thebestofthe100 event: Remember the fallen

*picks you up and dips u in a vat of acid*

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

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

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

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

I am going to talk about the prologue.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

what are your thoughts on Madoka and Sayaka's relationship? I always thought it was underrated for how complex and tragic it is.

Madoka and Sayaka's relationship function similarly to that of a knight and a princess, so both their friendship or couple pairing are interesting to me. It seems to be intentional that Sayaka was crafted with a knight motif in mind to click with Madoka's vulnerability. The tragedy is that Sayaka was way too young and inexperienced to be shouldering such expectations in a friendship. Taking up the role of a protector at every turn because she wanted to protect everyone has always been a contributing factor to how fast Sayaka burned out.

Contrarily, Madoka's struggle with her own helplessness throughout the show was also part of the reason why Sayaka said a lot of terrible thing to her, but deeply regretted her actions to the point where she succumbed to Witching out away from Madoka. Madoka, at least in this "final" timeline, was not there to see her own childhood best friend change into something else. To, in a way, "die", and be reborn as the same monster that all magical girls were hunting after in a frenzy. Homura was right that Sayaka brings Madoka grief — it seems that in almost timeline, since Sayaka becomes a Witch as long as she becomes a magical girl unlike Mami or Kyoko, Sayaka is a consistent source of Madoka's grief. Whenever Madoka becomes a magical girl, then, her aspirations are based on Sayaka's sacrifice and ideals, except Madoka actually has the power to "save everyone". I believe Madoka loved Sayaka as Sayaka may not have been an "effective" magical girl, but she was the one who was willing to sacrifice her soul for her ideals, regardless of how naïve they were. To Madoka, who was so ensnared by her sense of uselessness, Sayaka was the closest thing to an idol or a star for the courage required to be a magical girl. Sayaka's desire to make the world a safer and justified place for people was so inspiring to Madoka that even when Madoka becomes Kriemhild Gretchen, the Witch's whole gimmick is "creating heaven on earth, a Witch content only if there is no more grief in existence". A prospect deeply held onto by Madoka that even Gretchen embodies it.

It's probably why Madoka's wish to save all magical girls would definitely sound equally impossible to he audience and the incubators, but Madoka herself says, "If someone says it's wrong to hope, I will tell them that they're wrong every time." Sayaka was often called foolish for her ideals and hopes, and Madoka was the only other person aside from Kyoko who understands Sayaka's struggles so much that she outright tells people that Sayaka was never wrong — this is how Madoka protects Sayaka. Madoka would never want anyone to say any of the magical girls' wishes were wrong or foolish. It was how Sayaka also found her peace at the end of the show: to be understood and not viewed as an object that would eventually be replaced in the cycle of magical girls and Witches.

Madoka and Sayaka eventually learned how to protect each other. Sayaka doesn't need to suffer from her own overbearing expectations anymore, and Madoka can finally be something even more to protect her angel: A God.

Last man standing (Patreon)

(Same anon)

hfgjshskfhdjakafk oh my god yes!!! :O please talk about your s/I and Nightmare Fredbear!!!!!! 👀👀

THANKYOU SO MUCH FOR THE AAAAASK!!! Nothing brings me more joy than being asked about my Self Inserts <3

This S/I I've had for a while now sense I finally toughened up and watched Markiplier's playthroughs of FNaF despite my fear of them, I just never talked about it because I don't know how to talk about it, sense it's the very first Kin self insert I've ever had.

Usually when I ~Vibe~ with a character I'll call it Kin, but this was a very different feeling and it took a while to figure it out. Once I did I kinda fell into imposter syndrome about the whole Kin thing sense I'd seen a lot of people take it a lot more seriously than I ever did, so I just.. quietly added the Nightmares to my F/O list and left it at that.

But now I'm finally here to say!!! I am the Crying Child!!

This Self Ship's funny to me because even in the FNaF Universe the Nightmare animatronics aren't Real so Nightmare Fredbear is still a Fictional Other fkgjfdkg

The entirety of the self ship happens while in a coma after the bite of '83, which you all know as FNaF 4. It's wasn't actually as scary as the game made it out to be... Well I guess at first is was.

The whole thing takes place in my house, but wrong. Like, my room has two doors and they won't latch, and all my toys look weird, and it's always night, and my head hurts all the time, and of course, there's animatronics in the hallways.

For a really long time I was super scared, I thought they were gonna eat me! But I spent a long long time with them and eventually became less scared. And then not scared at all eventually!

Sometimes I'd hear my dad or brother talking, but it'd be echoey and distant. Fredbear told me not worry about it too much. He's my best friend, so I trust him of course.

And, I mean.. That's it. It's not a very interesting self ship, just a child slowing succumbing to his wounds, comforted by the nightmares he had for years and years before.

The Ghost version is the thing that that Haunts the Narrative. It's as real as the Nightmares, and only Micheal and my Dad ever see it. I don't know what it is either, I just know it looks like me to them.

i bumped into a pokemon fusion maker and have been having a lot of fun lol

Ok real talk, looking for advice from other DnD’ers... at what point do you just nuke your character?

Rant/more info in tags.

have I… not actually talked about why I taught myself how to draw? You guys don't understand cause every two months or so I catch myself starting to talk about this and delete it all because I'm positive I had said it like two months ago But I've searched for just about everything that might've resulted in this aside from searching "THE" and came up with nothing. No results, all the way back to 2013-2014 nothing there

I learned how to draw SPECIFICALLY to draw THE: Triple HeroEs one day. In middle school I sat myself down and told myself that if I didn't learn how to draw, THE was never going to get made so I went out and started practicing. Going back through the old tweets I had, towards the bottom all my THE tweets mention pen because I didn't feel confident enough in my own skills to try to do it myself and pen was always better than me in the drawing department when we were younger It's been a good, nearly 7 years of practice, and honestly, I only got really proud of my own art like… a little over a year ago. Sure I've been happy with it for a while, but not to the extent that I've actually made multiple propics for myself And also, just being able to look at what I've drawn and be actually proud of it makes it a lot easier to produce for an audience of one (I know a few of you guys like a lot of my nonsense, and i'm not taking away from that! I love you folks!) Anyhow, I'm getting off topic, but I love THE so much a lot in part because I directly owe this portion of my life that I find so much joy in to it. And no matter how many redesigns and story changes it goes through, that's not going to change One day, I'll make some THE comics again (yes, again, I did like 2.5 chapters junior year of high school… edgy stuff that is no longer canon). It deserves it.

man y’all the loving hyunjin hours are so intense rn i feel like i have s omuch to say but i don’t even know where to BEGIN i just feel like i’m gonna explode or something </3

i would die for lae’zel. that is all.

.

About to start panic revising because I’ve just realised that it’s basically Thursday and my exams are in like three days

oh i also talked a lot about fire emblem today. specifically whether i was planning to buy Engage or not. verdict is: Probably, considering reviews say the tactics gameplay is really rich & that's like 80% of why i enjoy playing fire emblem. so yes i am not a fan of the character designs. but i will probably buy it. at some point.

i went to gamestop after work to see if i could find it but didnt see it and INSTEAD i saw 2 games for relatively cheap. so i got those instead.

Me watching lotr alone: crying so much I give myself a headache

Me watching lotr with friends: did you know that hobbits love mushrooms?