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argentdandelion · 6 years

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Crops of the Underground: Known Types of Plants

(Images derived from CrasherGale's sprite resource.)

Introduction

Monster food is “made of magic”. Yet, monsters are capable of eating human food. It is unclear when monster food was invented, or how it is manufactured. For the sake of this post, I will presume monster food is manufactured synthetically rather than by conversion of physical matter, and that it is a relatively recent invention. With that in mind, prior to the invention of purely magical food monsters needed a reliable food supply underground.

For the purpose of this analysis, I'll only be analyzing raw foods, not processed ones made from unknown ingredients. This is because some processed foods (e.g., Undyne’s spaghetti) could theoretically be made from unconventional sources and still referred to by the base name without specifying the ingredients. (i.e., noodles are generally made from wheat flour, but in countries where noodles of rice flour are common, they're likely not commonly called "rice noodles")

(There are many more plants of the Underground, but they are plants of unclear type whose edibility or use isn't mentioned)

Typha

Uses

Conveniently, one plant of the Underground has a known genus: Typha. The plant, often called a "water sausage" in-game, is both edible and versatile in a culinary sense. Their starchy rhizomes (like roots) are nutritious, with a protein content comparable to American corn (or “maize”) or rice.

Typha can also be used for chair seating, building material, livestock feed, flotation vests, thermal insulation, paper, fibers for clothing, biofuel, pillow stuffing, and candles.1

Since the "hot dogs" Sans serves in his illegal hot dog stand is specified to be made from Typha, at the very least, knowledge Typha is edible isn't obscure in the Underground. With its variety of uses, it could very well be a major crop of the Underground.

Plausibility as a Crop

Typha are so well-adapted to colonize newly opened habitats, grow in abundance, and exclude the competition that they're ecologically weed-like. Typha are generally not shade tolerant2, but according to Missouri Botanical Garden3, Typha latifola (common cattail) can deal with part shade. Assuming it’s Typha latifolia or a physiologically very similar species, its ability to grow in slightly brackish waters may mean it can grow in the same habitat as brackish-adapted seaweed/seagrass/"grooty” (see next post). Potentially, the crops could be alternated on farms.

From what’s known of the game’s habitats, Waterfall seems the closest to its natural habitat of marshes. However, unless Waterfall has a day/night cycle and the protagonist happens to visit during the “night”, it’s likely too dark for Typha. (Short of magic, intensive breeding, technological intervention, etc.) It may be that Typha doesn’t grow in Waterfall, but in some unseen area (like “the Bay” Undyne mentions in a Papyrus call) or an unseen part of the Ruins/Home area. (After all, Toriel would have to get those potted Typha from somewhere)

Conifers/Pines

(Some of the smaller conifers. They resemble the Christmas, or rather Gyftmas, tree in Snowdin)

(Assumed pine trees by default, though at this resolution it's hard to tell whether they're pines, spruces, or firs)

Beyond pine nuts, some pine trees can be used as a food source. The cambium, the inner layer of bark between the hard wood and outer bark, is edible. According to Atlas Obscura, the cambium of most trees are edible and nutrient-rich. The cambium can be fried in oil and butter to make “bark chips” or “bark jerky”, or dry-roasted to make an almost crouton-like salad topping. It's most commonly (and historically) repurposed as a flour, and added to other flours.

However, one cannot survive for long on just cambium, and eating too much of it will upset one's bowels---for humans, at least. There are also limits on how much cambium can be harvested: stripping an entire ring of cambium off a tree will kill the tree.

Pine trees have some edible parts other than cambium and nuts. Spruce tips, tender young needles, are edible, though only available in spring. They could, however, be available year-round in the Underground. Pine needle tea is a good source of Vitamin C. In contrast to female pine cones, the young, male cones are small, soft and edible.

Plausibility as a Crop:

Using pine trees for food is pretty common, so it's likely monsters would know of their usefulness as a food source early in their history. That some of the pine trees are absolutely enormous may suggest they've had some use to monsters for a very long time: if they weren't useful, monsters may have replaced them with something else on account of limited space and resources.

Of course, it's also possible that, as monsters' food options diversified/were replaced by food synthesization, conifers simply switched to being more useful for lumber.

Buttercups

(Images of actual buttercups are lacking; both Flowey and the flowers of the throne room are "golden flowers", not buttercups)

Uses

Buttercups are very poisonous. However, its toxin is inactivated when the plant is dried4 or heated5, so buttercup is not a problem as hay. Some sources claim some species of buttercups are edible, which means they might have some food value to monsters if the plants are first dried or heated. The particular species of buttercups baked into a a pie isn't mentioned, so it could very well be an edible species. Even if they are not processed for monster consumption, they could still be useful to monsters as livestock feed (e.g., for snails).

It’s possible the “buttercups” mentioned are not, in fact, buttercups: that is, plants of the Ranunculus genus. They could very well be another kind of plant with the common name “buttercup”, such as the “Bermuda buttercup”, Oxalis pes-caprae.6 Like true buttercups, Bermuda buttercups are both edible (in the right conditions) and toxic, though likely not so severely toxic as true buttercups when eaten raw. Their leaves, stems,7 flowers and roots are edible, and the petals can be made into a yellow dye.

Plausibility as a Crop

According to Missouri Botanical Garden, Ranunculus repens (creeping buttercup, a common, weedy variety of buttercup) is easy to grow in part shade, and tolerates full shade. That it can tolerate full shade would make it very appealing in low-light conditions or before sun-mimicking artificial light sources were invented. As creeping buttercup is a weed, it may very well be hardy enough to survive in the Underground, at least when pampered by the gardener Asgore. If the buttercup species is indeed Ranunculus repens, the low level of its toxin (0.27%) on a dry-weight basis may be fortunate: since it's relatively low, one would have to eat a lot of raw buttercups to die from it.

Information on the shade tolerance of Oxalis pes-caprae is lacking. One source claims Oxalis pes-caprae grows primarily in semi-shade, while another claims they grow in heavy shade.8 Bermuda buttercup is a weed, which might help it grow in the sub-par conditions of the Underground.

According to Wikipedia, Bermuda buttercup is nutritious, but too acidic to be good fodder. Still, this statement was probably meant to apply to mammal livestock; it could be different for snails. Bermuda buttercup is palatable, and in small amounts reasonably harmless to humans (and presumably monsters) and livestock.

Tomatoes

(What is either a large yellow pepper or a banana and what is probably a carrot is also shown in the above image, but they are not named in-game and thus won't be covered in the post)

Uses

Unless one presumes it’s a fake tomato (a la imitation crab legs made from surimi, but as a vegetable) tomatoes are apparently grown Underground. (The reader is presumably familiar with the versatility of tomatoes, so it won’t be mentioned here.)

Plausibility as a Crop

Other than being a moderately good source of Vitamin C, tomatoes aren't especially nutritious. They also have high sunlight and soil fertility requirements. Assuming low fertility in the soil of the Underground (those areas that have soil, anyway) and very limited to nonexistent full-sun areas, tomatoes would not be worth large-scale cultivation---at least, not at first. By the time of the game itself, it's possible technological and horticultural inventions (e.g., greenhouses and perfected composting) have made tomatoes a viable crop.

However, the tomatoes of the Underground may very well be not, strictly speaking, tomatoes----Solanum lycopersicum. They could very well be one or more relatives of S. lycopersicum that's more tolerant of shade and lower fertility. Indeed, several edible relatives of S. lycopersicum grow well in high shade, and several African nightshade species are cultivated, commercially grown crops. It may be that these relatives of S. lycopersicum have been bred in such a way as to resemble S. lycopersicum itself. The possible species selection is expanded even further when one realizes that what is edible to monsters may be a different (or bigger) selection of plants than what is edible to humans.

It's possible the “tomatoes” aren't even related to real tomatoes. It's certainly believable monsters would refer to something superficially similar but unrelated to tomatoes as a “tomato”. After all, in many countries the word “yam” is used to refer to the edible tubers or roots of plants other than those in the yam genus Dioscorea.9

(For more information on crops of the Underground, see "Crops of the Underground: Ambiguous Cases")

Data on the uses of Typha was derived from Wikipedia. ↩︎

http://wric.ucdavis.edu/information/natural%20areas/wr_T/Typha.pdf ↩︎

http://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/PlantFinder/PlantFinderDetails.aspx?kempercode=a407 ↩︎

https://extension.umd.edu/learn/controlling-buttercup-pastures ↩︎

http://www.eattheweeds.com/buttercups/ ↩︎

See this post, on the discovery made between the Tumblr users Rainy-Poppy (Rainy) and Locaven. ↩︎

http://nathistoc.bio.uci.edu/plants/Oxalidaceae/Oxalis%20pes-caprae.htm (see also: https://books.google.com/books?id=6jRsF1nOmqgC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA14#v=onepage&q&f=false) ↩︎

The first source is primarily about California and the second is about south Australia, so it could very well have different shade tolerances in different ecosystems. But who knows where Mt. Ebott is supposed to be? ↩︎

See Wikipedia's etymology section on yams. ↩︎

#Undertale #Undertale Science #Undertale Analysis

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davidmann95 · 6 years

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Top 10 batman writers?

