible doc containing all the lore I could find in-game about the things we pull from mining nodes.

LODESTONE SONG LYRICS COMPILATION: There are often other places you can google around for official song lyrics and I usually use those, but if you want everything in one place this is your spot!

ETHYS ASHER: Has some really good coverage of the niche parts of Eorzea’s history and solid discussion/speculation surrounding various lore elements. I haven’t gotten to investigate deeply but did enjoy his coverage around Belah’dia and the Great Wyrms.

Lastly, while not lore related I do want to share a particularly fun resource with the people who might be peeking over.

EORZEA COLLECTION: A lot of players in FFXIV are  heavily invested in the design components of the game, and this is a hub for that. Whether you’re looking for something in the vein of Dark Souls, something outrageously silly, something cute, something majestic, etc. you can basically find all kinds of tones/experiments here. You can restrict what you see by job, race, gender, etc. and order according to recency or loves. It’s also somewhere you can see how gear looks with different characters, dyes, and combinations. Very organized and can be a useful resource for farming.

[namtanlovesfilm]

Could you give me some recommendations of whatever has Nadao Bangkok produced? sounds like it was a good studio :(

I definitely can! nadao has produced a lot if not MOST of my favorite thai dramas, so that's why I'm fucking heartbroken over this, they also put a lot more budget into their series so it was really quality over quantity for them, which is very rare for thai production companies :((( I made a full video on the company here!

I told sunset about you

so I scream about this show all the time bc I truly consider it the one & only perfect bl show ever produced. in terms of production, execution & writing, this one is simply above every other show, it's so tightly run & well-made you sometimes ask yourself how they did it. the visuals are insanely gorgeous, the acting performances some of the best I've ever seen in a thai drama, the characters are super endearing, the relationship is beautiful & the queer rep??? was so important! (don’t watch the sequel though)

project s: skate our souls

another 10/10 show for me, bc it legitimately changed my life. this show is just as gorgeous aesthetically, well-written, incredibly acted, it tackles the topic of depression in a raw & imperfect way like I have personally never seen before, it has the topic of found family which will forever be my fave... this show is everything to me. it's like one of my favorite things ever. I couldn't recommend it more!

project s: side by side

once again, what characterized nadao was the insane quality of their shows, and this one is not an exception either. again it tackles the topic of mental illness that’s not very represented, it has SUCH a compelling world-building like the two previous shows as well, the acting performance is also one of the very best I’ve seen, the characters are all so precious, and this is just... A FUCKING GOOD SHOW!

in family we trust

so in family we trust is my favorite lakorn (thai soap operas that have between 12 & 30 eps, air 2 to 3 times a week and are generally geared towards an older thai audience), probably bc it doesn’t do basically anything like a lakorn lol. it’s very well shot, has a very suspensful & entertaining story, the acting performances are all great as always... and it just goes further than any other lakorn I’ve seen. it’s just really, really good, and you will absolutely hold your breath if you watch this one!

great men academy

this show was all the rage back in 2019, and for good reasons! once again, nadao said BUDGET & created an entire new world for this show! the story is very cute & entertaining while still having deeper storylines, the acting is great, the characters are adorable especially tangmo the pansexual icon, the chemistry amazing & this is just SUCH a good time! I don’t think you can watch this show & dislike it :)

I hate you, I love you

my favorite thing about nadao is that they really make amazing shorter series, and this is one of them! this is a murder mystery with priviledged teens who all betray each other, and it’s very well executed! for me it’s such an underrated thai drama that everyone should watch bc it practically watches itself with how entertaining it is!

blackout

a more recent series that deals with VERY heavy topics, but is truly done so expertly I was blown away. it’s a vertical show which really gives it a video game & escape game vibe, the shots are all GORGEOUS, the sound & set design are absolutely the best I’ve ever seen if I’m honest, the acting is great, and it’s again a very short & entertaining show that leaves a lot to think about. it’s not for the faint of the heart, but I’d really recommend it bc it’s so underrated & deserved so much better!

hormones

and finally, the first nadao show ever & one of its most iconic, hormones. hormones is for me THE classic teen thai drama that you need to watch alongside love sick & grean house, and it was an absolutely groundbreaking drama for the time, that launched the careers of most of its actors who are still thriving today! but apart its historic side, this is a genuinely groundbreaking show with queer characters (and not only men for once!), female characters that finally get the spotlight, sexual content, etc. that tackles a lot of important topics, all of that wrapped in a very endearing execution. this is definitely a show that every thai drama fan should watch!

xxx

[the-hot-zone]

Too Old To Play With Toys: The Sad Truth Behind Sokka's Boomerang

This is Sokka’s boomerang: 

[ID: a screenshot of Sokka’s boomerang from Avatar: The Last Airbender. It has just been thrown, and it whips through the air in a rapid, whirling motion. End ID.]

