#also the season in general has just been SO fuckin fun
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I love that the siblings all had different kind of reactions to viktor coming out?? Like five, klaus, and diego not making a big deal of it but accepting it instantly. allison wanted to talk about it and felt like a bad sister for not noticing sooner. luther wanting to throw a party to make him feel loved and diego wanting to keep it on the down low so that victor knew that it didn't have to be a big deal if he didn't want it to be. I just really like how it's all been handled and I'm feeling all the trans emotions from it
#tua#tua spoilers#viktor hargreeves#the umbrella academy#seriesly luther wanting to throw the party was so cute.#AND AND diego going 'we want you to feel loved. do you feel loved?' and viktor got that HUGE CUTE SMILE on his face#also the season in general has just been SO fuckin fun#very much struggling to turn it off and sleep lmao
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Leon Kennedy sleepy + general HCs with your local ranter.
So sorry for clogging the Leon Kennedy x reader tag y'all. I seriously just fuckin' love TALKING! He's been my hyperfixation for months alongside RE Lore. :( I hope I can help you guys create your own little HCs like I took from some fics and the help of my friend! <3
ALSO I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR Y'ALLS HEADCANONS IF YOU HAVE THEM!!! I LOVE RAMBLES/RANTS! 🩵
No warnings, btw! Just silly stupid ass comfy headcanons I have :)
RE2 being all sweet and cuddly. Honestly, I feel like he might fall asleep to Disney movies. Just like some of the Leons to me. Always so strict on a nightly routine, too. Wash your face, brush your teeth, comb your hair etc. Then fallling asleep with a Disney movie on in the background? Heavenly. Perfection. The fact he might wear goofy ass pajamas too? He just SCREAMS trying to live his childhood while he still can young.
RE4 just washes his face and cleans his eyelashes. He feels more practical, yet still tries to take care of himself. Makes sure to take medication, but prefers if you tell him. It makes him feel special. I mean, Leon IS special. He likes comfort and trusting people. Sometimes waking up crying and burrowing into the bed beside you. RC and Spain wasn't fun at all! Your chest, neck, stomach, he loves it ALL. Adores a stomach cuddle, even if you got no stomach! Thighs, too, taking a nap while you watch a show.
ID Leon low-key feels like the small drop-off era. Still washing his face and eyelashes. Medication, if needed, still. You can notice slight changes, and him kinda hating the government in small ways now. The submarine, Jason and Shen Mei, and then getting judged for being pretty. Our pretty little blond, blue-eyed boy! Feel like he might be sick of it. Might be a little peeved at general compliments, but still tries to keep them in good faith. Grows his hair out, and gets a little messy. Just like in the comic, he looks like a soggy wet cat, y'all! Keeps his stubble pretty trimmed too.
Damnation Leon feels like the MAJOR drop. ID was the calm before the storm. Drinking problems start, and man starts getting less sleep. Probably five to four hours MAX. Still loves to cuddle like all the other Leons. You can kind of sense something is off. Washes his face, and that's it. Goes to sleep in his boxers, and kicks you in your sleep. C'mon, old man, stop kicking me in the ass! So rude! (I still love you, you little fucker.) Possible cartoon lover, I feel like once he gets older, he just kinda tries to relax. Man is tired constantly, and the alcohol makes it WORSE. Stubble is more grown out in my head.
RE6 Leon… Honestly 2nd fav. I'm an old man fucker, sorry y'all. Feel like the drinking is kinda toned down compared to Damnation, but spiked really fuckin' high in Vendetta. Silly cartoon watcher, I stand by that shit. I like making Leon be a stupid crusty, soggy cat. Probably really likes the cartoons from the 90s. His 'childhood' moment. Nicer than Damnation, but just more seasoned compared to RE4R and ID. Dad jokes and one-liners coming out at least three times a day. Sleeps about 6–7 hours on normal-ish nights. Tries to at least get 7. Please get on him about his meds or getting his eyes checked. He's crusty, and he needs a back brace possibly, too. Needs you to massage his back after a mission and just be there. Disney movie night with him when? He'll debate about the best Disney movie. His fav movie is up to you.
Vendetta… Oh, fuck. Man dropped off the wagon in multiple ways. He doesn't wash his face, and he probably does have a few tooth problems. Got a tooth gap for getting his ass beat, and is kinda self-conscious about it. Stubble is unshaven, and hair needs to be cut. He doesn't give a crap anymore, but the nightmares he has certainly give a crap about him. Making him think about quitting, if he could. We all know the poor man is gonna be strangled to death because of the government. Eye bags, pains in his body, and waking up with a horrible hangover. He doesn't really have a nightly routine, except pass out from drinking OR try to fall asleep normally. With a lover, I feel like he still wouldn't care. Movie buff AND nerd for mechanical shit. Rants about it, listen if he does it. It makes him fall in love with you slightly faster if you want to go that route. Also, TUMMMMMYYYY!!
DI LEONNNN! MY FAV! My little old ass kitten! Moves back to an ID state in a way. Instead, kinda hates the government still for his circumstances. Back to the cartoon AND falling asleep to Disney movies. Tries to remember his stuff more often now. He's still a little iffy, but he's got the spirit! Honestly, he might get LASIK. More of just wearing sweatpants and boxers kind of guy to bed. Got a little patch of chest hair too. Cuddly tummy and thighs. Likes hugging you from behind AND getting hugged from behind. Sleepy cuddles make his day better, and possibly more. Lastly, man sleeps like a rock now. If he's on top of you? Crushed. Your dead. Donezo.
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my design notes for the mianite s2 cast (put under a cut because Long + mentions of s/h at one point):
in general i think that those who've lived in town the longest (especially Tucker and Sonja) are the ones whose clothing has been most affected by the world and era's fashion. they kind of look like they come from the 1800s and of course the other two champions bully them relentlessly for it but i like to think that tom exchanged the button up under his suit blazer for one of those ruffle front shirts because he liked how it looks, essentially making him look like the world's most genre and time-bending wizard ever, especially with the hat.
jordan
after really getting into the various engineering/mechanics/technical mods and getting shocked/burnt/etc enough times, he finally exchanged his basketball shorts for some reinforced knee pants and a plain white t-shirt with one of those pockets on the front, although nobody ever really sees it because he's wearing crazy armor most of the time.
wears steel-toed boots when working on technical stuff and sneakers the rest of the time
3 billion pockets with random shit in it (cool rocks, random trinkets, etc)
looks Absolutely Insane in the best way. none of his outfit actually fits together but somehow he makes it work
waglington
so a quick sidenote. i know he has a skin and everything however in my brain all of the wizards look like some variation of this:
(essentially "little guys who live in assorted hats due to being cursed by the gods after their hubris was revealed.")
however! this does not stop me from adding little details where i want, such as:
in s1, wag was basically confined to a wizard hat due to the restrictions of the world he was in. in s2 this is no longer the case and he has acquired many hats all with their own enchantments (though 90% of the ones he wears regularly are really durable).
this makes it look really fucking funny whenever he's doing Anything because when hes flying around you just see a hat holding a regular sized sword. when hes doing magic you see a hat in the middle of a firestorm or whatever. during the Purge he can sneak up on people really easily due to essentially being a hat. nobody has ever seen what lives under the hat and nobody has ever successfully tried to look inside without being killed
he's applied various odds and ends to his hats as the season goes on! (i.e patches, mends, embroidered runes and sigils). all rings and items are kept on his person, but it's generally accepted amongst the rest of the champions that his inventory space is located within the hat itself
sonja
out of all of the champions, she absolutely looks the coolest. everyone looks like losers next to her no matter what the situation is. eyeliner on point, has a fuckin Flying Orb She Balances On, you know the deal
has actual fox ears! this is only visible when the hood of her hoodie is back, though, which she doesn't do often except for when working on magic stuff for better visibility
pink everything if she can manage it <3 she has a theme and she sticks to it
tom
found one of those ruffle front button up shirts and wears it with his usual suit outfit. steve found him a green bow tie to wear with it so it still works!
likes to float around and do flips in the air and go all sorts of angles while flying. it is Very Distracting but he's having fun with it so who cares
engineered his hammer- sorry, wang- to look exactly like an upside down dick and balls while it's being used. he thinks this is the funniest thing ever and honestly it kind of is
tucker
(self-harm mention here!)
very pale and with constant eyebags and red eyes/pupils from working with blood magic
arms absolutely covered in cutting scars, also from working with blood magic
wears his ash ketchum cap on top of his crazy strong fantasy ass looking armor which frankly looks fucking stupid but he does not care
steve
tons of old scars, both from being a former fighter and a farmer
still wears farmer's clothing but don't be fooled, he Knows how to use the sword at his side
australian flag patch on his sleeve and as a sticker on his chestplate
very casual practiced movements despite his apparent age, even when doing kickass shit
martha
light purple eyes. makes her look like she's blind. she is not
transfem swag for YEARS
just as much at home in fighting gear as she is in a skirt!
andor
has long hair but keeps it up in a bun under his wooden helmet (that's why he always wears it) (yes hes also transgender)
can i just say that i love the fingerless gloves. that was an awesome design choice. the designers knew what they were doing with that one
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rambling bout the mandarin dub of s3 special (part 2)
before i do skedaddle onto more mandarin, i do actually wanna say- grollow has said a few times that they find Porty's sudden appearance very random which i do kinda agree with, but it also makes me think a tad. my three thoughts as to why He poked his head out are so far this:
1. shameless fanservice, as Porty is prolly the most liked Xiaotian clone
2. the crew needed a hype man more than anything to go thru their plan, so Xiaotian summoned Porty cuz das basically all that the clone does, did while he stayed and literally self-destructed the moment danger showed up instead of helpin
3. as per ar-blackshaw's and sketching-shark's theory convo, Porty has been alikened to Six Ear in the theory that Six is a clone of Sun Wukong's. Six is on the team now! Why not bring in the new generation of version of him in as well, yanno! sounds like a fun lore poke for the fandom ✨
Him Mouth... BUT ALSO he doesn't say "C'MOOOON" in the mandarin one which means he just Makes Noises n those are always fuckin PEAK up in this bitch, shit's fuckin hilarious
someone else pointed this out on twitter before i did a "try to understand now" rewatch actually, but SWK here calls Xiaotian "my little hero" which like fuck my heart, i guess
there's this tiny little quick inhale n exhale from Six Ear here and it fuckin Kills me
still not over Six Ear pullin THAT shit outta him chest n still not over Sun Wukong just BLASTIN that shit outta his hand like that, everytime i hear the fuckin sound effect of him shootin the energy i just go "Jaysus Fuck" like its so strong compared to Six Ear's wimpy ass weak sauce bullshit of a shadow emo energy stream it takes me out without fail, that thing could be aliken to a damb Spaceship Take Off
two things:
1. instead of "monkey" she only calls Xiaotian "little hero", for those wondering
2. her mandarin "no. it's pain/suffering." actually sounds so Tired and Pained- the no especially makes me think that at this point she's as far as struggling to get any words out
THIS MANS SAYS SHIIIIIIFU SO FUCKIN SMUGLY N BITCHY IM GON BITE HIS MINERAL ASS GO OFF KING
so mandarin Six Ear is known especially to me to have a VERY steady voice. he's incredibly calm almost thru fuckin Everything, including this special. his voice never rises up- it's almost as if he was stuck in a suave manipulative threat mode constantly
Except This One Fucking Time.
