#this is so fucked ive used that factory one literally 1 time

[catholic-character-tournament]

Round 1 - Side B

firestar art by @kudos-si-do

Propaganda below ⬇️

Kirei

He fucked up so many people's lives so badly in just one decade (not on purpose) that the universe put him in the summoning pool of all world influencing souls. He doesnt really have any special powers but he does serve as a vessel for rasputin at one point. He's the guy who says "people die when they are killed"

please please please there's literally a type moon character in the gif on the top of this form so it's typemoonphobic if none of them get in but it shouldn't be her it should be kirei bc he's 50x funnier & more iconic than jeanne. funny lil murder priest who's fucking THE gilgamesh (from the epic of) in the church basement and dies in a knife fight w a 17 year old whose dad he wanted to fuck back in '94 before realizing that he was actually kinda lame and he's been bitter abt it ever since. he has an orphan torture factory in his basement but he's also canonically good at being a priest. he's so funny you should def try his mapo tofu i swear it's totally safe for human consumption and not made with any california reapers. did i mention he's a deadbeat dad.

Priest claims to be Pro Life to make Sakura Matou the most miserable girl on the planet, but he dies anyway.

bro became a catholic because he loves suffering

He’s a priest. Kind of. Not a very good priest obviously. There is something seriously wrong and fucked up with that man. It’s so entertaining.

he's gotta be one of the most insane catholic men ever with a very in-depth and interesting relationship with his religion and his relationship with god also he's the sexiest man ever to be conceptualized in the known universe and all of time

Will never forget the 40+ minute monologue in heavens feel being a thinly veiled metaphor for abortion

he wants to torment churchgoers and make them face their failures and suffering but all he ends up doing is motivate them to improve themselves. cringefail moment for him

he's absolutely insane. the coldhearted mercenary that barely reacts to anything is terrified of kirei. he's super fucked up. his ult in stay night is literally him channeling divine power into something called kyrie eleison. he's the vessel of rasputin (on account of being a priest with a huge....no i shant say) the biblical beast in grand order among other things. he gets drunk with and tops gilgamesh from the epic of gilgamesh in the church basement after gilgamesh from the epic of gilgamesh bats his eyes a little too hard at kirei in some of the horniest shot scenes ive ever seen. he also used to be a heretical "fixer" for the church, cleaning up scenes that would expose shit to the public. uhh what else. he holds cool swords between his fingers like a kid pretending to be wolverine but in my favorite route he just squares the hell up with the protagonist and they fight to the death outside planned parenthood

Firestar

Kitty jesus, he believes in starclan which is the kitty version of heaven/god and yea. All the warrior cats characters except those outside the clans or those that are atheist believe in the kitty heaven and would irl be bri-ish and christian as hell so. The authors are all older british christian women and so the way starclan is written is like undoubtedly that.

The main religion in the series is extremely catholic coded. Most clan cats believe in Starclan and the Dark Forest(or heaven and hell). There is a set of rule they must uphold and follow, where following them leads to heaven and breaking them leads to hell. Their religious leaders are sworn to celibacy, and the punishments that "code breakers"(or cats who break the rules) face are extremely similar to situations people with religious trauma have gone through.

OP notes: apparently converted to avoid getting his balls cut?? Idk. The discord yet wild for firestar so I had to include him because it's hilarious hehehe

[lyss-sketchbox]

My thoughts on Inazuma vs Natlan so far. Is that Inazuma dropped the ball. There's no questioning that. It was rushed and the resolution lacked weight, and it almost definitely needed a lot more space to breathe and probably would've benefited from the 5 act structure instead of speedrunning with 3 acts (such as needing actual time spent with the Watatsumi Resistance rather than spending like 30 minutes tops).

HOWEVER. I feel like the initial Act I-II of Inazuma did a great job established the STAKES. It showed us the very real damage being caused by the various unjust decrees and why people are fighting. Natlan I kinda felt like did a lot of telling instead of showing, and any potential stakes feel kinda... Unserious? Because no one's really seriously hurt and even if they're saying Natlan will explode soon, I'm not really feeling like it's as dire as they're trying to sell it.

BUT IVE BEEN INFORMED YOU CAN DO NATLAN OUT OF ORDER??? Like you could in theory do Natlan BEFORE Inazuma thru Fontaine (with the quick-start function) which is why Natlan is more 'self-contained' which is absolutely insane to me?? Like HELLO???

Overall, I feel like the concepts and plot presented in Natlan is fine. But they didn't do a good enough job of selling to me these things. Like the whole child soldiers stuff kjadf like we actually dwelled on it for longer than a millisecond, we'd probably realize that's super fucked up!! But instead we gloss over it, making the whole quest seem fairly light-hearted despite everything.

Rubs my hands together ok anon lets talk cuz yeah i have thoughts

About inazuma

I definitely agree with you that Act 1-2 (especially 1) of inazuma did well setting up and showing how much negative impact the shogun's rule has impacted the people:

Vision holders literally losing a chunk of themselves (or worst, their lives) from their vision being confiscated.

Non-vision holders risking their lives for helping said vision holders (the resistance)

International traders being stuck in the nation, repressed by local government, and scammed by local traders just to keep business alive.

Local government bloating the price of everything!!! (And being able to get discounts only if you have connections)

Corruption even in the highest positions (gestures at the Kujou clan)

Fatui meddling that lead to the deaths of many for profit

The shogun literally programmed her robot to be that heartless because she herself dont give a shit about any of these issues. As long as her eternity stays.

Fr after venti and zhongli, getting an archon that acts as a proper ruler of a nation AND an antagonist sounds COOL AS FUCK. The booba sword scene while yeah, boobs wooo, also was a wonderful show of her authority over her nation.

After that they tripped and fell in Watatsumi. While i appreciate the environmental story telling of Watatsumi's and Shogunate's bases during the war, we barely get enough time to do... ANYTHING of substance. If i remember correctly, we became team captain, then do a bunch of training and defeating vagrants (on our own because friendly npc fighters didnt exist yet) and thats it. Where is the plotting? Wheres the planning? It was all just an anime training montage we barely get to see or feel. I genuinely feel like we couldve just replaced the entire Watatsumi arc with 'the fatui is selling delusions to people with confiscated visions to help them cope with the lost so traveller go to the delusion factory' and NOTHING wouldve changed. Hell it wouldve made ALOT more sense why yae came to save us at the end if the whole thing happened in Narukami.

Also after all that SHOWING they did alot more TELLING about wooo how smart kokomi is she is so smart and cool and the savior of the resistance. Like girl the fatui had their grip on your soldiers to the point they almost didnt want to surrender their delusions what are you on about. While you can argue she was only a priestess before the war and had no war intellegence skills, the people prop her up as such, kujou sara took her seriously. So she has to have some merit. Well im not seeing any (fight me on this i dont fully remember what happens in watatsumi)

Also at the end we fight the literal dictator of the nation with the power of friendship then everyone and i mean EVERYONE forgave said dictator...... cool. They would definitely benefit from an extra act so that watatsumi adds to the idea that this civil war and the shoguns current decree is causing damage.

About AR

The thing is that the requirements for you to start Natlan AQ is to be AR 28 and finish Liyue AQ (which requires AR 29 for the entire thing). While starting Inazuma requires AR 30, Sumeru needs AR 35, and Fontaine needs AR 40 (highest AR requirement by far).

Id argue that each nation is supposed to be a self-contained story. Even so, based on AR requirements theyve been chronologically in order because you NEED to complete the previous AQ to start the next. EXCEPT for Natlan.

While this is obviously to be more open to new and returning players, it really.... decreases the stakes, like you would assume the more we progress the tougher challenges we will have to face. But Natlan? Nawww you can go to Natlan without fighting the dictator 👍

About Natlan

I AM ADDRESSING THE CHILD SOLDIER THING FIRST BECAUSE YES. THEY DEFINITELY DID ALOT MORE TELLING THAN SHOWING HOW THIS CHILD APPARENTLY CAN BE SENT TO WAR WITH A REAL CHANCE OF DYING!!!!! I talked about this before because they ironically did alot more showing how child like Kachina is which adds more to the FUCKING CHILD SOLDIER THING.

HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO BE OKAY WITH THIS??? Oh its our nations culture, its just the culture shock, OKAY YEAH BUT THE TRAVELLER AND PAIMON ARENT NATLAN NATIVES AND THEY DONT FEEL ANYTHING ABOUT THIS????? Wow yey cheer for the child to go to war! BRO SHE DIED AND WE WENT JACOOZIING WHILE WE WAIT FOR HER TO RETURN FROM WAR...............

ITS VERY OBVIOUS INFANTILIZATION BECAUSE IANSAN DIDNT FUCKING GET THE SAME TREATMENT. You know, the other small girl character there, nah she went to war just like Kachina, lived, and stood by the Archon and WAS READY TO THROW HANDS WITH A HARBINGER IF THE ARCHON DIDNT FUCKING FIGHT HIM HERSELF.

Everything just feels so.... chill? So relaxed with no stakes at all. I mean yeah the Abyss is creeping into the nation's roots but instead of sending armies we make it a tournament. Yeah people die in these excursions but we can revive them so we can ignore the horrors of experiencing death. Yeah the flames are dying so the archon has to give up some of her power to keep it lit but its okay! The harbinger is a gentleman that wont take this opportunity to do some scheming. We need the power of the chosen one of each tribes to save natlan but hey cant rush it! We got a year after all teehee.

Man. Head in hands. What the fuck.

Not even gonna go into the whole the archon is human but mavuika is the one that got reincarnated to retake the role just in time to solve a national crisis thing. Because i dont even know if THAT is accurate.

If they somehow trip and fall worse than inazuma id actually be amazed because the bar is very very low.

[eliluminado7]

im writing my broad opinion on AI art now that im on an autistic tangent about it. im kinda cooked from yesterday so sorry if i dont make much sense

my issue with (serious) A‎I art is not because of moral or ethical implications arising from the technology itself, but rather from the general userbase itself. like i believe most of us can fucking tell if something's ai generated when we see it right. Bear in mind i said serious AI art. you know i love a good sei‎nfel‎d screenshot of je‎rry and kra‎mer going into the void or geo‎rge dressed as a coss‎ack

anyways generally speaking the kind of people generating those serious illustrations are all either 1. recycled nftbros 2. porn freaks or 3. children. And im gonna be real i do not like that kind of AI art even if its just a harmless illustration of a pokemon or whatever. to me it feels like those ppl are either kids who i Do Not Think should be on the net, or basement dwelling deviantart incels who are like 'Computer generate se‎xy gard‎evoir vo‎re infla‎tion fe‎et pics'. the kind of people who wouldve had no problem stealing others' art. just sayin.

well actually theres a fourth category and those are companies and public institutions that use AI art (often as some sort of money laundering scheme, if i may add) and those are the ones ACTUALLY hurting artists because You See you could be actually hiring someone instead of using fucking midjourney or bing. this is a very common practice here in spain even if it ends up looking like literal shit, see:

also theres this yearly art contest in either val‎encia or cata‎lunya where ppl submit illustrations of snails and this year's winner was a very blatantly AI generated pic created by some turkish individual who is rumored to not even exist. its a rabbit hole but looking up bedhiran akagündüz (or, likewise, rubén lucas garcía) should set you on the right track

Now let me be clear: i vehemently hate anti-ai luddites and picrew fandomites and ive always been very vocal about this. and quite frankly im tired of the moral panic steeming from anything AI-generated as if it was the antichrist!!!!! you all just sound reactionary as fuck. AI art is certainly not stealing from you and the only exceptions to this rule are very very very blatant copies, and you almost never see those unless were talking about nft-adjacent ponzi scheme websites. would you consider collages theft? music samples? AI just draws "inspiration" (for lack of a better word) from the illustrations that it is fed because its like a tabula rasa and it needs knowledge, just like us human beings are inspired by other people's artstyles. the end product is something that doesnt even look similar to the data it is fed because it is an amalgamation of different styles that create something unique. is that theft? be for fucking real

this stupid myth about the brutal energy consumption of AI art generation as well as the whole ‘did you know that every time you generate one picture youre wasting an entire bottle of water????’ argument... im sorry to say none of that is true. ai isn't even the most water-intensive sector if we're comparing it with other industrial sectors like petroleum/coal factories or wineries or paperboard mills. training datasets IS resource-intensive but its normally a one-time process, inference (which is what you use daily) is not any less efficient than looking something up on google for example:

this whole 'carbon footprint' bullshit that has been sold to us is just a tactic to divert attention from the actual polluters which are corporations like coca-cola or exxon or bp. You know this you get your praxis from this website.

regarding the whole 'AI is theft' argument, im just going to share these tags that someone left in another post i made:

like a clear example of anti-ai panic actively hurting artists is the backlash that oka‎me-p, a voc‎aloid artist, got for using AI generated illustrations as the ACCOMPANIMENT for his songs:

and to be honest this is a huge problem regarding western voc‎afans who often have the emotional maturity of a peanut. youre so so so hellbent on demonizing others just for using a technology that is widely available to everyone, that youre willing to throw them under the bus and delegitimize everything they do just because it hurts your feelings well im not going to fucking stay quiet about that

who do you think youre talking to you stupid fucking bitch. god this person makes me so mad.

Anyways my point is: ai is like acupuncture; just like the latter can be used to treat or alleviate different ailments but it cant completely treat cancer like modern medicine would; AI can be complimentary, but it can NEVER replace actual labor. its merely a worktool! its merely meant to automatize daily tasks!!! its not your enemy i promise. Ok im tired of writing goo buh buh

[whsprings]

some updates!

I am officially discharging in one(1) week! it doesn't feel real yet. I am very nervous about being able to maintain recovery long-term, especially because I still supplement multiple times a day to meet my meal plan due to fullness. and occasionally due to poor food quality, lol.

