theres this game i played recently -- didnt finish it yet -- called 'Umurangi Generation'. Not to spoil anything but it had a very strong message for me, simply put. amongst other things, it had this weird feeling that I couldn't quite name when I first played it. Recently though, with... many things happening in the world and a few in my personal life as well, I think I got ahold of it a bit better

It feels like there's no real reason to keep going. Why study, or grow, or work for a better life, if I'll end up under tyrannical capitalism, in a corrupt world that's slowly drowning, with death threats for me specifically, as a {insert minority}?

Umurangi Generation isn't depressive, and it has its own message and things to say, so I won't talk in its place because I probably wouldn't be able to put it into words without misunderstanding it. If you have a few hours of free time though, it's free on itch.io i think. It's maori too, and is just. beautiful. you can take pictures of your friends in it

For a while I was in that weird, drowning like feeling, where you feel the air leaving your body, but feel so alien to yourself that there's no more drive to even struggle in the waters. metaphorically

last week though, a friend that I rarely talk to invited me to this music hall thing--never had seen one before, had no idea what to expect. what i discovered was an incredibly powerful, funny, and full of life group of queer artists. i felt a bit ashamed to have even been so depressive, and even worse, pessimistic about myself and the world

there was this actor, who did a monologue. He had a shirt with "PD" written on it (that means something like faggot, in french). he said it was the first time he was turning 31. well, he thought at least. because surely, he must've been 31 before, and even more, but there had been so much people to erase anything that would've kept track of how old he was, it felt like he only started all over again. and he said yeah, it was normal there was more of him, of us, now, because we kept living, and we were going to keep living.

(to be clear--thats a queer metaphor for the numerous times in history where we've been killed, erased, etc)

it kind of stuck with me. my friend told me i was crying when he said those things. i don't remember doing so

Recently it's felt like I can't even sleep enough to rest my eyes and cry

But his words stuck with me, because, yeah. I'm still here, and we're still here, and there's so much that's been lost, but we know what we saved. It's all been burned before and we're still here.

And I don't know. i don't know where I'll be in five years or more, i know I'll still have suicidal thoughts, at least for a while, and I don't know what'll happen with the world, the people that are drowning and those that are being murdered, and the rest of the world that seems so uncaring.

But like, I know there's still people now. There's still people to tell the stories of so many that are dead, and there's still openly queer folk dancing and giving joy to other people in music halls, and there's still things to fight for, and be proud of. because it's not done, it's not finished, and there's still so much to fight for

I don't know

There was also this artist (named THÉA on music platforms, she's great) who sang some stuff which really moved me. one of her songs is named "Ennui" (Boredom) and it says "We don't have any goal, or real place, no big war, or great depression. Our big war is spiritual. Our great depression, it's our lives."

(im pretty sure thats a quote from somewhere else. unsure though)

And yeah, it feels like there's nothing more to believe in. And THÉA isn't a depressive artist to listen to, listen to the lyrics in "Juste Amis" (Just friends)

But there's this weird dread i see in people, i guess born after 2000, and in myself, that engulfs you whole and yet feels so alien. Umurangi Generation talked about it. in its end game credits is written "Dedicated to Umurangi Generation. The last generation that has to see the world die."

Often now, it feels like that. Born too late, in a dying world that can't stop nervously convulsing like a dead fish.

I don't know. If there was nothing else, I wouldn't be here. I know there's still love in this world, and it'll still keep going when I'm gone, and the clouds can make me cry because of how the sun bounces off of them, and I have friends that are lovely, and there's passionate and powerful people who are alive, now, and are doing something, and i collect poetry about lesbians and about the beauty of gendered languages and about queer people in my phone

and yet, I can't finish this on a happy or hopeful note. I don't know how to. I wish I could, but when I try to summon my passion, it's full of rage rather than love. But I want to love this world. I want to believe I can have a life in it. I want to believe I can make a change and help people

i don't know

some downtime doodling

I want. Four to get appreciation. Because

Four gave a ton of unnoticed help when Twilight was injured

The fight with Wild was difficult, and I know we're all concerned about his negative view of the shadow crystal