THIS interaction is what BREAKS his calm demeanor after ALL the seasons- he did NOT go squeaky in his debut episode (not countin the trainin sesh cuz that was more like choked up/running out of breath), he did NOT go squeaky upon recounting the events that build him up into what he is, he did NOT go squeaky over bein abducted by the not-mayor, basically enslaved by the White Bone Spirit and later on INFUSED with the bone demon's powers, no.
what fuckin breaks him is bein compared to the one person he was presumably created from. (very tempted to say sib culture wins here)
i was quite a tad worried at first that the mandarin dub would end up not giving SWK the emotional weak moments because the voice acting when he breaks out of WBS's control n thanks Xiaotian did not have the same shaky hit to it like the og english version had
i was... pleasantly surprised at the same time as distraught over how small and... Weak and lost THE Great Sage sounds when he gives his apology to his kid, though
he is So genuinely sorry. it hurts him that he hurt his little hero
after Xiaotian makes his joke with the noodles, he sounds close to tears. first he panics over being misunderstood, he stumbles thru his words and then he curls up, voice stretched out in a way that makes me think of my own before i cry. and then his words fade out in a raspy sigh
and it is still Weak and Raspy and charmingly Imperfect in the last sentences we hear from Sun Wukong
#Spot says stuff#lmk#man... swk's apology scene actually made me tear up n smile at the same time- made my heart warm and made me feel comforted#i fuckin love this dub so much#its kinda funny too i was worryin lately bout me fuckin up six ears characterization in ft n now this came out n im like -dabs- Sick-#-Im Still In My Lane
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ARC Review: One Season with the Duke by Addy Du Lac
Out now (and available on Kindle Unlimited)! 4.25/5.
For when you're vibing with... fast physical burns and slow emotional burns, culture clashes, and friends to lovers done right.
With a secret hanging over her head, Hettie has been blackmailed into getting engaged to an asshole. Fortunately, her childhood friend (now Hot and Sizable Duke) Finn, offers a helping a hand... in marriage.
Friends to lovers is a tough sell for me--however, once I realized how much of the friendship in this book was rooted in childhood, I was readier to bite. And I'm glad I did! This is a fun, sweet, surprisingly hot Scottish romance that really focuses hard on the relationship development.
Quick Takes:
--Here's what I dislike about friends to lovers so often: either the hero longs for the heroine but doesn't have the balls to make a move, or the heroine longs for the hero and somehow he Doesn't Notice Her (doesn't get turned on by her) and the heroine is left looking pathetic. In this case, Finn is the one who's very aware of Hettie from the jump. However, she pretty quickly identifies that he's All Grown Up, and he actually makes his move very early in the novel. That, right away, solves a lot of problems for me.
What I expected from there was a marriage in name only, wherein they would, for some reason, wait on fucking for like five billion pages, and I would get increasingly annoyed. But nope! These two are getting down less than a third of the way into the novel, because it makes sense. They're married; the marriage being valid is super important for their general scheme and Hettie's safety; they're not in love (she definitely isn't) but they're physically attracted to each other. Why not?
So it's like, this mixture of duty and genuine interest that brings them together, and I found that compelling. It felt real and pretty authentic to the time period (albeit with the added benefit of them being just five years apart in age and hot). I really appreciated that there wasn't all this handwringing about it from Hettie--no "oh no, I must marry my hot duke friend to escape my evil cousin". She knows she's got a good thing going, and they both are aware that it may never be this dreamy romance (until it is) but they're gonna try and make it work. And a lot of making it work involves the thing they are 100% on the same page about from the get-go: boning the fuck down.
--A lot of the conflict in this book, and I mean this in a good way, felt very old school. There's an evildoer setting out to blackmail Hettie (I personally enjoy a blackmail plot, especially when the heroine is an heiress; there's something about a "MUAHAHAHA" that I just like), obviously. Then there's this stretch in which she's really adjusting to not only being a duchess, but being a Scottish duchess, and I liked the distinction made here. While Finn may be very Englishified in some ways (although he does do a bit of a brogue at the right moments, as all Scottish heroes Must and Should), he is Scottish. His people are Scottish. There is an expectation that his wife will acclimate this, and it's like--not fuckin' easy. I liked that it wasn't easy. In some ways, it felt kind of cinematic while also subverting some of the old school-isms where the heroine goes to Scotland and everyone is all och and aye and just welcomes her with open arms.
In particular, Hettie's mother-in-law does not welcome her with open arms. In many historical romances today, I don't feel like supporting characters who are a) not villains and b) not getting set up for the next book receive much fleshing out. At least, not in the way they used to. But here, we see a woman who is understandably protective of her late husband's legacy, a bit possessive of her son, and......... kind of a bitch to Hettie. However, not a bitch without dimension. She's not flat. There is meat to her character, and there's meat to her relationship development with Hettie. I'm extremely soft for historicals in particular that place an emphasis on female relationships, so that was nice to see.
--You're going to either be frustrated or relieved by the fact that we the readers know Hettie's secret from the start. For some, I suspect this will lead to some "but telll hiiiim", and at points I did feel that way. However, from her emotional perspective, I get why she didn't; and I also personally appreciated knowing her secret from the start. It's not an inconsiderable issue, and I personally find that when a hero or heroine dithers over something we don't even know the truth about... That's where the frustration really comes in.
--We do get a grovel in this one, and it's quite sweet. I can't say much about the grovel because spoilers, but I liked it a lot. There are insane grovels, and there are emotionally sense-making but still deeply felt grovels, and I think this one falls into the latter.
--This book got me to care about two people who are ultimately Good and Solid, in a relationship that is like... not toxic. Which is hard for me! That said, I really like Addy's writing style, and I wouldn't mind seeing her try her hand at a batshit pairing down the road.
--As a random aside, if you like a bit of "she is too young for me and I am a hideous pervert for noticing her ankles" (which I do), there's a dash of that behind why Finn didn't pursue Hettie earlier. She really isn't too young for him by the standards of the time (they're about 5-6 years apart) but he felt very bad for finding her hot when she was eighteen, and I enjoyed that discomfort immensely.
The Sex Stuff:
Like I said, they starting fucking early and they really don't let up. I literally let out a sigh of relief when it began sooner rather than later; I fucking hate the "oh we're married but let's wait until 80% into the book to fuck even though the marriage can literally be invalidated if people find out you're still untouched" dance. Wow, two people thinking with their brains and their libidos!
The sex is well-written and explicit, and like... earthy without being over the top, if that makes sense. I posted that excerpt of Finn commenting on Hettie's scent while he was...................... he's Scottish so down under isn't a joke that makes sense, but he was going down on her. It's the simple intimacies of sex that I found the book did really well. Also, I really liked how they talked about sex with each other--you can feel that there's a friendship there (and he's such a pleaser). And like, there's no shame around Hettie having and enjoying sex without being in love quite yet? That's one thing I appreciated throughout; she cares for him from the start but she knows she's not in love yet... and she's still comfortable with expressing affection for him in a sexual way, and he makes her comfortable with it. There isn't this expectation that being aware of being in love is important for good sex, which I often sense with the writing of heroines. Something that I can't give away happens and Finn is like "maybe no sex for a while" and Hettie's reaction is basically "exfuckingcuse???"
A romantic and emotionally authentic debut, which I think will appeal to many readers--especially those who like historicals that are well-researched and real, without trading in on some of the more problematic aspects of the subgenre. In fact, in general, if you find that historical romances "scare you" a little, I'd say this is a good one to ease your way into the genre with.
Thanks to Addy Du Lac (@thataddylady on here) for a copy of this book! All thoughts and opinions are my own.
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tlou hbo s1 ep9 thoughts (w spoilers)
really did love the scene we got with anna i’m just upset that we didn’t get more!! it’s so symbolic to have ashley play ellie’s mother and that moment felt cheapened by the fact that we still know so little about her. why not get to know her, watch her life and how the outbreak impacted her, see more of her relationship w marlene so that when the moment comes where she has to die we know just how much that hurts! there is so much more they could’ve done and i’m mad that they chose to rush through it
okay i’ll stop the rant and talk about what i liked about it now. really loved how much of that classic ellie attitude shines through in anna’s lines, the spunk was inherited i guess. and i really love that you can tell just how much love ashley poured into anna and therefore anna pours into ellie, she is so careful with her and insistent with marlene about taking care of her. ellie was so so loved from the beginning and it is so evident in everything anna does
especially loved how insistent anna was about telling marlene she cut cord before she was bit. it was a flat out lie but she was so intense about it that i almost believed her for a sec despite having just watched the scene. she is so strongly protective of ellie
joel’s goofy dad side really came out this episode every little moment is just him trying to get a smile out of ellie. the line with the dynamite really cracked me up he’s tryin so hard
watching ellie drop the ladder i was sitting there screaming at joel like GET OUT THE WAY ur about to get conked by a ladder!!! lol
giraffe scene my beloved ❤️ that’s all i just love it
“i’ll follow you anywhere you go” thanks i’m but a broken shell of a human!! and when we get dina’s ‘you go i go’ parallel next season i may actually pass away
joel’s admission about trying to kill himself,, it surprised me at first but hoo boy that hit. i like that it almost felt as if he HAD to tell ellie, like it clawed it’s way out of him. it’s his time to finally admit out loud how much losing sarah hurt, but also how much ellie means to him. and seeing them letting themselves be so vulnerable with each other made my heart ache
we got the apocalypse joke so actually this is the best show ever it did nothing wrong
UGH joel storming the hospital while a deep slow orchestral version of the theme plays fUCK ME UPPP gustavo always delivers
laura bailey as one of the nurses 👀 i’m wondering if they’re gonna have her play a bigger character in s2 and give her some connection to abby
i am a bit sad that they didn’t have the whole chase sequence with joel carrying ellie out of the hospital. i get that it probably works better in the game but idk i think they could’ve gotten it to work. that scene is just so loaded bc it’s like you have her and you’re almost there and the tension and fear is so high that when you escape all you feel is relief and happiness that you saved ellie. would’ve liked to have seen that translated into the show
the extra little bits of joel’s lie were fun, especially when ellie asks if marlene was okay. i almost feel like in the game ellie could sort of write off the lie easier bc it was a generalized thing? but since joel adds the extra details here and specifically sort of half lies about marlene for some reason to me it feels even more painful. idk did a bad job of explaining that but yeah i really liked the additions
i know i’ve complained about how they’ve been using pt2’s score for this first season so much but playing ‘unbroken’ after joel lies to ellie is like smart but also so mean. like i’m already dead on the ground you didn’t have to drive the knife deeper
“i’m not saying that you’re not girly-“ “i’m not” i fuckin love ellie so much. gonna get serious for a sec but ellie being super masc is one of the reasons i fell in love with her when i first played the game bc i felt so seen by it and idk just hearing it addressed so directly just made me happy
also loved the fact that joel basically called ellie short. bella said short king rights ig
also also i just loved that whole sequence in general, joel just wants to make sure that ellie knows that she’s not some replacement or that joel doesn’t view her as sarah but as her own person and he’s a dork about it but it was so heartfelt
okay so. i’m not happy that they confirmed ellie kills riley tbh. i was never a fan of that idea in general bc it didn’t feel right to me. and even despite my own personal opinions about how i think ellie leaves riley i think there’s something to be said about having ambiguity around it. leaving it open let’s people form their own thoughts and feelings about it, it engages them and makes the story feel more personal, so confirming what actually happens just feels cheap to me.
the other thing is too, i knew they were gonna confirm it as soon as marlene kills anna bc they were setting it up to be such an explicit parallel. they could’ve still left riley’s fate open ended in that final convo and people would’ve come to the same conclusion bc of the setup beforehand, but at least this time there’s like active engagement and analysis happening with the audience. i just don’t think there was a need to actually have it explicitly confirmed. idk i just did not like it at all.
overall tho i’m glad the ending stuck so close to the original. i liked the changes they made to joel’s dialogue in the final scene, it was like a little surprise
so anyways kinda can’t believe this show is real tbh like wow they really took my favorite game and turned it into a show. and obviously i have some complaints about it but overall it was still super good?? this is a thing that happened??? wack. it’s gonna take a bit for it to sink in that it’s over for now. i’m excited for season 2 tho, bella ramsey is a goddamn power house and they’re gonna fuckin crush part 2’s story
#have some general thoughts about the season overall too but i’m gonna save that for a later post maybe#and i have my ep 6-8 thoughts just half written sitting in my drafts bc school and life has been busy lately#one day i might fix those up and post them but it feels late now idk#tlou hbo#tlou hbo notes
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dsmp finale spoilers, discussion of abuse
Ok so this rambling might be a tad unorganized but here’s my thoughts: The ending has been worked on for a long while now, so it’s not to say that it’s rushed. But seeing other’s reactions, it didn’t come across or land right, a miscommunication on the writer’s end (as I know people have been very vocal about making sure Tommy knows what a character like this means).