I did try to get my dietitian to compromise on my meal plan because I physically cannot do it and uh. that did not work. I am not surprised. but like girl i am not gonna supplement myself so we gotta figure something out here

i have my first snack pass tomorrow! I've been eligible for like two weeks but I didn't get around to planning anything bc I was procrastinating but I guess it's happening.

speaking of passes, apparently insurance wants me to do a full day pass to get some practice before i leave. technically that's a phase 3 thing (I'm phase 2) but my team said they'd make an exception. I'm kind of annoyed that I'm doing passesbfor the first time literally my last week here but in a way being responsible for one snack and one meal per day on php is kind of a pass?? I guess?? also even if things go horribly wrong on my theoretical day pass it won't affect my discharge date so part of me is like oh?? this means I can use the behaviors?? but I don't Want To Do That. but also I do.

the meal outing today was to the fucking cheesecake factory 😭 like this had to be some form of cruel and unusual punishment. like first of all it's not that good and second of all the menu has the calories listed AND is like 10182552 pages long AND we were required to get cheesecake with our meals. oh, and they took forever so by the time we got back to programming it was literally time for pm snack 😭🙃 they let us supplement with dinner (thank god) bc what the fuck

that being said it actually wasn't horrendous. like we tried to keep conversations going and no one was (that) fucking weird about what they ordered. the anticipatory anxiety was definitely worse than the actual thing. I had very strong compensatory restriction urges BUT I still completed my silly little meal plan soooo

my mood has been lower the past few days which has led to me bedrotting after programming instead of doing anything which in turn makes me feel worse which makes me not want to do anything wh-- anyway I love living with depression and having a brain that just fucking wakes up sad for no reason

I am fully, painfully aware that I will not have access to my weight starting when I discharge and it's freaking me the fuck out. despite me completing the past few weeks my weight has been stable which is incredibly soothing to my silly brain and has made completion so much easier. my weight has changed very little from what I admitted at and I would love to keep it that way. that being said, no one seems to have any idea of what my set point is, and I Cannot just. trust my body to take care of that for me. i feel like if I just Knew my weight and could therefore "make sure" it isn't going up and maintain my ability to reassure myself, then maybe I can do this. maybe.

like I can tolerate my current body and size and weight and even though my body image fluctuates I can always come back to the fact that things haven't really changed. but I can't fucking do that if I dont know the number. also if I know the number I can "fix" things if it starts going up. fucks sake.

anyway. ive spent way too long on this and it's almost midnight.

tldr things are mostly going well and i discharge in a week and I am still a control freak.

[legy]

random game roundup 3

A Hell of a Journey - PWYW

what if it was the divine comedy but virgil was just an absolute piece of shit. he had no fucking idea what was going on. you have to go through hell to get to purgatory and this idiot is no help at all

this is a short & sweet twine game. the illustrations carry it. it's pretty cute and took me under 5 minutes to read

Samorost 2 - $4.99

hey i said this was random game roundup not random itch game roundup. i just have 3000 itch games

amanita design is literally like the all-timer for 00s indie devs. ive known of their point-and-clicks for basically the entire time ive been conscious. i think ive only played samorost 1 and machinarium before now.

its hard to beat the level of vibes-based gaming samorost operates on. this is what gnome tumblr is all about

apparently in 2020 this got a remaster that let the game support modern resolutions using AI upscaling on old assets, and to its credit it ran awesome for a game this old. it didnt fuss at all about tabbing out or using a second monitor while playing. however i think the upscaled assets look pretty shit? lol. like the art direction in this game is extremely strong but the raster images definitely were not meant to be seen bigger than 1024x768 and it makes the characters who scaled up much better stick out suuuper bad.

music completely rips ass tho. hell yeah brother

i actually went ahead and finished this at an entire half an hour playtime. big fan of samorost 2

T.A.R.S - $1.99

included in: Bundle for Ukraine

first thing i got struck by with this game is that it is extremely good looking for the price tag and my lowered standards. there is also a lot of voice acting which is pretty amateur but a lot of heart went into it. i could not find an option to subtitle the dialogue which kinda sucked

T.A.R.S is a third person shooter with a focus on difficulty via being killed in one hit and having very limited resources. you're fighting werewolves or something. i didn't play long enough to see them do more than just chase after me in a straight line so idk if the enemy AI is interesting

one of the big downsides of T.A.R.S is that the game is dark as fuck. shot like a modern hollywood film. like that one episode of game of thrones. i cant play this on my high refresh rate monitor because the sun is up right now and the ambient light in my room is too much and i cant see anything. also the game emphasizes wearing headphones and focusing on hearing the enemies before you see them but the sound design is um. not great. i kept getting snuck up on because the guys dont make any noises until theyre two inches away

i don't think i gave this a good enough chance but i'm not a horror fan nor am i a shooter fan so it's really not for caelums. maybe you'll like it tho

Panic Factory - $1.50

included in: Bundle for Ukraine

panic factory is a puzzler pretending to be a shooter. you are an eco-activist that has been trapped in a torture dungeon by a corporate CEO and need to figure your way out. with a shotgun. and whatever ammo you can scrounge up

the voice acting in this is very hammy and the pixel art is appealing to look at so the presentation is pretty solid. i found this difficult to spend a lot of time in because again i don't like shooters and i found that the reaction times this game expects out of you in the first level to a be a bit extreme. also required arrow keys to move :thumbsdown:

Weird Grief - PWYW

im so fucking sorry for how hard i laughed

i honestly really liked this. weird grief is a twine about the immediate aftermath and slow recovery after the death of a loved one. and you are poly. and furry. it has explicit sex scenes so watch out for that. but this is worth reading imo

[someone-always-cares]

curb your enthusism theme plays

in advance: comic is still going full steam ahead, very small delay, have a new temporary laptop

so. pretty much day after that last post, this happens! long story short, its a hard drive issue (likely hardware issue not software), which is bad because that's where the computers everything lives!

so: waited to go back to work to ask it guys there for help, they cant (time + liability issue, completely understandable), went to local it repair, they told me there was a very good chance of restoring my files. they couldn't. checked out some data recovery specialists, but those cost £500-700ish vaguely, saw one place for £299 (price listed ex vat because theyre dicks) and got excited and contacted them but luckily i checked some not google reviews and saw multiple "don't go here" (1 star on yelp!)

so shits fucked

anyway thats not fucking stopping me

things i still have:

the actual edited comic pages. (backed those up early this year)

the flat pngs of the front/back cover, inside covers (although were work in progress but got all the wip sketches too). apparently dumping them in a discord chat still leaves them in good quality. unlike tumblr. annoying that its just the flat pngs, but since they're finished, its all good

the files for stickers and stickersheets. since i ordered samples before, i just emailed the manu and explained and asked if they could send me the files i submitted, so i have those back (again mostly just pngs but very helpful. shout out to zap creatives)

pages 1 and 4 of the redrawn prologue. (for some reason i didnt send those to anyone and im mad)

a working laptop. mercifully, my bro had his old brick of a dell lying in a drawer (now at least 3rd hand but works like a champ. lots of storage in here!). did have to factory reset because he couldnt remember the password, but here we go! (he even installed steam and discord for me which was nice of him!! he also made the profile for the computer "torries are wankers" typo included and i don't know how to change it but its funny so.)

things that are gone:

most of my sanity

pages 2, 3, and 5 of the redrawn prologue. (fuck)

misc not comic related shit (fuck x2)

chapter five pages after 68. has the pngs for 69, 70,73-75 thought but just the extra small versions (tapas has a limit on width) i don't know why those and not the the og files, i think something went wrong with the backup

the folder that i have manually searched for all sac related art to put in the bonus art pages. like thats not going to take more than a day to find again but ffs

my old laptop. rest in pieces. literally, the repair place somehow fucked up my hinges more than they already were, before it was broken and now its just completely snapped. even before that they said it really wasnt worth fixing. it's like, a decade old probably and already had its case replaced once (used to be red) and it's fan but that was easy to fix. i'm going to have to save up for a new one (although bro's old laptop is growing on me. ive named it The Brick)

my fucking font (apparently the site i used to make a handwriting font saves it to the browser not the account?) but whatever i once emailed an older version of the font to someonw or i can just grab something off blambot, its nbd

have to redraw anything half finished, bleh

anyway tldr:

computer: fucked

files: fucked again

IT help: failed

comic delayed?: barely. honestly not that much. i have the important bits. just need to redraw a few pages and do a bunch of double checking literally everything. at most an extra months work? pain in the ass though

other art files: had more backed up than i thought. didn't do much not comic art this year, kinda glad tbh. fucking rip to anything not in my doodles file.

current timeline: shrugs. not sure but before the end of the year for sure. the only outside deadline is needing comics before megacons in jan, so it'll get done before that.

sticker samples: oh those are done and here. need to adjust the colours slightly but knew that going in (printed in their normal colours to see which ones needed adjusting. mostly the darker colours. looking at you, tree in ch2 sheet) and can also get away with making the borders smaller

also treated myself to some very big holo samples (printed as one giant 30cm holo sticker for price reasons) just to see what they'd look like (fun strech goal? little treat for me? both?)

added little hearts for funsies and so i can cut them all out with scissors. kinda have to anyway, my eyes hurt staring at all that holo

like it was not that fucked when i brought it in??? bro

anyway rip broken piece of shit toshiba, my faithful compainion. you had so many problems. and so little storage. but it was mine. going to see if i can like, safely remove the stickers though. still like them. also there's the brick. liking the wide screen.

anyway that's what's stressing me out the past nearly 3 weeks, and i got the "hardrive is fubar" memo a couple days ago, was waiting to update after everything was fixed or confirmed unfixable and its was unfortunatly the latter, but at least i still have most my art shit and a temp laptop.

this concludes the comic progress update and psa to update your backups

Progress update

Edit: laptop broke (hard drive issue), so thing will either be delayed a week or A Lot depending if my shit is recoverable. Back up your files regularly yall

Realised I should probably update yall on how things are going! Things are almost ready, just need to stich the book together together and finish a couple things, then I can order a sample of the book. I don't want to start the kickstarter until I have a book sample in hand that I'm happy with.

Admittedly looking like my original timeline isn't quite going to fit but such is life. its a close enough timeline so im not too annoyed just not in time to advertise it this weekend

to thank yall for your patience with this, here a sneak peek of the stickersheets made because I'm very happy with them and also because I just approved the proofs the manu sent me for those samples:

disclaimer: colours may vary depending on how the samples turn out (converting rgb to cmyk, my beloathed).

[id: two stickersheets, one of characters from chapter 1, and the other chapter two: chapter 1 sheets has: rami (civilian clothes), his whole team, tsunami, inkmaster, swarm, sound flood, and mori. as well as some smaller stickers: a sparkling wave, rami's logo, two diamond shaped sparkles, a small fireball, swarm's butterly, and three hearts with the ace, trans, and rainbow pride flags. chapter 2 sheet has: lewis and sound flood (both in civilian clothes), iris, faete, mindforce, and omen (super costumes). also several smaller stickers: mindforce's eye, a yellow and pink rose, a snowdrop, faete's sword, iris's notebook (with the words "stay safe"), a starry sky with city view, rami's hand holding a rose, and 5 blue pink and white hearts. end id]

also here's the cover (minus the blurb)

[id: image of the cover design, layed flat. aka the front cover is on the right side, back on the left, and the spin inbetween. designed to look like a corkboard with photos pinned to it, and red sring connecting things. on the back there are photos that are from various panels in chapter 1 and 2 (redrawn, specifically faete after transforming, cam readying her forcefield, lewis on the roof, and tsunami riding his wave. the back also contains enamel pins: a trans flag, an ace flag, and mindforce's eye. as well as the corner of a missing persons poster, a business card for "cullen's bowls 'n' bowls", and a blank sheet of notebook paper where the blurb should be. the spine has some starry washi tape with the title written on. the front has a piece of blue paper torn off at the end with the title on it, and stickers of a silver star and rami's logo. below is a large image of rami sitting in the water staring intestly at the viewer, light emerging behind him. around him, hands all strech out towards him, hands belonging to the significant character significant in chapters 1 and 2 of sac. end id]

so specifically what is left (no particular order):

spellchecking

adding page numbers to the bottom

finishing the rest of the not comic pages (aka the thank you note, about the author, deciation and the bit where im going to add names of people who pledged to the kickstarter) 75% done

character bios (admittedly optional i just want to do them)

bonus pages for art and sketches (i have collected all the art and sketches, its just deciding which ones to ue and which ones to save for next time because it makes more sense to put them with the more spoilery chapters 3-5 specific arts)

assembling these and sending a sample off to print

actually starting the kickstarter (once i have decived book sample back and am happy. i am not starting it without knowing 100% that i can fufill it right then and there)

(in the intrest of transperency: while these are all easy and mostly quick (aside from character bios. havent started that one yet), i also have some upcomign events that will have to take priority. that being a convention this weekend, next weekend, and my sisters wedding the weekend after (and the wedding gift, which is custom artwork of my sister and future brother in law. like a wedding painted but not on the day and also digital. so that will take up a bit of time after [another reason i wanted to get this done before then but ah well])

for real though one day i hope to be able to do art stuff full time because i am. so tired of doing a day job

also also there are versions of lewis and rami stickers in super outfits, they'll be seperate stickers

[id: drawings of lewis and rami, same as the stickers in the sheets, just seperate and in different outfits, the drawings have been placed close together, so it looks like thye're holding hands. end id]

you can make them hold hands :)

[37q]

so yall know i gotta lor sis righ. well. fuck dude. those obligations from earlier. part rant part support seeking skip to the very end for that second part

context. 17 y/o not in school, homeless, lowkey estranged from her parents. father is unemployed and lying abt it, abusive and his ego is constantly reacting to his material precaritys impact on his manhood, sits at my old shop all day doing nothing. mom, actually employed, covering for dad, also used to work at my old shop before being fired for stealing a stack of cash, getting worse w her precarity and also sits at the shop a lot a lot. no idea where her lor bro sleeps. no idea how old he is too, could be 12 in an 8 year olds body for all i kno

so i pick her up at 1030, we go to the mall and check the ubreakifix type place and they dont work on iphone 8s. bet. we have a spare XR she bought off her big bro. missing sim tray, got a free replacement from the shop. go to the apple store, the XR is permalocked unless factory reset from the icloud acct tethered to the device (truly dystopian imo), schedule genius bar appt for tmrw at 11. take her back to her friends house, the one i hired a month before i left so she could have a comrade and a place to stay nearish work that isnt her moms (although they were kicked out of their motel right when i hired steven i think. so, unhappy coincidence?).