But Four did something that no one else really thought of to help- He took care of Twi's stuff

From the beginning he told Twilight to not worry about them

So Four took care of pretty much everything but the others (that Sky and Wars handled)

He took care of Epona

Which is so very important- he took care of Twilight's horse. After her arrival at the stable Four followed up on her

And for Epona, a horse so attached to her human, having some company can help so much for reassurance

He took care of Twilight's stuff

He got Twi's shield- his bags and equipment, and organized it into one place

And he was worried. He obviously found the shadow crystal while handling Twi's stuff, but his negative reactions to it were out of concern.

Also- because of his placement in this scene

I'm fairly convinced Four was ready to start cooking before Wild showed up (since he's beside the counter with food supplies). At the very least he had the basket of fruit out for everyone -but he was literally standing with food behind him- he thought of everything

And he did housekeeping!

Wars payed for the inn, so Four took care of the inn

Realistically these boys were probably not too concerned with tidyness. Four got all of Twi's things on one table, and took care of the room they stayed in

Organizing tables and Twi's things, having food supplies ready, and opening the curtains- overall he was the one tidying up the inn

Four helped in a huge way! He took care of Twi's horse (Epona is so important), his equipment and shield and bag, as well as the other rooms in the inn

Four filled in all the little tasks that others didn't think of. He helped in ways that were needed, but not obvious

There's a lot of problems with the shadow crystal and with Wild, and I don't know what's gonna happen in the future

But don't forget this- don't forget that Four was one who stepped up in an almost unnoticeable way

Don't forget that when everyone was barely holding it together, Four visited Twilight's horse and took care of his things

No matter what develops in the future- this amount of care shown is important ya know?

.

Art and comic from Jojo @linkeduniverse au :)))

kiddos

if you think about it, orv is an isekai that completely turns isekai concepts on its head.

one of the main goals of (crappy) isekai is wish-fulfillment-- it’s really easy to insert yourself into the mc’s position and imagine that you’re currently the one inserted into this new world as its op protagonist. and at first, orv seems to follow this basic trope-- kdj’s favorite novel comes to life around him and he’s literally turned from an average office worker to the most knowledgeable being in the world in mere minutes. you can see how it’s similar to a lot of other isekai expositions, and how it could be easy to make kdj a self-insert for a lot of readers.

and then as you dive deeper into the novel, it becomes clear that wish-fulfillment is not one of orv’s goals. kdj is a very unique character with an interesting backstory from before the transition to the new world, something most isekai mcs don’t have or don’t dwell on too much. the lack of backstories from their life in the old world is too make sure not to throw off the immersion of the reader into the mc for that maximum wish fulfillment. but kdj has ppl from before and backstories from before that impact him a lot and make it clear that orv is not that kind of isekai. it’s harder for him to be that sort of blank slate wish fulfillment type of character because of his unique past and motivations.

and of course, this all flips on its head again as you discover that, yeah it’s not wish fulfillment for you, but it was all kdj’s wishes coming true for him. it’s an isekai inside of an isekai, in a way. it’s an isekai wish-fulfillment self-insert fanfic not for you, but for kim dokja. which is already a pretty insane concept, but of course orv takes it even further after that. 

because in the very end, the story expands from kdj’s world to the oldest dream’s world to the readers’ world, making the ending a literal wish-fulfilling conclusion that brings the readers’ wishes for kdj’s revival to life. 

like orv is actually insane for pulling all that off.

Not gonna get into danganronpa another spoilers because this whole scene is something else that I’m still processing but I absolutely love this line. Like to bring up milgram I think this is an idea which can reflect on lots of the characters as well. The idea of basing your entire existence off of a certain thing/person/ideology and then for something to happen that completely destroys that. Your entire person has been stripped away and just what’s left? You can’t comprehend your own existence or meaning without that specific attachment and you start to question all of your actions based off that��

I can only really think of John, Kotoko, and Es here (and possibly Amane and Mikoto to an extent). And John bases his life off of Mikoto, Kotoko upholding justice, and Es being the warden.