That was a tragic ending. I know cc Tommy said he wanted his character to have a soft ending, and surface level it is that (having a do-over without pain is a wonderful thought, no?), but i can see why people are upset over a victim coming to an understanding and even unknowingly starting a friendship with his abuser, as well as spending his last moments believing he was just as in the wrong as his actual fuckin abuser. These topics deserve respect when handling on account of everyone whose reality is like c!Tommy’s. And there’s no way Tommy messing around at the start is equivalent to the pain inflicted on him by c!Dream ( & c!Dream planting evidence against c!Tommy before the house burning?helloo??). I’ve seen people say maybe what Tommy was going for was leaving his character’s character good and intact, like a superhero movie, or others pointing out that understanding isn’t necessarily forgiveness. Unfortunately, superhero movies don’t always equate perfectly to real life, people don’t always get the choice to do that or take the morally high road, whatever that is.
Also from Tubbo’s POV, that’s not a fun ending! He tried so hard and failed to reach his friend in time, and all he could do was wait for the inevitable (not that c!Tubbo was ever guaranteed a good ending). Not to mention there’s loose ends everywhere. (can be taken into account IRL reasons for those loose ends, such as cc’s getting back to their normal lives after quarantine and that stall)
It can be said that stories can have tragic endings, some stories are made to make the reader uncomfortable so they check their understanding of the world (still, fuck Brave New World, me an my homies hate Brave New World). Some stories have a terrible or tragic ending of a season, have a hiatus, and roll right into a new one, which is where some cc’s are probably thinking in terms of lore (off the top my head, SPN season 5 bc it genuinely was supposed to end there and some of the middle seasons of GOT). But I think to the cc’s themselves, it’s also worth pointing out having too much of one thing (c!Tommy being a victim of abuse and never really getting a lasting win, unresolved things with other characters now that we know what happens to the DSMP) is draining to a lot of people in this audience, and that many people have been hoping for a good place to leave off before hopping to other fandoms.
It can also be said the DSMP was never guaranteed a good ending, writing-wise or feelings-wise (I'll argue there’s a difference), taking in the fact it started out not as a story-based thing.
I’m generally a positive person, so what I’m choosing to do is stick around, wait for that alt stream because cc Tommy said earlier he’d chat about c!Dream being a fucking nightmare of a person. I’ll see what they do for volume two (because it can’t be all if “the dsmp will return” and “This is not the end...” is to be believed), if it’s a complete memory wipe situation or if they slowly regain memories (I can’t be sure, but c!Tubbo calling c!Tommy cheese-haired makes me have hope someone remembers or they’ll do something with that). (For the sake of transparency I will also say that honestly a lot of this writing piece is me making sense of that ending and trying to distract that it made me feel a bit ill).
I’m sorry to the people who were sticking around for just this ending before leaving, I’m sorry you are going on such a bitter note, and I’m genuinely sad for the people whose pain is renewed with an ending like that.
The DSMP means a lot to me, as someone who’s been watching since before it was a month old. I’ve seen people say this, so I’ll say it here too, but these characters, their stories, also belong to us, the fans. The writers can write whatever ending they want, but in the end, if what you want to take away from a story is just the characters and their middle journey, and continue creating because you loved that part only, all the power to you! If any of that makes sense, lol.
#dsmp#dream smp#c!dream neg#somewhat of a critical analysis#tw abuse#my unorganized thoughts#lore spoilers
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Am I the only one who really doesn't think Ronen or Rafael look that different? Like, yeah they've gained some muscle so the shape of their faces have changed a bit but I really don't think they look that much different
[in reference to my tags on this post] (not sure if these are from the same anon or not, but I'm answering them together lol)
I don't think they look that different, in general, no?
They do always look older when they grow out their facial hair, to me personally anyway, and I don't think I ever noticed Ronen with greying hair in his beard two or three years ago (which yes absolutely is a regular thing to occur with hair when young I don't think gray hair equates to Old™ lmao) ... but other than those things, they look pretty much the same. The perks of being young and having money drinking lots of water.
I do still think early season 1 Ronen just looks like a baby though... he's baby in the pilot. doesn't matter how old he is - he just radiates baby to me 🤣
(have some pics for reference just for fun)
but as for fandom's tendency to act like it's been forever... maybe this is just me, but has the last 4 years of your life not felt like we've lived through a fuckin decade? 🤣😅 Do you remember 2019/2020 as if it was yesterday? Cause for me it feels like I lived through a whole lifetime worth of shit since then lmaooo.
but also I am a Millennial. We are known for being a nostalgic generation, so I cannot be held accountable for this flaw. I was born into it, okay.
#anon answered#i personally have aged 20 years since 2019#i am now officially in the grandma age bracket mentally#so dont forget to respect your elders (me)#tw: body image#(kinda)
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i’ve had a couple interesting talks over messages about this, so i figure what the hell. i could do with some light(er) writing today.
so: my angle at approaching legit predictions for future seasons of any given show is usually more about general story arc than ‘here’s the exact details or situation’. (if only because i think that’s easier to follow/predict when the writing is good.)
with that in mind, i’ve been trying to figure out what i think is next for ed.
given the end of the finale, picturing ed going full fuck it terrifying is easy. and to some degree, i assume that’s what ed tells himself is about to happen/what he’ll try to live out, but i also would argue this next arc will be more about his sadness and lack of desire to keep the mask up anymore than his anger.
and he is angry: reasons and debating their validity aside, the anger exists.
but we don’t end on ed’s anger, or his violence. we end on him crying and staring at the lighthouse. and given that good writers are usually fairly intentional, i think that’s meant to be a guiding light. (bad pun not apologized for and intended, etc.)
i think it’s also worth considering the horrible choices ed makes from a more galaxy brained perspective, just to see what the fuck is going on there in terms of ‘why ed, why? why’d you do it?’.
so, toe first since it’s the easiest; they set that up with ‘cutting off toes for a laugh’ in e9. ed set up a ship culture where you cut off somebody’s toe and force them to eat it not as an act of supreme punishment or anger, but for shits and giggles. (look. when i say stede comes from a culture of violence too, i’m not denying the violence of ed’s world is easier to spot. fuckin... ew???? ew, ew ew ew ew. ew.
...and his feet were probably so DIRTY okay. okay i’m done. ew, though.)
now, my subjective read on that moment has a lot to do with the way the writers set this up; absent that line from ed giving us the context we need about how he and izzy rolled before we met them, the toe moment is like ‘well obviously this is wanton cruelty and not a regular-ish joke we pirates like to play’. because duh, that’s how any normal and even VAGUELY healthy human would take such a moment happening to them. and morally it... remains that, because jesus fuck ed i know izzy was a dick but fun fact, you did not have to respond with metaphor toe sex/communion! weird! bad! again: dirty feet! that one is more aesthetics and less morality but i remain horrified by both!
‘is it better or worse to be forced to eat your own toe if it smells of roses and not stinky feet’ considerations aside, if we factor in what ed tells us about the funhouse mirror logic of a ship where you have to put down your dog and might end up eating a toe and those are things people just... accept, what he’s doing there is showing izzy (with oomph!) that okay fine, message taken. we are back to business as usual.
(i also think he’s pissed off at izzy and almost certainly that’s a factor in there since we humans are complicated and tend to have a million internal reasons all jostling for position when we make choices, but the context is there for a reason.)
why he shoves lucius is like... again a million reasons i won’t even begin to tease out since they’re all connecting dots and not as easy as just referencing the context. same with ‘why frenchie and jim?’ (though for reference my easy answer to both is: Reasons, many of them thematic and in-world emotional.)
in terms of what that means for his arc, i think the fact that he doesn’t actually kill lucius matters. because ed’s first moment of being the kraken was very, very actively killing his father, like killing him beyond even the eensiest shadow of a doubt dead. lucius just gets a shove overboard and left to die, murder doesn’t count if you can say NOT IT before they die style like ed’s been doing for years.
which isn’t to excuse ed or mitigate the fact that no matter how we try to divine the internal character ratio on how much ed really wanted lucius to die and how much he felt like this was the only call to make (much like e6 when he was trying to tell himself to just do the fuckin’ thing and kill stede, before the crew became the kraken and it drove him into the bathtub and to confess his sins instead) it’s sort of something we can all wrangle over forever. but he could have used that giant rope dangling conspicuously nearby to do to lucius exactly what he did to his father.
a conscious choice was made there. honestly, same goes with the rest of the crew. he could have demanded izzy/ivan/fang kill them, he could have killed them all himself, and instead he leaves them on a tiny ass island with very little hope of escape.
in terms of the only good choices he makes during this part of the finale... ooof, ed. not great. many notes. all the same i think the choices made to go for his old avoiding direct killing and hiding it method with the crew and having the in-world means to recreate the first time he became the kraken with lucius and simply pushing him into the water (...yeeeeah he pushed his father’s body into the water afterwards in an attempt to hide what happened, didn’t he) indicates where ed’s headed, as well as where he’s at when he makes those bad choices.
tldr: i think we are definitely going to get ‘I DO NOT CARE, THIS IS FINE I AM NOT SLOWLY DYING INSIDE, NOW WATCH ME BURN SHIT’ angry mask-on ed, but i also think we are going to see a lot more of sad being honest about how he feels when he’s alone (at the very least) ed than his initial set of horrific choices would lead us to think.
#as ever though: who knows!!!!#ps once again only you can prevent weird toe crimes#ewwww and DIRTY FEET????#sorry just. no. no to cutting toes no to eating toes no to all of it#ofmd spoilers#my ofmd meta
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I'm so excited for the news of a new sk8 season you have no idea 😭 I really thought we'd be getting a movie at best
I scribbled down a bunch of my thoughts and hopes for season 2 so read on if you're interested! (Warning, very long, and half of that is bc i ramble about renga lolol)
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My god i can actually make a list of things id love to see in Season 2 and not be like "no dont do that bc then youre gonna get your hopes up that there will even be a s2" but its actually happening holy shit lol ok anyways:
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1. ARREST ADAM. IM NOT FUKN PLAYING LOL GET HIS ASS ARRESTED AND CHARGED FOR SUMTHIN JESUS LORD. Literally my only major criticism with the show is that Adam didnt go to prison by the end of the season so it HAS to fuckin happen this time. I want that red haired investigator lady to win so bad please catch his ass.
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2. Ever since this idea was planted in my head, I haven't been able to stop thinking about it, but I want the sk8 gang to travel! Like not just to a hot springs like I want them to travel and skate across Japan and even elsewhere (bonus points if we somehow get Renga in Canada), I think the change of scenery would be really interesting, especially if they went somewhere like Tokyo. I'm just a sucker for friends traveling arcs in general, and this also could go hand in hand with my next point:
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3. I think it would be interesting if "S" died out at some point this season, whether through Adam arrest (🤞) or bc of the aforementioned traveling we just dont see much of "S" this series, or if the characters simply grow out of "S" naturally (honestly the one I'd most prefer.) I think it would be another good ride home to the central theme of the show about doing things you like bc they're fun and not bc of any clout or approval ranking.
And honestly, I think we've explored as much of "S" as we could while keeping it interesting. Not to say there shouldn't be more competing, that's like half the show lol, but i think the location of "S" will start to get a little repetitive after a while. This is why going somewhere like Tokyo would be a perfect refresh of the format, bc you can skate in new locations with different types of people than the typical underground flamboyancy of "S" (as wonderful as it is.)
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4. Matchablossom past!🍵🌸 I'd love to see it, this is definitely not the ship that receives the most of my love in the show but I do still enjoy watching them, so id love to get some nice meat to their relationship for me to keep sinking into (〃^∇^)ﾉ
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5. It was hinted that Koyomi would become a great skater in due time and I'd love to see that realized! I think she'd make a fun addition to the sk8 gang and personally I think Koyomi and Miyas personalities and snark levels would make for the funniest fucking comedy I just, I can hear their mean spirited chaotic banter from back here.
I know some people like to think they'd be wholesome friends but like,,,,, they're both little shits,, what you think you put them together and they'll just. Get along?? I mean maybe, but for me it sounds funnier if they just cant stand each others guts but are also, hilariously enough, inseparable (which maybe is too similar to matchablossoms shtick but I feel like that's more married couple bickering than anything so I feel like it'd be different enough.) Like they're both little shits but they're little shits in different fonts so they're still little shits to eachother god give it to me.