sis works then so i drop her off at work at 9 and take her phone w me. go home come back to the mall. genius at the bar says its busted, whatever. not like i been sayin that. its missing like the bottom 1/5 of the backing like straight up exposed circuitry and she leans it on its bottom edge on whatever flat surface she can find at her perpetually wet food service job. refurbished options more expensive than the cheap 'new' products, not saying much tho. deliver busted phone and info to her -- her mom and dad are there ofc -- go home. later pick her up that night (last night) and drive her to her gfs in the heights. oh also dropping steven and their mutual friend off at stevens on the way. whatever its like literally en route its actually kinda perfect every time.

apparently im picking her up this morning. Okay. oh yeah shes locked out of her paycard account. she locks the card when shes at 0 in case she gets an auto withdrawal thatll overdraft her. she got paid today so she was gonna unlock it but how did she access her acct previously? thumbprint. no password memory whatsoever. pretty fair, id say? she texted me asking for the last 4 of her SSN this morning. nobody picked up her call to the bank(?) until she called them in the car with me. the form required to change login credentials when u dont have account access required those digits and a form of photo id. no ability to access it from her ADP because the pw changed at some point but it still took her print.

reminder. shes homeless and out of school. she has a birth certificate but thats where my certainty of her documentation ends. ive run into this before where i wanted to start a real bank acct for her but they require legally viable photo id and even non driver state ids require 1. proof of permanent residence (X) and 2. proof of enrollment in school for minors (X) at the MVA.

so anyways weve kinda hit a wall with the limitations her unsupportive parents / guardians have provided! its taking up a large portion of my emotional, mental, physical, and temporal space in life right now so i wanted to make a post about it. my little bandaid desire is to at least set her up with a new phone which i estimate would be $200 minimum for actual 'verified third party vendors of used phones' but ugh i didnt budget for this.

oh the support seeking! if you know me and wanna ease the load on my sisters shoulders a but, id be grateful for some help raising funds for a new phone! ill include some $ links. if were unacquainted but youre reading this anyway and have a spare $5 wed love the support! thanks for reading :)

cashapp: $rmwperfect | venmo: @rmwperfect | paypal: @37q

[whats-rambled-rambled]

Long Nights - part 4

Neil x Reader

Chapter 4: World gone mad

(see chapter 3, 2, 1)

summary: inverted heist calls for inverted training

warnings: 18+, explicit language, gun mention, crackheadery, and possible whiplash

author’s note: Hi, yes, I know, took me ages, but hey, I hope it's worth the wait! 5.2k words, how even--

Anyway.

The song for this part is Bastille - World Gone Mad

Enjoy! All feedback is greatly appreciated, let me know what you think?

——————

Tag list: @cxnnienikas @neutron-stars-collision ​ @ergunbilge @invertedneil @wanderedaway @mellifluous-cosmos @wonderwoman292 @buckysgoldenheart @townmoondaltwistle @theriverbeneaththeriver (please let me know if you want to be added/removed from the list)

-----

The fact that you knew how to handle guns wasn’t equal to you being very good at it. Or enjoying it, for that matter. Sure, you could more or less hit the target, especially with some useful tips you got from Neil regarding a trigger finger discipline, but still - you’d rather avoid reaching for a pistol altogether.

You put back the weapon you’d been training with and Neil handed you another one. You couldn’t really tell the difference, at least until you checked the magazine. The lack of ammo meant you finally got to the fun bit that Neil teased in The Protagonist’s office and you smiled, looking back at your companion. He grinned at you, the gaze sparkling behind yellow-tinted safety glasses as he pointed at the wall next to the targets you used for practice.

“Just aim and pull the trigger. ” Seeing your nod, he added, “Okay now, be careful, it might feel--”

The bullet whizzed back into the chamber of your pistol and your eyes widened.

“Oh fuck me sideways,” you hissed under your breath.

“-- a bit weird, yeah.” Neil chuckled at the shock painted on your face. “All right?”

“Yeah, just processing.” Trying to blink the consternation away, you asked, “How do you make these? You put it into that...turnstile and voilà?”

Neil shook his head. “No, it’s not that simple. We receive a stash every now and then, we don’t know how to manufacture those,” - he smirked - “at least not yet. I do have a few theories I’m working on in my spare time, but...” hesitating for a moment, he raked a hand through his hair and sent you a nervous smile. “Wouldn’t want to bore you to death, though.”

“Dude, come on, with that smooth and soothing voice of yours? You could read the yellow pages to me and I’d still listen like that--” you mocked a dreamy heart-eyes expression, watching with satisfaction as that remark pushed Neil further into a flustered state.

Apparently, when explicit teasing got a little-to-no reaction now, you could still make him blush with a more wholesome compliment. As you started laughing, he rolled his eyes and scrunched the nose slightly, joining you with a stifled giggle. Grinning, you continued a little softer, “I’m not gonna lie - I probably wouldn’t understand a majority of the physics jargon, but I’d still want to hear all about that.”

A thankful look you got in return made your chest clench painfully, and your mind wandered off to those breaks near the river, and Neil’s animated rants. You knew one thing. Anyone who had ever ridiculed him for his passion for even the nerdiest things could rot in hell, and you’d gladly see to it personally.

A disgruntled huff coming from behind made you both snap out of the moment.

“Oi, lovebirds, I’d appreciate it if you could leave all that to after I prep you for the mission.”

Bottling down your annoyance, you batted your lashes at the commander, who’d just come back with keys to one of the conference rooms near the range.

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry, you have my full attention now.”

Ives nodded, waving at you to follow him. Meanwhile, Neil’s small smirk let you know that he noticed that faint undertone in your voice, but he said nothing, patiently waiting for the events to unfold.

Another person was waiting for you at the door. You recognized the woman who’d driven you to that abandoned factory on your very first day - you’d never gotten properly introduced, but you remember asking Neil about her once and he called her Wheeler. To be honest, with these guys you never knew if they used their real names, nicknames, codenames, or whatever. Not that you cared, quite used to it in your own line of business. You exchanged a court nod with her and went into the room.

As you sat down at the big table and Ives booted a projector, your eyes bore into the man. Definitely one of those types who enjoyed his beret and the paramilitary structure of the field branch of the organization. Probably a bit too much. You bit back a smug grin.

Those were particularly fun to mess with.

Ives caught your piercing stare and stopped the brief of the location.

“What?”

“Nothing,” you said, propping the chin on your palm, a polite smile on your lips. “It’s fascinating.”

He furrowed his brows, perplexed.

“What is?”

“How your commanding presence literally adds you inches,” you said, using all your willpower to keep a serious face. “I wonder if it works only for your height or--”

Neil’d futile attempts at masking an amused snort with a cough didn’t go unnoticed. Ives shot him daggers and then glared at you. “For fuck’s sake, would you focus?”

Your eyes flared up at the threat in his voice and you pouted, taunting him further.

“Or what, you’re gonna spank me?”

“No, I’m gonna shoot you,” he deadpanned.

You raised a brow.

“Kinky.”

Ives groaned, turning to Neil.

“How you survived this long without choking her is beyond me.”

Neil puffed his cheeks and gestured vaguely, but as he opened the mouth to answer, you chimed in, with a shit-eating grin plastered on your face.

“Oh, he very much did so, all right.”

The awkward silence that followed was pretty satisfying.

“Can we keep her?” asked Wheeler casually, leaned back in her chair, fiddling with a bullpen.

Ives gaped at you all, then slumped his shoulders in defeat, sliding a hand through his features. He was so done you could almost hear The Sound of Silence playing in the distance, but apparently, his sense of duty was stronger than the urge to leave you without finishing the briefing, so he just drew a deep breath and continued.

“...anyway…”

You caught Neil’s glance and you couldn’t help but poke the tip of your tongue out at him. The mischievous sparks in his eyes reflected your own as he shook his head, tugging the bottom lip between the teeth. Wheeler’s curious gaze flitted between you two, and as you didn’t feel like drawing too much unnecessary attention to yourself anymore, you focused on the plan that Ives was persistently going through.

Time frames. Blueprints. Entry points. Exit routes (you spotted at least one additional way he left out, but you weren’t sure if you could drag Neil through there, judging by that alley performance, so you didn’t bother to mention it out loud). Everything seemed clear enough. You still had no idea how being inverted would affect the lockpicking, but when you voiced that, Ives promised you some time to figure it out before the mission.

The mission. Huh. It wasn’t that much different from your usual assignments - at least if you forgot about that tiny insignificant detail like moving backwards in time - but something in this paramilitary and/or espionage vibe made your heart beat faster with excitement.

It had been quite a long time since you had company at the job. Working alone had its perks, but you wouldn’t mind a trusted partner in crime having your six for a change.

Another thing that you certainly wouldn’t mind - seeing Neil in tactical gear. Not that either of you would need one, but the image got planted in your head and suddenly you wished you’d had a bottle of water.

You realized that everyone was looking at you expectantly. Shit, was there a question or…?

“I’m good,” you said, shooting in the dark, hoping that would be enough to cover your distracted ass.

Ives squinted, but fortunately, that was an acceptable answer.

“Well, as you two can proceed straight from here - Wheeler, they’re all yours.’

“Okay,” - she smiled and stood up - “we don’t have any turnstiles on-site, but there’s one in the base outside the city, I’ll talk you through the basics on the way.”

So that little daydream cost you a chance to come back home to prepare? Grand. The problem was - you needed your heavy-duty tools, but you’d rather eat rocks than back away in front of Ives. Luckily, he called on Neil to wait for a moment, so that was your chance.

“Umm, Wheeler?” you asked quietly, following her outside.

She glanced at you curiously.

“What’s up?”

“I know I said I’m good, but could we stop by my apartment for a second, please?” An awkward grimace ran through your face. “I gotta pick up my tools. You know, just in case.”

She wasn’t surprised by your request. Moreover, she sent you a knowing smile.

“Sure thing,” she said and winked, and then it was your turn to present a slightly flushed face. “I’ve got you.”

----

You didn’t know what to expect from the whole inversion process.

The first time your brain stuttered was when Wheeler pointed at something she called the proving window, just in time for you to see the three of you coming out on the other side. You caught inverted-you glancing back at your present self; the schooled expression, but with the gaze shining with anticipation.

The second time was when it was you on the other side, looking at your wide-eyed past self. Feeling the incoming headache, you took a deep breath and followed Wheeler and Neil to the stand with oxygen masks.

“How are you feeling?” asked Neil, handing you the equipment.

“Weirdly normal.” You shrugged. “Or maybe not more backwards than usual, if that makes any sense.”

He smiled lightly.

“It’s the airlock. When you see the outside, you’ll get a whole new perspective.”

Wheeler nodded. “What he said. And to recap: you’re inverted, the world is not - all forces will be pushing back on you. Besides gravity.” She double-checked the oxygen bottle secured to your belt. “Just mind things that might be rising instead of falling.”

You furrowed the brows.

“Wait, didn’t Ives mention the rain?”

Neil smirked from behind the mask.

“Afraid of getting wet?”

“Never.” You grinned, meeting the sparkling blue eyes. “Should know that by now.”

Wheeler snorted and shook her head, walking to the panel near the exit.

“You’ll have plenty of time to finish the job before you move far enough to catch up on that. Although, if you ever find yourself in the inverted rain, here’s a tip: pop your collar.”

“Why would you--” Oh. The sole thought of the water going up from the ground to the sky made you nauseous. You swallowed with effort, leveling your breath in the mask. “...right.”

Wheeler opened the door and you almost gasped at the view. The golden rays of sunset (...or was it technically a sunrise now?) flickered on the training grounds’ equipment as the sky painted the scarce pools of muddy water with greyish violets and reddening oranges. Leaves shuffled in the wind, their dance almost satirical with that inverted spin.

Wheeler’s voice stopped your mind from wandering further into the landscape.

“Okay, ready? Ives asked me to remind you not to try any cowboy shit, you need to be in one piece at the end of the training.”

“Yes ma’am,” you mocked a salute and stepped outside, stretching your limbs, readjusting to the reality being slightly off. Neil stood right beside you watching you warming up, ready to take you to the obstacles section.

But as soon as the airlock’s doors closed behind you, you spun around, tapping his shoulder - “Tag, you’re it!” - and without waiting for his reaction, you leaped towards the assault course.

Surely that turned out overly optimistic. You counted on the element of surprise and a head start, but Neil had an experience with running while being inverted, while you… well. You tried.

“B+ for effort,” laughed Neil, catching up on you even before you reached the first obstacle and tapping you back. “But you can do better than that.”

“Just you wait!” you retorted and vaulted over a low hurdle, the mild confusion caused by the dumbfounded senses slowly eased up as you tuned out the brain and let the muscle memory guide your movements. Because hey, in the end? Yes, the natural forces were acting up against you. Yes, Neil had years of inverted training behind him. But you’d been challenging different obstacles your whole life, and courses like this one were your favourite playgrounds.

You caught on him by the next wall, playing dirty and tugging at his leg, pulling him down before he could jump to the other side. The exasperated huff he gave you in protest got lost in the squelch of mud under your feet, the sound more like a suction instead of the much-expected splash. Shuddering with disgust at such abomination, you rushed to the set of monkey bars, hearing Neil following up closely. You gritted your teeth, swinging your body to help yourself get through the part, and that’s when you felt a light tap on your foot.

You glared to your left, where Neil was gaining an advantage over you.

“Damn you and your infinite legs, man! It doesn’t count!”

“Losing looks good on you,” he said, landing and then instantly ducking under your reached out hand.

“Too bad it’s not gonna stick,” you scoffed as you ran after him to jump on one of the parallel logs. Balancing was easy enough, even with inversion; it gave you the perfect opportunity to plan ahead, while Neil had to maintain full focus. “Must say - all that sass definitely makes you like... ten percent hotter.”

But you’d taught him well, apparently, and instead of losing his pace, he only shot you a quick glance accompanied by an arched brow.

“Only ten?”