With particularly honorable mentions to Steve Englehart (his Batman wasn’t itself up my alley - though his Joker is another story altogether - but his significance is undeniable), Greg Rucka, Jeph Loeb (Hush was fun, dangit! Or at least it was fun to young entry-level DC reader me, which I understand has been its general underappreciated function over the years among fans), Peter Milligan, and Matt Wagner, as well as Dwayne McDuffie and Christopher Nolan outside of comics:

10. Scott Snyder

This’ll be a controversial one, no doubt about that. Look, Scott Snyder is easily one of my favorite superhero writers out there, and his Batman run is a favorite of mine. But judged as a Batman run specifically as opposed to a rip-roaring superhero book in general, his take is rather…specific. As he develops his voice on the character, his Bruce Wayne moves further and further into the territory of beleaguered 80s action hero, constantly freaking out and in over his head but always ready with a fast quip and a solid fist. His grasp of Batman’s thematic underpinnings is second to none, but while his execution of those ideas is just about always a blast, it’s surprisingly rare it feels on-point for the character as he’s existed elsewhere over 78 years. But I still can’t exclude the dude who wrote Court of Owls and Zero Year.

9. Bill Finger

Finger makes it by default; while I’m surprised myself that I’m putting him so low, that in and of itself is only a testament to the versatility and enduring power of the world and themes he built. But make no mistake, he’s not just here as a matter of being grandfathered in: aside from being one of the best done-and-one adventure writers Batman ever had, stories like The Origin Of Batman and Robin Dies At Dawn pack an emotional punch that resonate to this day.

8. Denny O’Neil

About as close as you can get to the founder of Batman as we know him today, aside from maybe my next pick. O’Neil hasn’t batted a hundred over the years, but when he’s on-point he’s as good as it gets, swinging between giddy pulp adventure and pitch-black noir that set the definitive template for what it is we expect out of Batman, and his interactions with several of his most important loved ones and enemies.

7. Frank Miller

In terms of characterization, Miller’s Batman is maybe best thought of in the same terms as the Golden Age comics - instrumental to Bruce Wayne as we understand him today, but recognizably not quite that guy yet. But Miller energized, mythologized, or outright invented a truly staggering degree of the fundamentals of Batman’s world, punctuated by moments of pure, distilled Batman-as-unstoppable-vengeance, whether hauling two hundred and twenty pounds of sociopath to the top of the highest tower in Gotham, bursting in on an upper-class mob meeting to deliver his statement of intent, or recalling what it takes to make the world make sense as he drives his best friends’ face into the Crime Alley pavement, with just enough humanity in there (accepting and nurturing Carrie Kelly as Robin, telling the kid not to swear, saving the cat in Year One and stopping a punk from falling off a fire escape and catching a beating for it) to keep it palatable.

6. Alan Brennert

If Miller defined the myth of Batman as we know it today, Brennert was the unsung hero who gave him his heart. While his work was minimal, the weight it carries in certain circles can’t be overstated - his Batman was emotionally raw like none before and few after, confronted with his traumas and the walls he had built around himself, and forced to confront himself and his relationships or lose everything. For The Autobiography Of Bruce Wayne alone, Brennert handily secures his place among the greats.

5. Darwyn Cooke

Cooke didn’t do a tremendous amount with Batman before his passing in terms of writing, but what there is is work for the ages. With his recreation of Night of the Stalker! he captures Batman at his brutal, haunting noir best, but it’s with Ego that his seizes his position in the top five with a comprehensive, insightful, and truly spooky look at the center of Bruce Wayne’s mind that says more about Batman with a single one-shot that most of his writers do in their entire careers.

4. Paul Dini

If you’re talking about drawing the straightest line between a writers work towards Batman as we know him today, perhaps no one has more of a claim to fame than Paul Dini. One of the braintrust behind Batman: The Animated Series and later a writer on the main books, he’s been behind armfuls of iconic, fan-favorite Batman stories of every genre permutation that solidified the caped crusader as we know him today: stoic, determined, brilliant, compassionate, and possessed of a jet-black wit that while sparsely deployed perfectly offset the horror surrounding him on all sides. Kevin Conroy is the Batman we all hear in our heads, and Dini put some of his best lines in his mouth before taking that skill to an underrated run on Detective Comics that deserves a spot among the greats.

3. Warren Ellis

EDIT: This was written prior to allegations against Ellis. While I’m not changing the list as this is a reflection of how I felt as I was making it, and the actions of the author don’t change the quality of the material now that it’s out in the universe, that qualification feels necessary.

I’ll be upfront with all of you: I am as surprised as anyone that Ellis is placing so high here. Hell, his first Batman story, a two-parter in Legends of the Dark Knight early in his career, was notably lackluster by his usual standards, and it makes up a significant percentage of his output (even if you count his Moon Knight run with Declan Shalvey as de facto Batman comics, which I absolutely do). But I thought about his other Batman stories - the first-ever Black and White feature with Jim Lee, and the Planetary crossover - and asked myself one by one, “are you better than X writer’s entire cumulative, often revolutionary Batman output?” And dammit if the answer didn’t keep being “yes”. What it comes down to is that he is to Batman as Garth Ennis is to Superman: a writer without much love for the superhero genre (though Ellis seems to have come to terms with it as a perfectly acceptable storytelling delivery system, as opposed to Ennis’s more pronounced disdain) who in a couple fits and spurts found the one character they seem capable of genuinely investing in, and whether people noticed it or not absolutely rocked it beyond comprehension in their time with them. Ellis found through Batman a perfect conduit for his righteous anger with the cruelties of the world, nailing his cunning, his cool demeanor, his vicious humor, his anger, his sympathy, his ability to inspire fear and awe in equal measure, and in the best Batman scene of all time, he articulated better than any writer before or after him why Bruce Wayne fights, and what for. Combined with his Moon Knight as a window as to how he might handle the character on a month-by-month basis that became an all-time great run unto itself, plus his excellent showing in Ellis’s arc of JLA Classified, and I just can’t make myself rank him any lower than this.

2. Tom King

The newest entry to the list, Tom King already had plenty of love when he came onboard thanks to Grayson, Omega Men, and Vision, but he was stepping into some of the most titanic shoes in the industry in Scott Snyder’s wake. But not only did he live up to that standard, he’s soared far beyond, with a thoroughly human and determinedly unconventional look at the degree to which Bruce has hindered himself emotionally for the sake of his mission and the toll of a neverending war on his mind. Ranging from fist-pumpingly cool to unrelentingly grim, profound to self-consciously silly, and managing to be soul-curdlingly cold and shamelessly tender in equal measure, Tom King not only finds the heart of Batman as few others have, but does so through one of the characters’ boldest, most technically spectacular, and refreshingly honest runs.

1. Grant Morrison

Just as much as he is with Superman, Grant Morrison simply is The Batman Writer. I’ve written at extensive length on his work here before, so in short: Morrison’s Batman is the best run a major Big Two character has ever received by miles and one of the best in comics period. He writes Batman as a mystery, as a thriller, as a pulp action romp, as sci-fi, as psychedelic spy warfare, as pure superheroics, as lurid horror, and as one man’s attempt to transcend himself through the ideal his symbol embodies and its ability to inspire others. He played with the symbols and themes underpinning Bruce Wayne like none other, he not only perfectly nailed Batman’s character but imposed a character arc over the whole of his publishing history, he touched on every corner of his world while carving out entirely new and unique spaces, and he left behind an honest-to-god epic that’s visibly influenced every major comics take since. There is simply no comparison of his work to anyone else’s, and I sincerely question if there ever will be - even more than his work defined Superman for me (and his Superman work includes my absolute favorite work of fiction period), his Batman is the Batman that lives in my head.