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6. ALSO LITTLE BROTHER MIYA BIG BROTHER REKI PLS ITS THE CUTEST THING IN THE WORLD TO ME I WANNA SEE MORE OF IT
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7. I also want to know more about Reki's friend that stopped skating (and Reki's past in general), and I wouldn't even mind that skate friend temporarily returning to Reki's life and giving Langa certain... complicated feelings >:)
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8. Obviously wanna know more about Langa's past as well. Did he have any family on his dad's side? How did his dad die? Are we gonna see more flashbacks/scenes where the Japanese voice actor is trying his damndest to sound like he's fluent in English? Will I have to be subject to hearing that once more? Who's to say.
(ok, wouldn't it be so cool tho if they did have full scenes where langa is speaking english, but they went and got the english voice actor to do the lines??? I feel like that would be so cool and his voice is so similar to the japanese va that it wouldn't even be jarring switching back and forth)
((i dont know anything about how voice actor laws work or if this is at all possible but a girl can dream lolol))
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9. i cant fucking believe theres a season 2 i m justbrbeshagw i cant do itmmtgus
i was gonna say i can die happy but thats a lie if i die i cant watch season 2 and it might not be out till at least late next year oh god i have to NOT DIE TILL THEN OMG ILL BE SO MAD
renga renga renga RENGA RENGAAAAA,
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OKAY actually on that topic, last note, hopes for Renga:
10. I don't want Reki and Langa to get in another big fight again like last season. Not that there was anything wrong with their s1 fight as a story device, bc I reaaally liked that conflict. It made sense with their characters and gave them both a bit of introspection on who they are as people, and who they are to eachother, and what the other truly means to them, and it ultimately brought them closer together. I just want that to stay true this season.
And I guess I shouldn't say fight, they're totally allowed to get into arguments and maybe even intense ones (as cute as their reunion was, they clearly didn't actually talk about everything that was bothering them, and I couldn't tell if that was anime being anime or teenagers being teenagers. Maybe both?)
I just don't want them to be made to break up again. Conflict between them is fine (it could even be spicy depending on the context >:3c) but I don't want it to drastically sever their connection like last time. It would be nice if it's like: "Okay, this is clearly a problem, and I am upset, but I now know that ghosting you isn't the answer, we have a true bond somewhere here, and I think we can get through this" I am not a script writer lol but you know, show a bit of growth! It would be lovely to see.
And hehe definitely self-indulgent but this point could actually be swayed for me if the situation is an explosion of jealousy and unacknowledged more-than-platonic feelings, creating a different kind of emotional tension than last conflict, where its less about self esteem issues, inadequacy and betrayal, and more of: "I might be in love with him, but I cant tell him bc I honestly don't even understand my feelings myself, and that stresses me out, and now were both stressed out and we don't know why bc were dumb teenagers who don't know how to communicate our feelings.😭"
lol obviously this^ is very dependent on of course there actually being a romantic storyline between the two, which like, actually it typing out with words as if its a possibility.... i can practically see the clown nose and wig materializing on my desk ready for me to put on lol i refuse to entertain that it's a possibility for my own sanity.
If there's anything I for sure want to see as their relationship develops, it's learning how to communicate, cause I still think there's a few things left unsaid between them (esp on Rekis part, things that Langa might like to at least be aware of?)
🛹🛹🛹🛹🛹🛹🛹🛹🛹🛹🛹
Overall I will simply be happy just,,, seeing my boys doing things again, hanging out together, new canon adventures 🥲🥺 I'm so happy, another full season of my babies ❤💙❤💙❤💙
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2022. GAME OF THE YEAR. OK?
Hey folks, season's greetings. Runner-up for most sentimental gamer 2021 here and I got a bug up my ass to write about video games. It's equal parts games that did and didn't release this year. Forgive me for any run-ons or excessive commas, this started as a piece on one game on the list and then became a top 10, then it spiraled out of control a tad as I forced myself to write more. Regardless, I'm happy with it and you can check it out under the read more. Happy holidays!
GUNDAM EVOLUTION
Gundam Evo is so goddamned weird. It’s a great game that I cannot recommend anyone jump into now. I really enjoy the core gameplay loop and what it does versus a game like Overwatch— the dash and boost system serve as a salve to the ever-present hero shooter roll-out problem and offer a little bit of movement unpredictability, the lack of clearly defined roles prevented the game from having a dichotomy of “hard” or “soft” tank and support units, and, generally, I found myself having more fun with it than I could recall having with OG Overwatch at the time. Every time I think about going back, however, I remember that it’s one of the clearest examples in recent memory of a publisher just not really giving a shit about its product.
The game sits at a sub-1k player count on Steam, with no way for people in certain regions of the world to even play the game, the console versions took a full two months after initial release to hit digital storefronts, and there’s no backfill system in any capacity. For a game to have such promise in a world where only one hero shooter really survived the late ‘10s burnout period, then to fizzle out so quickly… it’s just kind of a bummer. I would not be surprised if the game is shuttered by this time next year. Still, the time I spent with it felt immensely satisfying.
FORTNITE
Yeah. I fell in last year, (completely by coincidence, when they put the skanking emote in, if you can believe that, which you shouldn't,) and now that I can play Zero Build, my playtime's only gone up. I've also watched as the remaining capital G-I Games Industry folks I follow, who poked and laughed at the Tower Building Gaming For Children also fall into the exact same hole. So... lmao.
I think as you get older you do look for a few more opportunities to have a common activity that you nor your friends really pay a whole lot of attention to but use as a vehicle to shoot the shit. That's Fortnite. It's like getting drunk at a baseball game in the middle of the day for late millennials. It also has full patch cycles that are genuinely, unabashedly, very fun. We got dirtbikes and gravity hammers and fuckin Doom Slayer now man! It's great!
Oh, and to defend my honor just a little, I've spent a grand total of $14 on it. I caved to buy the Rasputin and Gangnam Style emote. What are you, the IRS? Leave me alone.
SONIC ROBO BLAST KART 2
...henceforth referred to as SRB2K because I'm not typing all of that out again, is not a live service game, and also a mod for Doom. It's (probably) the best Sonic kart racer ever made, and it's all built in a game that has nothing to do with the little blue freak. It feels fantastic to play, and it evokes the same feeling of fuzzy-warm coziness that I got from playing a lot of Skulltag one winter. I spent quite a lot of time in late January and February compiling user created SRB2K mods, hacking together soundpacks for existing characters, and screaming into a microphone as I careened through some of the best and worst maps I've ever played in a racing game.
DEAD BY DAYLIGHT
I pretend to hate this game and sometimes I do.
And now it's time for
Let's find out!
10) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge
Man, was this a fun surprise! I’ve never been the biggest turtles guy, but I am enough of one to have a favorite that I’ve picked almost entirely on the basis of color and weaponry. (It’s Don, for the record.) I am also enough of a fan of cooperative side-scrolling beat-em-ups that playing this whole game in a little under four hours with a group of friends was a complete blast. I have this weird hang up where I just can’t play these games solo. I think most beat-em-up devs also know that the real meat is in flying through them with a buddy or three or five. (After all, the only way I was ever going to finish Double Dragon: Neon, a game that I love but was definitely not the target market for, was playing it in co-op a year after its release.) That all being said, the fact that TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge allowed for six players at a time is as perfect as it is completely batshit and overwhelming. I’d routinely lose my place altogether as the genuinely fantastic backdrops and battle arenas turned into a flurry of blows and flying footclan bodies, and I simply did not mind.
While my time with it didn’t last long, I couldn’t help but admire the fact there was enough depth in the combos and strategic use of heavy moves, super attacks and thug-juggling technique to potentially make the game worth replaying. This is not even mentioning the genuinely fantastic sprite, level and sound design work. Fast, fun, and punching above its weight class as a title that was free day one on Game Pass, a fact of the gaming landscape that I constantly feel like we’re on the verge of having a reckoning with. Anyway!
9) Rumbleverse
I must preface this blurb with the fact that I have completely fallen off of Rumbleverse and I am genuinely sad I don’t have more to say about it. It’s been probably 3 months since I last fired into Grapital City, but the pull to go back amidst my neuroses and general malaise has been strong. It’s one of the few battle royale games where the insane love for its inspirations and the dedication poured into the game itself both shine right through. From the looser fighting game influence in its move priority and combo systems, to the completely unmistakable wrestling mark DNA, Rumbleverse is authentic and just plain fun. Compared to your bog-standard, shooty-bang-bang battle royale, the hype, guttural-noise-inducing moment ratio is off the fucking charts here, and that’s reason enough for me to include it.
By the way, every now and then I’ll hear people bemoan the fact that there are no melee-focused battle royale games. The fact that this game did not once and for all solve this quandry for people despite being the best implementation of that concept? It makes me want to scream.
8) Marvel Snap
Don’t look at me like that.
I really didn’t expect to like Marvel Snap. I’m not a comic book or superhero movie guy, but it’s amazing what being both free and available on Steam can do for you. Despite starting a little rough and having some growing pains in making decks that I actually wanted to use, the game of Snap itself is undeniably fun and incredibly easy to fall into. As of the time of writing this, I’m collection level 593 and I can no longer deny that I’m just playing it for giggles. This is the game that the certain-Blizzard-card-game-playing-me of 2017 wanted and just didn’t realize. Despite the whale bait in this very obviously mobile card game being clear and evident, and the fact that there is no way to assuredly get cards you want before level 500, I still somehow feel like this is the one online CCG I’ve seen that treats you with some modicum of respect... so long as you pace yourself and play in chunks. The quick nature of Snap, of course, isn’t really conducive to this, but you really just have to chalk that one up to terrible, awful, no-good, very bad mammalian reward responses.
I know the one thing that people just cannot shut up about is the game’s brevity, but it really is important to herald. As someone who’s played half-hour Hearthstone matches, it’s an undeniable factor in its continued popularity. After a particularly rough two days in late November where I kept snapping and kept playing despite losing six(!) ranks, I remembered an extremely salient realization I had while falling out of love with MOBAs a few years ago— if it sucks bad enough, you can leave. You can hit da bricks, so to speak, if you’re not making anyone else suffer as a result of it. If you’ve put a handful of your chips on black the last six spins and lost every time, it's okay to walk away from the goddamn table.
Latent gambling impulses aside, Snap is undeniably fantastic, and not even the only card game I’ve been playing this year.
7) Downfall: Slay The Spire
I’ve played a lot of Slay The Spire. It’s probably not even a fraction as much as the truly dedicated card gaming wizards that I’ll occasionally see screenshots from on the Community Hub, but damn, I love that game. Slay The Spire also came to me in a weird time; I was knee deep in my graveyard shift job at a gas station and spent my evenings, (7AM-11AM on any given day,) trying DESPERATELY to find a game that didn’t require too much of me but was still engaging enough to play between smoking pot, drinking, doing laundry, or all three. I bought the game on a whim, knowing only that it was a rogueli(k)(t)e and a card game, then fell ass over end into a Spire shaped hole.
Downfall: Slay The Spire is a lovingly crafted mod that pretty much just serves as an excuse to get me to play even more of this damn game. From the incredibly well-translated boss characters to the Hermit’s ability to pass as a character that Mega Crit would’ve made themselves, Downfall is fantastic. It could easily pass as an officially released expansion, and it's something I’ve already lauded over in the Steam Reviews for it
6) HYPER DEMON
This shit is bananas, man. I loved Devil Daggers so, so much, and despite still being squarely stuck 50 seconds away from the Devil Dagger, I swear I will get it before I shuffle off this mortal coil. And you’re gonna give me another lofty goal to strive for in a completely different game 6 years later? Fuck you m4tt. I love you m4tt.
