#anyways examples i have been thinking of (mostly animation or videos)

[ratsonass]

i prefer amateur art with its mistakes and rough spots so much over overpolished professional art. if something's created perfectly i tune out the effort it takes to make it perfect. but if somethings created poorly, on purpose or on accident, it draws me in so much more because i can conceptualize the creative process more easily

[thewertsearch]

Ask Comp 09/06

Anonymous asked: Now that you're so far in, I urge you to check out Ichellor's 3D Homestuck animations! They're super cool, though you may need to be cautious. They're mostly at and prior to cascade, but you can't be too careful.

(All of these were made after Homestuck finished, so many still contain spoilers. Their first video is definitely safe, though. -V)

It's an excellent piece of work, and a great taste of what's to come. I've also watched their Cascade animation - although, according to Vamp, it does contain some subtle spoilers that I missed.

I've been able to check out a lot of the earlier Ichellor videos, but I'm probably going to have to wait a while before I can see their full body of work. Looking forward to it, though.

@mrjocrafter asked: so in literally act 1 rose tries to prototype the tier-1 harlequinsprite with a box of betty crocker cake mix. like imagine if it actually went in. what a doomed timeline that would've been. there's a MSPFA called Nepetaquest 2022 that deals with exactly this. it's peak

That does sound peak. Is the implication that the Sprite would turn into some iteration of the Condesce? I think that's more than the kids could handle, unless Rose had already gone Grimdark.

@manorinthewoods submitted:

The Star Wars example is one that many people already know, but Discworld is also a great shout here. You can easily tell that Pratchett is a sci-fi nerd, through-and-through - and, despite their aesthetics, the Discworld novels have as much fantasy in them as your average Monty Python production.

@adorable-animus asked: just to nitpick, but in an earlier post you said that aradia and equius were together due to mind controlled aradiabot and- you are semi right? equius wanted to be FLUSHED, but the control chip was completely shattered, and aradia instead felt PITCH. i get where youre coming from, but i just wanted to point out that facet of the relationship.

I'm pretty sure they were both - or, at least, they were described as both in the infamous quadrant infodump. Granted, I don't know if this animation necessarily means that both parties are experiencing both quadrants, or if it just means that things are complicated.

And, oddly enough, I don't think Aradia stayed with Equius due to the mind-control chip. That was definitely his intention, but the chip was immediately destroyed, and she kissed him anyway - implying, I guess, that she did have a genuine thing for him, as unlikely as that seems.

...I don't even know, girls. This was a weird one, even for Hivebent.

@mrjocrafter asked: Not sure if you know or have been told this but the reason Kanaya wields a chainsaw Well, Google "why chainsaws were invented"

For a member of a species without mothers, Kanaya sure is drowning in motherhood symbolism, isn't she?

@walkerbehindyou asked: One day, may you be introduced to the fanwork that was Marchingstuck/Promstuck

Apparently, Promstuck still contains some spoilers, and I'd like to experience these two as a unit. Hopefully soon, though!

@count100 asked: I submitted an ask a while back and got a notification saying I was mentioned in an ask comp, but I didn't actually see my ask. In case it was lost: I never really considered just how much it took to make the trolls into monsters, I LOVE your analysis about that. Alongside the factors you discussed, It's possible that the "dreams of blood and carnage" that haunt the trolls originate from Gl'bgolyb, given it is a gift from Doc Scratch.

I'm pretty sure I remember that ask! Sorry it didn't get a response -and yes, it's honestly a little heartwarming to realize just how much the trolls resisted Scratch's corruption.

I could have sworn I answered it, actually, but I can't seem to find it anywhere in this year's ask compilations. It's possible I accidentally deleted it while editing the post, because deleted tags will actually still notify the blog in question when the draft is posted. Tumblr, eh?

@mrjocrafter asked: this is classic old homestuck fandom nonsense from 2011

I'm losing it at the implication that 'Vriska' is an allegory for some real-world political ideology which shares her name.

This is great, anyway. Can you imagine an analogous post being made about today's political climate?

@the-jaffster-official asked: On the subject of Dirk Gently, as someone who read the book and watched all of the show, they have almost nothing in common besides a character named Dirk Gently. However, the show still feels VERY Douglas Adams, especially in the first season. Worth a watch.

Noted. I have been looking for a new show to binge...

Anonymous asked: Damn, you do not trust Gamzee at all.

Well, no! Jesus, would you?

@pineapple-temporarily-moving asked: "ricky schrodinger" was terezi misremembering the name of ricky schroder! @likelyvampirical asked: Ricky Schrödinger is a pun on Ricky Shroder, child star in the 80s sitcom Silver Spoons, which Terezi used to make the gifs featured on pages 2779-2782. This is what Terezi is referencing during the coin incident on page 3097. @morganwick asked: I think "Ricky Schrodinger" was originally a pun on "Ricky Schroder", who was the star of the sitcom Silver Spoons, which Terezi used for some GIFs she sent to Dave. @sanctferum asked: Ricky Schrodinger is a reference to Ricky Schroder, a child actor from the 80s. Terezi defaced gifs of him during that conversation back in Act 4 I think? It's just his name combined with Erwin Schrödinger's name. As for Davesprite, he could already talk out loud on screen via Spritelogs Anonymous asked: Ricky Shcrodinger is a combination of presumably Ricky Schroder (I have no idea who that is, but I believe Dave mentioned him before) and Schrodinger's Cat. Anonymous asked: Ricky Schrödinger is a pun on Ricky Schroder @weltinator asked: Ricky Schrodinger is a reference to Erwin Schrodinger and Ricky Schroder. Former is known for possibly having a cat, latter is known for starring in Silver Spoons, which is the source of the gifs used in Dave and Terezi's MOTH3RFUCK1NG D4NC3 P4RTY.

Also featuring Alfonso Ribeiro (who was later Carlton in the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air) @semusepsu asked: If you are still wondering about the Ricky Schrodinger joke, I'm pretty sure it's a reference to Ricky Schroder, an American child star from the 70s who starred in a film called 'Little Lord Fauntleroy'. He looks more than a little like Dave in some pictures from that era.

Hell fucking yes.

This is the kind of reference humor that is quite hard to search for on the Collection. Ricky Schrodinger is a pun, not a real name, so it wouldn't have given me any connections to this dance party - and besides, they never actually said Schroder's name in that conversation, so even that wouldn't have worked.

To catch some of these references, you really do need helpful askers. Thank you for your service. o7

@herestoanotherweirdo asked: "ARADIA: i guess ive spent enough time here that i just dont see death as the terrible thing the living make it out to be" i've read this line as like. not just spending a bunch of time in the bubbles, but also having literally been dead herself for a not-insubstantial amount of time!

Oh, that's true, isn't it?

I don't think Ghostradia was ever in the Dream Bubbles herself, but it is true that her months as a wandering spirit would give her a different perspective on death.

Most obviously, it would show her that it's not actually the end of existence in this reality; despite what the living believe, death doesn't obliterate your soul, so it's really not as tragic as everyone thinks.

@liliflower137 asked: The more I reread the more i love karkat He's just such a spicy kitten type of guy. I wanna pick him up and give him a hug and tell him he's going to be safe But he'd definitely bite me and given how dangerous bites from humans can be I think I would probably get all kinds of infections He's just... really a sweet kid underneath it all. He's just scared, so he has to be angry instead. Reminds me a lot of Sanji from one piece :) At least, the parts of him I like haha

I actually think Karkat would fit in pretty well in the world of One Piece. He has exactly the right kind of personality to form and mobilize a crew, and I genuinely believe he has enough determination to manifest Haki.

@liliflower137 asked: I wonder if perhaps Hussie ever read one piece, because the way navigating the furthest ring sounds, it reminds me just a little of the grand line But then again its also just sort of a logical way for a place devoid of time and space to behave, I just really like one piece I wonder if you could get a hyper modified log pose to work out there...

Speaking of One Piece, I've really got to get back to it. I started the manga during the liveblog, and I'm currently most of the way through the Dressrosa arc.

I've been loving the series, but god damn, is it a serious marathon.

Anonymous asked: You're aware that the author for the locked tomb was a Homestuck fic writer, right?

Absolutely. The Serendipity Gospels is probably the fanfiction I'm most excited to actually read - that, and Sburb Glitch FAQ!

Anonymous asked: That scene when Gamzee tells Karkat to settle down is why they’re my favorite ♦️ ship Because in all the others we’ve seen it’s very onesided, with one party needing to placate the violent impulses of another But for them it’s like Karkat says! He stops gamzee from killing everybody and gamzee in return helps him calm down.

It is very funny to me that Gamzee's actually contributing to the moirallegence - for now, at least.

Slightly hypocritical, Makara, but you do you.

@drakethedeep asked: One of the benefits of the Homestuck quadrant system, arbitrary as it is, is that it allows for more platonic and romantic shipping. For example, Karkat<>Kanaya is a fairly decent morail ship, because a) the relationship of their ancestors makes it poetic cosmic symmetry, and b) both of them have a tendency of trying to be the responsible ones amidst their friend groups, and a lot of their interpersonal struggles are very similar.

Plus, one's a Blood Player, and one's a vampire, so we even have thematic synergy!

@liliflower137 asked: I think a lot about your assignment for Fedorafreak as a hope player It really really makes me smile, and I will hold onto it forever

He even references hope directly! Come on, Hussie, the guy deserves better than Piss.

Anonymous asked: so, your theory about karkat weaponizing teamwork and leadership- what do you think about his and gamzee's relationship in that light?

I suppose you could say that if Karkat is able to gain Sober!Gamzee's loyalty, then the group would gain a powerful ally - and consequently, Karkat's team would gain a powerful 'weapon'.

That said, I don't currently think it's possible for Karkat or anyone else to win Gamzee's loyalty. Right now, he's only loyal to Cal.

@duorogue asked: i just looked up your name in some DMs i have - it's with someone who's read homestuck, and I like to point out specific times you've made remarkably good or bad predictions, or figured something out really well, and just realized that the first time you were mentioned in those DMs was october 20th, 2022. five months off three years of following this, and yknow? time well spent

It was time well spent - for me, too. Here's to another three years, I say!

@liliflower137 asked: I've passed you in my personal reread and I keep getting to interesting conversations and lore dumps and going "oh Sally is going to LOVE this!!"

I hope you're right, and it's good to hear there are many loredumps in my future!

