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Sometimes food is more important than an existential crisis

@permafrown @toasty-self-shipping @dragon-inserts @ynassociates @arothroughthehearts-selfship @sunsets-and-kxsses @shot-by-cupid @oc-x-cannon-on-main

New lore additions to previous levels in Ultrakill’s latest update

Both of these can be found in 7-2, the first is a text change that appears after the payload has been delivered(I think? I got it after dying to the gutterman+guttertank combo), and the second is an entirely new book that can be found in the same building as the alt.

Contents below the cut.

New text after payload delivery. Probably Hell speaking?

The second is much more significant. This book seems to have been written by a Gutterman, and is a poem mourning the person within their coffin.

Not only is this undeniable proof of Ultrakill’s machines being sapient and capable of emotion, it also makes the Gutterman lore even more horrifying and sad. They know what was done to make them live and they are disturbed by it.

I'm sorry I let down my guard.

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Adventure time fans when you enjoyed the Fionna and Cake finale and don't want their miserable unnecessary nitpicky opinions on a silly happy cartoon ruining ur joy and love for the show:

obligatory rock murder mention

the symbolism of revolutionary girl utena is key to understanding what it’s even trying to say narratively and thematically. if you remove the symbolism, if you remove the ways in which the narrative obfuscates itself and abstracts what it’s saying, then what it is saying changes dramatically. if rgu was like ‘yeah lol and did you guys know that incest is bad’ or ‘maybe gay people are good’ or ‘hey did you know that csa victims are Real and Alive and Have Interiority’— like those are all paraphrases of things that it says, but the way that it chooses to say them is so powerful and conveys so much nuance and complexity that those simplistic statements don’t. it provides an incredibly meaningful commentary on the way that systemic violence and abuse are covered up, codified, made part of our culture that supposedly resents those things. it’s examination of incest, the incest taboo and how that impacts incest victims— it’s all so incredibly considered and layered because the show chooses to convey what it’s saying through symbolism, through its metatheatrical framing, through allegory. it retains the reality of these issues; it shows them to us only when we’ve already bought into the system’s lies to make a point about how that operates, how that works to make us all complicit in that violence. nanami. nanami.

dont even get me started on how the movie uses its symbolism to demonstrate how the abuse anthy and touga experienced is simultaneously built into the world and culture they exist in, and always obfuscated and abstracted for the sake of their abusers (also specifically the way that it engenders shame and prevents people from seeking help. rgu is so damn good at understanding how and why people don’t ‘do what they should’ in abusive situations: the systems in place don’t fucking work bc they are an extension of the system built upon that abuse). anthy is the model in all the paintings, the symbol of so many undesirable things, the canvas on which they are painted. her likeness is used as an approximation for all of these awful things, many of which are a part of her in a way, but such that her interiority, her feelings, are never regarded, never seen, never understood. she’s the model. akio is never explicitly named as her painter.

Me realising that while we saw Pey’J get gunned down by Eden police officers while protecting other hybrids during the riot , Pey’J was never actually confirmed to have died from those bullets

Bullfrog was taken into custody before he could try helping Pey’J and Dolph was taken by Sarah into the wasteland. Meaning neither of them were there to see to Pey’J’s body, and that the two are assuming Pey’J is dead

Cody, Jade and Dolph all died because of the bombs inside their heads detonating. We also saw their bodies from the aftermath of that fact

Pey’J is the only one (besides Bullfrog) whose bomb didn’t detonate

We didn’t see what happened to Pey’J’s body

Shit

this is just my "stein trans swag" agenda. no screw in the head cuz this is my idea for how he'd looked at like 16-17.

Been a fan of your fics for YEARS. I was just telling my friend how despite how much I read fics I never actually love them, with some of your fics (especially TMA) as the exception. Felt the need to reread some of them and saw you reblogged some ISAT fanart. So. Any thoughts on ISAT you'd like to share?

Hope you have a wonderful day!! So happy I found your fics again!!