And as we all know, it always comes back. This characteristic makes Sokka’s boomerang a returning boomerang, rather than a hunting boomerang. This is an important distinction to make, and it’s where the heart of this headcanon lays. Let me explain. 

Accuracy: What’s the Difference Between Hunting and Throwing Boomerangs?

There are three types of boomerangs: the hunting boomerang, the returning boomerang, and the cross boomerang. We’re only going to be discussing hunting and throwing boomerangs, but feel free to learn about cross boomerangs and their construction--they’re really cool. As a general note: the following sources and information pertain to Aboriginal Australian cultures. Boomerangs were used elsewhere, but mainly as throwing sticks, not returning boomerangs.

So, hunting boomerangs, also known as throwing sticks or kylies, have this basic shape:

[ID: a black silhouette of a hunting boomerang. It is shaped like a skinny tear drop, with a slight curve along its form, and it widens asymmetrically at its ends. End ID.]

[ID: an overhead shot of three hunting boomerangs. They are carved from glossy, light-brown wood. End ID.]

Artist: Aboriginal Elder, Joe Skeen Snr. Buy here.

The hunting boomerang is straighter, larger, longer, and deadlier than the returning boomerang. “With it,” states the Britannica, “animals were maimed and killed, while in warfare it caused serious injuries and death.” This is due to its shape, which allows it to travel in a relatively straight line. With its capability for distance and force, the hunting boomerang is a very powerful tool. 

According to Boomerang: Behind an Australian Icon by Philip Jones, a hunting boomerang can travel around 100 meters. If the boomerang is heavy enough, and the throw forceful enough, large prey, like kangaroos, can be killed. If you want to see a hunting boomerang in action, watch sections of this Youtube video. The range and accuracy of this tool are amazing. 

The returning boomerang, which was used in eastern and western parts of Australia, is very different:

[ID: a black silhouette of a returning boomerang. It has two arms that widen towards the middle and connect, forming an angled shape, like a triangle with two sides. End ID.]

[ID: a painted returning boomerang. The base is formed from a smooth, light-colored wood. Designs are painted at the end of its wings, in the middle of its wings, and towards its center. At the center is a stylized turtle. End ID.]

Artist: unknown, but sold by Aboriginal-owned business Murra Wolka. Website here. 

As you can see, the returning boomerang is shorter, smaller, and angled sharply. The shape of it allows it to trace an elliptical path, thus returning to the thrower. But this property is not without its drawbacks:

“A hunting boomerang needs to fly well and nearly straight to strike prey some 200 metres away. The trouble is that the best-flying boomerangs tend to return, rarely departing beyond fifty metres from the thrower. With the returning form ‘there is no certainty of hitting the mark. It may come back too quickly and may hit your own friends standing near you.’ While recognising that the best-flying boomerangs do return, Aborigines defined a technological problem. They needed to strike a compromise between flying ability and hunting requirements...” (Australian Museum).

Now, the returning boomerang could still be used to hunt, but not to kill or maim prey. Its application was craftier:

“When hunting ducks, for example, nets were set up at either ends of a creek or river. A boomerang was then thrown out over the ducks which gave them a scare so that they took off up the river and flew directly into the nets. From there they were collected. At other times during the hunting of birds the returning boomerang was thrown horizontally along the ground into a flock, and, as they took off the boomerang would follow them into the air. This may or may not kill the bird and a harder way to hunt” (murruppi.com).

Still, this wasn’t the main application of the returning boomerang. In actuality, it was used as a toy:

“The returning boomerang was not primarily designed for hunting as it is too light and wouldn't guarantee a kill. Rather, it was designed as a toy for young aboriginal boys. The toy would allow a youngster to practice throwing skills but still make it fun” (murrippi.com). 

So, Sokka’s boomerang? A plaything.

Let’s Bring It Back to ATLA: What Does This Mean?

With the above information, Sokka’s use of his boomerang in canon becomes almost tragic. His boomerang was probably given to him by Hakoda when he was very young. He used it to learn how to throw; one day, when he was older, he would have carved his own throwing stick, and used it to hunt alongside his dad and the other adults of his tribe. 