@morganwick asked: "#(also. does this mean mind ≈ choices/decisions? because seers 'know' their aspect and terezi can see people's possible decisions?) #(or does mind ≈ 'outcomes'‚ whatever that means?)" I think if you de-purple prose what Rose says it's not really inconsistent with what Terezi has said about her own aspect in the past, same with what Aradia says. Terezi has talked before, and in the confrontation with Vriska demonstrated, how she can trace the decisions people make and the thoughts they have inevitably lead to certain "outcomes". As for "knowing her aspect comprehensively", Terezi has talked about reality being something that people "4R3 M4K1NG 3V3RY MOM3NT W1TH 3V3RY THOUGHT", so at least to her, understanding people's minds means understanding reality, or at least one Aspect of it, and how to extrapolate from what's in people's Minds. (Also, does the link to "my own interpretation of her powers" go to the wrong place? I don't see anything in the linked post that relates to Rose's powers...)

I suppose Terezi's abilities could indeed be themed around sensing outcomes, rather than decisions, as I previously theorized - or, it could also represent some abstract 'Mind' idea with ties to both. With only one Mind Player to analyze, it's hard to say anything definitively.

Also - yeah, I fucked up that link. Will fix it once I get this comp out!

@relaxxattack asked: AAAAAAAAAA YOU FINALLY FIGURED OUT THE BLOOD THINGG!!!! karkat’s powers are quite literally the friends he made along the way… you can see the blood aspect appear in the panel where karkat befriends slick and adds him to their party! karkat’s powers have always been about whether or not he can forge meaningful connections between people to prevent tragedy… or at least, this has been the popular fan understanding now it might make more sense how the troll session might have “lacked blood” as that other ask theorized :)

They're literally blood brothers - and a handshake is also pretty decent shorthand for what I think Blood's all about.

Mind you, I'm not sure if the troll session did lack this interpretation of Blood. Hivebent seemed to imply that the trolls were, in fact, an extremely effective team, all thanks to Karkat's leadership - and the trolls have forged plenty of meaningful relationships across their group, too. If Blood represents strong relationships, then the trolls have Blood in spades, as well as hearts, clubs, and diamonds.

@baeddel asked: Your interpretation of blood definitely seems correct to me! I think blood and breath are a pair, where blood is leadership and bonds while breath is freedom and individuality

I was thinking that those two might be related, since they're both biological functions. Blood might also be in a dyad with Heart, since they're both aspects of the circulatory system.

After all, Nepeta's a shipper who loves relationships, and that seems adjacent to the 'teamwork/bonds' theming that characterizes Blood.

@manorinthewoods asked: I think Dave and Rose are an 'unbeatable combination' because Rose has a very powerful ability to navigate the present and future to ensure optimal outcomes, and Dave (being a time traveler) has a very powerful ability to actually enact what Rose needs done. Rose, after all, is a squishy wizard - and one wouldn't imagine Seers have any physical *or* magic damage. ~LOSS (22/5/25)

Good interpretation. I suppose Dave is technically one of the more 'durable' God Tiers around, since his time duplicates can't die in the Alpha Timeline until they've fulfilled all their loops.

Anonymous asked: I'm not familiar with Worm, so Contessa wasn't my first thought re: Rose's new power, but I did think of Sagume Kishin from Touhou, whose power is kind of similar to the Contessa example but in reverse: "When she speaks about a particular situation or event, that situation will eventually proceed to reverse itself, through whatever means possible. If she speaks about an attempt to achieve a goal, it will fail in some way. If she speaks about something bad occurring, it will be resolved in some way. [...] Note that it is the situation or the event she talks about that will be reversed in some manner; it is not that the opposite of what she says must occur."

I like this power a lot. Touhou seems to have a lot of really clever powers - which is weird, because I always thought it was a mostly plotless bullet-hell game. I guess there are tie-in materials?

I've really got to play Touhou sometime, but there are so many games, and I have no idea where to start.

@clueless-rarito asked: I remember I once come up with a characters with a power very similar to this "path of victory" stuff by pure coincidence. He was able to see "the realm of fortunes" a ethereal plane where one could discern the chance of success or the possible outcomes of any one actions. By completely shutting down his own mind and giving it to the "the will of fortune" his body would automatically lead him and carry any action needed to guaranteed the most favorable outcome for himself in any given scenario.

Nice. These abilities are sort of the ultimate expression of a 'luck-based' power - a power that guarantees the most optimal outcome possible. Now that Rose has a similar ability, she's finally thematically cohesive with Vriska!

@catofulthar000 asked: There are SO MANY classpect things (and other things) I desperately want to theory swap about with you because you are picking out SO MANY delicious classpecty details (and other things) but not always quite connecting them to classpects- BUT I am: A) not caught up with your live blog on account of being busy with doctorate degree stuff and trying to be responsible by not getting totally sucked into Homestuck stuff again (failing) so I have no idea if FWS (FUTUREwertSearch) actually HAS connected the dots (or some dots) already so I, PUC (PASTultharianCat), would just be saying redundant stuff to you B) not sure if pointing out things that you're pointing out are maybe or maybe not linked to things that might be solidified later even if they're being hinted at throughout- or might just be linked to wider collaborative aggregations of themes and patterns- would be too spoilery... [EXAMPLES THAT MAY OR MAY NOT REQUIRE REDACTION BY CAT (yours) OR BE REDUNDANT TO FWS] Like Time being strongly linked to the concept of Death and all time players having an affinity for it (archaeologist/necromancer Aradia, Dave's oft overlooked hobby of collecting preserved dead things (and less death related but his photography enjoyment could also be seen as him preserving moments in Time)) or [REDACTED] or [REDACTED] And basically that one thing you said about Sburb's Aspects maybe also being linked to authorial elements (or perhaps, I might nudge your thinking, metatextual narrative elements?) and oh my gosh I have SO MUCH I want to posit theorywise to you about that because you point out so much good stuff and just sdfalskjdfhakg;kskjfasdfhlkajsdfrrrraaugh! [END REDACTIONS MAYBE PROBABLY] (I'll say this much, both redactions above are meta interpretations of an aspect, but I'll give you an opportunity to come up with them yourself. -Vamp) Anyway there is just a lot I want to say, and a lot of idea threads you have made I want to tie into other thoughts, or perhaps cables you have laid that I want to plug in to other extension cords, and I have been trying to bite my tongue at least until I catch up but I have still added some replies to old posts of yours that I'm not sure you will ever see- tbh idk how popular you may have gotten or how many asks you get now or if you can even realistically reply to all of the ones that you get but I guess what I'm getting at is that you make me so excited about all of the really complex interwoven stuff in Homestuck and I really want to talk to you about it. Also you're very cool and smart and thank you for sharing this liveblog it is excellent. -PUC

If Time is death-themed, though, then where does that leave Doom? Because Sollux's arc was saturated with themes of death, and I've always assumed that was because of his Aspect.

Anyways, thank you for the kind words! I'm still doing my best to reply to the majority of asks, so if you do want to talk Homestuck, my ask box is always open - and as for your replies, I'll be checking out all the blog's replies at the end of the liveblog.

Anonymous asked: does john have the context to be making that joke on purpose, though? iirc, the only time it's come up for him, vriska opted Not to tell him what it Actually means, instead just saying All cleaning products are Vaguely Taboo. funny either way

There's no definitive answer - but personally, I think that John was at least able to pick up that buckets were an innuendo in troll culture.

When it comes to pranks, our boy's got a killer instinct - so I think his specific reference to the bucket's 'heartfelt payload' was just a very lucky shot.

@sanctferum asked: watch Karkat's mental breakdown again. Particularly the end of it. There might be a special little secret hidden in there to perchance click upon...

The inner mechanisms of Hussie's mind are an enigma.

@dopplesgryndthloggle submitted: Here u go

https://www.tumblr.com/aerofarce9/91930492500/got-bored-so-i-got-on-google-and-made-this?source=share (og post)

@wickedsick submitted: A handy rOWOse for whatever you may need it for

Hell yeah. I knew y'all would come through!

[batcrooks]

THE BATCROOKS AWARDS 2024

After keeping meticulous notes on every Media Property™ I consumed in 2024, here is my roundup of the BESTS!! It should probably be one thing per category but I couldn't decide so it's lots actually. And I broke down video games into so many categories because I play a lot of video games!!!

Best Movie I Watched for the First Time in 2024 (Live Action and Animated Categories)

What I wrote about them: Parasite - sooo good so tense and dark and funny? Isle of Dogs - what a DELIGHT. it was so fun to watch this film, i didn't want it to end. the animation was so good. the logistics behind the making of this movie are simply unbelievable. i can't believe this isn't a more beloved film.

Best TV Show I Watched in 2024 (Broadcast and Internet Categories)

What I wrote about them: Severance - SOO GOOD what a FUN SHOW. it has all the good tenseness of a thriller but it's also so funny in its absurdity. i must know more!! the work is mysterious and important Game Changer (season 6) - this season is very high concept. there have been some very funny ones and a couple eh. Sam Says 3 and the one where they had to find the buzzers were both top 5 episodes

Best Video Game (Multiplayer)

What I wrote about them: V Rising - VAMPIRES!! i loved this game for its tight and unwavering focus on being about vampires. you could build a house but it was always, always a vampire house. you can have a horse but it is a vampire horse. incredible. pretty cool combat and magical spells, some questionable level-up mechanics. mostly fun boss fights almost completely ruined by the final Dracula fight being so so overpowered. really enjoyed this one thanks Abiotic Factor - this has been a very cool survival crafting game, maybe one of the best. it reminds me of a lot of different games. mechanically it feels a bit like Raft, in that it has very unique setting and base building and a narrative thread and handcrafted things to explore. of course it has all the half life vibes but also way more SCP stuff than i would have expected and that's great because it is always fun. as of writing we are doing the reservoir section, which has been a lot more stressful than previous sections, but i think we'll probably get through it alright. with only a few exceptions (how long it took to unlock food recipes for example), the progression of craftables has been good. for the mostpart, resources haven't been very annoying to obtain (other than silver and carbon). the vibes are just so good throughout and so many things have been delightful. since it is early access, i'm not going to knock a star off for the Issues. it is an optimistic five stars. about 52 hours and we have completed all the early access. genuinely sad to stop playing it so i guess it was good!! the last chapter was a bit stressful but it was fun how many new gadgets we got to play with for a little while there. anyway it is now tied with v rising for best multiplayering of 2024

(have a lot to say about video games)

Best Video Game (Cat Plays) (Games I Played With an Audience) (Of Sourdeer)