I avoided answering this for a while because I was trying to think of a way to cohesively and coherently vocalize my thoughts on In Stars and Time. I have given up because I don't want to hold everybody here all day and I have accepted that my thoughts are just pterodactyl screeching.

I love it so much. I have so much to say on it. It drove me bonkers for like a week straight. I have AUs. It's absolute Megbait. They're just a little Snufkin and they're having the worst experience of anybody's life. Ludonarratives my fucking beloved.

I am going to talk about the prologue.

The prologue is such a fascinating experience. You crack open the game and immediately begin checking off all of the little genre boxes: mage, warrior, researcher, you're the rogue...some little kid who's there for some reason...alright, you know the score. You're in yet another indie Earthbound RPG, these are your generic characters, let's get the ball rolling.

Except then you realize that these characters are people. You feel instantly how you've entered the game at its last dungeon, at the end of the adventure. They have their own in-jokes, histories, backgrounds, adventures. They get along well and they're obviously close, but not in a twee or unrealistic way. They have so much chemistry and spirit and life. I fell in love with them so quickly.

But Sif doesn't. Sif kind of hates them, because they will not stop saying the same damn thing. They walk the same paths, do the same things, make the same jokes, expect Sif to say the same lines. They keep referencing a Sif we do not see, with jokes we never see him make and heroic personality he never shows - they reference a Sif who is dead - and Sif can't handle that, so he kills them too.

They become only an exercise in tedious frustration. Sif button mashes through their dialogue, Sif mindlessly clicks the same dialogue options, Sif skips through the tutorial, Sif blows through the puzzles. Sif turns their world into a video game. Sif is playing a generic RPG. Sif forgets their names. They are no longer people with in-jokes, histories, backgrounds, adventures. They're the mage, the warrior, the researcher, and...some random kid.

I did not understand the Kid's presence at first. I had no idea what they contributed to the game. They didn't do anything. As a party member in a video game, they're a bit useless. Why is the Kid there?

Because Sif's life isn't a video game. Because the kid isn't 'the kid'. They're Bonnie. Bonnie, who the party loves. Why is Bonnie there? Because they love them. There is no room for Bonnie in the boring RPG that Sif is playing. And then you realize that Sif is wrong, and that they've lost something extremely important, and that they'll never escape without it.

Watching the prologue before watching ISAT gave ISAT the most unique air of dread and horror, because you crack open ISAT and you see the person Sif used to be. You realize that Sif used to be a person. Sif used to be the person who made jokes, who gave real smiles, who interacted with the world as if they are a part of it. And you know you are sitting down to watch Sif lose everything that made them a person, to lose everything that made them a member of this world, and turn them into a character in a video game who doesn't understand the point of Bonnie at all.

At the climax of the game, when the others realize that something is deeply wrong and that Sif physically cannot tell them, they realize that there is nothing they can do. So Bonnie declares snacktime. And for the first time they have snacktime.

What is snacktime? Classic JRPGs don't have snacktime. There's literally no point to a snacktime - not in a video game, and not in Sif's terrible life. It's not fixing this, because nothing can fix this. But Bonnie gives Sif a cookie and Sif eats it.

It's meaningless. It's a cutscene. It didn't save Sif and it didn't change a thing. It will make no difference in the end.

But it did make the difference. It made all of the difference in the world. Bonnie is a character who you really don't understand the point of before you realize that Bonnie was the entire point.

ISAT is about comfort media. Why do we play the same video games over and over again? Why do we avoid watching the finale of our favorite shows? What is truly comforting: a story with no conflict, or a story where you always know what is about to happen? Do you want to live in a scary, uncontrollable world, or do you want to play Stardew Valley? Do you want a person or a character?

When I beat Earthbound for the first time (and if you don't know, the prologue/ISAT battle system is just Mother) and watched the ending cutscene where the characters part ways and say goodbye...I felt a little bit sad. I wanted them to be together forever. But that's something only characters could ever be.