“Dunno, come over here and let me take a closer look,” you teased, getting a short chuckle in response. “No?” - you sighed - “Alrighty then.” And you leaped to the side straight into Neil, pushing him off the log. He yelped and grabbed you by the shirt, the momentum sending you both straight into the mud. You landed on top of Neil, collapsing into his arms for a moment to catch a breath and to stop laughing.

You leaned back to look him in the eyes.

“Okay, maaaybe fifteen,” you panted, booping his mask as you would do to his nose.

Neil snickered and nodded.

“I’ll take it.”

When your gazes met, his features softened, and he tucked a strand of hair behind your ear gently. You smiled behind the mask and sat up, straddling his waist. Neil was studying you closely, his hands grazed your sides and rested on your hips. Nibbling at your bottom lip, you leaned over him again and slowly reached out, and--

“Simba…” you choked out with reverence, brushing a muddy thumb across his forehead.

Tears from the held-back laughter threatened to spill any second as you observed Neil blanking out in utter confusion. The five stages of grief ran through his expression and then he closed his eyes and sighed theatrically.

“The fate of the world is in the hands of a complete madwoman.”

...the what now?

You tilted your head, grinning.

“Aren’t you a little dramatic?”

Then, without a warning, Neil shifted under you, rolling you off him and pinning you down.

“Birds of a feather and all that,” he said, clearly enjoying the way you squealed and squirmed as the mud got under your shirt. “You think you got a hang of the inverted movement already?”

“I don’t know,” you shrugged. Neil realized your intentions a second too late. A handful of mud splashed on his face and you chuckled with satisfaction. “Yeah, now I think I’m ready to go.”

You turned up at the airlock soon after, looking like something that cat dragged in, but beaming widely. Dreaming of a hot shower and a clean set of clothes, you put down the mask and the oxygen container and headed to the turnstile.

Wheeler was waiting for you near the machine, and seeing the state you were in, she just gaped at you both, trying to come up with an adequate question.

As you noticed her quizzical look, you gave her a thumbs up and smiled.

“If you ain't dirty, you ain't here to party! Wooo!” you whooped, throwing your hands up and trotting past her straight into the turnstile.

Right before reverting yourself back to your original state, you heard Wheeler’s hushed question.

“You two all right?”

And then Neil’s answer.

“Don’t worry, we’re good.”

--------

The truck’s engine hummed steadily, which could only mean you were on some sort of highway. At least the container stopped wobbling, so you could practice in peace.

No wobbles meant no excuses, though. You sighed, readjusting your grip on the tools.

Neil had fallen asleep some time ago, after making sure you figured out the locks and hearing your solemn promise that you would follow him soon.

One day after that eventful night, then inverting and going straight back without proper sleep. You knew he was right and you needed at least a nap. But you couldn’t. Not before you were absolutely sure you got it. The usual locks weren’t that bad. The inverted ones were a whole other story.

It’d taken you long enough to crack them in the safety of your own apartment, without the weird physics, ever-present even within the air-locked container. Without the pressure.

The fate of the world.

What the fuck was that supposed to mean?

You didn’t even know what was that thing you were supposed to retrieve soon. It was okay, you didn’t need to. It was a quite common situation in your work history. That kind of knowledge could be dangerous, after all.

The pin clicked and you sighed again, squeezing your eyes shut to stop the burning sensation even for a moment.

Besides, you were doing it for Neil. The memory of that panicked look on his face when he’d seen the documents was enough to keep you going.

But did he have to say that?

You had to do it. Not only because you felt responsible for him, in a way. What you’d told the boss was true and you weren’t the only one at fault for Neil not being fully ready for that assignment. He was your friend, wasn’t he? And there was no way you’d leave a friend in need.

You pressed your lips together, forcing yourself to breathe.

Probably a stupid joke, nothing more.

But what if he was being serious? What if that thing out there was really that important? And you were about to fuck everything up because you couldn’t get your shit together fast enough to figure out the bloody inverted mechanism again. And with every minute wasted and not spent on resting there was a higher chance of messing up at the actual location.

Hell of a locksmith you were, huh?

The feedback from the tools came with a final warning like a sobering slap. If you were to continue, they would snap any second now.

You let out a shaky breath and retraced from the lock, hiding your face in the palms.

A gentle touch on your shoulder almost made you flinch. Of course, he had to wake up in the middle of your breakdown.

“Go back to sleep, we still have a few hours left,” you muttered into your hands, trying to collect yourself.

“Not before you talk to me,” said Neil as his fingers slid down your arm. He was crouching right beside you, the blue eyes boring into you with concern. “What is it?”

You sighed and shifted in your seat to face him.

“Wanna make sure I got it, that’s all.”

Neil’s brows knitted together.

“But I saw you open that lock once, why--”

“Once! And that’s exactly the problem!” you fumed and glared at the table. “I can’t crack it again, I--” your voice wavered and you gritted the teeth in frustration. “What if it was a stroke of dumb luck? Should I start praying for another one to happen there?”

Another delicate touch, this time on your knees, was enough to make you look back at Neil. A shade of smile tainted his lips as he searched your gaze.

“Someone used to tell me all the time that if you did it once, you can do it again.”

You hung your head and huffed, “Maybe that someone was full of shit.’

“I know for a fact that she wasn’t,” he chuckled, taking the tools out of your clenched fists and putting them back at the table. “She was utterly brilliant,” he continued, reaching for your cramping, trembling hands and taking them in his, ”and always reminded me to take a break instead of agonizing over a stubborn lock.”

That you did, all right. Your laugh sounded awfully close to a sob. God, if you weren’t exhausted.

Mustering enough strength to look him in the eyes, you squeezed his hands, trying to convey all the gratitude in the gesture. And hide that bit of embarrassment, too.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he said and his thumbs brushed over your knuckles. “Scoot over.”

You moved back on the provisional bench, making enough space for him to sit next to you. And so he did, not letting go of your hands even for a second. He started rubbing small circles into them and you grunted softly. Neil gave you a knowing smile and soon enough, his fingers glided between your forearms and fingertips, applying pressure to the tensest places, careful strokes and precise moves bringing a much-needed release. You couldn’t help small groans escaping your mouth, every one of them adding to the self-satisfied grin hiding in the corner of Neil’s mouth. But then, instead of teasing you, his features softened and you caught his glance, warm and sheepish.

“I don’t think I properly thanked you for offering to help me with this mission.”

“I couldn’t let you have all the fun,” you laughed and winced as Neil’s thumbs worked on your wrists. “Don’t thank me yet, we still need to pull it off first.”

“Well, maybe we already have, from the typical point of view,” - he pondered, lighting up - “seeing that we are moving back--”

“Neil, please, I’m all for discussing it later, but right now it’s about to give me a pounding headache.”

When you met his eyes, you noted with relief that he didn’t mind you cutting him off like that. He knew that you were tired, nothing more.

“Right, sorry.” Then he looked at you with determination, suddenly serious. “Whatever happens… thank you. It means a lot.”

“Of course,” you said quietly as your heart ached with unexpected fondness.

Neil smiled, shaking off the sentimental moment. His hands cupped yours and gave them a light squeeze.

“Now would you please get some rest?”

“Will you tuck me in?” you grinned and batted your lashes at him, earning an amused snort in return.

“I can even sing you a lullaby if that means you’ll fall asleep faster,” he said, standing up and tugging at your hand.

“Ah, I’m afraid I’m gonna crash too fast to properly appreciate it,” you giggled as he kited you all the way to the resting area at the front of the container. “But I’m definitely taking a rain check on that.”

“Sure.” One final brush of his thumb over your fingers and he let go of your hand, smirking. “Now sleep, I’ll wake you up when we get there.”

-------

Neil proved to be an excellent companion.

You disabled the alarms simultaneously, paying attention to all the possible silent traps. Forcing the main locks went smoothly, almost surprisingly so. For having something of such importance hidden there, the owners of the place seemed strangely old-fashioned; it shone through the antique decor of the lofty apartment as well as the security choices. Too easy. Tuning out an intrusive thought rattling in the back of your head, you scouted the dark rooms, careful not to leave any traces of your presence.

There.

The office you saw in the photos.

...but they’d redecorated.

“That’s one fancy safe they got there,” you said nonchalantly, eyeing the ornament piece of metal lit by your flashlight, “Too bad it somehow got left out at the briefing.”

Neil’s face dropped when he followed you inside the room.

“Christ, and what now?”

Good question. You’d worked with safes before, hell, you’d cracked a fair share of them using simply manipulation. But never going bloody backwards in time. How would that even work? Was it normal or inverted?

Well, there was only one way to find out.

“I’ve got this.” And that’s how you felt, despite the initial panic. There was a method to it, and you had most of the things you needed with you. Perks of overpreparing. The only issue was-- ... “It might take a while, though.”

Neil nodded.

“Let me know if you need anything.”

“Keep an eye on the time for me, I gotta focus,” you said, reaching into your backpack and accidentally pulling on the thin tube. Right. “...and maybe on the oxygen levels as well?”

“Will do.”

Your brain switched into the challenge mode, and your fingers tingled to give it a try. Armed with a sound amplifier and a little notepad, you sat down next to the safe and got to work.

Figuring out your way in was meant to be a hit and miss, doubly so with the goddamn inversion. But minute after minute, click by click, you determined the first contact points, and the years of experience took you from there. You scribbled numbers and variations in the notepad, fully focused on the task. Almost there.

Another combination. Inhale. Exhale. Pull.

Gotcha.

“Neil?” you called out in the hushed voice as the beam from the flashlight landed on a small metal box of a peculiar shape.

He was next to you in no time.

“That’s it,” he said, kneeling down. He reached inside and took out the box, then carefully placed it inside his backpack. The blue eyes glimmered in the dim light. “Good job!”

“Thanks,” you smiled and closed the safe. “Now let’s get out of here.”

You gathered and packed all your stuff, double-checking for any leftover signs of your entry.

Then you heard it. A faint, slightly off patter against the huge windows. You froze in place as your mind tried to grasp the view of trickles of rain coming up the glass.

Neil glanced outside, not mindful of the absolutely bonkers scene that wiped any coherent thought from your head. Although judging from how quickly his face lost all the colours, the view he got was even more disturbing.

“Christ…” he uttered, shooting you a panicked look. “We’ve got company.”

You dashed to the window to see for yourself. A group of people was crossing the empty street, moving pretty much normally, and that only meant...

Fuck.

“The owners?”

Neil shook his head. “Impossible. The third party, probably.” With his hand already on the holster, he hesitated, considering the options.

But there were only two: fight or flight. The problem was - the numbers didn’t look good for you to try pushing through the crew downstairs. And as for the second one, your initial exit routes seemed to be cut off already.

Although, there was still one path left. You almost smiled to yourself. He was not going to like it.

“Let’s go through the roofs.”

Neil’s eyes widened. “Are you sure?” he asked, scanning your face for any sign of doubt.

There was none.

“Yes, but we have to leave right now.”

He swallowed with effort and nodded.

As soon as you bolted out of the apartment and rushed up the stairs, the footsteps coming from the lower levels quickened. Time was running out.

You were about to barge outside when Neil grabbed your hand as if he sensed what was going to happen next. The doors opened and you lost the momentum, startled by the view. Heavy showers replaced the drizzle you saw through the window, intensifying the nauseating effect.

The last strands of sanity threatened to leave you, but Neil’s touch was like an anchor, grounding you and keeping you from spiraling further.

“Which way?” he shouted through the hammering, almost deafening rain.

You blinked rapidly and looked around to match the data from the brief to the actual location.

“Over there!”

Wishing you’d had a goddamn collar to pop, you leaped to the side, guiding Neil through your only escape route. You let go of his hand to vault over the vents, and just as your feet touched the surface again, you heard distant yells behind you. Shit.

The high density of the area was working in your favor, but only for so long. There was meant to be a gap between the buildings sooner or later, and one of them was coming right up. The jump was doable, even for Neil - all you needed was speed and a decent launch.

But when your companion noticed the edge of the roof, he slowed down and stopped by a low parapet wall, cursing.

“No fucking way!”

“Yes fucking way, Neil, come on! We don’t have time!” you urged him as the voices behind you grew louder.

He swallowed with effort, too transfixed on the gap. You bit back an impatient groan and grabbed him by the shoulders, forcing him to look at you.

“Neil, listen to me. You can do this. All you need is a run-up.”

He didn’t seem convinced. You gritted your teeth, trying to keep your own rising panic in check.

“Do you trust me? Yes or no?”

He met your eyes and his features hardened. There.

“I do.”

And when you opened the mouth again, the first bullet whizzed past you. You flinched, but maintained the eye contact, afraid to lose Neil’s newfound confidence. “Then go first, I’m right behind you.”

Neil nodded and backed away quickly. Watching him jump, your heart skipped a beat, but he landed on the other side without too much trouble. Good. Your turn.

You dashed towards the rim and another bullet missed your legs by a hair’s breadth, hitting the parapet wall right ahead of you. A little close to the top, as you noted, jumping on it to leap across the gap.

But the realization came a moment too late. The wall crumbled under your feet.

Enough for you to not make it to the other side.

Someone screamed.

Was it you?

It didn’t matter.

The world dissolved in a flash of agonizing pain.

And darkness.

----

Static beeping. The smell of disinfectants. And your every particle throbbing in dull pain.

Somebody was having a quiet conversation nearby. The Protagonist… and Neil?

A wave of relief flooded over you. He’d made it.

Grunting, you opened your eyes and squinted, waiting for your sight to readjust to the poor light. Weird. Why would they keep you in such a pitch-black room?

“Gents?” you called out, carefully shifting upwards, wincing. “Would you mind getting the lights?”

The conversation stopped and you heard a gasp.

“Lights? But it’s the middle of the day?” said The Protagonist, but Neil cut him off.

“You’re awake!” Footsteps and a sudden touch on your hand. Neil’s voice trembled slightly, as well as his fingers. “Are you okay?”

You bored into darkness, hoping to see the familiar face.

To see anything.

To see.