What I wrote about them: The Roottrees are Dead - so good, better than Hand With Many Fingers. hope more games like this keep existing. the amount of info you got to trawl through was so fun. honestly considering replaying it when the steam remake comes out someday, which seems crazy for a mystery game but there was so much i doubt i'll remember everything. Lorelei and the Laser Eyes - a little heavy on the kind of arbitrary spookiness? I dunno how to explain it but it just often feels like games are spooky Just Because sometimes. The same as feeling like this and other games try to tackle high brow stuff Just Because. and the control scheme is WHACK lol. if it just had a "back out" button it would be fine tho. but this is another game that has made me feel so clever very often. it helps to play with multiple people contributing to the tricksy puzzles. It does seem to be a very meta video game which would be fine but it actually doesn't seem relevant to anything? The instruction booklet, the gameboy game of the maze, the ps1 games, the implication that the video game we are playing right now is also licensed in universe. It's INTERESTING but what does it have to do with the auteur filmmaker and the death of materialism and whatever they go on about all the time. But I'm really liking it so far. A good variety of puzzlers and lots to look into, have only felt stuck a few times. Comically long to-do list though. Could have maybe used more elegant level design? Only deal with one floor at a time maybe? Or at least less. But maybe having so many floating mysteries is part of the vibe actually. in the end i think it is firmly in the second tier of plays game, Very Good with a few flaws. most appreciated for being a rather long puzzle game. more of those please

Best Video Game (Sour Plays) (Games Sourdeer Played With an Audience) (Of me)

What I wrote about them: Hypnospace Outlaw - watched sour play. what a WEIRD THING!!! it was so finely crafted which is funny to say about something so absurd, but they really didn't skimp on anything in this. it really rewards exploring everything, and while i feel like it was maybe a little too loose i think there was just enough guidance with the cases to get you through the story that was happening. very chaotic The Rise of the Golden Idol - while i think overall it is not as good as the first one, i think that is mostly just because the first one was a brand new thing that shocked and awed us. the art style was a bit of a downgrade but still had the expected Vibes and the mysteries were just as satisfying to put together (if not as Cool thematically). i'm very glad to have future installments to look forward to. i can't even rate it a star lower because the gameplay is so good. i love golden idol. I.D.O.L.

Best Video Game (Singleplayer)

What I wrote about them: Dredge - really good!! addictive. 100%'d it Arco - i really liked it!! it was like a combo of West of Loathing and Chroma Squad gameplay-wise. it was really good stories and characters i liked them a lot. the pixels were so cute. i accidentally devoured the whole thing (about 13 hours) so fast but i think theres some replayability there sometime. make a few different choices and see what happens. Animal Well - a DELIGHT!! this game had moments where you felt soooo clever but it did also have some times that were a little hard or fiddly. i loved how it had no (very little) music but so much atmosphere. it was very pretty to look at. the backtracking could be annoying sometimes. but i like that it explained nothing and you could still figure out so much. i've gotten to the credits now as of writing (7.5 hours) but i know there's probably a lot hidden around i will try to find some. i see you smiley faces. i just have to remember how to get back to you. 10 hours later: i have gotten all the achievements which is 100%. to me. sourdeer had to help me get the last ten eggs but i think that overall it was a good difficulty throughout. if you dont try to do the rabbits and all the stuff sour is telling me about that is after even the second credits. so a Nice Game, Brent (Billy Basso)

Best Book I Read for the First Time in 2024

What I wrote about them: Children of Time - considering making this a top ten book. i really liked this one. (editor's note: there are diminishing returns on the sequels. The first one is so fun and innovative, but I don't recommend them past that. The second one is OK) Return of the Thief - yaay a satisfying ending :) it was really bold to introduce an entirely new character to be the POV for the last book in a series but it worked out really well i thought. a good character. everything all tied up in the end :) sad to finish, these were a lot of fun. it is sad that not a single one of these had a female POV. Eddis and Attolia were great but compared to the towering amount of male characters it doesn't seem great. but it is forgiveable. finally someone was gay in this one. so that's nice lol. (editor's note: i read this entire series for the first time this year and have chosen the final as the representative.) Assassin's Quest - Oh ok we are serious now!!! Actually fundamentally a bit less serious because there are dragons now but it made it work. Ended really bittersweet and if I didn't know the characters will return someday I would have been pretty thoroughly bummed out about it. Excellent fun book really elevated the other two. Fantasy books really get you drinking the divine right of kings koolaid. Will start on the next trilogy now, have no idea what to expect from it except that it isn't about any of these characters afaik but same world. It has been a real treat to stumble on to long completed series this year. (editors note: final book to a trilogy)

And that's it!! If you want to see every media I consumed this year and my star ratings and comments about them, here's a link to them! (It's a spreadsheet)

[transflynnscifo]

im sure its been talked about already but what i particularly love abt isat is the way it incorporates culture and language with one's sense of identity. theres honestly a LOT i could say on that matter mostly because i take interest in depictions of fictional languages (even if they are not directly shown to the player) but i think ill hold back from going full-rogue with those thoughts now. i think its so fun to see a fantasy video game that indicates the existence of more than 1-2 languages (where in some cases the second language is some ancient one too) it feels extremely refreshing to be directly told there are multiple languages, as well as acknowledging the existence of accents!

from what i understood while playing, everyone shown in game is speaking in vaugardian. there exist dialects of it, given mirabelle and isabeau's accents differ from bonnies. in turn, this confirms to us that odile and siffrin are bi/multilingual. and i dont know, but the way talks of language and accents was presented in dialogue made me feel really excited because its just something that was treated so casually in the text. again its not often you encounter this stuff in video game stories! not to mention pulling this off without even needing to invent a fictional language to show the players!

and of course my favorite aspect of this is the way language affects siffrin in particular. (spoilers & some speculation under cut)

i dont think i need to go into detail how the disappearance of their country affected siffrin. however, the loss of language is the aspect that especially grabs me because there is an implication that the party, and siffrin especially, are not aware of.

you know how they forget words sometimes? his native language got deleted from his memory, so this means he would have trouble working words out together. thats mostly because ppl generally think in one language without being aware of it.

and even if siffrin picked up on vaugardian quickly, keep in mind that they would probably never know vaguardian the same way they knew their native language. and that's because i think his brain unconsciously is still "thinking" in the forgotten language. for example, if you cant recall the word for "stuffed animal" in your native language, what are the chances of remembering it in your second language, which you had to pick up on in the wake of being alone and with no memory of your home? it's actually notable when you try to interact with certain objects in the pottery room in act 5, for example! (does not help that they are also having a really bad time)

sif's case is unique as a bilingual speaker, so i sadly dont feel equipped talking more on it. however, i want to specify that i dont think the loss of language is the ONLY factor contributing to sif's memory problems. moreso that its one of the multiple ingredients that got added in his brain as a result of the country being deleted, essentially

anyway dunno how much this makes sense! ive been awake for a while so sorry if ive phrased myself badly at certain places lol

[nishnormp]

thinking way too hard about things that probably do not need this much thought

In lieu of tfc merc brainrot, I have decided to do some historical research and character workshopping to shape out the details of everything needed in ficwriting. I have nothing else to post (my art is not going well) so I might as well scream about this

P1: TF2 alternate history bullshit

Abraham Lincoln inventing rocket jumping before the existence of stairs, the entire thing with Australium, so on. Despite TFC having modern kevlar (as opposed to looney toons weapons, but a bit about that later) and a more serious/gritty tone, the setting is still within the TF2 universe; which means having a weird fusion of irl history and vaguely reasonable fantasy absurdities.

To clarify, I am not a bona fide history nut who knows absolutely everything (ffs my own country's history doesn't even play much in western incidents). I've just been doing research thru online articles, videos, and talking to other ppl who know more than me, so my brain can lack a bit for certain things; do correct me if I get anything wrong.

By the 1850s (estimation) Australia became a tech giant due to discovering Australium, making insane progress in basically every field (and also making their population very jacked). Newfound inventions also require raw resources, and this page confirms that australians pick their leader mostly based on pure strength, which begs the question; are they still connected to Britain? Would there still be a benefit for them to be linked to Britian the way they are?

There are many cases where nations plunder other nations just for natural resources; Britian is one particularly infamous force with many colonies, which makes me wonder if Australia ever resorted to snatching them just to afford all the material components that their tech requires. Australia was part of the British Empire up until 1901 irl (not too far from 1890), but the question about resources and sovereignty(even if symbolic) still remain (Britain likely wouldn't like a territory growing at terrifying and eventually unmanageable rates, and at that rate I doubt Australia would settle for middling trade margins)

(Well, apparently Saxton owns England. But that was when he discovered the internet)

There's also the ensemble of first gen mercs. RED and BLU recruit progressively less important mercs as time goes on, starting from important historical/media figures, to modern militant professional-lookin dudes, and finally to the current crop of crackheaded TF2 mercs we know and love. The Original mercs I mostly want to focus on are Abraham Lincoln and John Henry.

I'm not exactly sure if John Henry is even a real person, but he was a symbol for labor movements and the civil rights movement; the fact that he IS a real person in TF2 lore is p vital methinks, especially since him and Lincoln seem to be on the same team. Mercs are paid a lot, even the "bottom of the barrel" tf2 ones: scout has his merch collection to show for it, medic has his exotic animal parts, heavy has his gun ammo (and also casually gave a child 7k dollars), etc; could John Henry have spearheaded civil rights movements not just in America but also other territories (like africa) with the bread and merits he got for the job? Does he have a legacy with rouge merc groups (armed unions?) that fight against imperialism? Maybe even effect/radicalize Lincoln about some things??? Unethical business practices still persist even in Saxton's era (hell, he's an example) but maybe the (hypothetical) challenges to Britain's grasp on its colonies and evolution of munitions would give the people an edge.

I have no idea how a drastically colony-less Britain would affect the timeline of WW1 (esp in less popular side-wars like in South Africa where Britain was very much involved, which may be problematic since my interp of cmedic is FROM there but anyways) (btw they only won that bc they out-attritioned Germany, but by that point maybe the dutch or the americans would take over), but surprisingly enough WW2 ends at around the same time it does irl, despite my initial thought that a roided-out Allied Australia would be more than capable of turning the Axis Powers into a skidmark. The likely explanation for that is that the finer details were just not important for the tf2 comics that took place AFTER (fair enough), but as someone planning to write the 1930s mercs . Pain . My working explanation is that seemingly unaligned private contractors can get ahold of weapons easier than Certain governments, which makes mercs more popular than national soldiers for carrying out certain missions (plausible employer deniability baybeeee).

P2: Conflicting class meta - CHeavy edition

Onto something less heavy, another part of ficwriting is figuring out how characters are...characterized. The TFC mercs dont have much canonical info (I've already turned two of them into straight up ocs because I am NOT going to write p3dos from start to finish of a longfic) so I settle for looking at other things, like gameplay and ingame roles.