I'm so grateful that the only GG fans that care about the light novels are the ones that can be normal about things because Lightning the Argent goes from the rawest scenes of carnage imaginable to Ky Kiske doing something mildly religious like offering a short, silent, prayer for someone that got mangled to death by WMD dragons, and I just know that, in the wrong hands, those brief religious moments would generate the most annoying goddamn memes you could ever imagine

Are you and Morty friends? How did you two firts meet? Do you vent to eachother about Rick? How did you meet Rick? First impressions? :0

Considering he's my brother I'd say we're pretty close >:0 as close as we can be with all the chaos n'shit (plus he's my original brother and not just a clone or a different universe's y'know- I worry about that sometimes considering Rick isn't our original grandpa and there's always the possibility he's lying about me about not being a clone or whatever! It's fine I have a therapist.)

We do tend to complain about him sometimes- me more than Morty but it's whatever. I definitely haven't been complaining to him as much now, I feel like I've gotten most of it out of my system.

Rick is. Well. He's family, technically. It was cool at first! I mean an awesome space-traveling, super smart grandpa that I could bother for information about the universe? It was super cool y'know! The novelty and excitement about the whole thing has worn off by now though. Processing stuff.

Okay, so… I’ve seen it said a good few times that in 3rd semester, Akechi is the only sway Joker really has to consider staying in Maruki’s reality, and that’s not the whole truth. There are two points that can lead to the “Stay” ending.

The first prompt happens when Joker and Crow go to rescue Sumire from Maruki on 1/9. Maruki asks if Joker can accept this reality, and after flashing through all his friends’ words over the past week, he can choose to accept it. This is the part of him that places the needs of others above his own. The part of him who loves his friends so dearly that he would be willing to set aside himself to save them. He can choose Maruki’s reality for their sakes because their happiness is incredibly important to him.

What makes the “Stay” ending hit so much harder for a lot of us on 2/2 is probably because that’s the more selfish part of Joker that we rarely see outside of his thieving habits. Wanting Akechi to live is something that he wants specifically, and it has nothing to do with the greater good or anyone else’s feelings. He can pretend it’s for Akechi’s sake, but when Akechi’s standing his ground so fiercely about how much he doesn’t want that, it’s hard to keep up that lie.

While I personally think that 2/2 is more compelling, I think it does Joker a bit of a disservice to say that it’s the only time he considers giving up on reality. He loves his friends, and he loves Akechi. He loves them all and wants them all beside him, happy and healthy and safe.

I can't stop thinking about the Watcher thing it's just so fascinatingly bizarre . like so many components of that decision and how they handled it were so bad and so completely out of left field for how they've operated in the past I am baffled . Someone put these guys under a microscope Stat

one of my favorite hobbies is in fact making fun of lestat because let’s be honest he does deserve it 99% of the time but then i start rereading tvl and suddenly I’m like….man he really went through so much, huh? he was really traumatized and taken advantage of over and over by both strangers and people he loved….like man he really was stalked, kidnapped, and forcefully made into a vampire against his will….he faced years of abuse from his father and brothers…..he witnessed the death of his only lover and before that his resentment and eventual madness….he really cries every other page and has 10 existential crises before he even becomes a vampire but he wants to be good he wants to be happy he tried to run away to the church he tried to run away with the theatre troupe he just wanted to act and love and be loved and at every turn he was done wrong and hurt and abandoned and nobody ever really helped him and I—

i gotta say though it is one thing to have ur childhood best friend be getting married. and it is another thing altogether to be surrounded by people around your age ALL discussing getting married. or how they WANT to be. or how they are dating with the expressed intent of getting married. it's not a judgement on them or me at all it was just so jarring. like wow. yeah. we are two different genres of girl. we are moving at two different speeds

I know I have a god complex when I dom sometimes, but what about a god complex sub???

Not just a sub top, but a genuinely submissive partner that still has the arrogance and disdain of someone who sees themselves as a divine being. Only, this holy figure is being held down and fucked: something so averse to their nature that it disorients them a little bit. Uncertain how to react because they’ve never been broken like this before. A god among men, now being treated like a common whore.

To have a deity crying underneath you, their holy countenance all but vanished as you get them so cumdrunk and stupid that they forget what being a god felt like in the first place.