(next chapter ->)

[the-flying-urayuli]

i made a weird post about the little bits in inside that was not put together a while ago so im doing it again out of boredom for the songs

yeah this is not at all put together so this may not be super accurate

content: a great opening song, definetly brings you into the feel of the special. for some reason i get “forced to work into a content factory despite your own issues and cant keep up with it” but eh

comedy: pretty obvious, a satirical song about people praising themselves for doing nothing etc etc with some other parts in it. there is definetly more about this song but i dont know them.

facetime with my mum: tbh i often skip this song? but it could possibly be about people praising themselves for talking and loving there parents but never actually paying attention, helping them or being nice.

how the world works: also obvious, about the corporate corruption and manipulation. also possibly noteable. its framed as a sort of kids puppet show, so possibly could also be refferencing all that corporate almost propaganda to convice children just to buy. this has been referenced a couple times in the special? but this is the first one.

white womans instagram: ive seen plenty of great interpretations of this song and this isnt my own but its that this girl is clearly dealing with a lot of her own problems, i.e her mums death, but she keeps faking herself to be the most perfect person on the internet or something like that. but thats nice

unpaid intern: i believe bo explained this himself-

bezoes 1: i used to love this song but it being used on tiktok so much sorta just made me sick of it. not much to say about this song, kinda obvious and straightfoward its about jeffery bezoes’  horrific acts for his own gain

sexting: not much to say here, if anyone has a good analysis of this song please give it to me

look whos inside again: fucking bop, has to be one of my favourites. also quite straightfoward. bo talks about how as a child he was just a kid stuck in his room, doing what he liked and he actually liked doing it, but now its just a 

problematic: could be a couple things, either bo talking about his own problematic past and finally adressing it and coming to terms with it, which is probably it. it could also could be like unpaid intern and it could be a satire on glowup pop songs. instead of talking about how amazing you are and denying any past its facing those things directly and being straightfoward with your emotions? something like that

30: not much to say, about the terrifying feeling of growing older and scared of growing irrelevant. something along those lines

dont wanna know: this song on the omnichord is my ringtone. like content its for right after the intermission and its bo wanting know more about what you think of the show and asking questions to the audience but not wanting to know.

shit: a groovy song about depression

all time low: about a panic attack, is this the shortest song on the album?

welcome to the internet: about the internet and all of just the shit thats on here. possibly ties in to bo’s opinion on not thinking the internet should be free to everyone and as someone who literally never gets of the internet i have to agree. but yeah its a song about how the internet has so many different things right next to each other that anyone can access, and how so many different groups can manipulate it. such as corporations, scams, cyberbulliers, pedos, propaganda and misinformation spreaders etc etc

bezoes 2: pretty quick song, probably more ties into bo just not wanting to stop the special. this song is quite quick, lacks a lot of what other inside songs have and is just a redo of another existing song, which isnt in any other existing song on the album. so possibly its bo slowly getting sloppier with the songs just wanting to keep it going and never finish and no longer worries about things that the rest of the special had? idk

that funny feeling: thank you reddit for telling me what the funny feeling actually is and now that i know like- holy shit this song is amazing and always makes me sad. for other dumbasses like me, this song is about that feeling of we have the materials to improve the world but we just dont, through lazziness and people who dont do anything just cause it doesnt affect them. its that feeling of sitting there, knowing that you want to help save the enviroment but just 15 minutes later you know you wont do anything.

all eyes on me: i honestly dont know? i have plenty of ideas but i sure dont remember them rn and they arent that good, same thing with the ending of the special. but like god this song is an experience

goodbye: this has to be one of my top songs of this special. however i dont have many theories on it? or at least that i can think of rn

any day now: just the outro song, however i have seen some people it has a double meaning of both talking about the credits ending or the lockdown

[nsomniacsdream]

My life is quiet. Where I live is quiet. I cant remember the last time I saw someone who wasn't white. They were probably Hispanic and not black tho. The native people who live here have intermarried so many times they look almost European. A quick glance wouldn't register that theyre not. This is Oregon, where white settlers decided that if they couldn't have slaves, they would just ban blacks outright. Almost every town over 100 years old has the stories, about the black family who moved to town and then their house was empty one day.

I'm not from here, a transplant like so many others. We came for ocean air, or trees to the horizon, or to feel the rain that falls half the year. Where I was born was similar, there are still klan flags flying in towns around where I was born. But poc were still there. Your parents could talk about lazy mexicans or casually use one of the hundreds of slurs we have made up for black people, but you knew someone at school who was Hispanic and he wasn't lazy. You grew up with black classmates and they weren't stupid or worse. You had a chance, you know?

After I left home, because it was leave or work in the hog plant until I got injured or too old, I floated around a lot. Baltimore, where there were people from all over, but everyone agreed the black part of town wasn't safe. Texas, where every other person was hispanic, but the white people would abuse them to their face and if you were black you kind of expected to be called something on a daily basis. I drifted to Iowa after awhile, and watched everyone I know dying by inches because the factories were closing and meth was cheaper than booze a lot of the time. I lived in Phoenix when arpaio was running things, and I was told the first day that I should make sure my gf didn't go out after dark, because the sheriffs office hated women almost as much as they hated Mexicans. 1 out of 100 rape claims would be investigated. White people re elected him every time he ran. Trump pardoned him, Google him if you want to know why I'll never believe anything trump says.

I've lived all over the country, and I've never really had to struggle. When I need an apartment, there is one available. I need a job. I put out a handful of apps and have one by the end of the week. But I've also seen first hand how different it is for people who aren't white. My friend (roommate for a time), who would have lost everything he had, and his wife and his 2 daughters, because the factory was the only place that would take people with felonies and paid a living wage. He hadn't done anything i havent done before, but he did it while being black. My ex and I got into a car accident (another driver on their cellphone crashed into us doing 45 in a 30 while we were parked). If several witnesses hadn't come forward it got real close to the cops declaring her at fault, because the driver who hit us was white and claimed she swerved out in front of her. My ex was black.

I dont know what to do with all of this information most days. Im really far from any of the equality and police brutality protests, and I'd lose my job if I took time off to attend one. I calmly explain to people what the protests are about and why they should support them, but my entire county pretty much guzzles straight from Trumps hose. Im ignored, or called naive or that ive drank the librul kool-aid, and I'm sure some people have put a little checkmark next to my name in their minds. In my little neck of the woods, I have a quiet life, and I dont expect that to change.

I guess this is a really long post to say: We are out here. You have more support than you might think. Burn this whole fucker down if you have to, because you've all done the right things and been told to wait and its been GENERATIONS and nothing has changed. There is nothing in this country that we have that isn't built on the backs and the broken bodies of yall. Blacks, natives, Hispanics, Asians, we played every single one of you telling you that you could have your shot at the American dream right after you built up the system we would use to deny it to you. There is no point in trying to compromise, or any of that "these things take time", because that time is life literally stolen from you and your children. Im poor as shit, so you can roll me right in there with the rest of you, even though I'm given the benefit of the doubt for being white.

I stand with you all. Im tired to my core over watching this keep happening. And I will back you all the way, anything. But when you see that Bumfuck, oregon re elected some douchenozzle who uses the threat of antifa and blm murder to fire up white peole, know that we aren't all fucking idiots. We just can't yell louder than them.

[catholic-character-tournament]

Round 1 - Resurrect Bracket (Losers Bracket) Side B

ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to [make it to the finals]

Propaganda below ⬇️

Kirei

He fucked up so many people's lives so badly in just one decade (not on purpose) that the universe put him in the summoning pool of all world influencing souls. He doesnt really have any special powers but he does serve as a vessel for rasputin at one point. He's the guy who says "people die when they are killed"

please please please there's literally a type moon character in the gif on the top of this form so it's typemoonphobic if none of them get in but it shouldn't be her it should be kirei bc he's 50x funnier & more iconic than jeanne. funny lil murder priest who's fucking THE gilgamesh (from the epic of) in the church basement and dies in a knife fight w a 17 year old whose dad he wanted to fuck back in '94 before realizing that he was actually kinda lame and he's been bitter abt it ever since. he has an orphan torture factory in his basement but he's also canonically good at being a priest. he's so funny you should def try his mapo tofu i swear it's totally safe for human consumption and not made with any california reapers. did i mention he's a deadbeat dad.

View on Twitter

Priest claims to be Pro Life to make Sakura Matou the most miserable girl on the planet, but he dies anyway.

bro became a catholic because he loves suffering

He’s a priest. Kind of. Not a very good priest obviously. There is something seriously wrong and fucked up with that man. It’s so entertaining.

he's gotta be one of the most insane catholic men ever with a very in-depth and interesting relationship with his religion and his relationship with god also he's the sexiest man ever to be conceptualized in the known universe and all of time

Will never forget the 40+ minute monologue in heavens feel being a thinly veiled metaphor for abortion

he wants to torment churchgoers and make them face their failures and suffering but all he ends up doing is motivate them to improve themselves. cringefail moment for him

he's absolutely insane. the coldhearted mercenary that barely reacts to anything is terrified of kirei. he's super fucked up. his ult in stay night is literally him channeling divine power into something called kyrie eleison. he's the vessel of rasputin (on account of being a priest with a huge....no i shant say) the biblical beast in grand order among other things. he gets drunk with and tops gilgamesh from the epic of gilgamesh in the church basement after gilgamesh from the epic of gilgamesh bats his eyes a little too hard at kirei in some of the horniest shot scenes ive ever seen. he also used to be a heretical "fixer" for the church, cleaning up scenes that would expose shit to the public. uhh what else. he holds cool swords between his fingers like a kid pretending to be wolverine but in my favorite route he just squares the hell up with the protagonist and they fight to the death outside planned parenthood

Soap

Religious trauma coded. Popular hc that his family is Catholic.

He's gay and has a funny hair cut. Is that not enough to be Catholic?

he was such a bad bitch they had to kill him off in the third game bc he would've mopped the floor with the main antagonist otherwise. rip soap keep thotting it up in heaven we miss u every day

`!!!6ths -- propaganda by my kitten

[neighbours-kid]

Oh, 2019, What A Year You Were.

It is now a bit before 6pm on January 01, 2020. I just finished unpacking after coming home from my short holiday escape to Berlin for New Year’s with my best friend and frequent travel buddy. My feet are tired, my back hurts, and I’m sitting in bed now, thinking back on this last year and, it’s kind of hard for me to decide if it was a good year or less so.

My 2019 was not as eventful as my 2018. There was no large adventure to speak of like going to New York City for six months, or having to adjust back to life in Switzerland after that. 2019 was just…..uni. The same old trudge of going to class and thinking about texts that should be read (but wouldn’t be), the same old treading water without direction, stuck in one place, unsure what comes next. Or, at least, that’s what it feels like looking back on it.

When I did this looking back the last time, 2018 was not quite over yet. It was still December, I had a few more days of uni to go, all the Christmases and other celebrations still before me. At that point, I had no idea that I would meet a couple of people at the Christmas Party of our English Department and that these people would be largely responsible for tipping the scale of 2019 into ‘good’.

But I did. I did meet these lovely people I get to call something akin to family today. It’s only been a year, and I can’t quite believe it. Found family has always been my favourite trope in storytelling, and this little group of weirdos is exactly that. And to quote my favourite little alien creature, this is my family. I found it, all on my own. It’s little, and broken, but still good. Yeah, still good.

These people are not perfect, they’re not flawless, they’re not angels. But they have more humanity between them than I’ve seen in a long fucking while. We’re all broken people, none of us is any better than the next, but we have heart. And I love them all so fucking much. They have all coloured in parts of my year in their own colours and I could not be happier about it. They’re a bunch of fucking weirdo nerds, but they’re my bunch of fucking weirdo nerds.

* * *

This year was, while largely uneventful, also very special in its own way. You know, after talking to my doc to get a date for a transgender consultation, my plan was basically to wait until I got it all lined up nicely, got my first shot of testosterone and then be like "hello world, this is happening, and if you have anything against it, whoops, too late.” Well, it didn’t quite work out like that. If you’ve been keeping up with this blog or my life in general, you know that my anxious ass decided to have a nervous break in the middle of January and come out to literally everyone then and there. And you know what? It’s good.

I’m not where I want to be, not at all. After January, I had expectations for 2019, I had hopes and dreams, wishes and plans. Unfortunately, that lead to a series of events that is tipping the scale of this year into ‘bad’. I wrote about this extensively before, but the process of starting testosterone is a long and tedious one and I am still not where I want to be, even after this entire year, but I currently see a shiny dot on the horizon that looks very promising in that department, and if everything goes as it should, it won’t be long now until I can start with the hormone treatment.

2019 started me down a road of self-discovery that is more open and public than it was before, and I am glad for it. But I don’t want to linger on that part of my year for too long. Let us look back for a while, relive some moments here and there.

On the train home from the airport today, I thought about what I did exactly one year ago. After everyone who had been at my place for New Year’s had left around lunch time on January 01, 2019, I had sat down in front of my TV and started a very movie and tv show heavy year. Over the course of this entire year, I noted down every movie and tv show episode, every short film and comedy special, everything that I watched. It…..added up quite a bit, to be completely honest. Let’s see….

For reference, I had holidays during January and half of February, as well as June all through August and half of September, and then again from the 21st of December onward. My marathon didn’t quite subside during university, but at least I didn’t binge quite so much.

In total, I watched 178 movies, 10 short films, and 685 episodes of 34 tv shows. That is 300h12 in movies, 1h38 in short films, and roughly 519h47 in tv show episodes. (Yes, I did just spend way too much time looking up all the run times…) That is a rough total of 821h37 for this year. That’s like….a bit over a month of time spent watching stuff. 1/12 of my year spent in front of a screen. Not entirely sure how I feel about this number.

I know that for some this might sound a bit excessive, but to be honest? There is so much more I want to watch and if I could do completely as I please, these numbers would look a lot different.

Here is, with the exact intention of being a big mess of a block, all the movies I watched in 2019. I highlighted a few that stood out to me especially. Not just because I liked them very much, or because they were particularly excellent, just because….they made me feel something different, I guess. The oldest movie I watched was Grease (1978) and the newest would be the comedy special John Mulaney and the Sack Lunch Bunch from this year. I started my year with Night at the Museum (2006) and ended it with season five of Leverage.