#Batman #Opinion

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hannahwaterman · 3 years

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Semester Portfolio 2: Making the PDF

As mentioned in my last post, I decided to make a shorter, very concise, visually appealing portfolio with this blog to supplement it information-wise. This came from a conversation where Sarah suggested it to me. I did feel like during the making of my last few PDFs, I am sometimes sacrificing information for style, or sacrificing style for information. This method of working is a way to show the full expanse of work I have done for the semester, whilst also being able to hand in a PDF that I am happy with aesthetically. My visual aims for the PDF are for it to be something you can get “lost” in - a publication that really keeps you feeling like you’re in another world when you’re looking at it. You do that by having very precise visual rules, changing the pace in an exciting way, using hierarchy and scale in an emotional and productive way, and using colours that feel cohesive and make sense.

I started this process by choosing some colour palettes I like - black and white comes with each palette by default - and then making some experimental cover pages for my portfolio. After I had made some in a fair few different styles, I went back and assessed what worked and what didn't work, and what sort of theme I would be working towards.

The colour palette I eventually chose is pink and green-ish blue, they are colours I gravitate towards often.

As for font, I wanted to use something fun and unconventional for headers, as I really enjoy alternative fonts as a form of expression and staying on trend. Plan sans serifs are great and useful, but people’s work often sticks out to me when it uses fun and wacky fonts. I found this one called Hot Chocolate which became the header front for my portfolio. I originally paired it with Georgia but went with Sunflower by MADE as it was thicker and more playful. I also used a font occasionally called Erotique which I chose mainly because I haven’t played with fonts like that before so I wanted to do something new and expand my horizons. The numbers that correspond to the post number are in Love Craft. Some of these fonts are unlicensed so I cannot use them commercially, but things like this portfolio are a great reason to try new weird font demos before I buy them. I really love Sunflower and Erotique, and I want to find dupes on the Adobe fonts collection, or buy a license for them sometime.

Here are the portfolio guidelines.

After feedback from tutors, I scrapped the wavy visual furniture, as the rest of the document seemed to do enough to form a visual excitement. Also, just from the way photos looked best edited & text looked best, I changed the turquoise to a darker blue.

I always get stuck on my PDF portfolio because I want it to be perfect, as it’s my final hand in. I get very precious and nervous about how I am making it look, and I get very coy and cautious. I decided to throw my caution out of the window a little bit so I could just try and be experimental with it and learn from my mistakes: much more valuable experience than being scared of bold moves. I hope it really shows now how much fun I have had making it. For many purposes, this style would not be appropriate, and to some people it may look garish, I am aware. However, I am very happy with it, I think it reads nicely, and takes the viewer on a journey. The hardest part of making it was trying to align it with this blog in a way I was pleased with. I hope the way I have done that translates well to the reader. If not - I tried something new, and next time, I will be able to take lessons from this experience.

Next time I will

Undertake more directed visual research, focused on audience and intent, rather than just peruse my personal collection of inspiration images leisurely

I will have more knowledge of photo editing now, and I am confident that next project similar to this, I will be able to have even stronger visual cohesion

I will make 2 or 3 references pages for style outlines, to look back on, to instruct me as I go through the project, again to create more visual cohesion

I will try to use asymmetrical compositions more and learn new ways of creating interesting asymmetrical compositions

I will do a different scale for my next portfolio, for sake of variety. This one is large scale, has big texts, and does not read like a more classic book, with more content.

I will do the blog again, but this time formulate it into a larger and more informative PDF. The blog will be just to keep it all in one place.

I will draw rough plans analogue before putting it up on InDesign or ProCreate immediately.

I will use more analogue techniques, as I am about to acquire printing and scanning equipment, and this will help me show different textures and layout styles and techniques, as well as give me more time.

Think more carefully about what work to highlight and seek more direct feedback when making my decisions

Things I did well

I believe that this portfolio shows that I enjoyed making it and is very energetic

I edited down very well from a busy execution of my idea, to a much calmer and palatable one

I used very consistent type and colour and style throughout

I used it as an opportunity to show my personal style

#pdf #agp500 #semester portfolio #portfolio

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aquarianlights · 6 years

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Depending on how tomorrow goes, I may or may not go MIA from every single social media site and texting app that everyone knows me on without any notice but this. I’m not really telling anyone. Posting a mass update here and maybe fb later. But even if tomorrow goes “well” or anywhere in the “good” category...I may be too overwhelmed to be talking to anyone or on any kind of social media for a while. Hours, days, weeks. If it goes poorly, expect me gone for at least a month. If I’m still alive by the end of that---which I should be, coz I will have Echo right by my side and he will never leave my side again and I will do everything in my power to push through and be positive and be a good dad for him---then I will eventually crawl back onto social media. But my queue may run out for the second time in my entire time since I made this blog like 6-7+ years ago. It’s only run out once so far and that’s because it wasn’t maxed out and slowed down before I got institutionalized once and that was a longer stay than normal. Normally I manage to get out before my queue runs out and then ...”treat myself” with a queue filling binge of positive stuff and foxes and glittery things and nerdy things and all things christmas and cold weather. Just general stuff I like...packing it full, coz it’ll usually be on the very last few posts by the time I get out, but no one will have noticed my absence coz it won’t have run out.

But the personal space I will need from how intense this could potentially be...is terrifying for me. I usually go to social media to cope. Somehow, this is so terrifying, that stepping away from social media, stepping away from my friends, and venturing out on my own and putting myself in rather dangerous situations would be my best way to cope. Other than pouring my hours into research and schoolwork... I do have plenty of medical texts to read that I haven’t had the time to do more than skim over [stares longingly at them all].

The amount of overwhelming this is ....is just... it would break a neurotypical person and shred them to pieces. For me? I’m not sure what it will do. The good thing about my particular neurodivergency is that I don’t have much of a conscience to work with (I thought the auditory hallucinations were what everyone was referring to as a conscience until professionals finally told me that’s not what a conscience is and upon further research found I didn’t have one which is great for this situation but damn). I

This could potentially be the hardest moment of my entire life, but I won’t know that until I’m lying on my death bed. This could potentially be the biggest mistake I ever make, but I won’t know that until I’m lying on my death bed. This could potentially be the best thing that ever happens to me, but again... I won’t know that until I’m lying on my death bed. As of right now...at the age of 26...on the date of February 24th, 2018. . .this WILL be the hardest day of my entire life to date. This will be the hardest thing I will ever have to do in my life, no matter the outcome. I’m not scared; I’m sick. I feel like it’d be a better idea to kill myself than go through with this. I’d get to avoid the whole thing.

I hate how logical that is.

And I hate how there’s literally not a single counter argument to it and not even one downside. There WAS one downside and that was that my friends would grieve and/or care but the two people who I was worried about caring/grieving and it affecting their lives have thoroughly proven it won’t and that they do not. That’s not pessimism or anything. That’s just cold, hard fact. Yeah, it’s a sad fact. But. . .it’s fact nonetheless. And I gotta look at the truth one way or another. Facts don’t change just because they’re not in my favour.

I really do hate how logical suicide is right now.

And I really do hate how there isn’t a single counter-argument to it. And how I have absolutely no one in my corner right now and how I have to support every single one of my friends despite the fact I have told them over and over again that I can’t be there for them and to stop and to back the fuck off with their damn problems, because I’m going through too much of my own stuff to help them with theirs. There’s only two people I will put aside my ridiculous mountain of issues that could possibly lead to my death and hopefully will to help...One has proven she is and always has been in my corner no matter what she’s going through. And the other has proven that she is definitely unreliable and won’t be there for me no matter how hard I try for her. The first one... She is the strongest person ever and she will get through my death. She will. She’s been through worse. The second one won’t care even in the slightest or even notice. I’m pretty sure she’d be relieved and happy, tbh. Lol. She’d be out there thinkin’ “FINALLY, DAMN” lolololol. I know I would be. Like, I know I WILL be when I finally do it and get to move on to the next plane of existence and get those brief moments as an infant where you’re not able to speak or communicate in any way because you have all your memories from your past life? Yeah. I’m gonna be fucking throwing a party in whatever form of a crib or bed type thing my new planet and new species has. I hope to fuck my new species is a lot more peaceful than this one. And I hope they’re more advanced and more intelligent. I guess that depends on my karma and I have no clue where my karma is at right now tbh coz I’ve done so many EXTREMELY horrible things in my life, but I’ve also done almost the exact same amount of EXTREMELY amazingly genuinely GOOD things in my life at this point that it practically balances it out to 0 so I’m just all [shruggy emoji] on whether the omnipotent fate aliens would demote or promote me during reincarnation. Sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Man. Tomorrow may just kill me. Hell, if I don’t kill myself before I start the drive tomorrow, I have 2 1/2 hours of driving to think about killing myself every single goddamn second during the drive there...and if, for some weird reason, I don’t have my dog on the way home...... I will have another 2 1/2 hours to think every single second about killing myself. And how the fuck easy would it be to do on Blood Mountain? I’m p sure my car takes via the route that goes over Blood Mountain. People die on Blood Mountain just driving normally.... All I gotta do is push the limits a little. Not hard to die on Blood Mountain...lmao. Not hard AT ALL. I hope my GPS takes me that way coz that’s when I start recognizing where I am and know I’m getting SORT OF close-ish I guess??? and then that idea of suicide just sounds WAY better so...not a bad idea to take a BUNCH of pills in the town right BEFORE blood mountain and then speed through it when I can’t feel my fucking feet on the pedals and am nodding off at the wheel so that I drive my car right through a guard rail or over the side of the cliff OR right into the rock wall. Yep. That sounds p fucking fantastic. Ugh. I have the worst ideas regarding car deaths and I can never do it coz I don’t wanna total my car.... Lmao. The only thing that stops me from doing it is coz I don’t wanna total my car and being a med student, my mind goes through the entire list of “what COULD happen” and how slow of a death if no one finds me and this and that and calculations and blah blah blah and palatalization and amputations and blah blah BLAH and ruining dreams for if I am FORCED into living and BLAH BLAH BLAH and car suicide is the absolute WORST idea for someone who NEEDS a bright, fast, chaotic, able-bodied future if they are forced to live omg lmao BUT....I mean, I have so many other methods in my head that I know practically all the things and I’ve tried so many ways now that I just know what I can and can’t handle and I think tomorrow is gonna be the make or break. But having Echo in the car with me after being broken..........will force me to stay alive. Which will suck so badly. But I will have to also compartmentalize all my pain and my negativity so that he’s not even MORE stressed out than by all the commotion of the situation and then by this crazy car ride and by most likely throwing up in the car.