John’s idea of his whole existence and reason for being is Mikoto. It’s the only reason he believes he exists and if he were to fulfill his role he’d “disappear” as he would be completely worthless without him. John tries to repress and ignore his humanity and reduce himself as a tool to protect Mikoto and that’s all he can see himself as. But now Mikoto’s starting to not deny his existence and feels pure hatred for everything about him. And what will happen to John, when the person he’s dedicated his entire life to and desperately wants praise from, denies his existence? What will he be but some worthless existence that is only a burden, to him.

Kotoko. An ideology of upholding justice and punishing evil that has completely overtaken her. She has pushed herself into a role of a “fang” for justice, protecting the weak and persecuting evil. But even so matter how much she tries, she knows her goals are unreachable. She denies relationships and attachments to other people based on this ideology. Kotoko admits that she does feel attachment to the prisoners, but has to deny them in order to fulfill the role as a tool. And believes that pain and violence is necessary to achieving a greater good. Trying to deny any regret because wouldn’t it be easier to believe you’re entirely in the right? She latched onto Es, believing them to be similar as the warden who carries out judgement on wether the prisoners are forgivable or not. But now, Es has denied her whole ideology, her whole existence due to the pain she’s caused. Kotoko wants to believe that what she did was right and that Es, another enforcer of justice would accept her, because that’s how it is.

And Es… they’re the warden of the prison. There’s nothing more to them than that they believe. Es has no memories of their identity or past before Milgram and immediately latched onto the identity given to them, of being the guard. Es took this role as their entire identity, an extension of the milgram system in order to interrogate and judge prisoners. I think Muu put this best.

“Warden-san, we call you "warden" because that's what you are, right? And I was assigned the role of prisoner, but that doesn't mean I'm now nothing but a prisoner at heart, too. After all, I'm still me.”

Es has an unstable sense of identity, to the point they latched on to the first thing they were given in order to give themselves a purpose and a meaning for existence. And Kotoko calling them “imperfect caused them to question their identity. But as the story progresses Es will probably begin to learn about the audiences control and the truth behind what they assumed to be their verdicts. That their will never was 100% their own. Who knows what Es’ past was, but eventually they’ll likely have to tackle it and their whole identity, the warden, the arms of milgram, is gone.

gonna think about Mikoto and Amane here as well. Mikoto, although may not seem to be as first, focuses his entire identity around other people. He’s the friendly sociable guy who’s easy to chat with. But that’s all he believes he should be, I guess. As perhaps this mindset is upheld by an inherent fear of other people rejecting him, so he focuses all his attention and identity on being a social person. He’s never truly friends with people, as perhaps that would be “too close” and open up the possibility for danger. He doesn’t completely deny his identity like the others, but he molds and shapes it in a way that is acceptable to others. He likes what everyone else likes and does what everyone else does so the fear of being rejected for being different won’t hurt him. But now he’s stopped denying John’s existence and his DID, believing himself to be crazy, and to be completely rejected from other people, his entire sense of identity to an extent. And especially with John scaring other people off with the mindset that will help Mikoto, he has now been completely distanced from everyone else and now has to come to terms with himself, but not the ideal persona he put on to be acceptable to other people.

