Mama gave me music lessons,

now I play the saddest songs

local gang of dnd players intimidate and viciously bully game show host sam reich, threatening to push his ass down the stairs like he's a 90-year-old grandma in a retirement home. more at 8

update to the Playing Undertale With Roommate Whose Only Social Media is Pinterest situation: we only just got to waterfall and so far it has been a fucking trip

they have No Idea the significance of Flowey yet. not even a hint. they thought the sans echo flower conversation was about echo flowers

during the papyrus date and especially when they got to his room they kept looking at me and saying "THIS is your man????" which they stopped asking after the date. they have read some of my fics. i do not think i am any less insane to them now

they gave papyrus a valley girl voice btw. mostly because i had to beg them not to give him a mickey mouse voice instead

they didn't fucking know what skeletor sounds like

bc i know The Efficient Ways to do Things and they don't they've been reminding me of a buncha details & lines of dialogue I don't actually have embedded in my memory. particularly "PAPYRUS IS HUNGRY, TOO! HUNGRY FOR JUSTICE!"

they got the "Can I speak to G..." phone call. i have never once gotten that in any of my playthroughs, probably because i don't usually go up to that area but still. ik its not REALLY rare but i have never actually seen it Organically before so it was crazy to ME

Dogsong is my morning alarm ok. so when it showed up in the game and they realized they recognized it on a subconscious level they looked physically pained

Undyne's first chase scene scared the shit out of them

TOM CRUISE as Ethan Hunt Mission: Impossible III (2006) dir. J. J. Abrams

OOOHHHHH MY FUCKING GODDDDDD NATHAN DRAWFEE IN NEW GAME CHANGER SEASON TRIALER

AND CALDWELL

DRAWFEE OGS REUNION ON ART THEMED EPISODE OF GAME CHANGER

THIS IS NOT A FUCKING DRILL

God-Emperor on the Golden Throne by Bart761

YOU’RE TELLING ME I WAS TAKING A NAP WHEN GHOST TRICK GOT ANNOUNCED AS A PORT AND REMASTER TO MODERN CONSOLES??? WHAT THE FUCK THAT’S ONE OF MY FAVORITE GAMES OF ALL TIME I DIDN'T THINK THEY WOULD DO ANYTHING WITH IT EVER AGAIN ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Mysterious Lotus Casebook (2023) // Anne Carson

Kudamon EX5-028 by SENNSU, Reppamon EX5-029 by Hisashi Fujiwara, Chirinmon EX5-031 by yuuki., and Mitamamon EX5-033 by Nakano Haito from EX-05 Theme Booster Animal Colosseum

in order of initial progress so far (is updating)! what the fuck is this game’s problem

EDIT: i had to make flynn’s in 2 parts because what in the sam hill. get it. s. sam ...................................

Why GoWR Valhalla Is Important

Hey. It's me again. This time I'm not yelling about Kingdom Hearts or Drakengard, but I wanted to talk about God of War Ragnarök: Valhalla today and why I think it's important in trauma-centered narratives. This isn't a detailed analysis, just me spitballing.

SPOILER WARNING: There will be spoilers for God of War Ragnarök: Valhalla, so please proceed with caution!

EDITED: 2/26/24

As a brief summary, Kratos spent almost the entirety of GoW 2018 refusing to talk about his past. His guilt, shame, and trauma deeply affected his relationship with his son, to the point where he didn't want to be around Atreus bc he was terrified of being a bad influence on him. It was only when Atreus' life was in danger did it force him to finally admit just a sliver of the truth. Now I don't mean to say that Kratos revealing his godhood wasn't a big deal because it absolutely was, I'm just saying that it's just one piece of a MUCH bigger story. Anyway, he recognized his past mistakes, but the shame was too much for him to openly acknowledge it until damn near the end of the game.

Come Ragnarök, Kratos was pretty much an open book. He had grown SO much in those short years of fimbulwinter: He openly talked about his trauma to Mimir and Freya. He worked so hard to be a good father and a good support system to his friends. He went out of his way to make amends with Freya and restore their friendship. And he fought to restore peace to the Nine Realms.

But come Valhalla, Freya wants to recruit Kratos to be the new God of War of the nine realms, or at least to be a part of the new peacekeeping council that she's putting together. Kratos is extremely hesitant to take up the mantle. He doesn't feel worthy or deserving enough to hold this position given all that he's done. He and Mimir (and later on, Tyr) are constantly going back and forth about it. Both perspectives are completely valid. Valhalla is about Kratos facing his past in a more literal sense; parts of Greece have been manifested from Kratos' memories of it, so it's like he gets to be there in real time again. This is about helping him process what happened and to add some nuance to the conversation. It's like free therapy for Kratos.

It's funny too bc you have both opposing viewpoints being represented. On one hand, you have Mimir and Tyr being the supporting/validating voice, and Helios is the contrarian. Since he's a manifestation of Kratos' memories, he represents the doubts that Kratos has about himself. The harsh voice to show how hard he is on himself, and not without good reason.

The reason why I think Valhalla is so important is bc in media, survivor narratives are often linear. The character just "gets over" their trauma and then that trauma isn't addressed again. It's presented more as a hurdle than a lifelong battle. I guess this goes to show how misunderstood survivorhood is. But that isn't how healing works. We regress sometimes, and sometimes we still mull over the things that have happened to us. We might heal, but that trauma does leave emotional scars. So even after the many leaps and bounds Kratos has made, he's not "over" his past, far from it! It still haunts him every day and every night. Valhalla is Kratos still processing everything. From my own healing journey, I've learned that it takes a long, long time to fully process your trauma, if there even is a "fully", anyway. It takes a long time to learn and understand all the complexities and how it affects you in current day. And it takes even longer to process such a complicated history like Kratos'.

Generally speaking about the idea of processing trauma, I said earlier that survivorhood is extremely misunderstood by the masses. Imo, our society is very anti-victim/anti-survivor. So with that in mind, from the perspective of the audience, some might perceive the processing trauma bit as repetitive or "milking it". These are mediums of entertainment after all, so ofc I understand wanting to put out an engaging story where the audience doesn't lose interest. But screw those ppl lol. We have to understand why we do what we do if we want to do better, and it's amazing that a video game is willing to have these conversations. Being more open about all the nuances of processing trauma, grief, healing, etc will go such a long way.

Even the roguelite gameplay style perfectly reflects this theme. Processing this stuff is slow. It doesn't happen overnight. Unless you're in Valhalla, I suppose.

Okay I said this wasn't a detailed analysis but I lied. I'm a liar now

Sons & Sonsabilities dares to ask the question "who of the DNDads players can make the most buckwild character and choices while getting away with the fewest consequences when the stakes are purely personal and not apocalyptic" and gets the resounding answer "Beth"

hades art dump part 2

I finally decided to play Deltarune and finished chapter 1 yesterday.

Ralsei isn’t here because I was too lazy to doodle him. Sorry Ralsei!

And of course, how could I forget the interaction that will burn a hole into my memories?

Behold! Sans Deltarune!

Master of Mankind by Bartek Sadowski