ERGH.

I need to stop thinking about this and distract myself but I also need to rest my joints so I guess I’m gonna watch a documentary.... something nice and calming but also stimulating... I just wish people didn’t talk so monotone when narrating documentaries. Especially when it’s about the supernatural and extraterrestrials and government experiments and stuff. Like COME ON, NARRATORS. GET EXCITED. GET INTO IT! FOR FUCKS SAKE, THERE’S A REASON PEOPLE GET PUT TO SLEEP BY DOCUMENTARIES AND IT’S NOT THE DOCUMENTARY....IT’S YOU! THE NARRATOR! YOU’RE THE ISSUE. GET INVOLVED. GET HYPED ABOUT THE INFORMATION! GET PASSIONATE. FOR FUCKS SAKE, IT’S COOL STUFF. FUCKING ACT LIKE IT, YA DAMN MONOTONE, ROBOTIC NIMROD. Ergh. Someone needs to sign me up to narrate a documentary. I used to speak at public rallies about puppy mills all over my county to educate the masses during high school because I was enraged about it and TRUST ME when YOU’RE having FUN WITH IT or ENRAGED BY IT or THINK THE INFORMATION IS COOL and REALLY GET INTO IT...........SO WILL YOUR AUDIENCE. It’s not the information that’s boring. It’s not the documentary that’s boring. It’s not the subject material. IT’S THE NARRATOR. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE TO PAY ME JUST LET ME DO THEIR DAMN JOB CORRECTLY SO I CAN SHOW THEM HOW TO DO THEIR DAMN JOBS SO THEY CAN LEARN. FUCK.

dfkhdglskagjdshlkg Omg.

No okay now I’m gonna get angry at a documentary narrator for not doing their job correctly. Lmao. Gotta watch something uh.... Passionate. I guess. But that doesn’t require too much focus. But doesn’t numb my mind. Star Trek. I always default to Star Trek. Jfc. I guess I’mma pop on some Weyoun heavy episodes while I wait for the “all clear” on my joint timer thing so I can get up and exercise and do some fucking research and maybe pleasure-read for a bit before more joint resting because long drives and lots of heavy lifting is a big no-no and I’m not supposed to but things aren’t gonna pack themselves. Things aren’t gonna sort themselves?? LIKE??? Fuck it’s gonna be SO hard leaving majority of my material possessions that have so much personal value to me. :/ Argh. I don’t even have the ability to take them in order to sell them. I don’t even have that kind of strength or time. AHHHHHHHHHHHHH

EDS is a fucking bitch, man. Fucking BITCH. T-Therapy better fucking cure EDS. Like. They’re all on board with it. 4 of my specialists are. And I’m meeting with my HRT doc next week. This coming week. So.... we’ll see. She cordoned off 2 appointments for me for all the things. Sigh.

Oh right. Yes. Joint rest.

I’m bad at this. I hate resting. I really do. I hate being stationary. I hate not being able to do stuff. I HATE THIS AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH EDS is a fucking killer for people with former suicidal depression who had had it all their life and it had apparently been fixed by meds and now suddenly it’s back like WOW fuck EDS. Ugh. And I’m getting all these phone calls from my docs as my tests come back telling me I need to change my diet to avoid this and that and change this and that like whole HUGE lifestyle changes but adding “We’ll go over the full thing at our next appointment, but I STRONGLY ADVISE...” I’m like, “Well bitch as long as you tell me it’s just advise and not a MUST, I want a damn biscuit okay. Fuck your no gluten.” But then again, I have a stomach ulcer so I can’t really eat ANYTHING right now so wah. [whines]

FUCK. KILLIAN. LIE DOWN. STOP TYPING. I NEED SOMEONE TO FUCKING WHACK ME WITH A FUCKING RULER OR SOMETHING LIKE THE NUNS USED TO DO IN MY PRIVATE, CATHOLIC SCHOOL. LMAO.

[stops now...for real this time...but reluctantly and rather bitterly]

#personal #tomorrow ...rather #today...actually...#is gonna be the worst and hardest day ever and suicide is really the best option right now but idk #i mean #i'm just gonna lie here for a while but the logic behind why suicide is the best option is impeccable #there's not a single legitimate counter argument #it's really uh... wow #i out debated myself... damn lol #normally there's a good debate going on that ends up with me in a feedback loop of noyou cant do this but it would logically the best idea B #UT NO YOU CANT DO IT BUT LOGICALLY YES BUT NO YOU CANT and it just goes on forever #with lots of facts and statistics and reasonings and personal stuff but #this time it's simply just...straight black and white #logically...suicide is the best option and there is absolutely no downside #really interesting #taking that under advisement definitely coz this could have been the break i was waiting for

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thotyssey · 7 years

Text

On Point With: Honey LaBronx

This truly inspiring Sober Vegan Warrior of the drag world has a long history of both entertaining the masses and fighting for the civil liberties of humans and animals everywhere. Now she’s bringing a play that she’s written about her life before drag to a major theater festival in the city, while lighting up the internet with podcasts and video cooking shows. Lets enjoy this sticky-sweet moment with playwright Ben Strothmann, aka queen Honey LaBronx!

Thotyssey: Hello Honey! You must be real busy this week, fine- tuning things for a brand new production of your autobiographical play Virtual Memory, which premieres Friday as part of Dixon Place’s HOT! Festival! What is the most surprising thing you’ve learned about theater production from this experience?

Honey LaBronx: Honestly, I'm learning how much work goes into getting butts in seats! When I first presented a staged reading of Virtual Memory, I asked very few people to come. It was really something--I thought I was just doing for myself. I was hoping that maybe 20 people would show up; but somehow we had 85+ people there. It was full to capacity, and people had to stand in the doorway and watch from the hall!

This time around, I just assumed "Okay, so those 85 people will show up--plus, a healthy fraction of the new people I've met over the last three years!" Not the case--especially in August! I forget that August is dead for theater. So many people leave NYC in the summer, and it seems like everyone is going out of town that very weekend.

So I actually made a spreadsheet to track each and every person I contacted about the show. So far, I've texted/ emailed/ Facebooked 591 people. I have 88 confirmed butts-in-seats, 9 uncomfirmed, and 107 maybes. Not bad, considering the space holds about 120 people. I really want to make a strong first showing at Dixon Place; it's the only way I can truly show my gratitude for this opportunity. Tom Amici (director) once told me the secret to selling tickets is making personal phone calls to invite people... but I just haven't had the time.

I ended up spending the better part of two weeks just promoting the show, rather than actually working on it. Now, it's three nights before I take the stage, and I'm still worried about putting everything together and doing the work as an actor.

Many nightlifers recognize your drag persona Honey LaBronx from gigs, or from your online vegan cooking web show. Why did you decide to make Virtual Memory a Ben Strothmann production, and not a Honey LaBronx production?