Amane is a more different case as she in a way has rejected that idea, but not completely. Growing up in a cult it’s very likely that she was always conditioned that she was just a servant for god. That all the good things she did were actually god blessing her and all the bad things a fault of her humanity, herself as a person. She is in a unstable relationship with the whole submitting her personhood to her religion, as she sacrificed her ideologies in order to help a cat. But at the core, that wasn’t about herself and her identity, rather a focus on the cat’s life. Amane’s murder was her will. Rejecting everything and fighting for her life in direct opposition to what she has been taught her entire life and how her identity should be, a rejection of that and a glance into “herself”. But once again, this murder wasn’t entirely self motivated. She’s still broken enough that she can’t fully grasp herself as a person besides god and religion. And a large cause of her murder was out of the death of the cat, rather than simply protecting herself. Amane still slips back into the belief that her personhood is entirely dedicated to god. As she tried to convince herself and Es that the only reason she killed is because they deserved religious punishment and she is in the right for carrying out god’s will, once again denying her personal reason for doing so. Reducing herself to “we” on behalf of her religion, that this isn’t herself anymore. Amane is in a limbo between rejecting her personhood for god, but at the same time rejecting the suffering she’s been through in order to save “herself”. Amane’s case is so interesting, as there’s no clear answer of what she believes in here, and it is truly fascinating.

An informational poster project I did for a class!! The poster had to cover something that has 5 steps or parts and could be on anything, I was having trouble what to pick for mine but I thought doing a really dark topic in a kawaii pop style would be fun visual contrast

Information Sources: Stage Descriptions | Stage Descriptions 2 | Days Per Stage

if yall haven't seen it already, i super recommend this ongoing youtube series by the movie rabbit hole that unravels a lot of those instances where a movie claims to "have zero CGI". it really uplifts the knowledge that practical effects and CGI really go hand in hand, except that the CGI side is often left in the dust when it comes to acknowledging the work that goes into making these bombastic movies.

this is the first video, where he discusses multiple movies but mainly top gun maverick, one of said movies that claims it has no CGI.

the second video just came out, and focuses on christopher nolan movies, another set of movies that people claim have very little CGI.

in the future, i believe he also plans to cover the injustice that stunt performers often face, which is related to this topic. in pursuit of being able to say a movie "has no CGI whatsoever!" or that an actor "did all their own stunts!", you end up leaving out the CG artists and stunt performers, very important parts of the industry that are often hardly acknowledged while everyone goes nuts over how real and authentic the movie is. movies are a team effort! let's not leave anyone behind! especially not the people whom the movies literally could not be made without!

I was bored at work today and decided to make my d&d character Val and her family in this lovely picrew! I've always had an idea of what they all look like, but I thought it was high time I put it down somewhere solidly.

In order, top to bottom and left to right, we have:

Valtish Ankara-Hillcrest (my first and best girl, reluctant paladin of Fharlanghn, former sailor of the Tempest and professional shield of Fortune's Favor)

Mareen Ankara (Val's beloved mother, credited with almost all of her good looks, wandering do-gooder before Val ever picked up a sword)

Cairon Ankara-Hillcrest (Val's dad, family golden child gone family disappointment, graduate of Sendra's bard colleges, where Val got her chronic romantic streak)

Imren Hillcrest (local Cool Uncle, definitely not a member of a thieves guild, consistent family disappointment according to his dad and the one who gave Val her first knife)

Me when time and time again finally comes back from hiatus

nick caves red hand files are such an experience. like he'll really just say whatever on there no fucks given he does not care what people might think of his (admittedly kind of odd and problematic in places) opinions. but also people really will just ask him the weirdest stuff like??? why would you say that?? idk?? but then also you get stuff like

i cant think of a good caption man idk. collage. paint. traditional art. yay

AHHHHH following a fabulous Beta round, a shiny and improved draft of Voxalion Ilsair: Grave of Gods is ready to go to My Lovely Agent (MLA)

Liesmyth is with MLA and almost ready to go on subs

Somnus Sancti: The Sandman School for Insomniac Youth is well underway with 30K+ words of a first draft, and counting! My goal is to get it through a Beta round and off to MLA within the year.

Is this.... progress?????

Idk if this has been asked, but which Will Wood song do you think represents David Tennant?

ooooo ok i have never been asked this.

i can’t really assign one to david himself i don’t think but i will absolutely give a will wood song to every DT character i can think of

my autism is bursting at the seams at this question hehe when worlds collide

assigning every david tennant character (that i can think of) a will wood song. (with accompanying reasons varying in detail)

Campbell Bain - 2econd 2ight 2eer. in my head he’s a lot of others as well but primarily this one.