I’ve played 3 ½ hours of HYPER DEMON so far. It was all in one sitting. I was amazed I didn’t forget to breathe during all of those 210 minutes. It’s the exact same all-consuming, focus demanding immersion that Devil Daggers ensnared me with in 2016. It’s Devil Daggers: Puzzle Fighter. It’s a cocktail of cosmic horror, Windows Media Player visualizer, Quake 3 montage over-editing, what I imagine the visual sensation of DMT looks like, and pure, unfettered skill-based FPS ecstasy. HYPER DEMON holds you to the sanding belt of its incomprehensible blazing-fast iridescent horrorscape and is unfeeling to whether you can handle it or not. I want more.
I need to play more. I will be playing more. I live to serve SORATH.
5) Super Mario 64 — B3313
I have never completed Super Mario 64. In fact, to my recollection, I never actually owned a copy of it despite having an N64 around the time of its release. I did, however, play an awful lot of this Super Mario 64 romhack in January. It has stuck with me ever since.
In second? grade I’d pass the controller at my best friend's house, as each of us desperately tried to clinch the red coin star in Lethal Lava Land or not tumble off Cool, Cool Mountain. In my teens I’d boot up an emulated copy through Project64 and try, to my behest, to play a game that paled in comparison to the breadth of experiences I’d already had with, at the time, recently released games. (Of course, when your high watermark is something like Garry’s Mod with workshop support or Just Cause 2, anything else feels like hoop and stick.) Even still, I appreciated what Mario 64 meant at both of these stages of my life, for one reason or another. Now, as an adult who claims to have a pretty good understanding of video gaming history, that respect has only deepened.
As a kid, I could recall broad strokes of the in-game world when I was away from the Mario Sanctioned Zone of my best friend’s house. The general layout of the first floor of Peach’s Castle, the first Bowser stage, the royal slide, as well as strange fragments of the hub world architecture scattered through my brainspace. In the days after a hang-out or sleepover, I’d devise ways to get around stages in my head, but SM64 never stuck in my craw for long amounts of time. Yet, I still had moments where it was forced back into my consciousness.
During a particularly shitty bout with the flu when I was about seven, my child brain conjured up visions of a castle that… sort of existed. In between retching up anything that wasn't saltines and soup, half-watched segments of Nickelodeon’s Games and Sports channel, and confronting the sickly taste of bile and lemon-lime Gatorade, I’d pass in and out of dreams, seeing feverish facsimiles of Mario 64. Strange floating voids that might’ve resembled a run-up to Bowser, Tick-Tock-Clocks that didn’t seem to match up with what was on the cartridge, and impossibly long hallways that bled into one another.
I had a passing knowledge of the “every copy of SM64 is personalized” “meme” before playing B3313, and saw increasingly convoluted icebergs and the Wario Apparition, (something that thankfully doesn’t show up in this romhack,) as laughably goofy addendums to already lame gaming creepypastas. The general idea of this hack, despite being fueled by this mix of amateur horror, is something still so genuinely fascinating to me. It's not even really the concept of a game with a “personalization AI,” but moreso the idea of imperfect memory. Things might be changing without any input from some spooky and malicious entity pulling the strings, you just can't remember what these places looked like. Those who are as equally fascinated with B3313 as I am use that term— “fever dream.” They use it liberally when talking about the general feel of the romhack, while also mentioning that at some point during their childhood, they would also have dreams about parts of Mario 64 that didn’t exist, or were slightly off. As one of those people, B3313 nails that exact feeling one-hundred percent.
Super Mario 64: B3313 is a fever dream come true. It’s a slurry of beta, demo-build and original content that bleeds into areas from the retail copy of Super Mario 64. Despite its brief, eyeroll-worthy, yet awkwardly fitting brushes with metatextual horror writing, (enter this cave if you want to see your deepest fears unfold!!!!!!!!!,) the main conceit of this strange, alternate-history beta-dump Mario romhack still hits like a guided missile to my brain. The seldom-played yet still familiar memories of Peach's Castle turn from a welcoming environment into an LSD: the Dream Emulator-esque maze of doors to entirely different castles, alternate versions of existing Mario worlds, densely foggy ominous hallways, and harshly inhuman architecture. It’s bizarre, surprisingly unsettling and manages to evoke a sense of familiar unfamiliarity.
B3313, Wet Dry World’s Negative Emotional Aura and the Personalized Copy concepts are at a bizarrely interesting confluence of childhood imagination, video game folklore, niche meme culture, and, most importantly to me, the impermanence of memory. It already feels like decades ago that we were telling people that, no, Nelson Mandela did not die in prison, the Berenstain bears’ surname was just being misremembered, and, uh, that Taco Bell never had “medium” sauce, but there’s something weirdly different about the foggy, self-aware recollection of sections from Peach’s Castle that never actually existed. There’s an unspoken understanding in YouTube comment sections and other circles versed with B3313 that none of this is, y’know, for real. It’s all gotten a bit tongue and cheek and suffocatingly ironic now, and while some would consider this a horrible breaching of kayfabe, I see it as a necessity to prevent B3313 and other experiences like it from becoming deeply lame, reminiscent of the early days of extremely self-serious YouTube ARGs.
There’s a seal that you break at some point if you came up playing video games. It’s the realization that everything in the game you’re currently playing is there on the disc. Emotion engines and curated experiences cannot magically conjure a completely unique experience specifically for you. With digital games, automatic updates, and the increasing capabilities of neural networks and AI, this becomes a harder point to make, but we’re not quite to the point where games can just generate new assets out of thin air. New content speeds through pipelines for still-alive service games, patch notes get nailed to the theoretical doors of your chosen Gaming Chapel, yet ghosts do not haunt hardware. There is no “personalization AI” present in a two-decade old N64 rom, and with how fast information travels and the fact that leaking video game news and secrets is basically a goddamned industry now, most games don’t get to keep their secrets for long, no matter how much I may want them to.
As you do with the childhood loss of innocence, you learn to eventually understand and cope with the feeling that games are not infinite dream machines made for you and you alone. However, you inevitably replace that malaise and disappointment with the fact that these collections of data and if-then statements still have so, so much to share with you. Experiences like B3313 come along from time to time to serve as a haunting reminder, though. This romhack is a transmission from a moderately different yet hauntingly similar reality that threatens to plunge you back into the depths of childlike mystique, wonder, and, funnily enough, horror, but with your current adult understanding and awareness. It’s equally as enticing as it is terrifying.
I know part of it is just getting older, not having enough space in your head for everything, and generally just "recording over" less important events in your life, but I've realized in the last few years that I don't remember parts of my childhood. I'm not talking year long spans or anything like that, but traumatic experiences that my brain has blotted out, or lengths of time that I just used to remember very succinctly. I don't think my childhood was any more or less extraordinary than anyone else's, probably on the "less" side of that spectrum, actually, but… it just feels weird. In finding old TV show uploads and reliving games from that time period, I feel like I've been trying to piece it back together or convince myself that I shouldn't. I think this romhack, in its own way, helped me cope with a little bit of that.
Playing B3313 is tasting honey lemon cough drops as I sweat into my childhood bedsheets, drifting in and out of tenuous sleep in my dark bedroom in the middle of the day. In its own weird way, it’s beautiful.
4) Hitman: World of Assassination
Thanks for sticking with me through that.
Up until recently, I always felt like an outsider when I said I was a fan of the Hitman games. I loved Blood Money when I was at the ripe old age of 10, and loved watching Tom Bowen’s “How Not To Play Hitman” series slightly more than actually playing it. I did end up finishing Blood Money, eventually moving onto Silent Assassin and, for some reason, Codename 47. I could not finish the first, nor stomach the latter, and it always made me feel like… a poser, I guess? They were pretty “hardcore” games at the time, known for stringent stealth and detection mechanics, and looking at forum posts and videos at the time it felt like I wasn’t getting The Full Experience by not being a bad enough dude to play them, let alone get Silent Assassin ranks. The World of Assassination trilogy has blown that locked door off the fucking hinges for me.
The three newest Hitman games are wonderful romps. As someone who’s been following Giant Bomb for a decade and loved their Hitman coverage and content, it feels like I’m just copying their homework here, but oh well. From throwing homing briefcases and walking around as a clown with a WA2000, to actually seeing the bald beauty's story wrap in the third chapter, Hitman asks you to take these games as seriously as you can. While you’re still definitely Agent 47, (nom de guerre, Tobias Rieper,) and still definitely going through an actually pretty good plot thrust in between garroting sociopathic billionaires, you are given carte blanche to steal so many clothes, chuck so many wrenches and empty as much lead into bystanders as possible with very little restriction. It's this distinction that I feel makes stuff like World of Assasination and, in my opinion, the Dead Rising series work. Comedy is often a hard thing to do in games, and I feel it's best left up to player expression and interpretation in most cases.
Whenever possible, I WILL go for alert-less stealth runs in any game where it's possible, and I killed hours meticulously reloading checkpoints, or missions wholesale, in the World Of Assassination trilogy back in February just to get Silent Assassin. But I also had plenty of moments where I had to break my own self-imposed restrictions to, for example, shoot Vanya Shah right in the back of her smug head and beat a quick, immediately exposed retreat as I let the exhausted sweatshop workers she rules over see her body careen two stories to the ground below her. This was a moment so satisfying that I am struggling to not reinstall the game right now and record a clip myself. (By the way, while Hitman has never been about killing people who don’t deserve it, WoA’s targets ride a hell of a line between being laughably sociopathic and ripped from the headlines of [what is hopefully not] the near future. I really do admire it.)
Hitman had some of my absolute favorite moments this year and, despite it pushing you strongly to a lot of those moments, they never felt unearned. I often yearn for the desire to feel like I truly was the brain genius who earned my moments, but Hitman helped lessen some of that stringency on myself while still allowing me to push my understanding of the game. From throwing Erich Soders’ replacement heart into the trash to whacking the Janus in a send-up to Blood Money’s A New Life, it’s some of the most satisfied I’ve ever been getting lead to water.
And, god, that fucking mission in Berlin? Insane. Insane. I know people talk up Dartmoor a lot and it does deserve it but… man.
3) Dicey Dungeons
In the midst of my summer-time seasonal depression, nothing was really working for me. I found myself pouring over what was on PC Game Pass, writing off games that seemed like too much of an undertaking after I’d completed a certain, lengthy RPG earlier in the season. Dicey Dungeons was a blip on my radar once upon a time, but had slipped through the cracks of my memory until I scrolled past it in my Xbox app, then inched my way back up to it.
I am both surprised and not that I spent SO much time playing Dicey Dungeons this year. As a man that will play any rogueli(k)(t)e you put in front of me at least to the completion of one successful run, it’s basic fuckin’ math. It’s the logical conclusion of just how rudimentary you can make a roguelike and have me still play it.
It’s also, by technicality, the third god damned card game on this list.
Dead simple— Dicey Dungeons is a game of rogueli(k)(t)e Yahtzee with RPG classes, inventory management, and an absolutely fantastic soundtrack that has me picking up my chiptune defending sword-and-board once again. The fate of your runs are, with some influence from the player, entirely up to literal dice rolls. I truly love just how much the game leans into being a stone-cold RNG fest, down to the fact that the entire thing takes place in a game(show) of fate hosted by an anthropomorphized Lady Luck. Its writing and enemy design is sickeningly, saccharine sweet and just a tiny skosh insufferable, but it never gets in the way of how rock solid and addictive the game itself is. So much so that I squeezed this damn game dry of content.
I’ve seen quite literally every piece of new content the game has to offer shy of the Halloween expansion, (it turns the game into a lethal puzzle thing, just not my cup of tea,) and I still had to stop writing this section of the list to go play a quick round. Played Robot in Parallel Universe with a decisive victory against Madison, in case you’re curious. And I cranked the volume in the boss fight for the first time since I turned it down to catch up on podcasts and video essays while whittling through the end-game hard modes. Lifeline goes completely insane as does the rest of the soundtrack. I was throwing ass in my kitchen making sandwiches listening to this months ago. This game just rules.
2) Yakuza 7: Like A Dragon
Of all the ‘guys’ I have claimed to not be in this GOTY list, I am, maybe least of them all, a turn-based RPG guy. I’ve tried, multiple times to breach them, and the best I can get is about halfway through most mainline Pokemon games before the tedium of Okay Now You Go battling gets to me. And yeah, I know, I just got done rattling on about two different card and dice-based roguelikes that are also turn based but… that’s different, y’know? I’m not just highlighting Firaga and watching an animation play out, I’m throwin’ dice and channeling lightning orbs and…
Look, it’s not important. What is important is I finished my first fucking Yakuza game this year. And it was the goddamn turn based RPG! Yakuza 7 is one of the most charming and enjoyable games I’ve played in my life! And it’s a turn based RPG!