Well, the show is just about Ben Strothmann. To be honest, Honey LaBronx didn't become a part of my life until roughly where this play ends. So who knows... maybe there will be a followup play. Becoming Honey, or something like that!

Without giving away too many juicy details, since I’m sure much is discussed in the play… where were you raised, and what was life like growing up gay and fabulous?

I was born in Milwaukee, and raised in Wauwatosa, a suburb of Milwaukee. Growing up gay was pretty lonely. I'm not that old, but I can already say it was a much different time back then. The internet wasn't really a thing until I was 11... and even then, most people didn't really get online til about two or three years later. So I grew up not really knowing any other gay people.

It wasn't until I was 11 that we got the internet, and after a few years, once I was out to myself I started finding other people like me. I think that was really scary for my parents, that I was using the internet to find other gay men when I was barely a teen. But through it, I found fabulous friends in New York who worked in the theater, a friend who traveled the world and was able to expose me to so much culture, and I really got that I was okay and accepted.

How, when and where did Honey get born?

Honey was actually born in the apartment of Alexis Michelle from Season 8 of RuPaul's Drag Race. Alexis (Alex) and I were in a production of The Cradle Will Rock and he mentioned that he does drag. Some friends were organizing a drag pageant for charity, and I asked if they needed help. I wasn't expecting to be in drag, but they said it would be great if I could be there in drag to help sell tickets and work the crowd.

So I went to see Alex, he painted me, and after 11 years of already having my drag name picked out, Honey LaBronx walked out that door and onto the streets of Manhattan. I didn't know what to expect! I wore a large men's raincoat to hide my drag underneath. I must have looked so awkward. I was convinced that people would stop and say something to me... like, I'm not allowed to do this, or like I was breaking some rule, or something!

I got to the venue, and backstage I met a guy named Caldwell who was putting his face on, and asked if his highlights were even. They weren't, and I was the only one willing to tell him. We became best friends and roommates for four years. He asked if he could be my drag mother and I said yes, somewhat reluctantly as I thought maybe letting Alexis paint me made her my mother by default.

Caldwell / Kittin Withawhip later changed her drag name to Bob The Drag Queen -- and we all know how that worked out for her.

How would you describe your drag performing style, or Honey’s stage persona?

Midwestern mom drag. A slightly less brief description would be to say: Honey LaBronx -- the Whitest Lady Ever.

If I must elaborate, I would say that Honey is a comedy queen, a singer, and when people aren't expecting it, a shock queen. I've pulled a few stunts in my day. I may have been involved in an incident with an apple at The Ritz but that's another interview.

There's something I've observed about my performances: behind much of what Honey says or lip syncs on stage, there's usually an attitude of "--and I shouldn't even have to be saying this..."

You were involved in the staged gay weddings of couples on the street that Bob, Frostie Flakes and other friends used to oversee, as a public protest to anti-gay marriage before it was legalized. What’s your “favorite” memory from those times?

Yes! Those were started by Bob, Frostie, and Azraea. I used to be a waiter at... *sigh*... I used to be a waiter at Dave & Buster's in Times Square. And so I could never join--nor even see them on Saturdays. For the first many months, I would be at work knowing that my best friends were fighting for our rights just blocks away. Finally, I worked out my schedule so that I could join them.

My favorite memory was the first time Bob and I walked down the "aisle" together. It was a pretty well-staged and scripted event. We walk towards the "priest" as if down the aisle, and then we exchange "wishes" instead of vows. We wish for a world where foster children aren't refused parents, where gay men can donate blood, and other protections for LGBTQ people.

As we were walking the aisle, Bob said to me, "get ready for this moment. When you turn around, there are going to be about 200 people hanging on your every word. It's a really powerful experience."

I turned around and held Bob's hands, wedding style. We started the ceremony. What seemed like hundreds of people from all over the world gathered around, listened, took photos, applauded... and I was raising my voice to describe the kind of a world I wanted-- no, DESERVED to live in... Bob was right. It was an incredibly powerful moment.

Bob made me an activist. One day, I came home and Bob said "You know what? Too many gay people just accept the fact that they don't have equal rights. I am not okay with that." And from there, he devised his plans for the Drag Queen Weddings -- and later for blocking traffic as part of Queer Rising.

I discovered veganism around the same time--and because I already had an experience of myself as an activist, it was only natural for me to carry on fighting and demonstrating for animal rights. After working so hard and fighting so fiercely for marriage equality, does it boil your blood to see this monster in the White House so recklessly piss away queer civil liberties?

No. What boils my blood is to see how many friends and family are complicit. Hearing "We love you -- we support you" all my life from so many people, not only my family, only to see them support a man who would piss away my civil liberties. I have never been this angry in my life. I still don't know what to do with that anger.

Honestly, that's what fueled me to bring back this show, and to tell my truth as a gay man. Hearing about the gay holocaust currently taking place in Chechnya, and watching the world just allow it, made me finally say "Fuck it -- why am I sitting back and not giving the world every ounce of me?"

I don't see how the two correlate. But the idea that there are men like me in Russia who... I can't even let myself think about what is happening to them right now. I have an opportunity to live my life that they don't have--and only because of geography, not because I am more deserving of my freedoms.

I refuse to squander those freedoms, so long as I have them.

What specifically motivated you to become an animal rights activist and a vegan?

The book The Face On Your Plate by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson. My friend John J. Oliver recommended it to me, and after I read that book I knew that I could no longer justify taking the life of an animal for the sake of my palate. And that's all it is.

We don't need to eat them. There is nothing a human being needs from an animal. I actually believed we had to eat them. We don't. But we continue doing so--despite the fact that it causes heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, and all sorts of illnesses that almost never happen to humans who simply don't eat animals.

It really angers me that there are people out there who say "But I could never give up fill-in-the-blank...” meanwhile, their "personal choice" is decimating the only planet we have.

Non-vegans are like Uber passengers who decide to loudly and generously fart in your car, and when you tell them you can't breathe, they tell you you're pushing your beliefs on them. Sorry, not sorry.

So then, what would you say to someone who states they would never become a vegan because it would be too impractical of a lifestyle?

I tell them if I can do it, they can. There is nothing about me that would ever suggest I'd become a vegan. I am born to a food business family in Wisconsin. My mom is a dairy celebrity. My dad's family owned a German American restaurant that was in our family for four generations. There is nobody alive who was brought up on more meat and cheese than myself. Anyone, from any culture, can point to any aspect of that culture and cite reasons why they "could never" be vegan. And yet, there are people from every single one of those cultures who are making it happen.

No, it isn't more expensive. No, you don't have some blood type or rare disease that requires you eat animals. No, you wouldn't have to learn to cook all your own food.

How am I so certain? Because I've already been in the other person's shoes. I lived the first 30 years of my life arguing the opposite point. I am delighted to have learned I was wrong.

Tell us a little about your cooking web show, The Vegan Drag Queen.

I became a drag queen about a month before going vegan (though I had already been vegetarian a few months, transitioning to veganism and doing all my research). When I finally made the switch, I was living in a remote part of Brooklyn (Sunset Park) where there was a dirth of options for groceries and restaurants. I didn't have specialty vegan products.

So, I had to rely on YouTube videos to learn how to make things. That's just how I learn. I'm not a reader. I mean, I'm literate, but I can't stand looking at words on a page. I'd rather watch it than read it. I hadn't yet discovered awesome vegan cooking channels like The Vegan Zombie or Black Metal Vegan Chef. I was lucky if I could find some hippie making a cooking demo and filming it with their iPhone.

Some of the YouTubers had engaging personalities. Some had good production values. Some had good personalities. Few had all three. So I decided I could do better. As soon as I thought of a drag queen offering vegan cooking shows online, I knew it was my calling.

My original mission was to show people how to make stuff for themselves without having to rely on specialty products. Why buy seitan or almond milk, when you can make it yourself? But as the show continues, I'm discovering there is also a need for people who just want quick recipe ideas, or creative ideas for putting together the specialty vegan products they already know and love. So, I'm enjoying broadening the show's scope, bringing on guests... and I would love to tell you some ideas I have for future episodes but... I'm sorry... those details are only available to my supporters on Patreon.

youtube

And you also host the Big Fat Vegan Radio podcast!

I'm sorry, the what? Did you just mention my Patreon? Why, thank you for asking! That's right, internet queens can't take your cash tips through the screen. So the only way to support your internet queens is to tip them on a monthly basis! What's three dollars a month to you? You know it won't make or break you. You don't need guac, anyway.

If one out of every five of my Facebook friends supported my Patreon at $3 a month, that would be $3,000 a month! I would be able to afford to do nothing but make content, tour, do shows, offer classes, give speeches...

Seriously, you people! What gives?