Tenth Doctor - Hand Me My Shovel. covers a lot of ground i think. i could’ve gone with a sadder one but i don’t think he’s openly miserable often enough for that.

Fourteenth Doctor - Cicada Days. (yes the doctors get separate ones leave me alone) this is my favourite song ever i didn’t think i was gonna include it here but actually i think it fits fourteen quite well.

Crowley - I/Me/Myself. the obvious choice is Laplace’s Angel but i reserved that one for Kilgrave. this one is kinder. this isn’t just because he’s all genderfluid it’s also because i think a lot of it could fit with his relationship to being a demon. there’s a lot of other options i think but i like this one best.

Kilgrave - Laplace’s Angel. come on. what else would he be. (although, Your Body My Temple is a tempting 2nd choice.)

Alec Hardy - Skeleton Appreciation Day (Bones). tougher decision but i think this one fits best.

Casanova - Chemical Overreaction. born to give him a whore song, forced to consider his other traits 😔. no but in all seriousness this one is giving Giacomo because of his eccentricity but also the actual story.

Phileas Fogg - Everything Is a Lot. tough choice again but mainly because i actually couldn’t think of any that fit right. the lingering on “all the moments you lost” works very well i think though.

Simon Yates - Cover This Song. easier than expected. i think Simon and Emily’s relationship and its past work pretty well with this.

sorry you probably only wanted one answer and i’ve given 9 but i had fun with this so tyvm :)

i've been making progress in infinite wealth this week and i got very happy seeing daigo again. so i made a bracelet

no therion's story doesn't only make sense if you do a solo run. i've seen this take multiple times and every time i'm completely baffled because No It Doesn't. not true. false. incorrect.

like okay this does require you to understand that the literal words a character says are not necessarily the truth, but therion's story and gameplay both make way more sense if you accept the fact that therion is not a loner and shouldn't be one.

let's start with the beginning! the FIRST scene you see of therion is him meeting darius at age 11, who he will spend the entire rest of his childhood with and implied some time into adulthood, so he has spent probably the majority of his career as a thief working in a team, which is also borne out in his gameplay, because thief is a support class.

don't argue with me i'm right. while you can run therion as a DPS, investing in attack over speed and evasion means that therion's frailty gets in the way, and he struggles to do damage on par with olberic/h'aanit/alfyn, and cyrus/tressa do way more elemental damage than he does. however, if you instead spec him for support, share SP becomes the most insane skill in the game. a speedy therion can debuff a boss into oblivion before they have a chance to do much before stealing enough SP to let olberic fire off three divine skills without needing a refill. dancer therion is worth doubling up on weapons because his speed and evasion means that he can buff allies quickly and a dancer/thief is the only combo that will regularly dodge attacks before the late game.

therion's skills primarily revolve around giving allies openings to more easily take down enemies(i mean for balancing reasons but play with me in this space) because that's the job he had when he worked with darius. he's not an especially skilled combatant on his own because he didn't need to be, his job was to pin foes down so darius could spam sweep.

additionally, while i hate this decision badly, therion's percentages are fixed so that every chapter past the first has a necessary skill check that's very difficult to pass without either a glean info character and a KO NPC character(why did they do base 3% brigand leader's garb to him.), again because he's used to having someone else deal with gathering information and doing the majority of the fighting for him. he's not terrible at getting info out of people, but he's also not great at it, for example he just goes along with barham's scheme instead of finding a way to threaten or coerce him into revealing the info right away. like basically all of his plans would've failed if the guards or his informant had just said No and refused to help him as opposed to cyrus who responds to being told no by finding out that his informant's daughter died in order to manipulate them into coughing up the info he wants. therion might be capable of manipulation beyond basic impersonation or pretending to be friendly, but if he is we don't see it.