The first I focused on was cheavy, the leader of the group. Grouchy, but a surprisingly tolerant team player.

This IS reused from a previous post (im lazy) but the first bullet basically says "otherwise, offensive heavies are frequently looked down on and the power of the other team's defense will have you dead in no time". Gameplay-wise, CHeavy is considered the simplest class and the easiest one to master; most tfc gamers think its a common noob pick. His total health is pretty good, he occupies a big space so he can block narrow paths, and the way he attacks is simple; but he's slow even when b-hopping (grenades cant boost him either) so he can be outrun/picked apart by other classes, which really shows in tfc's most popular game format: capture the flag.

I've seen about a handful video of tfc gameplay that WASN'T ctf (or the slightly diff gamemode with a defense system), and even if the 4th bullet point is right, those two classes are usually doing more important things during ctf. My main point is that despite being the leader, he isn't the type of class to lead the charge.

The most reasonable thing I can think of is that he's just . Really good at strategy and can keep track of his team while reliably holding down a position. That, and his superior bulk makes him shine more outside of the gravel pits. Whatever it is, it does make more sense to me now that I revisit the comic panels where he is VERY spiteful that his teammates got killed (rather than calling them weak, they fr matter to him bc otherwise, he isn't getting shit done)

(Ik the reason hes the boss is bc big scary dude and karmic ass-handing via other heavy who actually respects his doctor but shh the fic demands reasons)

P3: Conflicting class meta - Cmedic edition

The contradiction I can immediately clock is the fact that cmedic never gets mentioned despite his omnipresence in his original game. Most hc's I've seen interpret him as the exact opposite of the current medic, which is a dedicated doctor who also happens to be a sweetheart (with very rare exceptions), but may I propose the theory that all mannco medic mercs are bastards? I'm 99% sure that the original medic was sigmund freud. TF2 medic is just a menace. Post WW1 most moral and noble medics would bust their asses at hospitals rather than sign up to a contract tying them down to just healing 8 other people and killing other people over and over, but that's just my hc (we're all making shit up, might as well have fun with it).

The most common citing for cmed's hidden menace energy is his virus weaponry, but I think his ingame role also shows it pretty well. Practically taking the scout's niche and making it less punishing by having straight upgrades of his two weapons, giving healing utility AND also being able to sniff out spies like a cscout (he can't diffuse bombs or trail caltrops, but he's already powerful as is). Imagine being cscout, having to compete for flag capture points with this guy who practically has everything you have but better (instead of leaving behind super visible spikes he has a college degree). This isn't even like the modern sniper vs spy debate where it can still be debated that spy has a unique niche with his mindgames, cmedic just straight up took copied his homework, 98% percent matching on the plagiarism bot.

Cscout and cmedic beef is very likely, but if cscout is a literal god at what he does then there won't be much issue, since the best cscout is ultimately better at flagrunning than cmedic. Its likely that cscout is simply human tho, so that's some drama that can happen.

Funnily enough the tfc class that gets the most weight and hate on its shoulders is sniper. This is because servers have a limit on how many snipers can join, and if a shitty sniper took up the slots, the rest of the team would be pretty pissed. Meanwhile, a competent sniper is the bane of every player's existence; a missed shot can still slow someone down until a medic cures them.

P4: cmedic backstory building hell - barely organized nonsense

Last one I swear. My drawings of cmedic explicitly portray him as a person of color- more specifically a cape malay, from the cape territory in South Africa; he even curses in malay in one of the posts. Ig I wanted the cast to be more diverse, but it did make his backstory somewhat harder to write.

Mann co is situated in New Mexico, far from SA. How and why did he get all the way there? With the fanon worldbuilding I set, what is stopping him from simply joining a nearer merc group? Probably heard of it through the grapevine, and travelled for fat stacks; wouldn't be uncommon for doctors (or mercs) to be highly motivated due to money. I wondered of what would set him apart from all the other hypothetical medic applicants that probably graduated from upstanding colleges like harvard, then I recall all those common hcs.

1)Most applicants assumed that the job would consist of primarily healing, without considering how bloodthirsty their company would be, and/or 2)the BLU team has been getting genuine medics and chewing them up like gum (and spitting them out utterly mangled, I suppose). There's also the possibility that some margin of these medics actually had some weapon training, but at that point a lot of time has been spent (also some conflicting motives there, I can't imagine the perks that a deadly merc job has over a hospital job unless the guy got a kick out of it).

My next idea was to make him a ww1 vet on the side of the British (australian? american?) colonies of SA, having joined midway after finishing his education. However this would clock his age during the current 1970s timeline to be around 81, pretty old; most of the tfc mercs would be 70s max around that time. Cmedic is visually the youngest of the mercs too, you can compare his smooth eyes to the more sunken cspy's eyes and there is a notable difference. This is really just an issue of me being on the fence about fully oc-fying him (a friend of him suggested making him a vampire, I am almost tempted to make it so).

In the case that particular hurdle is overcome, there are more details I have to iron out. I figured that his motives either come from wanting to financially help out his family after the war's sheer devastation, or just . a general resentment for the way things unfolded, and he swapped to merc work in the states to get properly paid for his work and (attempt to) fill the void in his soul. Maybe a mix of the two. An outlier in his community for being a godless man and having very material and tangible masters (science and money), he abandons the lofty ideals of nationalism and sides himself with the highest bidder in the private market. Also developed an insane immune system (trenches and exposure are no joke).

(Certain classes have shared characteristics across gens, like the demos' deranged smiles and engies' wholesome vibes. With sigmund freud, tf2 medic as the archetypal mad doctor, and tfc medic as the archetypal capitalist doctor, there are now three gens of doctors with dubious machinations.)

He'd probably be a great medic, respecting merc code and all (funfact tf2 medic mentions tfc demo by name, implying that he knows his real name and putting a dent in my theory that being on a first-name basis is a big deal actually , my countertheory to that is that grey mann gave him the team's files and tf2 medic wants to spite them). Cmedic also reverse-engineered the medkit and made a new version for non-gravel war missions, since the usual has several hard drugs (heals to full instantly and gives adrenaline boost, sounds sus especially if you read jarate's side effects) since he ended up somewhat caring about his pack of rabid animals

[witch-craft-works]

My complicated feelings towards Glitter Force

(Remember this is all my opinion please don't attack me)

So I wanted to talk about Glitter force a bit because I have a bit of a love hate relationship with it. So now that Glitter Force has been removed from Netflix and with absolutely no plans of renewing it at least at the time of this post I thought it was a good time to talk about it.

So lets go back in time to 2016. It was a dark and stormy night I was fresh into middle school I had transferred out of my shitty Catholic Elementary School and started public middle school.

I was bullied relentlessly in elementary school so I wasn't in a good headspace at the time.

Anyways I was mindlessly scrolling through Netflix when I came across Glitter Force, during this time I had gotten into Sailor moon and it looked similar so I clicked on it and watched the first few episodes.

I thought it was pretty good at the time and binged the whole season. Anyways because of that I would watch glitter force related videos on YouTube and then I came across an AMV (yes I was that kid😂) of New Stage I recognized Happy and Peace on the thumbnail next to two other girls (Melody and I think Muse) and wondered who they were as the title of the video was in Japanese, so I clicked on it and oh my God my little 11 year old mind was blown. It was awesome! and I wanted more of that content and I wanted to know more about the other girls. The I came across Azen Zone's reviews and fell in love with the franchise.

Anyways I didn't actually get to watch a pretty cure season in subs until I think Huggto on one of those free streaming sites and came across the Smile sub and Dear God was it leagues above Glitter Force because the dub was dog water compared to the original. And I was surprised that they had left a good amount of episodes out of the dub as well.

So I'm going to get into the gripes I have with GF/Doki Doki. In no way am I blaming the dub cast as I'm sure they had to work with what they were given but looking at the cast. GF and Doki Doki was stacked with really good actors.

The Cast:

Glitter Force:

Laura Bailey who played Cure Happy/Glitter Lucky

Colleen O'Shaughnessey played Cure Sunny/Glitter Sunny

Alex Cazares played Cure Peace/Glitter Peace

Danielle Judovits played Cure March/Glitter Spring

Kate Higgens played Cure Beauty/Glitter Breeze

Debi Derryberry played Candy

Todd Haberkorn played Pop

Mary Elizabeth McGlynn played Royal Queen/Queen Euphoria and Majorina/Brooha

Keith Silverstein played Wolfurun/Ulric Akaoni/Brute and Joker/Rascal

Glitter Force Doki Doki

Debi Derryberry played Cure Heart/Glitter Heart

Cassandra Lee Morris played Cure Diamond/Glitter Diamond

Melissa Fahn played Cure Rosetta/Glitter Clover

Stephanie Sheh played Cure Sword/Glitter Sword and Raquel

Erica Lindbeck played Cure Ace/Glitter Ace and Dabyi/Davi

Tara Sands played Sharuru/Kippy

Bryce Papenbrook played Lance

Ray Chase played Bel

Benjamin Disqen Ira

Carrie Keranen played Marmo

Cherami Leigh played Regina

Grant George played Joe Okada

Kirk Thornton played Sebastian

So the acting I don't mind at times, the name changes, don't mind that either, Pokemon was known for doing this back then all the way up until Ash's exit from the anime. There were also times where the scene would darken the mostly happened when the girls used their attacks I can see them doing this because they didn't want to cause any health risks and cause seizures so it didn't bother me too much. So what's the issue then?

One of the biggest issues I had when it came to Glitter force after watching the original was how much they changed. They removed a lot of episodes. For example Smile had 48 episodes and Glitter force removed 8 while Doki Doki had 49 episodes and Glitter force removed 19 episodes and even combined some of the episodes which kind of made them clunky. The episodes removed were the ones focused on culture and I guess you can use the excuse it by saying that they removed it so that they wouldn't confused kids but thats still a pretty bad excuse they also changed it so that Glitter force took place in the United States and that just seems a bit silly to me.

They also removed the episode about Yayoi's dad and understanding why she was named Yayoi which is concidered one of the best episodes in the season and I've seen some people say that it's one of the best in the francise. Another thing that annoyed me was that they removed the episode where Brian a student exchange student from America transfered into their class, this episode was about a language barrier between him and Akane so I can see why they didn't want to dub it but they end up still mentioning him in a later episode so if they didn't want to confuse the audiance they failed. I mean what they could have done is have him speak in a diffrent language and say he came from i don't know Spain instead of America. They did this in the Tokyo Mew mew dub but I digress.