Oh, and you probably don't know I also have a podcast. That's okay. I'll tell you about it anyway.

Big Fat Vegan Radio is my baby. I started it just about five years ago with my dear friend Laura, and we just dish about vegan food, culture, and news. About half of our episodes are interviews. We occasionally do silly stuff, like vegan song parodies.

What people like about our podcast is that it's just fun. There are better podcasts out there for hard hitting animal rights news. There are better podcasts out there for information on health and recipes and whatnot. But Big Fat Vegan Radio is your best bet if you just wanna plug in and pretend you’re hanging out with your best friend who happens to be vegan, and who happens to think he's better than everyone else because of it.

Congratulations on being sober and continuing to work in nightlife and the arts… not an easy lifestyle, to say the least. What’s the history of your sobriety?

Thank you. This month I am celebrating nine years clean and sober. You hear more about my pre-sobriety life in Virtual Memory, but if I have an opportunity to talk about my sobriety, what I'd really like to express is that I was (and am) a marijuana addict, first and foremost.

I say that because I want to dispel the myth that marijuana isn't addictive. It's not a matter of whether or not marijuana is addictive as a substance. It matters whether you have the disease of alcoholism.

Not everyone with alcoholism drinks alcohol. The disease is just named that way because problem drinkers were the first group to help us discover that addiction is an illness. If you suffer from addiction, then you can't use marijuana safely. Period.

What you can do is waste a good chunk of your life trying to prove you don't have a problem and that you can manage it. But here's the question to ask yourself honestly: if marijuana has become a priority in your life--if you're running out of money, and you make sure you have marijuana before making sure you have food--well, we're holding a seat for you. There is hope.

I once shot headshots for one of Broadway's greatest leading ladies of all time. I have admired her since I was a young teen, and here I was sitting across from her at Joe Allen's, going over her photos after our session. She was even comforting me as I gushed about my recent breakup. And despite the fact that I am lunching with a Tony winner, all I could think was "How long before I can get out of here, go home, turn off the lights, close the blinds, put my sweats on, crank the AC, pack the bong, and just zone out watching TV?"

If that's all I wanted to do with my life - I didn't need to move to New York.

Also, if I never knew that marijuana addiction stems from alcoholism (whether or not you're a drinker), I never would have known that there was help for me in the 12 steps. People split hairs between alcoholism, drug addiction, or other compulsive behaviors. But the truth is -- there's ONE common solution to all of those problems.

I thank God for my life in Sobriety. I got sober at 29 (right in the middle of my Saturn Return), and I wouldn't trade my best days then for my worst days now. I can't believe how useful I feel today, and how much purpose life has. Not just "my life," but life.

What’s your connection to Iceland? You go there lot to perform and to give lectures, and I recently saw you at Star Search accompanied by a lovely young Icelandic queen.

YOU WERE THERE??? Did you say hi?

I have no real connection to Iceland. I'm just an enormous fan of Björk. After seeing her film Dancer In The Dark, I became even more interested in her, and I really started examining her music more closely. This will sound ridiculous, but I heard something in her music calling to me. Speaking to me. As if it were my ancestors trying to deliver an urgent communication from centuries past. Okay yeah, that's dramatic. But you get the picture.

One day, I found an album of hers I didn't know about: Gling-Gló, It's a jazz album almost entirely in Icelandic. I never knew Icelandic was even a language. Now as a singer, I learned many languages: Spanish, French, Italian, German... I've never heard one of those languages sung before, and thought "My God! What is this I'm hearing? I need to hear more of it!"

But when I first heard Björk sing in Icelandic, I asked myself "Am I going to translate these songs and learn what she's singing about, or do I just let go and listen passively?" The next thought was this: "Ben... FOUR year olds know what she's singing about!!!" It made no sense, but it convinced me.

In 2002, I started teaching myself Icelandic... which is tough, not only because it's the 10th most difficult language, but there are very few resources for it. Especially back then (nowadays, surprisingly, there are many more people interested in learning it.)

I visited Iceland first in 2003, then again in 2006, then not until 2012. I returned last summer, and I am going there next week for my fifth visit.

By now, I have so many friends in Iceland that it doesn't make sense not to go there often. I've also connected with Drag-súgur, a local drag group there, and so I'll have an opportunity to do a few drag shows. I spoke there at the second annual Reykjavík Vegan Festival last year, which was such a treat because when I visited in 2012 people acted like they didn't know much about veganism. Four years later it was much more prominent, and I'm told that since last year, it has grown even more. So I can't wait to see what's in store for me -- especially on my cheat days!

Okay, let’s talk more about your one-man-show Virtual Memory. How would you describe the play?

I hate calling it a "coming-of-age gay play,” but it's a coming-of-age gay play. In short, it's about everything that's "wrong" with me--and learning to love myself exactly the way I am. But the show is not as trite as that last sentence was.

Mark Finley is directing me and lending his vision to the writing. Thank God I have someone to help me edit. Could you imagine if my play read like the answers to this interview? I mean, come on! How have you been handling the challenge of acting in a work of your own writing?

It's kind of weird, acting in my own stuff. I keep thinking of what Elaine Stritch said about her one woman show At Liberty. Watching the show, it just looks like she's acting natural up there. Like she couldn't possibly go up on a line, because she's just telling her story.

I realize now what she meant when she said "I am an actor playing the role of myself." It's very different. I don't just get to be myself. I am still very much playing a character, in the sense that I'm not today who I was at the time of whatever scene I'm playing.

Fortunately, I'd say it's been a lot easier memorizing lines when I wrote them myself. Except the question has become "which VERSION of the line is it by now???"

We’re all highly anticipating this play. What else is coming up for you?

Did I mention I have a Patreon? Because I do. And people can support me. Because who doesn't love tipping drag queens?

Seriously. There are so many creative projects just languishing on the back burners of my brain, because instead of creating, I'm busy schlepping to pay the bills. If the people who enjoy my work -- and who can honestly afford to do so -- would pledge a dollar, three dollars, ten dollars, whatever they can per month... It would make it possible for me to devote 300% more of my week cranking out content and creating things that change the world.

Lastly, you want plugs? Here are some random things I'm proud of that people might not ever know to look up...

My White Christmas (White Privilege) parody song

My favorite drag performance ever (with Miz Cracker)

Me draining the water on my knee with help from Bob The Drag Queen

Check out my cooking show!

I just launched my merch store! So buy some shit!

Last question… if “Virtual Memory” ever gets a big Broadway—or even big screen--treatment, who should play Ben?

Judy Tenuta.

Thanks, Honey!

Honey LaBronx aka Ben Strothmann’s play “Virtual Reality” will be performed as part of Dixon Place’s HOT! Festival on Friday, August 4th (7:30pm). Follow Honey on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and Patreon.

On Point Archives

#onpointwith #honeylabronx

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hiruma-musouka · 7 years

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Also, 27.) "Can we go someplace high so I can jump off it?" for Shishui and Obito, please?

[AO3 link] - Summary: In which a change of events both improves and worsens Obito’s quality of life, some people are alive who wouldn’t be, and family is great (except when you have a hangover).

“GOOD MORNING!”

Obito flails out of a dead sleep atthe LOUD, tone deaf squall. Heart pounding, he blindly flings a kunai at thedoor, frantically shoves himself up…

…and with an undignified scramblefor his sheets falls right off his bed with a thud.

Shisui snorts.

“You… bastard…” Obitogroans, head throbbing and stomach threatening to rebel as his massive hangovermakes itself known past the intense throbbing in his bad side. Thank thefucking kami he had gotten caught in his sheets and flipped over when he slidoff the mattress like a moron. At least this way he only had to deal with hisnormal level of chronic pain in addition to the hangover and embarrassmentinstead of the crippling agony that would have come with landing on his rightside.

Crippling. Obito snorts bitterly,wincing as it sets off the ache in his nose from hitting the floor boards. Notthat he could feel it much past the boss summons trying to smash their way outof his skull.

God, why the hell had he drunk so much again?

“Are you alright?” Shisuicalls out, a laugh hiding in his tone as his head peaks out carefully frombehind the door frame. The younger shinobi plucks the kunai out of the woodnear his cheek, and Obito gives him a dirty look and flips him off.

“Why the fuck are youhere?” Obito rasps through his parched throat, shifting carefully onto hisback with a hiss as his hip and knee lock up. “And while we’re at it, howdid you get past all of my traps again, you little shit?”