therion in general is also a very passive character if you look past his words at his actual actions. he resists for about two seconds when heathcote cuffs him before following their orders for the rest of the story even when he's uncuffed in chapter 2 when he's still not a huge fan of the ravuses. he again goes along with barham even when he's almost certain he's being fucked with. he is almost always either acting on someone else's orders or defending himself from someone else's attacks. the reason for this is best illustrated in one of the cutscenes with darius where it's made pretty clear that for the majority of their partnership, he kept therion dependent on him to make decisions, and because that started when he was relatively young it's likely that therion just doesn't have that strong of an instinct for advocating for himself or firmly saying no to people twisting his arm(he asks darius a question once and gets thrown off a cliff for it, implying he was even more obedient before that). he can say no once, but we have no idea if he would've given in to the bandits at the beginning if they hadn't responded to his initial no by attacking him, so it does actually make perfect sense that any of the stronger-willed travelers could just respond to that no by saying they weren't asking and dragging him along. he's prickly and verbally hostile, but that mostly seems like a defense mechanism because otherwise he's easier to coerce than ophilia. i get that this seems like i'm trying to infantilize therion but that's really not my intention, in fact that takes the Therion Doesn't Kill People point i made awhile back reflect less on his being a secretly good person and more being too passive to feel the need to finish the job and generally makes him more morally ambiguous because it's less clear what decisions he makes due to personal growth and what he makes due to inertia. is he a good person, or is he just too tired to be a bad person? ideally the story would actually go somewhere with that theme but it wouldn't be octopath if they didn't periodically drop the most insane writing that rewires my brain before either doing nothing with it or actively ruining it.

also, therion's story gets way stronger if he's in a party, because while cordelia and heathcote are (TREATED AS) the reason he learns to trust again, in-story they spend, what, one hour together maybe? cordy and heathcote are his bosses and the most either of them do cordelia using her empath powers to deduce that therion looks sad or heathcote telling him that he's the real asshole for being mad that he's being blackmailed. they're also canonically lying to him when they say they don't know what the dragonstones are, so even at the end of the story they don't really trust him(i wont spend too much time complaining abt them i just don't think you get to be a savior character if the town you own has a ghetto). on the other hand, if you do his story with a party the travel banters all make some attempt at showing therion slowly coming to trust and rely on them despite initial friction, and in gameplay therion acting as a support expresses the theme of him realizing that he actually can work in a team where his allies have his back and there are people he can trust. in that instance his final conversation with darius includes him talking about his companions, because to be here at all they have accepted him after seeing him at his worst and helped him despite it, and who he's been able to help in turn. if you're doing a therion solo run he's just talking about how his boss who's blackmailing him for free labor said he looked sad one time, which is a pretty weak climax if we're going to be real. i stand by saying that octopath works best when it's episodic and stories shouldn't rely on specific characters to work, but genuinely i do think therion's story's themes being expressed strongly in gameplay and the nature of rpgs with a party system are quite cool and my favorite thing about his story.

so it specifically annoys me when people are like "oh well he limply says no before letting you continue to drag him around" like it's a plot hole and not a character trait especially when therion's being a prickly asshole who is also a complete doormat is i think very interesting characterization!!!! ophilia commenting on the fact that therion has no instinct for revenge and therion says "yeah what's the point" makes me so normal.

ALSO why's therion the poster boy for "hey this character's story doesn't make sense with their gameplay" when primrose exists???? why it so contradictory a character whose story is about them learning to trust in their companions again to be in a party while a character who starts off by telling you to fuck off and leave her alone because this is her fight before heel-turning for no reason and then just continuing to be your ally with no justification is totally fine. also why is primrose a support class???? she's not a dancer she's an assassin she doesn't support anyone in her story and her character is about her singleminded and specific familial revenge. she's also a very strongwilled character so it makes no sense that she wouldn't just say no and mean it. i know the answer is that octopath doesn't like women so primrose just got slapped into a princess jasmine costume and femme fatale character before any of her story was actually developed but like oh my goddddddd. primrose girl im so sorry they put you in the nightmare hell dimension.