They also removed the episode where the girls go and visit Miyuki's grandma which I don't really understand why. Another thing I did not like was the fact they seemed to try and remove any scene where the Cures are sad or tone it down unless there was no way to cut it out they even tried to make those scenes comedic as well which is just, Why? (Minor spoilers for Smile Precure) For example in the final episode of the season the girls they have to say goodbye to Candy and Pop as they have to go back to Marchland. In the original once they saw that Candy had already disapeared thats when they broke down crying.

Another thing that kind of bothered me as well as alot of other people is that the acting felt, flat at times. One of the most brought up scenes is when Majorina almost killed Nao's siblings when you compare both scenes it's just really jarring to watch. They even added voice lines that weren't in the original. I think the people handling the dub just didn't want to upset/scare kids or make their parents upset so they tried to tone down/cut the darker moments out of the show. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing but kids can still enjoy a show even if theres darker moments.

I was also told that Glitter Force was homophobic but I never really understood where that came from. Maybe I just missed it? Idk

While Pretty Cure is about friendship and teamwork Smile was trying to show kids that you shouldn't give up and that sad things happen in life. This was because the year before japan suffered a really bad earthquake/tsunami which resulted in the deaths of Thousands of people. Smile Pretty Cure was made in order to comfort people who lost their homes or their loved ones. Glitter force while theres nothing wrong with this the producers seemed to be trying to push the message of friendship, teamwork while kind of neglecting the message of not giving up hope and I've seen alot of people think it's disrespectful concidering the circumstances and what led to Smile's creation

Anyways for as much as I criticize Glitter force and Glitter Force Doki Doki I have to admit that theres a chance without it I never would have discovered Pretty Cure as early as I did. And if you look at my blog you can tell I really love this franchise. And while it's kind of sad to see it go I think it's best that the trademark can finally rest after being in limbo for so long.

Would have been interesting to see what they did with the all stars movies tho

[hwljpg]

So, I just finished watching all 9 episodes of Smiling Friends in one sitting.

I dunno why, but I just have a bit of a natural aversion to immediately diving into like Internety things that blow up really quickly. I still need to watch the pilot episode for The Amazing Digital Circus, I have no clue what the game Content Warning is about, I know I got into watching videos on Lethal Company late and such.

One of those things was Smiling Friends. I had seen it blowing up originally, and so naturally, I just drifted away from it. I had subsequently seen it in like some memes or stuff afterwards, but besides that, not much.

It doesn’t help I’ve not really gotten into Adult Swim cartoons at the moment. I love random, but Adult Swim cartoons can be really cynical in a way that makes me wary of them.

Then, I saw you post some art of it. Then some more. Wow, more! What about this show makes this person I consider a good Tumblr friend like it so much to dedicate so much time to doing at about it? Well, you said in an ask that it wasn’t as cynical as other Adult Swim cartoons, especially when it came to Pim and Charlie. Huh, okay, I think I’ll go watch it!

I procrastinated on it for a few days because I was busy. But, finally, I decided, “You know what, I’m just gonna watch it!” I watched the first episode. Honestly, it is my least favorite episode. (Weirdly, just like how the first episode of the Sam and Max TV show is my least favorite.) I didn’t like The Boss breastfeeding, I didn’t like how Desmond kept the gun pointed to his head, I didn’t like the spinning baby. That all felt too jarring for me.

Of course, maybe I wasn’t properly acclimated with the show yet. Besides, there was good with the bad. I thought Pim and Charlie’s dynamic seemed funny, the ending was great, and I liked Allan and Glep as the other two Smiling Friend workers. So, I pushed through.

I ended up really enjoying my time watching the show. There was a lot more I liked than I disliked. My main thing: You were right, it definitely wasn’t as cynical as I thought it would be. Sure, the world still is cynical and messed up at points, but I felt an authenticity to the reoccurring characters and how they dealt with the situations they ended up in. Plus, for every single episode, I didn’t see the ending coming AND felt super satisfied by the resolutions! My favorite episode is probably the Salty’s one.

So, I guess this is a really long way to tell you: Thanks for getting me into Smiling Friends!

ooouuu i’m glad you enjoyed it!! surprising i’ve gotten some people to start the show because of my fanart.. wuohhh

Completely understand the parts that felt jarring; i could only look past it or at times find the humor in it mostly because of how my friends and i perceived and translated it into our own funky little brains. And i don’t necessarily feel as if adult shows need to step away from that very random/jarring humor/gags but more of Figure Out How To Do It Right and that’s what I feel smiling friends does perfectly. But some people are gonna be left with a bad taste in their mouth anyways and that’s completely fine yk.

What I like is how they mix those very jarring elements in their show + the characters world and contrast it with simply how realistic the characters are. They typically converse as if most of this stuff is normal and it only adds more to the joke when they actually freak out. Like i’ve said before i adore the mixture of extremely realistic dialogue that sounds so similar to real life conversations we’ve very have had before with people in everyday life. (that’s why i especially love the trip to brazil episode)

And obviously the lack of cynicism. I’ve been avoiding most adult animated shows for YEARS because i genuinely just can’t stand the cynicism and it’s constantly negative fanbases it always brews. And i’m very heavy on looking to the fanbase to get an example of how good of a media may be or simply how much it may appeal to me. I remember telling a friend that the difference between the rick & morty fanbase to the smiling friends fanbase was just one fanbase is known for constantly having a negative outlook on life and saying shit like “you need to have a high IQ to understand this show” while the smiling friends fanbase just DESPERATELY wants to make out sloppy style with Charlie. There’s no tasteless misogynistic, queerphobic, or racist jokes. Hell they have two fat characters as the main characters and we have not heard a single fat joke. It’s a breath of fresh air and with its inclusion of having many youtube/twitter/online creators be part of the show (and RUNNING the show) i feel as if we’re hopefully stepping into a new age of adult animated media.

hopefully one with a more positive outlook on adulthood.

aaaa enough of my rambling you literally watched the show!! feels so odd i used to be influenced by fanart and now my fanart is influencing others. i will do everything to use this power for good 😭 just happy to see people start and enjoy things im really fond for.

hope u having a good morning/evening/night tumblr friend 🫶

[sylvermoths]

Hi Corbin :D It's one of those days where I show up to someone's inbox and speak nonsense. Though since I'm really asking about everyone's music interests, Do you have anyone you really enjoy listening to? Any bands, artists, Even if you like something as simple as osts for games.. I believe music can speak a lot for a person and obviously I've always realized most people GET INSPIRED by what they listen to as well! YOU CAN RAMBLE AS MUCH AS YOU WANT HERE. I just want a reason to learn more about you somehow 🩷 I LOVE YOU A LOT DUDE. You mean a lot to me and I am always glad seeing you in my feed. I'm also so thrilled Sakuracandy is being slowly known. Converting them to the truth.

HI DOLL !!!! I HOPE YOU'RE DOING OKAY !!!

ooohh I like this question hmm

Well in terms of video game ost's I listen a lot to Undertale and deltarune music, and a lot of Splatoon too ! Fnf music would probably be in my playlist too if I didn't get embarrassed about it ^^'

For artists I'd say my favorite right now is Jhariah ! I really love his music it's really cool to imagine animations and stuff. And it's very energetic and I LOVE energetic songs. I also really love will wood, ado, jack stauber, and Kaya for example (I'm probably forgetting so many people

For bands I really like Malice mizer ! I'm trying to get into more visuelkei groups but they're my favorite along with gulugulu. Unfortunately Malice mizer songs keep getting removed from Spotify with is SO ANNOYING but yeah their music is really my vibe. Other bands I could mention would be maneskin, ajj, kmfdm or poor man's poison

I've been trying to find more vietnamese songs since my dad never really transferred any vietnamese culture or language or ANYTHING REALLY to me. I've found a few songs I like, I think I have a few by Ngọt and by The Flob

Of course I have vocaloid songs, I really like kikuo and maretu mostly, and Tonbi that I discovered recently!

I could probably talk about so many more artists and in more detail, tbh listening to music is a super big part of my life and identity for me. Anyway lots of the songs I like are energetic in some way and if not energetic they have to be emotional, I don't like when it's too calm or quiet

I LOVE YOU A LOT TOO !! I'm always glad to see you post too ! I'm sending you a big hug ^^ and thank you for supporting me in my journey with the two idiots

[genesisgijinka]

Hiya, did you miss me? Because I have returned to suck out more world building from your brain.

Question 1: Egg.

I am almost certain about what the answer will be, but I'm gonna ask it anyways.

Where do the pokébabies come from? Do they follow the same rules as our world?

Question 2: What's Arceus' IQ (the answer is "yes")

This is kind of a follow up to my Pokéspeak question. In its answer, you spoke about Red's Alakazam, Pythagoras, being able to use sign language. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that that was inspired by Washoe the Chimpanzee. WIth most of Red's mons knowing some sign language.

Relevant Exposition: Pokemon in the anime are mostly at a level of intelligence/demeanor where you could genuinely model swap them with a human and have there be no difference and vice versa (like what you did with your April Fool's post) the prime example is this one [IMAGE-ID: A snapshot from the first season of the pokemon anime. In the scene, an Eevee is seen holding a cup of what looks like juice.]

The question: Is this level of pokemon intelligence/demeanor still present in your world, and if so, where would the line be drawn between human/gijinka-replaceable and actual animal.

Question 3: Programing.

This one is a simple question with a less than simple answer.

How do Game mechanics like Base Power, PP, EV's, IV's, Base stats, Accuracy, and Most importantly: Stat Boosts work in genesis?

Question 1: Eggs Yeah, the whole egg thing I'm throwing out the window as a game mechanic designed to avoid having to explain the birds and the bees in a video game that's marketed at children. If it lays an egg in our world, it still lays an egg. But if there's live birth here, then it's live birth in the world of Genesis.

this now brings to mind, do the people in pokemon games have eggs suddenly appear too?

Question 2: Pokemon Intelligence and Language It varies a little bit on the pokemon individual, tbh. Some are better at picking certain things up than others.

I've heard of several instances of not just our great ape cousins learning to speak sign language, but also some species birds and I think there was a whale that figured out human speech? But that last one might have been more mimicry than actual language comprehension and also brings in the physical capabilities of each pokemon species and their ability to transcend the pokemon/human language barriers. I've also seen several videos of people with big mats covered in buttons for their pets to convey wants and needs to their owners, which the pets do use!

As for swapping out pokemon for people level of swap, the answer is not quite. The April Fool's joke page was just that; a joke. I mostly ignore the anime bc I was not allowed to watch it growing up, plus there's a lot of weird things that don't follow the game rules. But for a long time, as we've underestimated the intelligence of animals in our world, so too have people underestimated the intelligence of pokemon and it's a widely studied subject nowadays.

