I like to periodically check in on ur blog because you do some of the best Dirk analysis out there and to come and find that since I last checked you posted both JTHM and psychonauts was so awesome, especially because me and one of my pals have been really into talking about both recently since I just bought the reissue of all 7 JTHM comics with extra content and he’s been playing psychonauts 2. I hope to see more of both on ur blog in the future (although please don’t feel pressured you’re content is always good anyways) !

ohh this is lovely to hear...have always felt like there's a through line between psychonauts 05 and jhonen's stuff. which does make sense given that they were made around the same relative time period! I'm assuming you're talking about the director's cut release of JTHM here...I believe this is the first physical copy of the comic i owned as well, it's really nice! have always been fond of how barebones the spine was, i'm sure some people don't like it but I kind of miss how charmless (using the word affectionately) a lot of the design was for books like this.

i wish i could say something nicer about psychonauts 2...I'm not a fan of haterism like that's just not what i care to put out into the world, especially on this blog. but i have to be completely honest with you and say i just did not enjoy this game. if it had been anything BUT a psychonauts sequel it would have been entirely inoffensive to me, but as a sequel it's just kind of incredible the extent to which the charm, style, humor, love, etc. of the first game was just, removed completely, with absolute surgical precision. very little traces of these things. it's fun to play and mostly nice to look at, a good game in all technical respects, but it's just not psychonauts 2005.

my friend dane davestriderdeathcult4568 has been my psychonauts buddy and was running through the first game again recently which is what made me get back into it... neither of us had really engaged with the sequel yet so i watched him play it and it was just; legitimately devastating. the state of the writing is so tragic i remember specifically there was a point at which we had to physically get up and and go stand around on the balcony outside for a while clutching our drinks and cigarettes in the wind looking up at the sky trying to recover emotionally. this sounds like a joke but it totally isn't this game made me so incredibly sad.

like initially i was a little worried my first impression was just nostalgia or something but talking around a little it really obviously...isn't. there's something really vital missing from psychonauts 2. a lot of really vital somethings actually. outside of the writing, even, like, glossing over how just objectively not good the story is....the character design is so egregrious held up to the designs of psychonauts 2005. it feels like they tried too hard to make everyone appealing and "cute"....but they all already were! there was so much lovability in the violent asymmetry and crooked strangeness of the original designs. raz is a great example of this here i think, in the second game he's too...puppy-cute, where in the first game he was cute like kind of an ugly little insect. that was special! and of course there's dear sasha....like look at this look AT this. i don't even know what to say :(

side note it must be said and i will admit that i was so was so upset about everything i was witnessing under dane’s hands that i went home and moped for days and days. and i couldn't even find sasha's p05 model uploaded anywhere and i became alighted with such a fervent spirit i learned specifically how to rip models and textures specifically to recover him (will upload soon of course). unrelated did you know his model is missing buttons when they’re specifically textured in his texture sheet....lost buttons of the world.

and of course i've got “wife” bias with sasha (a/n: he’s a clinically diagnosed homosexual) but I think this is applicable to pretty much every character we see. especially tertiary background characters got... I don't even know a word for this. the janky grotesqueness of the original style is just completely gone, you can see they tried to emulate some of that a little with the asymmetry but what remains is just barely a ghost of an idea of what made the 05's designs memorable. so much of pn2's design work is just absolutely forgettable like leaves no impression at all, and that wouldn't be such a crime if the first game wasn't so criminally without flaw. example:

I'm aware the sequel was in devhell for a while and a lot of this is probably the consequence of necessary streamlining. like i get it, of course I am sympathetic to this. but it doesn't make the final product any less tragic to me...if anything it's worse knowing that there could have been better designs somewhere in there along the line.

there's something to be said for the loss of atmosphere, too....like, the first game was so murky and oppressive; you really got the feeling of a humid, kinda dirty summer camp. all the angles and the spaces and the colors...it was compact in the best way, just absolutely as tightly woven as it needed to be. the low-quality background textures... lovely. the wide-openness of the second game is comparatively so personally uncompelling...it's beautiful and well-crafted but the world of psychonauts 2 lacks the misshappen crackedness of the 05 game. i'm not called to spend hours larping anywhere here...