Instead, Sokka’s boomerang is another aspect of his childhood that was twisted by the war. His boomerang is--should have been--nothing more than a toy. He shouldn’t have had to use it to fend off Zuko, attack Azula, and defeat Combustion Man. Regardless, it did become a tool he used to help defeat the Fire Nation, and that’s pretty fitting when it comes to ATLA’s ideas of childhood and war: Sokka spent years acting as his tribe’s protector; Katara spent longer acting as a mother. Thus, his use of his boomerang throughout the show displays how Sokka was forced into a war-torn world at an incredibly, unfairly young age. As a result, he was forced to adapt in ways that took from him. 

And we’ve all seen Sokka’s boomerang in action. Here’s a video of his greatest hits--literally. His accuracy is insane, and he catches his boomerang every time. He’s more than ready to have a hunting boomerang, yet we see him use his returning boomerang throughout the show, and long after he earns his ice dodging mark. Tbh? I think that Sokka didn’t want to carve a hunting boomerang without his dad guiding his hands. 

So, you might be wondering, what happens post-war? 

Eventually, I think Sokka retires his returning boomerang and carves his own hunting boomerang, but the shape of it is particular: 

“Some scientists argue that a throwing-stick, commonly used by indigenous hunters around the world, is the precursor of the boomerang... Through trial-and-error the boomerang was refined to a point where the most desirable size, proportions and curvature were established. This refinement brought one serious problem: any improvement in flying resulted in a tendency to return. There is little doubt that indigenous hunters brought this experiment to its ultimate conclusion, by producing the perfect returning boomerang” (Australian Museum).

In short, making a good hunting boomerang is hard. Lots of trial and error, and still, hunting boomerangs come in a wide array of shapes. Thus, I headcanon that Sokka carves his hunting boomerang differently, as compared to the other members of his tribe--it’s more curved. This would show that although he's grown up and is in a post-war world, he's changed in some ways that can't be completely undone. 

In other words, Sokka eventually moves on, but the way he throws and uses his boomerang is going to be a little different.

Conclusion

TL;DR: Sokka’s boomerang is a plaything, and this has sad implications. But also? He never should have had one in the first place. Firstly, boomerangs were traditionally made from green hardwood, which I don’t believe can be found in the South Pole. I on god can’t find any authentic sources for bone or metal boomerangs. To be more accurate and still keep with the trend of throwing weapons, I would’ve given Sokka a nuqaq and darts or a bola.

Also, as far as I can tell, Sokka’s boomerang is the only aspect of Aboriginal Australian culture Bryke used in ATLA (I can’t get a confirmation on Hakoda’s name). This is cherry-picking to the max, and it perpetuates the harmful ideas of pan-indigeneity wrt one large, singular culture. 

So, if you enjoyed this, please consider supporting aboriginal artists and charities. You can buy aboriginal art from murrippi.com and Murra Wolka. This article here provides a list of charities as well as active GoFundMe’s for families affected by police brutality against Aboriginal Australians. Thank you.

Sources

“Hunting Boomerang - Extreme Range - The Aboriginal Karli” by Throwsticks Channel

“Boomerang Information“ by Murruppi, Djirrbal/Ngadjonji Tribe 

“Boomerang” by the Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors for the Encyclopaedia Britannica

“It Comes Back ... What a Nuisance!“ by Stan Florek for Australian Museum 

Boomerang: Behind an Australian Icon by Philip Jones from Wikipedia 

Murra Wolka 

Gonna tag @atlaculture​​​ because I think this is of your interest. <3

[inflammatoryfandomblog]

@spiderdreamer-blog​ said:

Do you think this explains a lot of Dragon Prince's wonkiness? I know Justin Richmond was on the Uncharted series, even if that's more narratively-driven/"cinematic", and Aaron Ehasz did a lot of work for Riot Games on League of Legends. Maybe the latter picked up bad habits there after a long history of TV writing.

now as a disclaimer i don’t think a background in (video) game writing is necessarily a bad thing or even that video game writing can’t have artistic merit or whatever. i mean litRPGs are a genre after all. it comes with its own challenges when you have to account for players, which in some games means also being the game designer to an extent. you can do very interesting things with that stuff.  in the video game industry the worst-case scenario is: the execs might not give you time/money/etc or treat the writing as an afterthought, which means you are technically writing but don’t have much knowledge on how what you’re doing will interact with the final product.

as for the answer: yes, i think it does, and with tdp in particular it’s more than just the writing: the “business model” of wonderstorm feels very video-game-industry-ish--and not just any video game: it feels like the writing of a multiplayer video game. i think i’ve even tenuously said that interacting with the story feels like interacting with the story of, say, Magic the Gathering. i wasn’t even thinking of the writers’ backgrounds. that’s just how it felt to me.