That’s horrifying!
I don’t need to sing the praises of any of Ryu Ga Gotoku’s games. If you’re following me, you’re probably fully bought into the series or have heard people around you audibly get boners for Goro Majima and Kazuma Kiryu. In fact, I find it incredibly difficult to write anything new or provocative about this game that hasn’t already been said, but I just feel so strongly about it. It’s the insanely fun video-game-meets-real-life premise and immeasurably loveable cast of misfits that excel. It’s the heat moves. It’s Zhao. It’s the raw passion, genuine heartbreak, and joy of just being here that really got me. It’s Zhao again. Combine all that with an active battle system that satisfies the goopy goblin gamer brain’s need for near constant input and man? I’m set.
I know through cultural osmosis that Yakuza is a series about a few key things: compassion, loyalty, the bonds we share with others, and what loyalty really means. Yakuza 7 obviously has all of this in spades, but especially what it has to say about the lower/working class, anyone unfortunate enough to be homeless, sex workers, and those from impoverished backgrounds is so effortlessly excellent that it makes me excited to go back and play this series from the word go. I’ll miss the hell out of Ichiban and the shonen protagonist brand of fire-blooded vigor and bullheadedness he brought, but I’m excited to (…eventually) start anew.
1) Jabroni Brawl: Episode 3
Here we are. Finally. I’m not only writing something about a released version of Jaykin Bacon Jabroni Brawl, but I also genuinely feel it’s my game of the year. And now that we’ve arrived at this juncture I just keep thinking… what the hell do I even say about this game? I found something, but fuck, it took a while:
It must be said that I was raised in a triple parent household: I was brought up by my mother, father, and the Source engine. When I was 9 years old, I tuned into a mid day re-run of the now anicent television program The Screensavers that showed off version five of Garry’s Mod. At that point, I’d already played scattered chunks of the short, but enthralling Half-Life 2 demo we had on our family computer, (of course, the Icthyosaur jumpscare and being teleported to Ravenholm scared me right off,) but hadn't picked up the game. I begged my poor cash strapped father for a copy probably too many times, and after we both realized the pirated copy he nabbed wouldn’t be compatible, got a Half-Life 2 & Counter Strike: Source double pack for me as a birthday/Christmas gift.
I loved Garry’s Mod. I’ve got no clue how many hours I poured into version 9 before its subsequent release on Steam as an officially sanctioned mod, but let’s just say it was a lot. In December 2005 I joined the Facepunch forums, learned the difference between models and textures, corrected a lot of spelling mistakes, had my first bouts with navigating Windows folder directories, definitely made some crude sex poses, and found my first group of online friends shortly thereafter. I would eventually slowly slip away from regular patronage to Facepunch sometime in the early 2010s, but the impact it had on me as a youth is unquestionable. We can talk about whether it was a net good some other time though.
Before this gets too far into navel gazing and nostalgia, I’ll say that along the line I played a wonderful mod for Half-Life 1 called Half-Life 2: Jaykin Bacon Source that serves as the genesis for Jabroni Brawl. It’s a mess, but up until its Facepunch-branded revival and subsequent alpha/beta tests, it was the only thing I’d ever played like it. It’s full of ripped assets from other mods, purposefully goofy voice acting from its shithead (lovingly) teenage creator, and plenty of stuff taken from the then-recent Metal Gear Solid 3, a game I had also fallen in love with prior. It was dumb fun that I have forced multiple groups of friends at varying stages of my life to play and have a ludicrous amount of attachment to.
And Jabroni Brawl: Episode 3 is that, all over again, from the faithfully recreated weapons and impenetrable Facepunch callbacks, to the fact that this more or less ended up being a surprisingly official-feeling love letter to anyone who has ever made anything in either Source or Goldsrc. Jabroni Brawl knows what it is, and that’s all it is. It’s a deathmatch mod for and by the people still cherishing the rapidly atrophying muscular structure of a game engine that just won’t seem to die. It's for the people who want to get a group of people together on a Friday and throw friction grenades at/fart on each other. And that's all it needs to be to knock it out of the park.
Source and its modding scene still means a lot to people, myself included. For a lot of us weirdoes, it was a playground that evolved into a way to make friends, hone skills and even turn interests into hobbies and jobs.
But hey, this is getting KINDA GAY!!!!!!!!
Jabroni Brawl is frenetic FPS bullshit. It’s terminally stupid, rough around the edges, and unbelievably fun with the right people. Jabroni Brawl is gaming. It’s e-sports. It's, dare I say, hobby-grade. And it’s a complete goddamn miracle. I mean, fuck, this is probably the one project to start on Facepunch and actually see the light of day, right? Even seeing the Tales From The Galactopticon models in the customization menu made me feel positively ancient.
Here’s an in-game clip of a good friend killing himself in maybe the funniest way I’ve ever seen. Take care, and Feliz Navidad.
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Yall I’m new to stanning football. I came here straight from the world cup and I’m not gonna lie this shit is beating my ass. Is it always in the mud like this? I chose psg because that seems like the best option because they got messi, neymar, and mbappe who are literally the three players that caught my attention during the tournament! Yall I really thought this was going to be fun. 😭 What’s going on? Why does everything feel so confused and chaotic (not in a good energetic way, more like headless chicken running kind of way) but also weirdly sluggish and slow? Yall I don’t understandddddddd. It’s like the team has four different personalities all at once? It’s so… unpleasing to watch yall it was not like this during the world cup. 😭
I hope they get better. But I’ve been reading the psg girlies on tumble and … it seems like nobody has hope it’s going to get better? I mean surely it will? Right? I feel like everybody has given up on the season and I’m scared. 😭 I hope Kylian feels better soon. I was thinking maybe we can do trades with other teams but apparently business hours is already closed and will next open in the summer? The fuck? But we dont got anyone? And almost everyone is dropping like flies? What happens if the big guy on the fishnet gets a flue or just gets sick in general? We just dont get anyone?
Also the coach looks like he should be in a martin scorsese film with robert de niro and joe pesci. The fuck is he doing on the pitch tho?
We need to bounce back QUICK! We need positive vibes! Energy! We need God to be honest but I feel like I’ve spent all my credit with him praying for Messi to win the world cup. My account with God is all maxed out. Yall. I cant sleep until I figure this shit out. Somebody do something!
Do we have a secret weapon? Like what is the plan here? What is plan b? Oh my goddddd. This parasocial relationship is with these players really do beating my ass. I’m out here worried for them!
hi anon! wow this is a doozy. ill try to break down my response but idk if it'll do ur rant justice LOL
1) Welcome newcomer! as u may have seen in the world cup, if there's one thing someone should tell u before u enter the football world is that ABSOLUTELY NOTHING is guaranteed. you could have the strongest defense, the best goalie, gamemaster midfielders, and strikers w amazing finishes and you'll still lose to an underdog team who has better teamwork and chemistry. or just one player decides "uk what? imma earn my paycheck today" and demolishes the other team.
2) psg is a joke. ill tell u right now. lose any and all expectations. we clown on them bc even if they played shit before but at least they were winning. now they're playing shit and LOSING! and thats the problem we have. the 4 personalities at once thing is absolutely correct. you have 3 well seasoned forwards who are used to being the "it" strikers of their team. on top of that we have NO MIDFIELD AND A SHIT MANAGER WHO CANT GET A TACTIC OUT OF HIS ASS EVEN IF I SHOVED IT IN THERE MYSELF!!!... sorry i lost it a bit there lol.
3) as yes transfer window closing. see that's also Galtier and that fuckin toad incharge of players who DIDN'T MAKE A TRANSFER UNTIL LAST MINUTE AND LET CHELSEA FUCK THEM OVER. and sorry to burst ur bubble but there's a chance key players might leave/retire by that summer so lets hope they promise them to bring in an actual proper midfield by then.
4) So another thing to consider if one of the reasons u chose psg was for messi... i wouldnt. This isn't his club. this is his retirement club. ramos too actually. they've finished their careers. they actually have absolutely nothing to lose LOL. messi's heart will always be in barcelona. as in he literally knows nothing else except barça
5) injuries suck. but they are a part of the game. if u play any contact sport u know the feeling. even non-contcact sports there r still big injuries. everyone is hoping kylian gets better soon. he needs all the rest he can get 🤲🏼.
6) Our secret weapon? BHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! prayers i guess. nah im kidding. but there really isn't any secret weapon unless u count galtier deciding to pick up a tactic book? or leaving and getting replaced by pep or zidane. to use ur weapon analogy we have a dented shield that still works (defense) and a bunch of bullets (forwards) but no gun (midfield) to load them.
7) ik u were joking about that last part but the parasocial relationship?? do ur absolute best to minimize it. like as someone who's been watching the beautiful game since i was a kid its okay and fun to joke about it and worry/send love to ur faves but u have to remember: those are grown ass men getting payed hundreds of millions to kick a ball around while those in their cities that pay to watch them are in heating/housing crisis. so when we eat the rich ill be cutting them up w tears uk?
hope this helped LOL.
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Been rewatching bits and pieces of cpuk season one for fun and taking notes of funny stuff we dont talk about much in the discord and thinking abt it in the context of later seasons/information and its very fun. This is stuff from 1-5 (will likely update as i get further in this partial rewatch, under readmore for spoilers of later parts of the series and keeping the post short)
Hamhel and dadondorf apparently taught jimbo 'butt/butts' is a swear word but 'fuck' isnt. Jimbo is really interested in music as we know but also distinctly very bad at it. Jimbo's biological parents are dead, but left him a LOT of money and as a result spending too much money on shit he doesn't need became his favorite coping mechanism and, following the divorce, he used up all of his inheritance money and started dipping into the family funds, which is when Dadon and him start having Problems. Jimbo is extremely hamhel's kid neither of them should be trusted with any kind of power. Jimbo, i know you've been through a lot and the dad that was demonstrably better at connecting with you is being Fucked Up And Evil Right Now but honey, the shopping addiction is not gonna make your life any stabler. listen to zzzzzzoey. go to therapy. 'Jimbo tried to summon satan to kill his dad' is a thing thats said. Which. gestures in crimson's general direction. funny. Jimbo is peak 'remember when you were 15 and convinced you were evil and irredeemable but really you were just 15' except at this point hes like, 13 max im pretty sure and also hes Really stupid (affectionate.) (CPUK1)
Dadondorf is personal friends with Cranky Kong. Hamhel claims he threw a match in winners finals against Dad to give him a fighting chance and I think he's full of shit as ever <3 Dadondorf to Jimbo: "I'm sorry, It's just- I know you miss your other dad, but we'll get through this together." bro dont talk to me about to wring hamhel's dumbass neck, you dumb son of a bitch meat man abandoning your family for demonic power to recapture your glory days im gonna KILL Y- hes better now its fine im fine theyre fine. man imagining what the winners finals and championship match between dadon and hamhel at the end of cpuk1 would be like with season 2-3 style voiceacted storytelling has me fucked up. itd kill me i think .