Grease (1978), My Neighbour Totoro (1988), Die Hard (1988), Batman (1989), Die Hard 2: Die Harder (1990), Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), Othello (1995), Mission Impossible (1996), Mary Reilly (1996), Wilde (1997), Animated Epics: Beowulf (1998), Mission Impossible II (2000), Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Fast and the Furious (2001), Ocean’s Eleven (2001), Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (2001), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), Heartlands (2002), xXx (2002), 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003), Underworld (2003), Bright Young Things (2003), Timeline (2003), The Deal (2003), Ocean’s Twelve (2004), Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), Laws of Attraction (2004), Dirty Filthy Love (2004), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005), Kingdom of Heaven (2005), The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse (2005), The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006), Underworld: Evolution (2006), Mission Impossible III (2006), Inside Man (2006), Night at the Museum (2006), The Da Vinci Code (2006), The Queen (2006), Die Hard 4.0: Live Free or Die Hard (2007), Music Within (2007), Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007), Ocean’s Thirteen (2007), Zodiac (2007), Iron Man (2008), Twilight (2008), Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009), Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009), Twilight: New Moon (2009), The Damned United (2009), Fast & Furious (2009), Sherlock Holmes (2009), The Holiday (2009), Angels & Demons (2009), Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009), Inception (2010), The Bounty Hunter (2010), Twilight: Eclipse (2010), Alice in Wonderland (2010), Tron: Legacy (2010), Megamind (2010), Valentine’s Day (2010), The Expendables (2010), Red (2010), Eat Pray Love (2010), Iron Man 2 (2010), Beautiful Boy (2010), Fast Five (2011), Fright Night (2011, twice), Resistance (2011), Few Options, All Bad (2011), Jesus Henry Christ (2011), Twilight: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 (2011), Mission Impossible IV: Ghost Protocol (2011), Pitch Perfect (2012), Twilight: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 (2012), White House Down (2013), Admission (2013), I Give It A Year (2013), Escape Plan (2013), The Adventurer: Curse of the Midas Box (2013), Furious 6 (2013), A Good Day to Die Hard (2013), Red 2 (2013), Begin Again (2013), Saving Mr. Banks (2013), Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb (2014), Kill the Messenger (2014), The Monuments Men (2014), Midnight in Paris (2014), Paddington (2014), The Imitation Game (2014), Maleficent (2014), Chelsea Peretti: One Of The Greats (2014), John Mulaney: The Comeback Kid (2015, twice), Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation (2015), Far From the Madding Crowd (2015), 7 Days in Hell (2015), Furious Seven (2015), Assassin’s Creed (2016), Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016), Patton Oswalt: Talking for Clapping (2016), Ali Wong: Baby Cobra (2016), Nocturnal Animals (2016), She Loves Me (2016), Passengers (2016), Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer (2016), xXx: The Return of Xander Cage (2017), Michael Bolton’s Big, Sexy Valentine’s Day Special (2017), Brad’s Status (2017), Home Again (2017), Murder On The Orient Express (2017), Christmas Inheritance (2017), Paddington 2 (2017), You, Me & Him (2017), Beauty and the Beast (2017), Trevor Noah: Afraid of the Dark (2017), Dave Chappelle: The Age of Spin (2017), Dave Chappelle: Deep in the Heart of Texas (2017), Patton Oswalt: Annihilation (2017), Jack Whitehall: At Large (2017), Hasan Minhaj: Homecoming King (2017), Katherine Ryan: In Trouble (2017), Mission Impossible: Fallout (2018), Slaughterhouse Rulez (2018), The Fate of the Furious (2018), Love, Simon (2018), Ocean’s 8 (2018, twice), Bad Samaritan (2018), John Mulaney: Kid Gorgeous (2018, twice), Hannah Gadsby: Nanette (2018), Daniel Sloss: Dark (2018), Daniel Sloss: Jigsaw (2018), Trevor Noah: Son of Patricia (2018), Ali Wong: Hard Knock Wife (2018), James Acaster: Recognise (2018), James Acaster: Represent (2018), James Acaster: Reset (2018), James Acaster: Recap (2018), Apostle (2018), The Holiday Calendar (2018), The Princess Switch (2018), The Christmas Chronicles (2018), Captain Marvel (2019, twice), Shazam! (2019, twice), Avengers: Endgame (2019, twice), Pokémon: Detective Pikachu (2019), The Hustle (2019), Rocketman (2019), X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019), Men in Black: International (2019), Tolkien (2019), Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019), Isn’t It Romantic (2019), Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019), Jenny Slate: Stage Fright (2019), Wanda Sykes: Not Normal (2019), Katherine Ryan: Glitter Room (2019), Simon Amstell: Set Free (2019), Adam Devine: Best Time of Our Lives (2019), Let It Snow (2019), Last Christmas (2019), Klaus (2019), Always Be My Maybe (2019), The Knight Before Christmas (2019), The Good Liar (2019), Hustlers (2019), Star Wars: Rise of the Skywalker (2019), Murder Mystery (2019), John Mulaney and the Sack Lunch Bunch (2019)

TV shows are going to make up a block a bit less intimidating, but here goes. Again, highlighted what stood out to me especially.

The Gifted, Friends, NCIS, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Money Heist, Riverdale, The Punisher, Broadchurch, Elite, Doctor Who, Dramarama, Agents of SHIELD, Pokémon Indio League, Good Omens, The Chef Show, Jessica Jones, Halt and Catch Fire, The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, The Simpsons, 30 Rock, The Good Fight, Sean’s Show, Gallowglass, Animals., The Spoils of Babylon, Pobol Y Cwm, Masters of Sex, Prodigal Son, Criminal UK, The Politician, Leverage, His Dark Materials, Zona Rosa, Derry Girls

Some old favourites in there. Some new ones too. I won’t list the shorts because I don’t particularly care for them. I watched them solely for binging-through-someone’s-filmography reasons.

So yeah, as you can see, a very strong year when it comes to the visual medium. I just really love movies and tv shows so much. I love this kind of storytelling, this particular form of it. There’s so much artistry there, so many talented people. I still very much would love to work in the movie world at some point. Inspires me greatly. Always has.

* * *

2019 was not just a year of sitting glued to a TV screen, not at all. I’ve been some places too, got to do and experience some cool stuff.

In April I was able to take a few days off and go to Lugano with my dear friend and relax for a little while. We also met up with one of the lovely people I’ve met through twitter, which was great fun and we’ve spent a fantastic day together (eating food I still catch myself thinking about at least twice a week).

In June I went to Pride in Zurich with my friends, which was also a wonderful experience all together.

In July I was able to go to Cologne for half a week for CCXP, where I got to see some great panels and meet some great people. And, most importantly and also the reason why I went, I got to meet Zachary Levi again, take a picture together, have a wonderful conversation while he signed something for me, and experience an incredibly inspiring panel where I got to ask him a question that he took the time and patience to extensively answer. I treasure these moments, just as I treasure all our previous meetings and the friends and experiences that have come with it. Seeing him again after two years was definitely the highlight of the year, and it’s a strong weight of the good part in the scale that is 2019. He’s always a highlight, the dude. I can’t wait until I get to see that face again.

Also in July, I joined a few friends for a weekend at a medieval festival in Germany, which was also a very interesting and good experience.

And now at the end of the year, I spent a few days in Berlin, visiting museums and bookshops and generally touristing about with my dearest friend, celebrated New Year’s with her in the only way we know how: with good wine, food, warmth, and a tv show we both love and hold dear.

I also shouldn’t forget the two parties I attended of our university’s English Department, and the Halloween party a friend organised, and the birthdays I attended over the year, as well as the Christmas I spent with my friends at my place.

All these things, all these little bits add up and add up and ultimately I want to think that 2019 was a good year. I am so glad this year is over, but looking back I find so many good things that have happened, so many wonderful experiences, and I wonder, why? Why am I so happy it is over? Why am I so desperate to move forward, to turn the page, to start a new chapter, a new book?

I don’t know. I really don’t know.

* * *

For this new year, for 2020, I have a few wishes. I’m not really one to make resolutions, because I know exactly I won’t hold myself to it, but I have some things I’d like to do, like to try.

2019 was my year of movies and shows. I won’t stop watching things, I’ll never stop watching things. But for this year, I want to put my focus elsewhere. This year, I’d like to try and read all the books that have amassed themselves in my possession, that I haven’t actually read yet. It’s doable, I don’t own enormous amounts of books yet. I want to try that. I want to try to read more, to find that passion and attention span again that I had as a kid. I might try to blog a bit about it, just so I have something to hold me accountable. We’ll see. But I just really want to read more. Carry a book everywhere I go.

I know that 2020 is bringing me another step closer to becoming my truest self. I have my next appointment with the hormone specialist early in February, and if I am not entirely mistaken (or something is drastically changed) I will be able to start taking hormones then and there. Starting testosterone is going to be exciting and interesting, and I am very much looking forward to it. What I want for myself this year, is to take it easy. Be kind to myself in this journey. Let myself be gentle. I always have so many expectations for myself, and I really just want to try and…let myself be, let myself just live and experience things as they come. No expectations.

This first half year of 2020 is also the time I will be writing my Bachelor thesis and, hopefully, by summer I’ll have my degree. It’ll be a tough but I hope also rewarding time for me. Having to shift the way I write papers (quick, barely researched and sourced, not even remotely re-read, always started mere hours before the deadline) to something more useful for a thesis, something fitting for a thesis, is going to be challenging. Keeping my head in the right space, keeping the focus and doing the work, it’s all going to be hard for me. But I have faith that I will find a way to reign in my scatterbrain and flick the hyper-focus switch into something that will be sustainable for the time I have to write my thesis in.

Speaking of my thesis, there is something I have not mentioned yet, that strongly informed my experience of 2019. Good Omens is the book I’ll be writing my thesis about (specifically a queer theological reading of it) and Good Omens was the story that has shaped my year. I re-read the book at the beginning of term and once the mini-series came out at the end of May, I did not really think about anything else since. This book and this show are so incredibly important to me, and it is, after a long while of nothing even remotely getting there, the first thing that has captured my attention so strongly, that it has outlasted my one-month hyper-focus ability and shows no signs of stopping any time soon. And that I am so incredibly grateful for. I wasn’t sure if I could still do it. Have an interest, have passion for something, for longer than a month. So many things I tried and loved and done, and after a single month, I dropped them like a hot potato and never touched them again. But Good Omens came and took me by my hand and lead me into the promised land. Especially since the show came out, I feel like a changed person. I have talked about it to no end, and I could go on forever now too, but I’ll just say this for now: This story of an angel and a demon crossing the divide that is their differences, coming together in love for the world, for humanity, and each other, this story means everything to me, and it has given me so much. Nothing is ever going to change that. That is irrevocable. And I know that 2020 won’t change that fact. I have faith that this passion will continue on and will inspire more positive change in me. It’s already started bringing me back to writing and drawing, so I know that it will lead me somewhere.

There is so much more I could say here, now, about 2019, about 2020. About my plans and my wishes, my dreams and the things I ought to do. But I think, I’ll leave it at that, for now. I tried this monthly blogging last year for the first time, and I think I’ll try to continue doing it. So, you can expect to read more of my thoughts on all kinds of things.

For now, however, let me say this: 2020 can be anything you want it to be. 2020 is yours to shape, yours to create in, yours to manage, yours to use. I want my 2020 to be gentle, to be taken one step at a time, to be experienced to the fullest, to be lived and felt and actively experienced. Sure, bad things can happen, bad things can always happen. But it’s your decision what happens next.

In 2020, I want to start loving more unapologetically. Do good, recklessly. Be kind, always. Not just to others, but to myself.

…

I have faith in us, you know? Humans. There’s so much hope there, still. 2020 might just as well show it.

…

Happy New Year, everyone. I hope it’ll be a good one for you.

[projectalbum]

Art is Resistance. 149. “With Teeth” (Halo 19), 150. “Year Zero” (Halo 24), 151. “Y34RZ3R0R3M1X3D” (Halo 25), 152. “Ghosts I-IV” (Halo 26), 153. “The Slip” (Halo 27) by Nine Inch Nails

The 6-year gap between Nine Inch Nails studio albums saw the Internet become truly ascendant in popular culture, for better and worse.

Napster took a bite from the music industry and was put down like a mad dog. The Pirate Bay first unfurled its flag. Radio play and music videos were still the main avenue for displaying the wares of major label musicians to the general public, and success was still measured in units of CDs sold, but more and more people were becoming hip to the underground access provided by a DSL modem.

But the power of the Web to empower artists and connect them to their fans still evaded most of the recording industry; honchos and artists alike were largely clueless. Trent Reznor, the big ol’ nerd, was a notable exception. Posting on early message boards on Prodigy, embracing torrents, creating an online gateway for the band’s fans, leaking material from the archives, experimenting with an optional-pay release, even being an early adopter of Twitter— it was a white-hot fiber optic cable running through the life of the band. While this technological engagement didn’t always translate into sales (The Fragile was considered a financial disappointment), it was a 21st century incarnation of the connection between what the artist creates and how the audience consumes it, internalizes it, and hopefully finds some emotional release in it.

This uneasy alliance between organic emotion and technological chilliness is reflected in this era of Nine Inch Nails’ aesthetic, both musically and through the packaging. Where Downward Spiral and Fragile dealt in decaying earth tones, the releases starting with 2005’s reemergent With Teeth (#149) are shades of blue, black, ghost white, and slate gray, dirtied up by belching factory smoke, or distorted by broken pixels and lines of computer code. The songs are likewise colored by pulsating synth accents, digital distortion, hums and drones and beats. The instrumental stems for Reznor’s compositions were offered up to remixers both professional and amateur, so that even the boundary of artist and audience member became liminal. He had his carefully constructed versions of “The Hand That Feeds” and “Only,” but suggested that there were infinite alternate permutations to be created at the click of a button. For the once angry, brooding Prince of Industrial Rock, it was downright egalitarian.