Question 3: Programming I'm going to be honest, the most I understood about things like EVs and IVs is that number go and number go up when level up. I'm a competitive player's nightmare in that no matter how many times I've tried to learn what these things do, it will not stick in my brain so I'm just, ignoring it in Genesis :'D

As for some of the other stuff, I've actually shown PP running out in comic before:

and Aiden running out of PP is also why he passed out during the battle with the champion squad, ending that fight (iirc I did run him out of moves in-game and he was using Struggle)

For stat boosts, it kind of depends on what I narratively need to happen. We've seen 2 kinds of Barrier; the glowing sheets that Aiden uses, and the blue bubbles that Prime uses (the differences are mostly personal preference). They're physical barriers that block attacks.

Some other instances of stat boosts we've seen are

Light screen

String shot

Will-o-wisp

Me First

Calm mind

and a few others scattered throughout the comic. I mostly go with the in-game text that explains what the move does and find a way to translate it into a visual representation, to show the readers that something happened.

[miloscat]

[Review] Legend of Kay Anniversary (Wii U)

An unremarkable PS2 action-adventure.

After immersing myself in Avatar media for so long I looked around for any other games set in Asia-inspired fantasy worlds but made by Westerners. This let me knock one off my Wii U backlog, the 2015 remaster of the 2005 PS2 game Legend of Kay. Neon Software, the German studio behind the original game, are known to me for their Amiga Sonic clone Mr. Nutz: Hoppin' Mad, and it's somewhat fitting that their final game before closure was this other furry platformer. Some of the Neon cofounders went on to form Keen Games, which seems to have morphed into a new Kaiko... the original Kaiko being the company that the Mr. Nutz Hoppin' Mad team left to form Neon in the first place! Who knows how long they'll survive now under the aegis of the troubled and layoff-happy Embracer, but it's been four years since their last remaster...

Anyway, this game is a sort of 3D Zelda-like-slash-3D platformer filled with anthropomorphic animal characters, which as a Rare fan sounds up my alley. Comparing it to Starfox Adventures may be a little generous though: this is very much a B-tier PS2 action game, and a graphical revamp for new generation consoles can't magically fix the mediocrity.

To get the plot out of the way: it's extremely Normal. Kay is a "plucky" (read: obnoxious) protagonist, using his martial arts training to fight back against the occupation of his cat village by evil gorillas and rats. He travels his island to settlements of rabbits, frogs, and pandas to free them from oppression. I think it's telling that there are no credits given for story or writing; anything story-related is constantly undermined by overly shallow characterisations, completely functional video game progression (go here to get key to open door to go there etc.), and the most brain-dead "banter". For example, Kay thinks the height of action hero quips is to call a rat "cheese-breath" about a hundred times.

The latter issue is not helped by some misguided voice acting choices. It's a fully voiced game but you'll wish it wasn't with Kay's bland sarcastic schtick and almost every other character uncomfortably presenting as a borderline racist caricature. Mostly it's white people doing faux-"Asian" accents, although apparently crocodiles are Eastern European and frogs are... Jamaican, for some reason? I was glad to find a setting that let me skip any dialogue scene with a quick tap of X, because there's no other way to speed up the tedious exposition and pointless back-and-forth when you meet enemy groups.

There's only a handful of what you might call "puzzles", and the platforming ranges from "not bad" to "OK", serviceable but doesn't excel. The biggest strength and biggest weakness of the game is its combat, which is pretty involved. You can swap between three weapons which have different attributes, you often have to get around enemy blocks so there's a Wind Waker-style roll around move to hit their back, but you can also zip between targets during a combo, or use rolling, crouching, or jump attacks. You can carry up to 5 usable items which sometimes are used to explore but you have to rely on them for combat encounters late in the game when they start throwing waves at you with hordes of armoured enemies. When the difficulty spikes like this, it all just becomes too much and goes from an exercise in creatively using moves to keep your combo up to a struggle to survive (and if you die, you lose any consumables you used in your last attempt, also there's a lives system for some reason??).

I said combat might be the game's strength and it was clearly a focus of the project, but I had the most fun exploring the little worlds. There's lots of goodies to collect, mostly in the form of chests and pots containing money. You quickly end up with more than you'll ever spend but I still liked finding it. The point multiplier mechanic may seem superfluous but when you get accustomed to the flow of the platforming sections, grabbing coloured crystals to keep this combo going to make your fights and coins worth more points becomes addictive. The level design may be nothing special but the zones you traverse have some character to them.

It should be noted that this is a semi-linear game, in that the levels are mostly open to explore with events and sub-dungeons within them, but you progress from one field to the next with no way to go back. This bit me on more than one occasion when I blundered into the story trigger to move on before turning in one of the rare sidequests or going down a side path to find a health extension, making it permanently missable. This frustration prompted me to occasionally consult a Gamefaqs guide with maps during each subsequent chapter. The game does give you a minimap in the corner of the screen but it can't be expanded to a full map so it's less useful than it could be.

Legend of Kay would have felt middling even at release but rereleasing it just makes its deficiencies even more obvious. It's still got some charm for being "of that era" (I was often reminded of The Hobbit's action-adventure game from the same generation, but with fewer instant death pits), so I got some enjoyment from it. And it has some ideas that work, like the acrobatic combat and combo system. While some of the environments look nice there were just as many drab areas, and the repeated character model reuse got old. Oh, and sometimes you ride an animal and it's not fun. On the whole, I can't recommend this one... even if you ignore the cringey cultural stereotypes!!

[peoplesrazor]

Oh boy...

So in her introduction, Lily names five shows she thinks people talk about the most often for important LGBTQIA+ Rep. Those shows are Legend of Korra, Gravity Falls, Steven Universe, and The Owl House. She mentions three other shows that I'll talk about later that she says people don't talk about, but which either had rep earlier, or had just as good or better rep.

She doesn't mention Ducktales or the Daria movie Is It Fall Yet ?or any other shows. Just in case you're wondering. She talks about Braceface, 6teen, and Lloyd In Space. Now, Lily has mentioned the other two as they were shows she watched growing up. I think Lloyd was a suggestion on her blog. I remember someone mentioning it there.

I'll let her arguments for these stand as she is mostly talking about how "early" they were. I do want to point out these characters were only in couple of episodes in one case, and a single episode in the others. So, Daria should have certainly been at least mentioned as an early example, even if it wasn't a very good characterization.

The three shows she says have better rep then the five she thinks are held up so much:

Craig of the Creek has several couples that fit this description and it's good rep, because it's so low-key. People talk about them though. The show, though very good, can be a bit niche to begin with so it just doesn't have a large vocal audience.

The Loud House has Luna and Sam, which does get talked about too, but it's a contemporary of the other shows you mentioned. Which means Luna and Sam, by your standards for the more modern stuff, have to be main characters. If you count Luna and Sam as main characters, you have to count, at least, fifteen other people. Kind of easy for their couple of 15 minute episodes to get lost in that shuffle.

Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts is one of my all time favorite shows. Lily says people are sleeping on Benson and Troy due to racism. What? Kipo is very popular in the fandom circles I hang around in and Benson and Troy are like THE ship. Did you sleep on this one, Lily? Did no one in your circle recommend it because it's a serialized fantasy adventure? Is that why you never did a dedicated video on it, despite it's rep being so good?

It wouldn't be a Lily video if she didn't tear down the shows other people like. First, there is something she repeatedly gets wrong, as far as I know, about Korra. She again says that Korrasami was a popular ship, true, and that they threw it together last minute, false. At least, by everything I've found. No, it wasn't planned from the start, but it wasn't last minute, either.

They started discussing it while writing book one. Writing. Not during it's run, not while animating the last few eps. While writing it. Why wait then? I suspect it's for something Lily has actually complained about before that actually happens. For some reason, showrunners want to wait until the end of the series to have the couple end up together. I suspect it was never anything deeper than that.

Okay, onto the Catradora thing. I'm not going to argue with anyone, not even Lily, who finds the relationship toxic, unhealthy, abusive. Though, now that I think about it, Lily, you sure seem to like to repeatedly show that footage for someone who gets triggered by FMA.

Anyway, I want to point out this hypocrisy:

Lily: If I have to hear it on a live stream, read it in production materials, or on Twitter, it doesn't count. I base my criticism only on what is in the show.

Also Lily: Let me once again call Catra and Adora sisters based on a single line I found on one page of outside materials, despite the show never once giving any indication that is the case.

She also lies and says it does indicate that. It does not. Hey Lily? Are Kyle, Rogelio and Lonnie also siblings? Wait. You never actually watched the show, you probably don't know who they are.

Should have just posted the bingo card again.

[nerves-nebula]

You, You seem to know a lot of webcomics, do you know any mixed media webcomics, specifically ones that are a bit text dense but still include a lot of art and even some animation. Cause the only example I know is homestuck but I don't want to that to be the only example I ever bring up because that would kinda implicitly suggest that homestuck invented the concept of mixing media in such a way and I don't like that

Ava's Demon has some animation if I remember correctly (it's been soo long since I last caught up) but it's very much NOT text dense

not really, cuz i dont really like text dense shit all that much. otherwise i'd read web novels instead yknow. also i dont know THAT many webcomics

anyway when u said multimedia i thought you meant part digital part not-digital and thought of demon eater, but thats clearly not what u meant cuz demon eater is very much a traditional comic. and homestuck is like 99% digital if i recall correctly (yes i know that digital is not all 1 medium and it is multimedia that's just not what comes to mind when i think of multi-media. dont correct me on this idc)

like i said, i mostly like, yknow, COMIC comics. so i can show u to comics that do cool things with their medium, like unsounded or avas demons or heartworks, but homestuck is of a kind of webcomic that i was never really interested in bothering with. i honestly never would've read it if not for the fact that ppl had made videos of THEM reading and voicing it.

the thing about homestuck is that its more of an Internet Project than a webcomic in the traditional sense. you might find more luck looking for what you want if you go outside the realm of Webcomic specifically. or idk fuckin google multimedia webcomics. i usually assume people have already tried google and various search engines before asking me, a tumblr user, but this has not always been the case ! so idk.

[canyouhearthevoices]

WORK MV First Reactions

Yet another ATEEZ music video released while I'm at work - love it....

Another thing I'm not keen on is the song itself. I haven't been super impressed with several of ATEEZ's new title tracks, musically. Luckily for ATEEZ, I don't really follow them for their actual music (although it is a shame that the newer stuff hasn't been my style). I'm especially unimpressed with the chorus, which reminds me of a combination of Australia's anthem, Down Under, and Bills, neither of which I am super keen on... I know ATEEZ's recent comebacks have been less serious, but... this just doesn't suit them in my opinion.