Zzzzzoey's apparently like. 18 years old in cpuk1????? If thats still canonical shes in her fuckin. early 20s now. what the Fuck. more like a cool big sister to Jimbo convincing him to go to therapy and helping him reconcile with his dad like that than a peer. (CPUK1)
Patchman apparently worships some kind of obscure scarecrow harvest god called Scarny, and either his ratspeak was kind of rusty or he genuinely briefly forgot what science was because when he called Zapmouse the work of the devil and Zapmouse corrected him by saying he was a product of science he said he didnt believe in scientology. Zapmouse is explicitly an atheist. Zapmouse also likes to use elaborate threats to get his point across. Zapmouse ended a friendship and threatened to rip out a person's teeth for patronizing him by calling him their pet to explain why they were talking to a rat. (CPUK2)
Grundy, the Grunk's brother, has a confirmed skin, he's represented by the green bowser when they talk about him during the Grunk's intro! He and the Grunk lived in Tennessee, and he's a famous and respected restauranteur specialized in Southern Comfort Food whose critical opinion is so highly respected a bad yelp review from him can tank businesses. He, and I quote, 'sucks.' they talk about grundy so much in the grunk's debut episode it's kinda funny that he's never shown up. They even raise the idea of introducing him as a fighter at some point. although considering his brother died being part of kerfuffle and then he kept doing it and let his son participate too, i dont blame him for not wanting to get involved. People apparently start beef with the Grunk sometimes just for being related to Grundy, considering sauceboss. maybe they just don't. talk anymore. (CPUK4)
Home MD really likes fish and cares about the ocean as an environment, Alfred even throwing out the idea that he wears black in grim remembrance of the Mozilla Oil Spill. i wonder if this interest was present before the time loop or if it developed during. What im asking is what came first hackshifter aquarium dates or home md getting just like really into maintaining his doctors office fish tank as a coping mechanism. Did Larry frequently get into physical altercations with litterers at the beach growing up or is that new. They say Home MD saw Finding Dory and cried. they also, unrelated, say Home is so old he canonically uses internet explorer. Fucking mean to him!!! he's like 25ish at this point in the loop! I know he has the exhaustion in his eyes of a man twice that age but leave him alone!!!!!!! (CPUK4) (Sidenote its so fucking funny to me that even during the home timeloop larry was picking fights with hamhel. He wants to kick that old mans ass so bad but it'll never happen. I think larry greets hamhel every time they meet by trying to put him in a headlock and casually failing. Their weird frenemy relationship is so funny to me)
Firefox is a Mega-Corporation that has its fingers in lots of things, the browser's just the main thing they do. So in the kerfuffleverse mozilla as a company is kinda like google as a company is in the real world. Mozillas dead as hell and Nightly hates his ass and has understandably complicated feelings about family but it's unclear in my memory if he's still like, involved with the company or the rest of his family in any way. Is nightly a disowned out of touch ex-richboy or what (CPUK4)
it is funny that the lowkey bloodlust has been whats stuck about Corn most into the present from her debut. Alfred: "corn really just put a knife to this man's (home md) neck and said 'i'm here to take your blood.'" She craves violence and always has and i respect it (CPUK4)
ICEE was a huge superfan of ICEE who got sponsored as a result of him promoting the brand through his very public love of it abd as such has some amount of unofficial pull with the company. Spriteman is not sponsored. The coca cola company does not want to be associated with Spriteman in any way, shape, or form. his sheer violent feverish devotion to that citrus soft drink is completely fucking unmarketable to them. If cpu kerfuffle wasn't distinctly unaffected by the law he'd probably be getting sued for so aggressively stanning their product in such an intensely unflattering way on a public platform. Also christ in a clown car he was stuck perfect for SO LONG he went perfect between cpuk3 and cpuk4, and didn't recover until cpuk20. This man was in a feral state and not fully in control of himself for a bit under 2 years i think? he is So rusty at being a human. In the first episode he was 'Perfect,' he seemed fairly lucid, which is. Upsetting. because it implies that he slowly lost that lucidity until he was the 's-sprite' stammering beast he was by the time g2 rolled in.
Yung Papaya's snake exorcist dad was described as being half demon before becoming a snake, and his name is actually Rod. These are some of the only things the snake priest dad remembers from his life before being transformed into a snake aside from his work as an exorcist. I have no additional commentary on this i just think its funny (CPUK5)
The Light Void is, apparently, a void of pure light and an entity that instead of consuming or encompassing things as one might imagine the maw of the void to do, allows things to take of it whatevers needed that it can give. a sort of metaphysical wellspring hammerspace of potential, it sounds like. One of the many odd, complex and multifaceted world-crafting forms of Spectrum's divinity, perhaps? its emissary, corrupted into the cbt demon, is described as having little sentience/autonomy to begin with, so it's tricky to exorcise because it lacks much of a will of its own to free, and doesn't have the capacity to desire to be freed, as it exists to serve whatever purpose its needed for. It can only speak occasionally, and it's very direct and lacks personality. (CPUK5)
In CPUK5's intros, ryan says dan is a geeksquad employee that was Sent Into The Game. Like A Normal Guy From Real Life Literally Sent Into The Video Game. Its compared repeatedly to scooby doo cyberchase. nccts stuff clarifies this is arguably pretty normal for the fighters origins but Dan was literally intentionally isekai'd here from Normal Actual Real Life to help try to deal with hamburger helper. Every Dan Is Explicitly From Another World. Also he seemed like he was having so much genuine fun fighting Al compared to his whole Comedically Tired Cosmically Tormented Everyman thing hes got going on now and also for like the whole rest of his time in even this tournament. Also apparently he fixed icee's ipod once and returned it and all the music was gone except 15 copies of ice ice baby with one under pressure. blows kiss love u dan <3
Alfred: "Alabaster Uppercut has been fighting for 27 years, and dedicated the other two to teaching children how to do the uppercut just like him" oh my god was Al already like 29 when cpuk5 happened. Is Al in his early thirties now. Also he says Al was already very respected and well-known in his home village and he was once ideologically pacifist and only signed up for cpuk because a group of other competitors viciously defamed him and his village and called him a pussy on social media and one of the village kids started getting bullied over it and that's what crossed a line with him, which is interesting. Ya boy loves the fight for the sake of the fun of the fight now but he supposedly used to Very Much Not Like Fighting Pointlessly At All? Originally more of a 'practices a martial art as a meditation and preservation of heritage' kind of guy before discovering The Joys Of Consensual Sportsman's Violence
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Tag Game
I was tagged by @i-can-even-burn-salad.
Favorite video game: I really like Oblivion and Assassin's Creed; I'll go with AC: Revelations, the third game in the Ezio trilogy. Broadly speaking I think the Ezio games are the best in the series (though I haven't yet played past AC3), but Revelations is set in İstanbul so it's way more fun for me because I can check out all the places I've been irl, and sometimes random characters yell at you in Turkish which is really funny to me now that I can understand them.
Favorite video game character: Yusuf from Revelations because he looks kind of like my brother lmao
Favorite movie or TV series: Shocking absolutely nobody who has ever looked at my main blog, Xena: Warrior Princess.
Favorite movie or TV series character: Xena herself, no question
Hobbies: leatherworking, writing, sketching, rock climbing
Obsessions: Have I mentioned Xena yet? Because whenever I'm not thinking about my OCs, I'm thinking about Xena.
Favorite genre/type of background music for whump daydreams: Usually I listen to specific songs/playlists for my OCs, since my whump daydreams tend to be about specific characters. Genre is kind of all over the place, but tends to be the type of music I would describe as "vibes" (which I'm aware does not narrow it down at all, especially given I probably have a different definition of vibing music than most).
Favorite whump trope: Ough I'm supposed to just pick one?! OK not necessarily my favorite, but one I like a lot, is whumpees whose trauma turns them into whumpers. Cycles of abuse and whatnot.
Favorite whump pairing: Edit: whoops forgot to answer this one. Uhhh can I put my own OCs? Because if so, Elvan and Asenath; more broadly though any pairing where one person gets hurt and the other person goes feral in response, be it out of defense or revenge.
First time you experienced whumperflies: That scene in Disney's Aladdin where Alaadin is in a prison cell with his wrists shackled to the wall above his head. I haven't seen that movie since I was a very little kid but that's the one scene that stuck in my mind haha
Favorite whump scene from a piece of media: A couple scenes jump to mind from Xena. The first is actually from the show Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, of which Xena: Warrior Princess is a spin-off. The episode is called "The Gauntlet" and is one of the episodes that introduces Xena as a character. As the title implies, the climax of the episode is when Xena's general overthrows her and takes her army, and her own soldiers make her run the gauntlet. Joseph LoDuca has my entire heart and soul for the soundtrack in that scene, and the direction is fuckin impeccable.
The other scene is from season 6 of Xena's own show, an episode titled "Who's Gurkhan?" in which (for various plot reasons I won't get into here) Xena and Gabrielle both separately sell themselves into slavery to a sultan; Gabrielle tries to assassinate the sultan but Xena sees her about to go for him and knocks her out cold, stealing the knife, so that they would think it was her instead of Gabrielle; she also plays it off as if she was attacking Gabrielle out of jealousy, rather than there being any threat to the sultan. Anyway the relevant bit is that Xena gets taken to the dungeons and tortured at length, mostly just getting the absolute shit beat out of her, including while being hung upside down by shackles on her ankles. 10/10 incredible whump tbh, while there she also hallucinates Gabrielle bellydancing in front of her because that show is gay as all fuck.
A book you would recommend, whump or not: I would highly recommend the historical fiction Lady Slayers series by Lana Popović! There are two books (so far); Blood Countess, about Erzsébet Báthory, and Poison Priestess, about Catherine Monvoisin. They're overtly queer and very very well written (and decently whumpy tbh).
Add your own question: Favorite whump scene from a book?
I'm leaving this as an open tag as usual; if you want to do it, consider yourself tagged!
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What are your thoughts on each Monogatari season?
ok this will end up long... (like really fucking long holy shit lol) im gonna go from first - monster season (which is the light novels), so only read up to where youve seen. mostly only vague discussion of spoilers but still. ill put the individual parts of each season too for reference, in the order i watched and try to go over them briefly since i feel like you cant talk about the whole of the seasons without touching on the parts
first (kizu, bake, nise, neko black) - the kizu movies are so good!!!!!! i like them more and more as time goes on theyre like a fine wine. captures the vibe of a sort of proto-monogatari monogatari very well. it might just b because i watched it in this order but this is honestly my recommended order to watch the series. idk maybe you lose something from not seeing how mysterious shinobu is in bake and then getting the big reveal.
bake - nice and airtight. very cool and classic vibes here, very nostalgic. cool introductions to all these cool fun characters while also giving them arcs that are resolved except nadekos but yeah. and of course this one has the very unique art direction thats super cool
nise - just had a post about this so go look at that if you want my thoughts. drops a big theme that keeps getting developed which is the kinda important thing u gotta be doing during a season called the "first season" lol
neko black - ehhh i think this is one of the worst ones of the anime entries. its not bad. i like the op a lot
overall extremely nostalgic and very high quality, especially with kizu and nise in my mind. a bit of a bump with neko black but a very strong start in general. the first season offers much room for the themes and characters to grow but also stands well on its own. so it does its job well.