“All The Love In The World,” a title that might suggest a big-hearted power ballad on a cornier band’s track list, is in Reznor’s hands an electronica-inflected paranoid dirge. Where crunchy guitars would have provided the backbone in the past, here woozy piano figures are the main melodic backup to the vocal, before shifting into driving major chords to signal minute 3’s complete tonal transformation. With its layers of harmonizing Trents, it’s completely unlike anything else in the band’s repertoire, but it was the perfect next course to stimulate my appetite. And then Dave Grohl’s superhuman drumming on “You Know What You Are?” kicked me through the door. The wailing chorus presented an aggressive musical release for me that I’d never had access to before.

“Right Where It Belongs,” the keyboard-driven closing track, is spooky and introspective, and one of the best songs in NiN’s catalogue. A stripped-down, electric piano and vocal version, originally exclusive to the Japanese release but eventually uploaded by Reznor to his website, captures that dark night of the soul uncertainty even better. This recording made its way into the end credits of my senior thesis film, at the point where it was obvious it wasn’t going to go anywhere and that I should at least put copyrighted stuff I liked into it. I also set a live version against grainy deleted footage from Pink Floyd - The Wall, a mashup I figure ol’ Trent would appreciate (the idea was to then do the reverse, matching “Hey You” to the visuals cut together for NiN’s stage show, but the result wasn’t as compelling).

I don’t have any supporting evidence, but Year Zero (#150) may well have been the first time I ever plunked down money for a physical copy of a NiN CD. Also lacking sufficient empirical backup: I’m convinced this speculative fiction about an increasingly plausible American dystopia represents some of Reznor’s strongest songwriting. Inhabiting characters like a brainwashed foot soldier, an underground Resistance fighter, a religiously-inflamed demagogue, even a judgmental alien intelligence, he moves away from the diary page introspection that could occasionally curdle into lyrics of questionable taste (Sorry, please don’t slip on all the tears I’ve made you cry).

The release of the album was notably attached to a labyrinthine “Alternate Reality Game” campaign, with in-character websites, USB drives hidden at concerts, and music videos with secret messages, adding plot strands and world building to the lyrics. (I missed the boat on all that, but the work that the same marketing company did for The Dark Knight was sure something to experience.) All of which would be near-impenetrable, if the actual music wasn’t so compelling. You don’t have to read the wiki pages to feel the apocalyptic beats and glitchy cacophony of “HYPERPOWER!,” “The Good Soldier,” and to pump your fist to the chorus of “Survivalism.” “I got my propaganda / I got revisionism” hits harder in a time, 10 years on from the album’s release, in which the most powerful voices in the U.S. government disregard reality on the reg, occasionally try to downplay the Holocaust. “Capital G,” a gleefully sociopathic near-rap by the forces of greed, could soundtrack one of Paul Ryan’s dead-eyed workout photoshoots.

“In This Twilight” and “Zero Sum” are the shattering two-part coda, in which the squabbling remnants of humanity face the end, whether by divine intervention or nuclear fire. The first juxtaposes crunchy, distorted percussion and fuzzed-out bass with perhaps the most perversely light and melodic vocal performance Reznor has ever delivered. He’s singing about encroaching extinction, but in a blissed-out religious reverie, optimistic for the afterlife. The character at the center of the closing track is not so sure: this is the End of this ridiculous human experiment, and we’ve brought oblivion on ourselves. “Shame on us / For all we have done / And all we ever were.” There’s the Nine Inch Nails nihilism we know and love!

Y34RZ3R0R3M1X3D (#151) filters the previous album through Hip-Hop and EDM, to uneven effect. The collection of remixes never quite sustains the highs established by the first two tracks: Saul Williams’ fiery rap verses turn the instrumental “HYPERPOWER!” into a polemic against a legacy of American violence, “Gunshots by Computer,” while modwheelmood frees the vocals of “The Great Destroyer” from the squealing synth breakdown and creates a whole new paranoid anthem. While it’s also interesting to hear the Kronos Quartet reinterpret “Another Version of the Truth,” the rest is largely skippable. The physical set includes a DVD with the multitracks for the original Year Zero recordings, so you too can fuck with the raw materials! (I’ve been trying to remix things for years, and I’m awful at it, but it’s fun to hear the individual instrumentation.)

After freeing himself lyrically from his old methodology, the next release from Reznor eschewed words and melody completely. Ghosts I-IV (#152) is nearly 2 hours of ambient experimentation, a precursor to the Oscar-winning film scores with Atticus Ross (a few tracks were literally reworked for The Social Network, and several others continue to be licensed for film and documentaries). The buzzsaw distortions, dark piano chords, oddly organic synthesizers, and industrial beats identify it as a NiN record even in the absence of vocals. Though good luck recommending your favorite tracks, with titles like “26 Ghosts III” and “09 Ghosts I” not exactly sticking in the memory.

The Slip (#153), originally released free of charge, is more of a return-to-form. Arguably too familiar— it’s essentially With Teeth Part 2, but leaner and meaner. It’s not held in especially high regard, but it was there right at the outset of my fandom, and as such I continue to have a soft spot for it. I even bought the physical copy after years of listening to the decent quality MP3’s. “Discipline,” with its uncommonly funky bass line and high hat-favoring drum beat, is my number 1 “trying to sneak it onto a party playlist but not very successfully” NiN song. Along with the following track, “Echoplex,” the dark dance floor vibe is a preview of the sound Reznor and co would explore with How To Destroy Angels. “Lights in the Sky,” “Corona Radiata,” and “The Four of Us are Dying” create a kind of suite, insinuating and ethereal. I can understand if you bow out of that middle, 7-minute-and-33-second, ambient track before the library sample of fighting cats kicks in. But “LITS” is Reznor’s sparsest, prettiest piano lament, announcing the eminent “retirement” of Nine Inch Nails as a touring/recording entity.

Wave goodbye. They’ll be back.

[theultravioletcatastrophe]

Every whole number x when f(x)=sin(x^0.75), such that f(x) is decreasing

…okay, I put that equation into Wolfram Alpha, but the graphs it shows you by default are extraordinarily hard to read, and you can’t get any further detail without signing up for a Pro (i.e. paid) account, soooooo…. I’m just gonna answer all of them! Hope that’s okay! ^^;;;

1. First console you’ve ever owned?‘Twas the original NES. I was so happy when my parents bought it (although tbh my dad bought it as much for himself as for me). I spent so many hours playing the SMB games… ahh, good times.

3. Favorite childhood game?Hmmm, probably Super Mario Bros. 3. That was the one I spent the longest playing, anyway. My mom even went to the trouble to borrow the strategy guide from the library, photocopy the whole thing, and bind it together into a book for me. My mom was the best. ;_;

4. Longest consecutive hours you’ve played a game?Whew, uhhh, not as long as some people, I’m sure. I don’t think I’ve ever spent more than 8 hours straight playing games. I’m certainly no match for the likes of Neptune and Vert, that’s for sure. ^^;;;

5. Game with the best soundtrack?I actually really really like the soundtrack from the first Hyperdimension Neptunia game. A lot of those songs just get stuck in my head, y'know? Especially Nepgear’s theme. :3

6. An underrated game from within the last few years?Hmm, gonna go with Akiba’s Trip: Undead & Undressed. It apparently only got a 64/100 on Metacritic, which is WAY too low for how fun this game is.

7. Most disappointing game you’ve played?Honestly? Most of the Jak and Daxter series. I really really wanted to like those games, but I just… couldn’t. There was just something about them that really turned me off. I enjoy other, similar games, so I don’t know what it was. I got all of them for super cheap (like probably $5 each) so it’s not like I spent a bunch of money on them, but I still felt ripped off, y'know?

8. The game with the best atmosphere/scenery?The Metroid Prime games, for me, had some of the best settings. Nicely-rendered and completely appropriate for the feel of the game. If you’ve never played any of the MP games, please do so. If you can play the Wii controls versions, so much the better (it’s playable with the Gamecube controller but once you use the Wiimote to aim Samus’s gun you’ll never go back).

10. Prefer PC or console?Based solely on the number of games amassed, PC wins out, but I honestly don’t prefer one over the other.

11. Have you written any fanfic or made any fanart?…not of video games, no.

12. Most bizarre game you’ve ever played?It’s pretty tame, but probablyyyyyy…. Goat Simulator. Like, what the fuck even is this game.

13. Scariest game you’ve played?Well, I haven’t actually played it yet, but the scariest game I currently own is probably Spooky’s Jump Scare Mansion.

14. Do you watch playthroughs online?Not really, no.

15. Favorite animal in a video game?This is kind of an odd question… I’m gonna have to go with Gex the gecko, particularly from the second game. I loved that game so much.

16. The best year in gaming you’ve experienced?Literally every year seems better than the last, so I can’t really answer this question. This year has been pretty amazing so far, but then, I’ve said that about every other year past, so… ^^;;;

17. Have a video game themed background or lockscreen?LOL of course I do! My desktop wallpaper is Neptune and Nepgear, and my phone’s lock screen and home screen are both pics of Purple Heart.

18. Worst game you’ve played?Ooh, interesting question. I don’t really know if I can answer this properly? One of the games that stands out to me is called Sparkle 2 Evo. The graphics were nice but the controls were awful and it was nearly unplayable. The devs might have patched it since, but I kinda lost interest in it so I don’t really care at this point.

19. Hardest game you’ve ever played?The hardest game I’ve seriously played is probably VVVVVV. Fuck that game. >:(

20. Favorite publisher and/or developer?If I don’t say Idea Factory (and/or Compile Heart) I’ll feel like I’m betraying my beloved Neptune, so I’ll go with them.

21. If you had to play one game for the rest of your life, what would it be?I don’t know if this really counts as a video game, but I’m gonna have to say Mamono Sweeper.

22. If you could turn one game into movie, which would it be?The first game that sprang to mind was Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. It was such a cool game, I’d love to see a cinematic version of it (also can you IMAGINE Samus on the big screen? EEEEEEEEEEEEEE).

24. Ever cried because of a video game? Which one(s)?Oh, probably! I know SMB3 made me cry when I was little because there was one level I just couldn’t beat no matter how many times I tried it. I forget which level it was now, lol.

25. Proudest accomplishment in gaming?Hmmm, probably the time I finally actually beat Indalecio in Star Ocean 2, when you do the event where his power limiter is removed and he basically becomes a god. Fuck me sideways, that was an insane fight.

26. How often do you play online? Co-op?Almost never! The last game I played co-op was MegaTagmension Blanc + Neptune Vs. Zombies (I played with @aboutthreeneps), but I really don’t do online gaming much.

27. Have you gotten any friends into gaming?Maybe? Most people I’m friends with are either already into gaming, or else they’re not interested, so…. probably not.

28. Who got YOU into gaming?Hmm, I guess it was my dad. I watched him play a bunch of games when I was a small child and was like “THAT LOOKS SO COOL I WANNA DO IT TOO”.

29. Watch cutscenes or skip them?I usually watch them, unless it’s one I’ve seen a bunch of times (or one you can’t skip… damn unskippable cutscenes).

30. On average, how long does it take you in the character creation screen?…quite a while. It depends on the game, I guess. When I made a new character in Stardew Valley today, I spent between 5-10 minutes, but when I was creating a character in Saints Row IV, I probably spent close to an hour tweaking every little variable to get it just right.

32. Do you cosplay?Not really, although I did cosplay as Squall from Final Fantasy 8 one time. I still have the gunblade sitting around somewhere.

33. Favorite female npc?34. Favorite male npc?These two questions are really hard for me to answer! Mostly because I find games fall into either one of two categories: ones where the NPCs are faceless and forgettable, and ones where the NPCs are extremely well-done and I love all of them.

35. Best protagonist?Neptune, duh.

36. Best antagonist?I like GLaDOS from Portal.

37. Ever been made fun of for playing video games?Hmm, I don’t think so.

38. Have you tried a game, hated it, then tried again, and loved it?Again, I don’t think so? There’s been plenty of games where I’ve been like “meh” at first and then “OMG THIS GAME IS AWESOME” later, but I don’t think there’s any I really hated that I went back and liked later.

39. Do you play for achievements/trophies?Not explicitly, or at least, not at first. I tend to play through the story of a game first, and then on my second playthrough I’ll try to get most of the achievements.

40. Favorite voice actor?A new favourite, but a favourite nonetheless: Megan Hollingshead.

41. Gone to a midnight release before?Nope! Any of the games I’ve been excited for either never had this sort of event, or else they did but I just got on the bandwagon too late. I’m incredibly behind the times when it comes to keeping up with this sort of thing. T_T

42. A game you will never forget (in a bad OR good way)?Star Ocean 2. That game will stay with me forever. In a good way. :3

43. Favorite sidekick or companion?Ooh, good one! I really liked Eryn from Fairy Fencer F. She’s such a sweetie, and Fang treats her like garbage for most of the game, so I think I was especially drawn to her because he wasn’t.

44. Do graphics matter?They have to be done well, and the style has to fit with the overall style of the game. Other than that, I don’t care. A game isn’t instantly better by having more realistic graphics or whatever, I don’t care.

45. Do you like funny or more serious games?I tend to like more funny games, overall.

46. Always, sometimes, or never use subtitles?Sometimes. It really depends on the game.

47. First person or Third person?Both??? How is this even a question lmao

48. A game you’ve always wanted to play but have never gotten to it?Bastion. I watched a friend play some of it and it looked super cool, and I own it, I’ve just never played it for some reason.

49. A game you haven’t played in forever, but want to replay?Hmm, I kind of want to play Cave Story again. I love that game

50. How many games to do you own?I currently have 186 games in my Steam inventory, and counting the various consoles I own it’s probably at least 250.

51. First character you’ve had a crush on?I can’t really think of any right now! I did kind of have a crush on Princess Toadstool in Super Mario RPG, I guess that’s the earliest character I can remember.

52. A game you will always stand behind, and support no matter what?All of the Hyperdimension Neptunia games. I own all 4 of the main series games (Re;Birth 1-3 and VII) and 4 of the spinoff games (Nep U, Hyperdevotion Noire, MegaTagmension, and PP), and I’ve bought more Neptunia merchandise than I have for any other game series.