Luckily for them, their performance skills stand up, regardless of the quality of the music.

This MV is definitely more of a filler one - it has a lot of ATEEZ motifs and follows the story from the previous MVs, but doesn't add much else. I don't have that much to say about it, but let me say it anyway! Full analysis below the line.

So this music video seems to be mostly a lot of motifs to show that ATEEZ are becoming more and more successful, and that, through hard work, they will become even more so.

We can see this through the copious amounts of money they make, the copious amounts of work (or more like party-work) that they do, and through the MV showcasing signs like the Billboard sign. Seonghwa riding the ostrich at the beginning is another example of this - he has many different country flags in his bag, showing the many places ATEEZ have gone and will go.

This music video also continues thematics that originated with Dont Stop - first, the cowboy concept and 'Wild West,' which has ties to the anarchy that they're trying to create in the oppressive world of Strictland (omg change the name please ATEEZ I'm begging you). See my Bouncy analysis for the Wild West stuff.

We also get what I presume is the extension of the drug dealing in Bouncy and the heists in Don't Stop - the expansion of ATEEZ's business empire, which they will use to take over the world with partying and music.

I don't think there's anything super interesting visually story-wise which would require screenshots - Jongho being in the ground is a fun gag that shows how ATEEZ are fun, how they can literally work themselves into the ground, and is possibly a reference to Down Under, which has a man in the desert playing a flute-like instrument.

I mean, this is the only thing that I am aware of that it could be referencing, and this song is pretty famous as far as I know, and suits ATEEZ's themes well, but if you think it referenced something else, let me know.

The animals (mostly birds) vibing along to the song continues the animal imagery from Bouncy and other songs - even the animals will party along to ATEEZ's music, and of course, we have the golden eggs and the blessed hens which lay them - a symbol of wealth and also good fortune.

There's also the general outback imagery which contributes to the idea of the wild west, the office that Yunho and Yeosang occupy which shows work, sophistication, possibly some shady dealings, and so on. And the Motels show travel, which they are of course doing for their literal jobs.

I do like the scene with Hongjoong and Mingi looming over a city and showering down so much money that a money monster appears.

But it doesn't really have much deeper meaning as far as I can see - like, even if we consider it in relation to the Strictland storyline, it just shows that their presence looms over the city, and that they have tons of influence, perhaps even more than the Guardians and the government who occupy the tallest building.

Interestingly, as far as I can see, Hongjoong's armband doesn't appear in any of the scenes in the music video, although he does have his usual coat and cane.

The rest of the vide is just things we've seen before - the cars dance because the power of ATEEZ is so strong that even inanimate objects will work. The 'game over' screen when Hongjoong falls out of the car is reminiscent of the comic scenes in the Crazy Form MV... I just... did not find this music video particularly interesting or compelling. It doesn't feel like it has high production values, and it feels a little like it's trying to milk the virality and success of other music videos like Bouncy - but it just doesn't have what Bouncy does :( I can't even find any exciting Easter eggs or story tidbits in the props - like even the newspaper Yunho holds doesn't seem to be anything exciting. And although I'm sure they meant something by Seonghwa coming out of the egg, I'm not sure what, and I can't think of any potential storyline references.

Anyway, moving on to something that I was generally more happy with;

Lyric Analysis

Most of the lyrics are pretty standard and expected from this kind of song - about how cool and hardworking ATEEZ are and how successful they will be in the future. But there are some interesting things to note/ATEEZ lyrical motifs;

San saying that when he makes a move, the Guardians follow him.... like? Hello? What a massive potential storyline drop in the middle of this causal line. The reason this is weird is because there isn't really any other potential meaning of 'Guardians' here that makes sense that isn't the Guardians in the fencing masks. And it makes sense that those Guardians would follow them when they make a move, since, well, the Guardians are hunting them.

The Real is referenced in Hongjoong's rap - since they are the Real people, ie. genuine

Bright and blinding lights

Burning

Everyone dancing and getting involved

Everyone being unified as one humanity

Being unique and individual (this makes sense since in Strictland people can't be individuals)

Time

Fun fact, the phrase they say in the prechorus that I assume is in Spanish (Ganso que pone huevos de oro) apparently translated to 'goose that lays the golden eggs' or something similar - which, yeah, that makes sense, considering the music video.

Conclusions

It was pretty filler imo. It continued a lot of motifs from previous MVs and stories, but it didn't do anything unique or special itself, except for bury Jongho.

That said, it does seem to be building up to something where ATEEZ get power - a bit like a training montage - so my current prediction is that the next comeback is super storyline-heavy and super Gothic - because ATEEZ can (thankfully for me, based on their track record0 never stay away from the Gothic for long.

I mean, WORK is catchy - but so is almost any song that has a repetitive chorus.

[garnavis]

2025 Video Game Bingo!!!!

Inspired by @batmanisagatewaydrug’s Book Bingo, I wanted to throw together something like that for video games! I’m doing book bingo to expand my reading habits, and I think gamers players of video games could benefit from doing something similar. I also think the state of mainstream game development today feels pretty bad, so I engourage participants to seek out independent developers and small publishers. And of course, tag me if you participate!

In particular, I’d encourage people to check out itch.io and gog.com for games that are affordable (sometimes even free) and DRM-free. I’d also discourage participants from choosing “freemium” games (i.e. free-to-start games with in-app purchases, battle passes, or gacha mechanics). I promise you will be able to get bingo on this card without spending a dime without supporting exploitative developers. But also, feel free to use this to bust your backlog.

On the subject of completion: not every game is meant to be “finished,” and some games may be too time-consuming to finish anyway. Feel free to decide for yourself what it means to have “played” something. Personally, my rule is: once I’ve seen credits roll, or at least 6 hours of playtime.

Lastly, this is mostly PC-focused because I think most people have access to one. You should be able to complete this even with a shitty laptop as long as you don’t go for the big AAA stuff. But (with a few exceptions) just about every space on this card can be done on whatever consoles you might have.

Category descriptions and examples below the cut.

Non-human player character

And I don’t mean an elf or a dwarf! I’m thinking of animals here, but aliens and anthros are fine too.

Examples:

Shelter (Might and Delight, 2013)

Untitled Goose Game (House House, 2020)

E.V.O.: Search for Eden (Almanic/Enix, 1992)

Visual novel

Simple and easy to play, visual novels or VNs are mostly text over static backgrounds and character art. You will be prompted at various points in the story to make a decision, which may affect the course of the story. You could also try a “kinetic novel,” which is a VN with no decisions (and therefore only one route). There are VNs of all genres, so everyone should be able to find one you like! Note: there are plenty that aren’t pornographic, but you will probably see porn when you search for these.

Examples:

A Year of Springs (npckc, 2021)

Butterfly Soup (Brianna Lei, 2017)

Tsukihime (TYPE-MOON, 2000)

Strategy / simulation

I’m grouping these together because there’s a lot of overlap, historically. For example, Fire Emblem is considered a “simulation RPG” in Japan, while English-speakers would probably call it a strategy RPG. These can seem really dense, but for every Hearts of Iron there’s a Harvest Moon.

Examples:

Theme Hospital (Bullfrog, 1997)

Overland (Finji, 2016)

Terra Nil (Free Lives/Devolver, 2023)

Fighting

Maybe not for everyone, but I have to include them because they’re a favorite of mine. They’re the most fun with friends, but playing online or against the CPU is plenty of fun too. They also have a reputation for being hard to get into, but there are a lot of beginner-friendly ones out there too.

Examples:

Garou: Mark of the Wolves (SNK, 1999)

Melty Blood (French Bread, 2002)

Tough Love Arena (M. Paul Weeks & Amy Xu, open beta)

Role-playing

Come on, everyone loves a good RPG.

Examples:

Disco Elysium (ZA/UM, 2019)

Deltarune (toby fox, 2021)

Chrono Trigger (Square, 1995)

Non-combat

Try something other than hitting people until they’re dead. It’s okay if the game has a fight scene or two, the main point is that combat should not be one of the game’s main mechanics.

Examples:

Day of the Tentacle (LucasArts, 1993)

Her Story (Sam Barlow, 2015)

A Short Hike (adamgryu, 2019)

Fan translation

For years, particularly devoted fans have been importing and localizing games with no local release. Play something in your native language that you couldn’t officially!

Examples (English):

Policenauts (Konami, 1996, PS1 translation by JunkerHQ)

Rudra no Hihou (Square, 1996, SNES translation by Aeon Genesis)

Mother 3 (HAL Laboratory, 2006, GBA translation by Tomato)

Pick a remake, play the original

Find a remake or remaster that has been released in the last few years… and don’t play it! Instead, check out the original version. Play the remake later, if you want, but take the time to appreciate what made it worth re-releasing in the first place.

Resident Evil 2 (Capcom, 1998)

Panzer Dragoon (Sega, 1995)

Gothic (Piranha Bytes, 2001)

Released in 2025

Self-explanatory. Kind of muddied by the prevalence of early access, I suppose. My personal rule would be: if you could play it before this year, it doesn’t count. I won’t provide any examples because it’s only January.

Released before you were born

Obviously different for everyone. I think a lot of people will write off older games as too primitive. I obviously disagree, and I promise that any video game going all the way back to Spacewar has something to offer if you give it some time.

Examples (for me, anyway):

Pac-Man (Namco, 1980)

Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord (Sir-Tech, 1981)

Adventure (Warren Robinett, 1980)

Metroidvania

These are uh… well, if you don’t know what these are, look them up somewhere else. I’m not getting into genre discourse today.

Examples:

Blasphemous (The Game Kitchen/Team17, 2019)

Pseudoregalia (rittz, 2023)

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (Konami, 1997)

“““bad game”””

Play one of those games with a reputation like “worst game of all time” or something like that. If you need help, try this wikipedia list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_games_notable_for_negative_reception

Free

As in free beer. To reiterate, try not to pick some free-to-play gacha game for this. Also, stealing doesn’t count as “free” here. Steal all you want for the other categories, but this one should be a game that was released, officially, for free. Play a demo if you really want, but there are plenty of full experiences at no cost. Itch in particular has a ton of freebies.

Tyrian 2000 (Eclipse Productions, 1999)

Hypnogogia (sodaraptor, 2020)

The Battle for Wesnoth (David White and others, 2005)

Racing

Vroom vroom! A surprisingly diverse genre. There’s super casual ones and super sweaty ones and everything in between. If you’re not into cars, just pick something with a fun aesthetic.