there's so much more i could say on this, like i sincerely hope this doesn't come off as snotty or pretentious! it'd be one thing if this was just how i felt personally but dane myself and a few other friends have spent copious time idependently of one another poring over both the 05 game and the sequel and come to a lot of the same conclusions as to what's..."missing". the game isn't a complete trashfire and it has a whole handful or maybe even two of redeeming features, but that only makes it hurt more that it feels so devoid of life! loboto in particular is a highlight, like out of everyone i think he's the only character from the first game who truly benefitted from the transition to high resolution...which only goes so far because they shelved him so quickly. I think i actually cried watching him in the game he was so fucking wonderful, genuinely everything about him harkens the ambiance of the first game more than anything else present in the second. he is additionally one of my favorite characters of all time, so I’m... happy he got what he got, at least...

i'll probably end up talking about this again in a little more detail. i wish i could make peace with psychonauts 2 but manpower and research efforts seem to indicate that this is not possible. 2005 reigns undefeated, best game ever all time forever, accept no substitutes, you get the idea. regardless I hope your friend enjoys it still and does not allow this ersatz of love to corrupt their spirit and joie de vivre.

"This fic was ai generated—" Cool, so lemme block you real quick

VERY IMPORTANT a dam in the Netherlands, the weerdsluis lock, is directly on a migratory path for spawning fish. They have a worker stationed there to open the door for the fish, but they can take a while to open it. So to keep the fish from getting preyed on by birds they installed a doorbell. Only, the fish don't have hands to ring the doorbell. If you go to their website, they have a LIVE CAMERA AND A DOORBELL that YOU RING FOR THE FISH when they're waiting, and then the dam worker opens the door for them! I can't express how obsessed I am with this. look at this shit. oh my god.

Please check on the fish doorbell once in a while :)

i watch baseball for the side quests (ps: this baseball player also makes fruit cocktails midgame)

EVERY SINGLE DAY there are MILLIONS of characters in their late 20s who get falsely accused of being father figures to teenagers when in reality the description of "weird older cousin" or "step-sibling that moved out before you were born" is 1000000x more apt

he transitioned, it's hatsune mike now

I want to see a work of fiction that reverses the "vampires are snobby upper class, werewolves are brutish lower class" stereotypes

Must be a Sugondese joke.

Because I'm only seeing other Jews posting about this, non-Jews I need you to be aware that for the past month or two there has been a wave of bomb threats and swattings at synagogues all across the US. They usually do it when services are being livestreamed. I haven't seen a single non-Jew talking about this. High holidays are coming up in a few weeks, which is when most attacks happen against our communities. We're worried, and we need people to know what's happening to us.

cant tell you how bad it feels to constantly tell other artists to come to tumblr, because its the last good website that isn't fucked up by spoonfeeding algorithms and AI bullshit and isn't based around meaningless likes

just to watch that all fall apart in the last year or so and especially the last two weeks

there's nowhere good to go anymore for artists.

edit - a lot of people are saying the tags are important so actually, you'll look at my tags.

#please dont delete your accounts because of the AI crap. your art deserves more than being lost like that #if you have a good PC please glaze or nightshade it. if you dont or it doesnt work with your style (like mine) please start watermarking #use a plain-ish font. make it your username. if people can't google what your watermark says and find ur account its not a good watermark #it needs to be central in the image - NOT on the canvas edges - and put it in multiple places if you are compelled #please dont stop posting your art because of this shit. we just have to hope regulations will come slamming down on these shitheads#in the next year or two and you want to have accounts to come back to. the world Needs real art #if we all leave that just makes more room for these scam artists to fill in with their soulless recycled garbage #improvise adapt overcome. it sucks but it is what it is for the moment. safeguard yourself as best you can without making #years of art from thousands of artists lost media. the digital world and art is too temporary to hastily click a Delete button out of spite

pokemon fans when they have to wait another year for the next big game with no major releases in-between

My blog has become infested with angst goblins, and they must be fed with some hypothetical scenarios!🙏💚

Annabeth: I, a child, had to earn Thalia’s love, that’s how the world works! I have to earn my moms love. Love is transactional, you gotta be worthy of it first silly :)

Percy, listening to this on the train

they are Cancelling me for dealing with my grief as best i can . also for the vicious war Crimes

just saw the most heartbreaking annabeth take from ep 3

DEVASTATING the lyric you've been mishearing is better than the real one