now in riot games the type of writing that aaron (and devon giehl, who IMDB tells me also worked on LoL... there were people on that writing team who went by the names “harrow” and “runaan” so the connection is very solid) is going to be background lore and mostly supplemental media. maybe the odd story cutscene. you’re going to be writing character backgrounds and flavor text for abilities. i’m sure riot is large enough to separate the “creative” writers from the technical ones (who are the ones that write tutorials and explain like, how an ability works in-game), but in my brief exposure in the games’ industry (on the clicky clacky programming side), sometimes the writing team just does all of it.

so in terms of writing, you’re going to be on the back foot: anybody who actually pays attention to LoL lore is going to be someone who’s already invested hours upon hours into the game and already has some sort of bond to the setting/characters just based on the visual design, or is bored/will actively seek it out. you’re not actually responsible for coming up with a Story in the traditional sense and you don’t write a narrative so much as you are writing isolated beats and filling out vague lore.

i remember reading an interview by the lead writer (giehl) saying something that is insane to say about a show but makes a lot more sense once i realized her background at riot. i can’t find the exact quote but it was in response to people complaining about putting big story moments in the short stories, and she basically responded by saying that the team thinks about TDP in terms of audiences. the “casual gamer viewer,” and the “hardcore gamer viewer.” The casual viewer, according to them, will just interact with the story on the shallow level and all they need is for the plot to vaguely make sense, while the hardcore/invested fans will seek out the “deeper stuff.”

which is exactly how multiplayer game stories work. but this is not how shows, which are supposed to tell a satisfying and coherent story, work. the reason multiplayer games can have “casual fans” of the story is because the main draw is the game. the story is supposed to be the meat of the experience, not something you go out of your way because you thought ahri was super cool or something.

TDP’s story is mere “content” (similarly how multiplayer game writing exists to be “content” to fill up the game).but TDP isn’t supplemental content. it IS the art. it IS the point. you cannot approach a traditional long-form story like this. it will just be extremely shallow, because there’s no “main pillar” it’s supporting. the story is supposed to be the main pillar. but it’s written like it’s not.

and unlike an RPG or really any game whose writing is closely entwined with the gameplay, you don’t even really get the experience of integrating your writing with the main draw of the game, so everything is just odd an disconnected. i can’t say anything about justin richmond’s specific contribution; i’d say he’s pretty average as a writer. uncharted’s story is neither completely incidental nor completely integrated (think of a title like papers, please) into the game, and as you mentioned carries the most similarities to traditional film/TV. it’s still not great film/TV because the writing standards are lower in the “cinematic” type of games than actual cinema (and it can kind of afford it because of the gameplay/setpieces), but it’s probably much better experience.

a more common and common occurrence these days is me picking up a book or a show or something and thinking, "this is writing straight out of a video game." lo and behold, the writer(s) have a history of writing for video games.

a decade ago people would point out that writing for more traditional story formats doesn't work for video games. but the opposite is also true.

[staticspaces]

Asylum for the Insane

Don't forget about the video as well!!

https://youtu.be/iIw30-K55Gc

Last post from this location where we will take a look at the lower floors including the basement!  This set includes some of my favourite photos from this location!!

Established in 1869 as a hospital farm to allow patients to grow produce, encourage communal play and give them more freedom than they would normally have.  The building was designed by architect Thomas H. Tracy and was modeled after a Pennsylvania Asylum designed by Thomas Kirkbride.  It was opened in 1902 with a two lane tree lined road leading up to the building.  An example of Victorian style using symmetry and balance, there are also two huge skylights on the third-storey above the surgical suite to provide additional light.  Also of note are the gabled projections and cupola of the two matching side pavilions, a plain pediment over the front entrance as well as a semi circular window on the second storey over the front entrance.  All of these elements come together to provide historical significance to both the property as well as the building itself.

A bit of a short write up about the history of this location but unfortunately I am out of time and will hopefully try to update it at a later date.

An absolutely incredible building and nothing else comes close to this one in terms of history, aesthetic appeal and age in the exploring scene of this area.  I was very happy to be able to visit this one on two separate occasions but also couldn’t believe how far downhill it went in the span of only six months.  One of the solariums was beginning to collapse during my first visit, six months later the roof had completely collapsed and today all three walls are now just a pile of rubble on the ground.  Hopefully this building can be saved before it is too late because there are no others like it!