“C'mon cousin, give me somecredit for being a jounin,” Shisui says, friendly grin softening as Obitocringes slightly at the sound of his voice and brings up a hand to rub gingerlyat his temple. The sixteen-year-old’s eyes flicker briefly over his twistedscars as Obito forces his locked up muscles to unwind, but the only emotion hecatches on Shisui’s face when he squints over at him is a good-natured sympathyrather than the pity, disdain, or infuriating dismissiveness so common amongtheir fellow shinobi.

Not that that’s going to save Shisuifrom the revenge and massive trap upgrades that Obito is going to implementafter this. His traps are one of the few shinobi arts he still has full accessto and he is NOT going to have someone just dance right past them!

“You are only a jounin,”Obito says, already plotting alterations as he throws his left arm over hisface to block out the light spearing through his eyes, “becauseMinato-sensei has a quota to meet for Konoha’s ranks and he decided to skip theportion of the jounin requirements that cover good sense and appropriatedecision making skills.”

“Well that’s rude,” Shisuiremarks idly. “It certainly explains a lot about our comrades, but there’sstill no reason to take your bad mood out on me. I only dropped by tosay happy twentieth birthday in person since no one invited me to thebar yesterday and by the time I found out and arrived you were already well onyour way to pickling yourself. Speaking of which, nice life choice there:getting involved in one of Gai’s challenges.”

Oh riiight, Obito thinks belatedly, fuzzy memories of green spandex,silver hair, and sake jugs dancing through his mind, THAT’S why I drank somuch last night.

… He really needed to stop lettingcompetitiveness and low-key resentment influence his life choices.

Obito runs his tongue over histeeth, scars pulling slightly as he screws his face up, abruptly aware of theaftertaste of vomit, alcohol, and fried chicken. Or maybe it’s just that heneeds to stop making any decisions at all if he’s frustrated or annoyed andalcohol is already involved. They never end well. The fuck up with the Aoba andhis crows comes to mind. The massive argument with Bakashi and his martyringguilt complex is another.

Yeah… maybe switching out the alcohol for Anko’s fruitycocktails would be a better choice and to hell with anyone’s teasing.

Hell, he probably didn’t even manageto beat Kakashi even if he did match Gai drink for drink because Bakashiprobably cheated again by stealth dumping his drinks into other people’sglasses or something. Rin is going to give him that look when she comesaround and—

Oh.

Oh fuck. RIN!

“So you do remember theend of last night,” Shisui affirms with a grin as Obito makes a horrifiedgurgling sound and attempts to sink through the floor in abject, mortifiedhumiliation. “I’d sort of wondered if I had lost that bet because youseemed remarkably aplomb for a guy who’s just drunkenly hit on his childhoodcrush. Again. For the fifth—”

“Shisui, I swear on ourancestor’s ashes that if you don’t shut up,” Obito threatens, voicemuffled through his hands and yet noticeably high pitched, “I will haveyou assassinated. I am Minato-sensei’s glorified fucking secretary and Ihave the sharingan: I will forge his signature and have them dump you deadin a river somewhere!”

Shisui throws him a slightly unsurelook over a smile. “You know it’s kind of concerning how you default totreasonous murder when life pushes your buttons wrong. I’d like to emphasizethat I had nothing to do with you failing to serenade—” Obitogroans “—your crush.”

“I don’t have a crush onRin,” Obito says flatly, watching the ceiling and debating about slamminghis fist into his knee so he can be overwhelmed with the much more palatablephysical agony instead of the mental agony of sake-tinged recollections.

“That’s not what the entiretyof the bar thinks.”

“Fuck.”

“Although Rin was very kindabout turning you down again, if it makes you feel better.” Shisui offers.

It did not make Obito feel better.

“River, Shisui. River,”Obito threatens darkly, wincingly remembering Rin doing the same kind butsubtly immovable speech to let drunk-him down that she had done the lasttime he’d started regaling the room with her virtues.

He doesn’t have a crush on Rinanymore. He really, really doesn’t. Rin is like… the brilliantly kind andcapable sister figure Obito had always wanted, but he’s not really one forromancing close sister figures because he’s not a noble or a Hyuuga.It’s also really hard to maintain any sweet feelings for the person who unyieldinglyforces you through regular physical therapy. But it’s genuinely not hisfault that she’s practically perfect in every way outside of that or thatdrunk him always feels the need to explain that to the idiot people who don’tproperly appreciate her and he really needs to stop doing this!

Oh god this is going to be awkward.Nobody ever believes ‘I don’t have a crush anymore, I just think she’sperfect.’

(Perfect aside from her shitty tastein emotionally unavailable guys that is, but Obito’s opinion there is prettymuch never wanted.)

“This is probably a bad time tomention that pretty much everyone was still there when you started rambling,isn’t it?” Shisui asks rhetorically.

“I need someplace high so I canjump off it,” Obito despairs wholeheartedly, already imagining the shithe’ll get for this as various assholes come through the Hokage tower formissions and reports. Fuck his life.

“Someplace high huh?”Shisui considers thoughtfully, making Obito pause to eye him warily at his toneof voice. “Alright, I’ve got an idea. Come on, get up and let’s go getbreakfast so we can leave.”

“No,” Obito refuses,stomach rolling at the thought of food.

“Up, up, up!” Shisuichives, smart enough not to come in reach of Obito even as he grabs Obito’s legbrace off the table and drops it on his chest.

“I said no!”

Shisui takes a deep, exaggeratedbreath and Obito flinches, covering his ears just in time before Shisui startssinging the most horrendously mangled version of Happy Birthday that a humanhas ever croaked out.

“Alright, alright, shutup!” Obito cracks, shoving himself up with a dirty glare and ignoring theway his right shoulder crackles.

Shisui abruptly stops caterwauling.“I’ll go make something for us then,” he offers, casually strollingtowards the kitchen.

(There are days Obito really, reallyhates his relatives.)

“I cannot—” Obitogrunts, climbing a few more steps and hiding a wince “—believe you draggedme up to the top of the Hokage mountain, for fuck’s sake, Shisui!”

“Your language is prettyterrible for someone who spends a lot of their free time helping kids,Obito.” Shisui meanders along the path ahead of him, always just farenough away to keep out of immediate strangling distance while still going slowenough that Obito can keep up without pushing it. Not that either of themacknowledge that that’s what Shisui’s doing since the teen is doing a decentimpression of casually appreciating the beauty of dawn falling upon thevillage.

(Dawn. Dawn, that little shit.Obito hadn’t passed out until at least three in the morning. He’s not hungoverlike he’d thought: he’s still drunk.)

“Would you just get to thepoint?” Obito forces out, breathing through his nose in a controlledpattern. They finally level off at a platform nearby the First’s head and Obitotakes a moment to really appreciate the beauty of flat ground no matter howgrating it is that this is what he’s been reduced to since Rin and Kakashipried him out of that cave in years ago.

And then he sees the orange thingon the ground and forgets about being bitter.

“What is that?”Obito asks, honestly curious as he shuffles forward next to a grinning Shisuito get a better look. It’s looks like a gigantic kite almost except moretriangular rather than diamond shaped and with a wooden frame extendingdownwards to prop it up from the ground. A set of ropes and cloth hang downbehind the horizontal bar in what looks like a harness and Obito shifts ontohis left foot for better balance as he reaches forward to run a finger over theKonoha symbol emblazoned on the middle of the tautly stretched tarp.

“It’s called a glider,”Shisui offers. “I and a few other people may or may not have seen them ona hypothetical mission in the mountains nearby a place whose name mighthave four letters and start with 'Ku’. You hang underneath it or supportyourself with both arms on the bars and then throw yourself off something tall.Air thermals support the wings and your weight and will let you stay airbornefor hours if you want, provided you don’t screw up and panic. Isn’t itawesome?”

“Where did you even getone?”

“We made it!” Shisuigestures to it proudly. “And by 'we’ I mean that Tenzo grew the frameafter I kept talking about it and then Yugao banished me from sewing the clothon because apparently I cannot be trusted to stitch evenly.”

“And it really works?”

“Absolutely. So, do you want totry?” Shisui waits, looking over at his cousin while Obito considers it,curling and uncurling the stiffened fingers of his damaged hand. “Youwanted to throw yourself off something and this is gonna be a lot more fun thanwalking all the way back down the mountain and going home.”

'Especially since you can’t landwell enough to use Shunshin.’

Obito frowns at the unsaid words andrubs the back of his sore head before mustering up a smile. “Alright.Yeah. I’ll give it a go. Although,” he adds, roughly slapping the side ofShisui’s arm with a pointed look, “if I crash or someone shoots me down,you’re explaining this to everyone. Including the medic-nin andRin.”

Shisui’s grin falters a bit.“That sounds… fair.” A pause. “Please don’t crash though.Seriously. Tenzo might cry.”