53. Your most immersive game?Most of the Pokemon games, for me, have been pretty immersive. Like, I take it upon myself to learn everything about them, I keep written notes on lots of stuff, I actively plan out my strategies in advance, etc.

54. A sequel you really want?Hmm, can’t think of too many. Most of my favourite games are series anyway, so they already have sequels. :P

55. How much time, on average, do you play in a week?Hard to say, some weeks I barely play at all, some weeks that’s all I do. I’d say on average, like taking the arithmetic mean, it’d be around an hour a day.

56. Do you tell people irl that you play video games?Oh, for sure. There’s not really a stigma around it anymore since everyone plays video games these days (the whole notion of “gamers are over” and all that).

57. What is an overrated game you’ve played?Basically every MMO I’ve ever played. I just don’t get the appeal.

58. Ever have someone walk in on a sex scene between you and you LI?I’m going to assume that “LI” stands for “love interest,” like as in the love interest of the main character of a game, otherwise this question makes no sense (even as is it doesn’t make much sense). No, this has never happened. I can’t recall any games I’ve ever played that have had explicit sex scenes. Other than, like… HuniePop or something, but even that’s not really explicit, it’s mostly just moaning. (Unless they released some super-X-rated update or something, I haven’t touched that game in a loooooooong time.)

59. A game you are looking forward to this year?

FOURGODDESSESONLINE

61. A game you know everything about?Star Ocean: The Second Story. I know that game like the back of my hand. I could probably play it blindfolded.

62. Would you want to work with video games when you are older?I want to work with video games now! I *AM* older, dammit! (Especially after watching all of New Game!, I really wanna work for a development studio. I don’t even care doing what, I just wanna be in the industry!)

63. What’s a game that has inspired you?Hmm, I can’t really think of any games that have “inspired” me. Like, in what way? I don’t know.

64. Describe your favorite video game using only three words?Neptune = best girl. (I don’t know if an equals sign counts as a word, if so you can take it out and my point still stands.)

65. Any favorite screenshots of games?I’ve posted a few on my tumblr, mostly from Nep games.

66. Game with the yummiest looking food?Uhhhh…. hmmm. I mean, Portal had that delicious-looking cake. Stardew Valley has some decent food too.

67. Most violent game you’ve played?Honestly, probably One Finger Death Punch. Being that the entire point of the game is slaughtering hundreds of enemies with either your fists or whatever weapons you happen to find lying around. I mean, it’s all stickmen, but still.

68. An older game that you’ve just recently gotten into?I honestly can’t think of any! The oldest game I’ve gotten into *recently* is the aforementioned Akiba’s Trip: Undead & Undressed, but that came out in 2014, so I don’t know if it’s old enough for the purposes of this response.

69. Your first LI?…not quite sure what this means. Love interest? Like, first character from a game I fell in love with? First game I played where the main character had a love interest? I honestly don’t know how to answer this one.

70. Do you play any mobile games?A few. Not counting portable consoles (i.e. the 3DS or PS Vita), I have a handful of games on my phone (Sailor Moon Drops, Monument Valley, Mushihimesama, I even have Carmageddon on my phone (yes, they released an iOS port of that game somehow)).

71. A game you can’t stop talking/thinking about at the moment?Well I did just pick up Stardew Valley again, so I’m probably gonna be thinking about that for a while. Same with that Neptunia idol game, I just started playing that and it’s super fun.

72. Have any guilty pleasure games?Of course not, why do you ask?

73. A game with the best fandom?Overall, my experience has been that Neptunia fans are all pretty awesome. :D

74. Which game has the best lore?I actually love the lore from the Metroid series. The whole history with Samus and the Chozo is so interesting to me.

75. Do you focus on main storyline/quest or do sidequests first?I do both! I’ll play the main storyline until either (1) I need to grind more because the enemies/bosses are getting stronger, (2) I need to get better equipment and need either materials for crafting, or money for buying stuff, or (3) the main story is in a lull and I get an interesting side quest. Usually once I go off on a sidequest tangent, I don’t come back for a good long while (to the point where I’ll stop playing the game for a while and then when I come back to it I’m like “ok wtf was I supposed to be doing? I don’t remember, maybe I’ll just start over again lol”).

These were fun questions, thanks for asking! ^_^

[dwdelaney-blog]

5/1

was right ashcroft - was right to be worried - it was about usattys and killing my case. the fbi is obligated to defend the doj  when it has obtained a judgement - if the matter is pending the doj will argue to uphold the judgement - in the regular appeal process - this is not complicated - it is the way its supposed to be - but everything seems upside down in my case - gop args wits are treasonous - natsec risks - a counterintel inv takes place - lasting many years - they get nothing - which brings us today - the ashcroft bedside - the firing of comey sends shockwaves through fbi - and doj - thats why - agag and card want to blow up my case and need ashcrofts signature - hes drugged up and in a hosp bed - ashcroft tells agag & card to get the sig from comey - hes designated comey as interim ag - the context is - ashcroft is not in the hosp for the flu - i think he may require surgery - its pancreatitus - i think hes under a lot of medication and they need to take the thing out or something - note esp the rel b/t card and rove - and goodling - sampson etc. - agag is not a great legal mind right - and rove is pulling strings at doj - and its obvious in the names of the replacements - you dont need to be a sleuth or a legal scholar - note the rel between the fitz inv - and kjell - and cellini - springfieldconsulting - think about the timing - all this stuff is happening at the same time - it has all passed now - the truth of the situation has been concealed and those that might say anything have met with lots of bad luck - unfortunate things of a mysterious nature - kind of like me -

5/3/19

We have wisc - badgers - the nra speech - in his speech a couple days ago - quoted on this page - it was mentioned - the dems - the opposition - the people that are not us - have - this or that - cant remember what the first part is - but trump at some point says - we have wisconsin - in the context of the speech it is implied to mean a reference to winning the state of wi - in the 2016 election - hes saying - scoreboard - im winning wi - what hes really saying is - we - you and me - the people in this room - are going to prevail in the conflict regarding my case - the rico trial scrp - the counterintel inv - doubling down on the rico case - what hes saying is we are going to win - we are going to defeat dennis delaney and anyone that would want to help him - because we have wi - badgers - mi - thats what hes saying - thats what i took from it and i dont think im wrong - thats exactly how the people in that room took it - what that means is that hes saying im willing to use mi in a judicial conflict - in a purely partisan effort to derail the case - and to put pressure on delaney - to concede and claim that all the chem and wasted time has been all one big misunderstanding - not going to happen - im not going to concede - hes saying he will use mi to prevail in a legal conflict he already lost - a trial based on the notion that mi was being misused for political reasons -

Joliet jake - scc - criminal record - chad jacobs - dont know that guy - never met this guy - claimed link to consent - jacob engels - jake as consent - ie how is everything - i found out when people run a background check for employment reasons - my name came back as a felon - have talked about this - its possible this is just a typo or something - bad luck - worth noting though - the jake thing is a strawberry link - winston - from what i understand - winston attys may sometimes be referred to as strawberrys - dont know anything about this - regardless - the thing about the criminal record - the county bldg - the jail - scrp - winston - thompson - chigop - thompson alums - greco baise vala - possible that defs claim at trial chad jacobs is link to consent - if so - ive never met that guy - never even seen him - they knew theyd lose -

Take article from todays globe - police ot and judge says - why not charge as rico - this sounds like rico - the judge is saying - i hear cases charging rico that dont sound this good - if shes saying this out loud - in public - after hearing the facts of the case - and shes questioning why the case isnt plead as rico - literally questioning the prosecutor - and he stumbles - and can only say the facts dont support it - he must be implying facts not offered into evidence that are exculpatory - which should have been mentioned - either way - defs claim I shouldnt arg rico - doj shouldnt charge rico - defs arg doj should not pursue the rico from my complaint. First response - theyre biased - second - its in my complaint - third - they win - fourth - they dont try to argue - they knew theyd lose - all this arg is after the fact - defs say lets solve this thing in court - until they lose - now wh says - lets do this thing in public - what hes saying is - no here on delaney - fudd - no hurry - indefinite detention - the dems should stage an intervention -

And note the art re insys - exec charged criminally for opioid case - bribes docs to rx known addictive substance - xa cocaine on garbage bags - doj - someone said i couldnt buy my food - and see cocaine on the floors and walls in jail - thats why i couldnt feel my hands and feet - and then they want to claim im an addict - balzekas - lots to talk about here - chant - angels - just trying to help people - vala - ni - see remarks re wi - chants of trumpence - rinkman - dennispmoore - wpp - that dude is in the power business - being able to fuck up my life - makes him look good - note links to thompson alums - chigop - greco baise vala - chamber - the chants of trumpence is a reference to clockwork orange - angels - good samaritans - xa sembler seed - addiction frame - cheney comment re spkr -

Unite the right - no here - needletrades - cellini busted - xa - cellini vala - rivkcs - karl kemme - cletus - clute - hecla - galv ports cleat - longies - ierc - ororke - obscene phone calls - gwb admin - perry homicidal threats frame - agriculture - ecole - agricolae - ffa - farm bro - fibro - farm chem - glyphosate - xa op - cunningham - heffe ron - cifa - usattys - mcds - ronde santis - swimmers - sharktopus - lincoln era gop - roddavis lincoln historian - ala - chamber ic - sd mitrovich - cits club - rudy davenport - no hurry - dennis consents - no one is making us stop - he will have to live like this until he gives up his case - until he gives us what we want - wes barr - tr sembler - bully -

5/4/19

Txgop - cornyn - cruz - tx22 - perry as agdir - agricolae - kid rock - duane johnson - i was put in jail on a charge of burglary - specifically breaking and entering - b & e - xa bennis elaine - b&e - benny and the jetts - pope benedict - ace lebrity we can get behind - dutton bonilla - sylvester lanning - thompson - edgar - reineke - thompson alums links to edgar - greco baise vala - richardhart - cellini - celletti - 404th chem - karl kemme - tx is usarec - tx22 - deps - galv - vester - rocky - sere guy - laffers - houpd - complaint sent to homicide - they knew i wasnt a terrorist - nix alums and political opponents of lbj - txgop - my moms family is related to lbj johnsons - i think - note also my dads family is somehow linked to wp - not by blood - my dads mom remarries a guy that has a son that worked at wp - dont know anything about my dads dad - for that matter dont know anything about grandmothers husband in chi - when i visited - all i understand is what other people seem to imply - indirectly - i think some of that talk is overstated - be that as it may - i believe that is the basis of the shark smear stuff - what thats hiding is the attack on me linked to opposition to txdems and the wp - nix fans dont like wp - txgop dont like fans of lbj - they can fuck with me and its like retaliation for the impeachment of nix - and txgop hates txdems - i honestly dont know why the people doing this to me are doing it - it doesnt matter - they are not being honest about how it started - I have been as honest as i can possibly be - it is the defendants that have continued to be completely dishonest about what has put us in this situation - the fact is they are simply unwilling to admit that what they have been doing to me is wrong - this thing has been going on a long time - longer than it should - longer than it needs to - i am committed to speaking out against the untruth of the defendants - I dont consent to addiction frame thing - its an excuse to browbeat me into giving up my case - whos extorting who - that fig leaf is getting smaller - i honestly dont know how thing ends - the people doing this to me will be exposed for what they are - understand that - lanning and rock - vest - galv - 123 oclock - sleep deprivation - haley - barber - schaive and a herr cut - ronde santis - hefferon - james elmer mitchell - sere guy - spk - spkattys - clute - cletus - herschell krustovsky - krusteil - steil - scso - sideshow bob - night mgr - 3d shift - they put me in jail - cleat galv ports - tx might muffler - cand was usmc - nabors - xa ed smith is tx - regional - and note link from delay to shim - shim factory work in tx - actually sent on job at shim factory - xa charlotte job in cape - halliburton in galv - cheney - scooter - razor scooter - schaive and a herr cutt - crazy pete hoekstra - zito link to ovp - cellnet - meters - bunn - sangamo meters - the nix link - targeting me is seen as payback for impeachment of nix - nix alums - cheney - rummy - copeland - fox ailes - simpsons - team mack - lemon tree - san clemente - while at loft -  link to san clemente - loft girl - loft was radicalization frame - terr frame - xa bunn in oc - bunn at nursing home mulvaney - the  2franks - mcds poison is real - note mcds links - and execs - go away - legoland - judgement against mcds carlyle held in esgrow - remititur - schaive and a herr cutt - leggo my eggo - whos extorting who - the stuff on sere guy - rach - 123 oclock - happy days - political campaigns - advertising - wpp - pr - elections - burson - altria - winston - thompson - note esp what happened with judgement re tobacco - politics and doj - see how that works - same thing has happened to me - note slugger in the ussen - and rauner kingmaker - mel sembler - seed - addiction frame - chants of trumpence - kurtz is new guy at usccb - wojcicki is at sherriffs - cle wife picks austin as adj gen - hes ierc - ierc - airc onditioning - rett - atl - airborne - sjh - spfldconsulting - shg - shgcoaches - shgfootball - chi mckenna - big shoulders - gregory goes to dc - from atl - alton dio - stl - alton belle - saved by the bell - shs - centaurs - ackermann senterfitt - duane gibson - terry nelson - swift and blessing - kjell bc04 - ilgop - chi chamber - huizenga - servicemaster - franchises - chem - lon - wolfman - cheney - lonewolf frame - mace paolino - garbage - burson - cheney - joliet morning star - rpg gods - stl mi - 10th mi - roth dragoo - ilfopngaoi - gnuteck is right - dirt - mrt - roger stone is nix - jacob engels - bullhorn - ftl - berc - breck girl - perc - security guards - vala - perc - ierc - rice - arroz - war - sleep deprivation - night owls - hair falling out in ftl - urinary tract infection - reineke - wpp - ilgop - h/k - spflconsulting - scb - scso - rico - 1983 - equal protection - due process - 42 usc 241/242 - i was right - there are wrong - they cant admit what they did - what they are doing - they cant stop - the po is upside down on this thing - that fig leaf is going to get smaller - im making it samller - the maga hat means this - make the ag - into ga - reverse the the course of the ag - flip the ag - blow up my case from the inside - like tobacco -