(also note im not gonna be talkin about like the ost too much here just bc. i love all of it so much. its exclusively good.)
second season (neko white, kabuki, otori, oni, koi, hana) - season full of bangers lets go!
neko white is the wonderful resolution to the buildup of hanekawa's character we'd been getting since the first season. very good
kabuki is interesting... but definitely not the strongest entry here
otorimonogatari is what originally hooked me once and for all on the series, for reasons ive explained before so i wont get into that too much here. but god do i love it to death. whew its good
oni could hit much harder than it does but it doesnt. rip. still not what id call bad but eh
koi is fuckin awesome. kaiki and nadeko... i'd talk more at length about certain parts i like but im writing this backwards from the later seasons to the earlier ones and i talked way too much about the later ones so im trying to conserve space here. i might talk about it more later or if someone asks me abt it
hana i have talked about a bit before too but i love hana hanas great.
so then all in all it's like 4 bangers. a great development of the characters we know and love and one that is so well written and just done in the best ways... i loved where this season took everyone. i think the non chronological stuff can be a hit or miss for ppl but i honestly really like it, especially on rewatches. when you think about it the order never feels pointless. even tho hana is chronologically after all the other anime arcs its still not at all something i would say you should watch after zoku lmao. the season does well as a continuation and development but not a conclusion to the series, and thus spendidly fits the role of "second" season.
final season (tsuki, owari part 1, koyomi, owari ge, zoku) - there are ups and downs to this season, but the ups far, FAR outweigh the downs.
owari part one... its really good. i think shinobu mail (thats what its called right?) is like kind of slow at first, and i definitely wasnt SUPER invested in it on my first watch, but i think on a rewatch after you get past the first like episode or two it really starts to pick up and shine. that is not why i like it though ougi formula to sodachi lost is incredibly fucking good all the way through, some of the strongest entries in the series by far. i might do like a ranking of each part sometimes and those are definitely going in s tier when i do (even nisioisin said his favorite anime part was ougi formula in an interview although that might just be because he loves mysteries lol). hooooghhh those three arcs,, sodachis story is revealed and developed very wonderfully and impactfully and you kinda love her right from her return to the school where she screams at araragi. and of course, of COURSE ougi is the absolute goat in these arcs, revealing the mystery in the engaging and entertaining way she tends to while also being an incredible point of intrigue herself in her whole enigmatic shtick. and of course, if you know you know, but that doesnt make it any less enjoyable on rewatches ougi is just that entertaining of a character. not to mention her showdown with hanekawa... its so entertaining to see these two battle so passive aggressively or just plain aggressively. and the way it ends up is not surprising but it IS hilarious. and then the convo with sodachi in her apartment... heartwrenching, incredible. all of its very very good. probably some of the most fun ive had watching anime, these three arcs grab you and youre just along for the ride the whole time. i'd love to talk about it more in depth some other time probably
FUCK that was just owari part one too
koyomi we can go through quickly though. its just like a sorta reminder of where each character started and ended up, as well as giving a few details to set up owari ge. nothing special or bad. i love the ED tho
oh fuck are you gonna make me scream about owari ge... this post is already way too long fuck... uhh basically mayoi hell + hitagi rendevous are great in and of themselves and are also wonderful buildups to ougi dark and the conclusion of the series. its so fun how it sneaks up on you that yes, ougi is the main antagonist (at least from second season - final). ougi dark................. ougi dark..... ougi dark. yeah ill save this for a different post. um, one billion out of ten? i literally think about it every day thats not a joke so i dont think i can talk about it here without running out of space (do posts have word limits?? whatever its too long already anyway)
overall a very tight and absolutely wonderful conclusion to the series. in my mind this is like the "actual ending" and the light novels and other stuff that comes after is like bonus epilogue stuff (not that its not canon its just that ougi dark is too solid of an ending. its TOO good do you understand)
and now time for the light novels
off season - i think in general this season is pretty strong. i was pretty invested in how it was really taking the time to give characters other than araragi the focus, at least until musubi. but even in musubi its sort of like a "where are they now?" so we get lots of details about all the characters. although i think in musubi its a little hard to read bc we also get all these new characters that we dont necessarily care about (esp since its very much like a one-off thing), but i dont mind it that much because thats not what i like it for... the cool part is seeing the characters we love and where theyve ended up and where theyre going. like the part in (i think) mitome wolf? where hanekawa and araragi have drifted super far apart... wonderfully bittersweet. and i have a separate post about this but seeing ougi free and unable to be bothered in their new life? chefs kiss wonderful love it. so i think even though musubi breaks the format of taking a break from araragi, its still good enough to not bring down off season really.
and on that note i honestly wish monster season would be more like off season. i dont really want to see stinky araragi's pov anymore! i think he should take way more of a backseat and instead make more guest appearances in other people's stories, like he did at the end of hanamonogatari. not that i dont like him (its a hate love relationship) but i think honestly hes really interesting in hana where we see kanbaru's view of him instead of his view of everyone else as usual. i love so much how the monogatari series Feels Different in different people's perspectives so i want to switch it up more!! of course he is the main character so i dont think this will happen but like. i'd much rather get kanbaru's misadventures with ougi than araragi's college misadventures.
and of course i cant talk about off season without talking about nademonogatari. nademonogatari is SO FUCKING GOOD holy shit... i think i speak for a lot of people when i say nadeko is by far the strongest narrator in the series due to her arc's progression and her character development-- and even before it too, cuz otorimonogatari's narration was also really unique and engaging. it helps that she's my second fav but i think nademonogatari is generally well liked? and for very good reason. which is also why...
monster season - haven't finished these season still have to read ougi fright/flight and the next installment but yeah i feel a lil disappointed in this season because again... too much araragi. get this dirty stinky man outta my face. again i love and hate the guy but cmon let's be real... his peak was in owari ge and zoku and at the end of hana. i really dont feel the need to see more of him. of course the stories themselves are interesting and i like nisioisin's writing but i just find the stuff thats not narrated by him such a breath of fresh air...
i really want to see more nadeko and kanbaru narration. i hope nisioisin, if he keeps on trucking through the series, will start putting more real focus on these two. or even like. just anyone else. give us ononoki again give us sodachi again. i want to see the other characters journeys!!!! we keep getting small little nadeko chapters like with mayoi snake and yotsugi shadow and like... those were awesome i loved those! more of that but longer please nisioisin!!! i feel like raising up kanbaru or nadeko more to the status of "mains" would be honestly really refreshing and a much better, less like.... stagnating? direction to take the series in
ummmmm also nisioisin isnt writing about ougi enough ://// like... hellooo? ougi pov chapter when?? itd be the most fun thing ever nisioisin???? hello??????? hes so insistent on not writing them i swear he wants to relegate them to a side character spooky appearance every once in a while and thats cool but like im starving here dude cmon... even in the book named after them they dont get a pov chapter and only appear as a side character.... wtf........................... like thats so fucked up.................................................. especially since the parts where they acc were there were rly good :(
but basically araragi stinky i want to cleanse my nose palette please PLEASE nisioisin throw him in the trash for a long while longer im begging you it'd be so much more interesting if you just let him become a side character his days in the sun should be OVER
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Gimme your favorite webtoons please
hello thaya!! i am so fuckin glad you asked
if you want the short-but-also-long version, here's a carrd i made listing most of the comics im reading (not all--im following smth like 200 comics week to week--but most). at the bottom is linked my side acct on twitter where i post exclusively abt webcomics. my all time list, tho... let me know your fave genres or what you like to read and i can give more specific recs, but SOME OF my faves rn (i have. so many more i could list. i just dont want this post to be So long know) are
webtoon originals:
Lavender Jack - ALL TIME FAVE. vigilante / mystery comic with an absolutely gorgeous art style and really fun writing/characters, simultaneously following the eponymous lavendar jack as he exposes the city's richest criminals, as well as the detective trying to expose him. it's fun bc the mystery isnt his identity--they tell you who he is!--it's watching him act and not knowing why, unravelling that at the same time as the detective. all four of the main characters are so good and interesting (i am Obsessed with the way LJ talks), the art and coloring are lovely. its so fucking good i cannot recommend it enough
Eleceed - this comic is so silly and i love it so much. local high schooler feeds a stray cat, finds out the cat is actually The most powerful super-powered human man in the country who was injured, accidentally turned himself into a tabby, and is now lying low. the guy starts mentoring the kid, who also has powers, while keeping his location a secret. the protag is a sweetheart, i love the cat mentor, and i love all the friends the protagonist makes and how their friendships are portrayed. second fave comic of all time. i love it
Seasons of Blossom - every season of this is a different story following different sections of the main cast. first season is a fake dating plotline, the second season is a boy and his older brother's best friend finding closure over the brother's suicide from a few years before. s1 is a lot of fun and s2 is devastating and really good. it's currently on the third season which is really good. the art's really pretty and i thiink it's getting made into a kdrama?
City of Blank - the world is populated by creatues called "blanks," which will steal any face they see, slowly becoming that person by generating their bodies and gaining their memories. humans have to wear masks to keep their faces from being stolen. the main character, rex, is a half-blank. when his brother, mikah, was stabbed, he allowed rex to steal his face, and now with mikah's memories coming slowly in rex is trying to solve mikah's murder. the worldbuilding is Really fun, i like the art a lot, i think the characters are super fun, the humor is charming. i really like this comic!!
Gourmet Hound - this is a complete series! follows the main character as she tries to find the chef who made her favorite dish at her late grandmother's closed restaurant. it's a really gorgeously drawn and written comic about loss and processing grief. it's been finished for a while and is an old favorite of mine
Surviving Romance - i have no idea how to explain this comic. it's insane. i have fun reading it. do you like insane timeloop stories? try this one. this author also has a fun complete comic called The Makeup Remover i quite like
Heir's Game - i didnt know how to explain this one so here's the series description: "When a new heir to the duchy of Belluna comes of age, there is held the Heir's Game: a brutal series of duels to determine the heir's bodyguard. When Theuden, the new heir, meets Isran, a quiet duelist with a mysterious past, their love will threaten to change everything." very fun and dramatic historical romance comic w very nice art. author also has a completely zombie apocalypse comic, shootaround, which i liked
Swimming Lessons for a Mermaid - this comic is complete (and might be behind a paywall / daily pass) and so cheesy but i love it. a mermaid who can barely swim is given legs, but starts taking lessons with a competitive swimmer to try to improve her swimming ability. i really like the way interactions between friends in this comic are written, it's just really fun to read
Infinity - this is almost unbearably corny but also its a comic about fencing epee which. i love webomics and i love fencing epee i cant not be in love with it
webtoon canvas:
Dark Zone - teenagers have been going missing for years when, for the first time, one reappears. however, he doesn't come back quite right. really interesting worldbuilding and mystery, i also love the romance between the leading lads and the way friend interactions are written. very cool scifi comic
The Beast of Hadingley Hill - supernatural romance comic. leading lady goes to work for a princess who is cursed to look like a monster and is trying to find a suitor who can stand to be around her. it's pretty new and shaping up to be reallt interesting. this author has another completely webcomic, lorenna immaculate, which i also really liked. i also rlly like the art style!!
EQUALIZE - i. also dont know how to explain this one. crime/mystery comic. some of them have superpowers but its sort of an aside. i think this comic is so fun, really balances serious and silly w great chemistry between the leading lads. i cannot tell if its meant to be romance or platonic but i love them so much. the art is really neat and i especially love the bright coloring style and sense of humor
Photoaxis - a really compassionate comic about an enthusiastic spider photographer's encounters with ghosts. i like the leading characters a lot and the comic is like... it all feels like being awake and at peace at 4am. the art's also really nice, feels very much like a scrapbook
Broccoli Soup - i also dont know how to explain this comic. very interesting and surreal comic about hopping worlds and being polite. the art changes with every new world, which makes it a neat read
Nobody's Library - updates daily, follows a librarian hopping from world to world trying to find books that have gotten lost from his magic library. he's very tired and just wants to get his books and go home but keeps getting involved in criminal shenanigans. its just fun. i own a volume of this one!
Raining Knives - completed comic i think about all the time. main character, dylan, is haunted by the ghost of his murdered twin, jerry, who insists dylan solve his murder. dylan doesn't need to solve it, though--dylan did it. this is is a dramatic mystery comic and a super good read
tapas:
Lucid Memories - this comic is ongoing and behind a paywall / wait-until-free. mason loses his memories in a car wreck and has to play a gameshow in his dreams to get them back. the art is really pretty, it's also a very neat mystery of both who mason used to be and the purpose/identity/motives of the seemingly harmless/charming game show host. i really like this
hosted on their own sites:
Castoff - this is also like. my all time favorite comic. fantasy comic about vector, a boy cursed so that anyone who meets his eyes instantly becomes afraid of him. he's mistakenly arrested by a bounty hunter for treason, but when she tries to turn him in, his powers act up and the two of them are rocketed across the country. now they have to get along while she tries to bring him home (and make some friends along the way). i've been reading this comic for years and am so charmed by all the cast and the art
Sleepless Domain - very dramatic magical girl mystery/romance comic. i dont read a lot of magical girl stuff but i really love the worldbuilding in this one, plus the main characters are a lot of fun, and i love the romance between the leading ladies. really cute but also terrifying
Widdershins - i own two volumes of this one! the magic system and worldbuilding are really interesting, all of the characters are super charming. wizards in the fictional city of widdershins, one of the four magical "anchors." i LOVE the chapter hangman's knot so much, but i also love all the rest of the comic. its a really fun
#i dunno if you found me from my sideblog or by chance BUT#if at random hi! i am also liloinkoink#feel free to send another ask or shoot me a message if you have specific genres or anything youd liek more recs from#thayamuffin#ask lew#i love talking about webcomics so much i am always hoping someone will ask me about webcomics#i had more i wanted to add but i cut them so this wouldnt be too long
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