Obito huffs a weak laugh at theblatant exaggeration, eyes squinting painfully against the ambient light.“Just help me into this thing, Shisui.”

[AO3 link]

#uchiha obito #uchiha shisui #naruto #sentence prompt meme #fatcatsarecats #asks #my writing #prompt fill

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thementalattic · 5 years

Text

Last night I finsihed Darksiders III and instead of whooping and feeling excited across the playthrough, as I did with its predecessors, I could only ask myself: What the hell happened?

When I first saw the game, many moons ago, I felt excited, I wanted to play as Fury and meet another fun Horseman of the Apocalypse. I had enjoyed my time with War, watching him grow as a person, becoming wiser. I loved Death’s crusade to restore the souls of humanity and his fight against the corruption born from his own race, the Nephilim.

And then I met Fury and said, for the first time, “what the hell happened?” Where did the compelling characterisation go? Where did the humanity of these creatures vanish to? Fury is profoundly unlikable, and she kicks things off in a bad way by being a complete ass to a chained War. She’s arrogant, proud and pretty much embodies each one of the Deadly Sins she’s pursuing, but instead of weaving that into the game’s story and progress, the writers decided she would have an epiphany near the end of the game where she turns her personality, motives and goals around completely, so she becomes a better person, just not one with a defined personality.

There are glimpses of personal growth throughout the journey, but the writing is so inconsistent that she goes from contemplative and wondering about personality changes to reverting to the same traits she’s supposedly left only a few minutes later in a boss cutscene.

It’s wasted potential in storytelling. With every Sin forcing her to view her own desires and vices and confronting them, you could have had Fury become progressively more introspective and even weary, losing her namesake fury along the way or diminishing it, as she begins figuring out who she is and what she’s supposed to do, and perhaps the relationship with her brothers. It would have made that epiphany at the end at least a bit believable.

But Darksiders 3 wastes too much time on the Charred Council and Apocalypse conspiracy from the first game, a conspiracy we know all about and the game’s writers failed at giving us anything new about it. There aren’t any new revelations, something we hadn’t considered or even greater implications. It’s a complete re-tread. In trying to play it safe, I suppose, the writers failed to give us anything compelling in the plot. And of course, there’s a twist with the final boss but it falls flat because it’s something you expect to happen the moment you meet the character in question.

But my bewilderment with what the hell they did with Darksiders III extends beyond the narrative and characterisation into the gameplay.

Darksiders has always been a series that proudly wears its inspirations and even the most blatant adaptation is paid careful homage and used in a way that fits the game, gives it a unique spin and most importantly, feels amazing, engaging and fun. It’s why the first Darksiders mashed together Devil May Cry styled gameplay and The Legend of Zelda and gave us a portal gun without feeling like a complete ripoff, because it pulled the strange combination off so brilliantly that it became a completely new identity, something original despite the obvious sources of inspiration. Darksiders II continued the trend and even brought in loot systems and RPG levelling and talent trees to the mix to add gameplay variety.

Darksiders III’s two predecessors also opened the world to you. Darksiders II in particular features sprawling locales. This release, however, keeps the claustrophobic hallway infested places. Tunnels, caverns, underground crypts, etc. All enclosed, all quite short and severely lacking in the awe department, with the Maker Tree being the only thing even remotely astonishing. Worse still is how many times you go back to the same locales and fight the same enemies. Also, no horse, sacrificed for the sake of the plot. A wasted sacrifice, if there ever was one.

Speaking of enemies, combat can become a hassle. Most enemies are punishment sponges, the camera is a mess, even the lock-on is spotty, losing its target with surprising frequency. Darksiders III is a game where you’ll spend most of the time fighting against things you can’t see, from enemies attacking you just outside the camera’s range. Meaning that dodging attacks is often a matter of educated guesswork, especially when the arrows that notify you of enemy presence and attacks only tell you of the attack after the enemy has already carved their name on your back.

When you’re one-on-one, it’s not that bad, and it’s where the combat shines, as much as it can, really. But add more than one enemy to the mix, as this game loves to do, and it becomes a slog. And boss fights are all identical and uninspired. You versus a dude with a weapon. Nothing creative like the Darksiders 1 and 2 bosses. Where are the giant bats, the sand worms? Nothing.

I mentioned before that the Darksiders series had a knack for reusing and polishing other series’ core mechanics and for some reason, Gunfire Games decided it was time for Darksiders to become Dark Souls. You lose your collected souls when you die, pick them up from where you left them, and bank them at the reserved checkpoint spot for levels and the ability to improve on attributes. Only in this case, Vulgrim becomes the bonfire and you have three highly ineffectual attributes: Physical damage, Arcane Damage and Health. Even at high levels of each of these attributes I never felt stronger. It was only when I maxed out the weapon using the watered-down version of Dark Souls Titanite that I felt something change.

It also means that when you die, you go back to Vulgrim, forcing you to trek through the same area again and again if you die, which is fairly often when you consider the above combat issues and the worst offender of all, the fact that the dodge and counter mechanic is super finicky and dodging has no invincibility frames. I dodged out of a boss’s attack and then lost health because another creature’s attack hit me while I was in the dodge’s slow-motion animation.

The weapon enhancements you find, to socket into items are far too few in number, too damn hard to get and upgrading them is a thorough pain in the rear for very little gain. Also, what the hell happened to the Chaos Form? In the other games it was a devastating move but here it’s wildly ineffectual and barely deals any damage! And who decided that Wrath powers costing the entire bar was a good idea? especially with how slowly it builds up and how rare Wrath-recharging souls are. Also, if you don’t have a Stamina bar, a dedicate sprint button is unnecessary. Just enable it by default, anything else is poor design.

For a game that goes on and on about balance, Gunfire Games has no idea what the concept means. I spent most of the game playing on Challenging until I reached a spot so thoroughly unbalanced, where enemies I couldn’t see stun-locked me and took out chunks of my health and bosses one-shot me with attacks that happen right after a cutscene—which is another issue, too many cutscenes mid-boss—that I had to bring the difficulty down to the standard one, here called “Balanced.”

In essence, Darksiders III tries to do the Souls-like thing without an understanding of what makes those games work properly. So instead of taking those concepts and making them its own and creating a new identity for them as the predecessors did, Darksiders III feels like a bad ripoff, one so astonishingly poor that it reminds me of the first game I played in the Souls-like genre, Lords of the Fallen, which also missed the mark.

I wanted to like Darksiders III, I wanted this to be the game I’ve been waiting for ages on, but it has so many issues—including crashes—and faulty design choices and some intensely frustrating gameplay that just drained the fun out of me. Hell, the game doesn’t even have fun things to unlock like the Abyssal armour, only humans to find for a rather flimsy reward. And the small world means it’s a rather short game.

The only thing I got out of Darksiders III that I found worthwhile was Strife, the last Horseman, who makes a small appearance and makes me hope there might be a game with him. I only wish they would give the reigns back to Joe Mad and his people. At least they knew what the hell they were doing!

Also, nit-picking point, but Fury’s design doesn’t quite match the one we saw in the Darksiders comic from when the first game released and her character model makes her look plastic, literally.

Now excuse me while I go play Darksiders II as a palate cleanser.

I finished #Darksiders3 and I keep asking myself, WTF happened?

Last night I finsihed Darksiders III and instead of whooping and feeling excited across the playthrough, as I did with its predecessors, I could only ask myself: What the hell happened?

I finished #Darksiders3 and I keep asking myself, WTF happened? Last night I finsihed Darksiders III and instead of whooping and feeling excited across the playthrough, as I did with its predecessors, I could only ask myself: What the hell happened?

#Action RPG #Apocalypse #Bad Storytelling #Dark Souls #Darksiders #Darksiders II #Darksiders III #Featured #Four Horsemen #Fury #Gaming #Opinion #RPG #Souls-like #Video game

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kkutlesa · 5 years

Text

Last night I finsihed Darksiders III and instead of whooping and feeling excited across the playthrough, as I did with its predecessors, I could only ask myself: What the hell happened?

But my bewilderment with what the hell they did with Darksiders III extends beyond the narrative and characterisation into the gameplay.

Also, nit-picking point, but Fury’s design doesn’t quite match the one we saw in the Darksiders comic from when the first game released and her character model makes her look plastic, literally.

Now excuse me while I go play Darksiders II as a palate cleanser.

#Action RPG #Apocalypse #Bad Storytelling #Dark Souls #Darksiders #Darksiders II #Darksiders III #Featured #Four Horsemen #Fury #Gaming #Opinion #RPG #Souls-like #Video game

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