Examples:

Nightmare Kart (LWMedia, 2024)

R4: Ridge Racer Type 4 (Namco, 1998)

art of rally (Funselektor Labs, 2020)

Retro homebrew

A somewhat esoteric category, although much less so since the release of GB Studio! Play them in an emulator, on actual hardware with a flash cartridge, or even in-browser. Once again, Itch seems to be the main place for these. Theck them out here: https://itch.io/games/made-with-gb-studio

Mod or romhack

Mods are one of the most fun and unique things about video games. People have accomplished amazing things by making their own customizations to retail games. In fact, it’s not uncommon for particularly popular mods to be released or remade for retail.

Examples:

Terraria – Calamity mod

Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life – A Proud Life mod

Doom II – MyHouse.WAD

Roguelike

Live, die, repeat. These are getting really popular lately, so they don’t have the arcane reputation they used to. Still, if you’re already a fan of modern Rls, maybe try one of the classics.

Examples:

Caves of Qud (Freehold Games, 2018)

Sky Rogue (Fractal Phase, 2013)

NetHack (NetHack DevTeam, 1987)

Text-based

Text as in words, not just symbols. Also called interactive fiction. One of the oldest kinds of computer games. They’re not really popular as retail releases these days, but they have a really low barrier to entry, so there’s a lot of indie IF games to choose from. Some might have a few grahpical elements, but this category should be primarily text-focused.

Zork (Infocom, 1977)

The Hobbit (Beam Software, 1982)

Depression Quest (Unburnt Witch, 2014)

Fantasy console

Fantasy consoles are a sort of retro throwback idea that’s been taking off lately. Essentially, the idea is: what if there was a computing environment with the kinds of restrictions that gave older consoles their distinctive look and feel, but with a bunch of modern conveniences like a simple API and easy online game sharing? There are a few of these, but the biggest one is Lexaloffle’s PICO-8. It’s very popular and has a lot of games available, most of which are free—aside from the $15 cost of admission to the system itself. A free alternative is TIC-80, also pretty popular, but open-source. Both come with a program (SPLORE for pico, SURF for tic) that allows you to search and instantly download games, as well as share your own. Best of all, they come with their own development environment!

Participate in a game jam

Okay, this one is probably the toughest. I’ve never done it myself, but I hope to this year, which is why it’s on here! Jams are usually focused on a theme or a technology, for example “chill games” or one of the aforementioned fantasy consoles. I believe jams tend to be beginner-friendly. Let’s find out together! And these days, they’re extremely easy to join. Once again, Itch has you covered: https://itch.io/jams

Based on a book

Only appropriate, since this was inspired by book bingo. Games based on books aren’t the most common, but that’s part of why they’re interesting. One obvious avenue is interactive fiction, but as usual, there’s all kinds. Try something based on a book you’ve read!

Examples:

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Infocom, 1984)

Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth (Daedalic, 2017)

The Invincible (Starward Industries/11 bit studios, 2023)

“Super” in title

Basically a wildcard. There are so many games with “super” in the title, there’s probably one that you already want to play anyway.

Examples:

Super Crate Box (Vlambeer, 2010)

SUPERHOT (SUPERHOT Team, 2016)

Super 3D Noah’s Ark (Wisdom Tree, 1994)

Rhythm

Do you have rhythm? No? Me either. Rhythm games can still be fun though. Put it on the lowest difficulty setting and go hog wild (this is an order).

Examples:

Thumper (Drool, 2016)

Friday Night Funkin’ (The Funkin’ Crew, 2020)

Rhythm Heaven Megamix (Nintendo, 2015)

Survival horror

Horror plus combat plus scarce resource management. Doesn’t get better than that. Most modern ones are inspired by a specific handful of games (early Resident Evil and Silent Hill). My favorite thing about these is how they go from scary to cozy once you’ve been through them once or twice, and they’re usually pretty short.

Examples:

Silent Hill 2 (Team Silent, 2001)

Signalis (rose-engine, 2022)

Crow Country (SFB Games, 2024)

RPG Maker

A series of programs for making JRPG-style games that goes back to the 90s, and continues today. Surprisingly flexible but with a low barrier to entry, a lot of extremely cool independent games have come out of this. Maybe you’ll try making one yourself!

Examples:

Hylics (Mason Lindroth, 2015)

Corpse Party (Kenix Soft, 1996)

The Way (Lun Calsari, 2008)

[dayurno]

🤔I was thinking that some of the popularity could be because of the massive overlap between the trc and aftg (and somehow six of crows), or maybe it's just bc the aftg was being passed in book tumblr circles and soc and trc are popular on tumblr too, but there was this venn diagram that was inescapable back in the day with all three books, and trcs rlly popular, tradpub, loads of book instagram/youtubers made videos about it in 2016/17 then you'd look for recs with books like trc and people would recommend aftg though the books are way different to trc, there's crossover fan works too, maybe it's just because there's gay characters and both books deal with abuse. Idk this is probably the worst example ever but it's like how people would watch the untamed which was extremely popular then get into danmei, aftg would be a fairly hard series to find or to get get recced unless you were on tumblr maybe?

While writing this I realised for the book to even go around in ya tumblr circles it would've had to have been kind of popular in the first place🥲I wasn't here in 2016 but I was in 2018, I do think that if you got into trc and maybe soc which are more easy to get into since they're just more well known and find in bookstores you'd go on tumblr and find something to do with aftg the overlap between the two fandoms is crazy

OH FOR SURE i have not read soc but i did read trc and honestly it was shocking to me how different it was from aftg! the idea that these books overlap in anyway is insane to me. trc is a magical story about teenagers and friendship, aftg is a self-published sports anime masking as dead dove. perhaps people feel like trc's friendship theme is in any way alike to the foxes, but the idea just feels absurd to me; the foxes are barely even friends. sure they are neil's family, but each other's family? hard to say. for the upperclassmen, yes, sure, if they can ignore kevin and andrew and aaron. for the monsters i will gracefully decline to comment

now re: the untamed and getting into danmei............................. danmei is mostly if not entirely self-published and known for heavier themes, and to have a story blow up among chinese readers is already hard as it is; to blow up among international fans feels even crazier. it's a pretty fair comparison! i guess in a way soc and trc did pull most of aftg's fanbase, but i don't know if it was all of it. like fallenstarzz said, it was probably a strike of luck mixed with the general lack of complex yet easily accessible (white american) queer content at the time. we rave about the toxic yaoi now but in 2014-2018 the most 'problematic' queer content i can think of is killing stalking and its disciples, most of which were published by authors of color outside of the imperial core. i imagine aftg owes much of its fame to the whiteness and nearness of its cast and setting too. it was more than dead dove. it was toxic yaoi for white people

[acaplaya-musings]

Screw it, have a not-fully-human Voiceplay AU (Part 1)

I'm obviously not the first person to do this, and I very much got inspired by other AUs and fics I've seen floating around (I haven't even read any of the fanfics, but just reading the tags/summaries were enough to get my brain buzzing with ideas). And let's be honest, it's almost natural to imagine at least some of Voiceplay's members as non-human when they're that good, and don't even get me started on some of the videos!

This is mostly just a collection of thoughts/ideas though - I don't plan on turning it into a proper fic or doing art of it or anything like that, but I thought I might as well type it up here anyway, so it's not just stuck bouncing around in my brain. Sticking it under a Read More link because this ended up being kinda long. (And note that this AU is less of a "what if they had powers" AU and more of a "what if a lot of real life stuff was explained by magic / occult forces and the like" AU, though I don't know a great deal about Voiceplay's early days so bear with me).

Geoff: Half-demon, sort of. Not exactly "demon" as in "representative of Hell/linked to Satan", more "demon" as in "innate connections to a part of the Earth far, far below the surface, deep in the mantle, if not deeper". "Half-demon" is about the best description in the English language for him, even when considering many popular works of fantasy and myth

(Yeah I considered a few other options for what Geoff could possibly be, including a half-dragon/dragonborn, but his voice is much too smooth and clear imo to be typically reminiscent of a dragon (other than his growls and vocal fry), and some other people have already referred to him as a demon god/demon lord/etc, so yeah might as well. I'm putting my own spin on it though).

Geoff is still at least partially human, and just human enough that for the first three and a half decades or so of his life, he was able to almost fully suppress the non-human part of himself. Half-demon!Geoff, not fully knowing the meaning or implications of what he was, feared that the ground may one day swallow him up whole; the depths of the earth staking its claim once and for all. He took up pole-vaulting in high school [true], and had aspirations of being a rock tenor [also true] - hitting high notes in songs and soaring over beams many feet in the air made it easier to ignore the faint occasional rumbles from far below the ground that nobody else ever seemed to hear.

(I'll get back to Geoff in a minute, but lets start talking about...)

Layne: Extra-terrestrial being, for sure, though not quite a stereotypical alien per se. In this AU, Layne started off as a vaguely-animal-shaped collection of cells (or the celestial/outer space equivalent anyway) that crash-landed on Earth via a small asteroid and took on the (main/primary) form of a human.

(And just for funsies, let's say that "Layne" was what TV Tropes would call a Line-Of-Sight Alias after seeing a street sign. He was originally "Lane", but someone once stuck a Y in the middle of it while writing it down and he chose to keep it that way).

Layne and Geoff became friends in middle school [true], both sensing there was a notable uniqueness about the other.

I'm a bit hazy on the origins of Voiceplay (or rather, 4:2:Five, as it was first named), it's been a while since I've watched/listened to some of the interviews Geoff has done where he talks a little about it, and I can't be bothered doing too much research/recollection for a random fun AU idea, so I'm playing a little fast and loose with details here.

Layne, now attending high school with Geoff [true I think?] was inspired to create an acapella group [I'm fairly sure it was at least partially his idea but don't @ me] not too long after first learning about them and hearing some examples of acapella performances. The idea that humans could create music without any typical instrumentation and be just as enjoyable (if not more?) as someone singing with a band was fascinating to him, and he was very keen to try it out for himself.

Geoff meanwhile was spending his time learning the oboe [true, iirc], and wasn't fully keen on the idea at first, especially when Layne asked him to be the bass singer for it, but the two were[/are] best friends, and it didn't take too long for Layne to convince him.

Layne started off as the baritone of the group [true], and a beatboxer wasn't added till a little later after the group's inception, after Layne was further inspired by the group Rockapella [also true, except idk who originally had the idea to add a beatboxer (that's why they were called 4:2:Five btw - they started out as basically a barbershop quartet, but then added a fifth member for vocal percussion)]

This is starting to get quite long, even for a Read More imo, so I'm making a separate post for part 2. And yes, Eli will get included as well!