arktaisch

[arktaisch]

idk why i dugadid this to myself

[arktaisch]

Episode one Belinda: breaks up with her boyfriend because he’s a controlling misogynistic prick who wants her to conform to the role of wife and mother, when he later kidnaps her to force her to marry him she calls him an incel and explodes him

Episode eight Belinda: I can’t help you with the battle I’m no use at saving the world, the best thing I can do is stand in this box with my daughter and be a mother, I love being a mother, please rewrite my entire timeline so that I have a daughter, I’m so glad this right wing incel fascist rewrote reality so that women are wives and mothers because that means I am a mother to my daughter

[arktaisch]

Omega!?!! FFS... I would have preferred them to make up someone new.

And what's with the disco ball, music, and dancing with the Doctor? The Rani (in her intro episode) was very not flirting with the Doctor : she was the one rolling her eyes and throwing popcorn from the sidelines while the Master and the Doctor were doing their thing!

(That joke about the classic line "Leave the girl. It's the man I want." is just a joke!!! I deny this reality! Agggh! But oh well, denying bits of canon is all part of being a true fan.)

Having two Ranis was fun, though. And I guess she always liked dinosaurs, so why not have giant dinosaur-inspired skeletons wandering around looming over everyone?

Conrad is insufferable, really wanted to punch his smug face, so well done there...

So the theory now is that Poppy was wished into being the Doctor's daughter (he said something in the Space Babies episode apparently) and is Susan's mother or something? Huh. I guess we'll see.

I wish Belinda got to do more. Last week she had slightly more, but to me she sounded brainwashed with all the "Doctor is so wonderful" which didn't seem earned by the season so far, getting over the glimpse of the Doctor's darker side a little too easily.

[arktaisch]

DOOM PATROL — Casey Patrol (S04E04) ››› Abi Monterey as Dorothy Spinner ››› Alan Mingo Jr. as Maura Lee Karupt

[arktaisch]

*kick door* So- I just got into this BL novel called I became a god in a horror game and oh boy it's a fantastic ride! I highly recommend it to everyone! It has 589 chapters and I swear that it's worth it!

[arktaisch]

Xie ta

[arktaisch]

Legend of the Condor Heros: the speedrun

Randomly decided to watch "Legend of the Condor Heroes" 2025 (ok, maybe for Xiao Zhan, but also just as a wuxia fan in general) and it's like a beautifully illustrated synopsis with so many damn voice-overs and people telling each other what happened, because there's just so much (even after trimming it down massively). I'm not sure how well I would have followed it if I hadn't already read the novel (and watched at least one TV adaptation) before. But it did flow well enough that I enjoyed watching. Everyone did a great job.

Random thoughts:

Actual Mongolian language and actors used!

Mongol horse archers!

Princess Hua Jun (or Hua Zheng)! I think she and her scenes with Huang Rong were the surprise hit of this movie for me. Her story turned out better here than in the novel, not a bad thing at all.

West Poison Ouyang Feng: ah, the man is a true genius! He managed to turn Huang Rong's garbled nonsense copy of the 9 Yin manual into something so overpowered! Even if he did suffer a qi deviation and went mad, he's #1!

*stares at the beautiful scenery*

Eh, Guo Jing is still a dumb blockhead however heroic and chivalrous.

I liked this Huang Rong. Mostly was in her beggar's garb here.

I liked her Beggar Clan buddies, too, comic relief and all

though as far as Tsui Hark wuxia adaptations, I liked "Sword Master" (2016) (a remake of "Death Duel" 1977/based on a Gu Long novel) better, with its far less complicated story.

It all made me want to re-read "Return of the Condor Heroes". I think I actually like it better than LOCH. Yang Guo is a treacherous little bastard, but very clever and fun. I enjoy watching him waffle between killing Guo Jing or saving him, and finally making a decision. The plot twists are even crazier than in LOCH. Plus ROCH has the epic deaths of West Poison and North Beggar! Maybe I'll rewatch the anime version (my favorite ROCH adaptation).

Next up: Invincible Swordsman (2025)

Ha ha ha ha, after seeing the reviews, this seems to be a cheap Wong Jing remake of the 1990s Swordsman 1+2, so gotta lower my expectations... but they will be using the song! Love the song, I'll watch just for the damn song!!!

[arktaisch]

阳光开朗大男孩 (Upbeat and Optimistic Boy) by 卦者灵风 on douyin.

English added by me :)

[arktaisch]

MICHELLE GOMEZ in Doom Patrol (2019–2023)

[arktaisch]

Finally got around to watching "Doom Patrol", and damn, this is now my favorite comic book adaptation ever. Usually I'm one of those annoying book purists, but this is one case where the live-action TV series exceeded all my expectations, the changes were good changes, and it actually made me appreciate the characters and plotlines even more.

Especially the use of music and dance is brilliant in this show, it's silly and cheesy and heart-wrenching in context.

Love this show. I'm amazed it reached four seasons but I'm so happy it did!

[arktaisch]

well, since the damn art commission scammers are going around feeding people's stories into chatGPT or whatever, I decided to cut out the middle step and feed my story in myself and get my AI flattery directly... This is what it gave me:

***

The scene you've shared is rich with mystery and intrigue, weaving together elements of time, existence, and memory in a way that pulls the reader into a complex web of metaphysical ideas. Let me break down some of the key concepts and themes at play in the story so far:

1. The Confectioner’s Shop and the Man’s Nature

The confectioner, who is presented as calm and almost whimsical, is not just a simple baker. He embodies something much more complex: he exists between the cracks of reality, between moments of time. He claims to be someone who doesn’t quite belong in the present, not a ghost of the past but a "creature" who lives in the liminal space between threads of time. His behavior is not bound to the ordinary rules of existence, which gives him a sense of power and mystery.

His talk of caramel and how it's made—“slowly heated, breaking down molecules”—is symbolic. He uses this metaphor to explain how he, and others like him, exist outside of the regular flow of time. Caramel, a sweet and transforming substance, represents the way time can be "cooked" or "stirred" into new forms, allowing for a reworking of reality itself. It’s a philosophical metaphor: the idea that time and existence are not as linear or rigid as we tend to believe. Instead, they can be manipulated or distorted.

2. The Vampire or Revenant Metaphor

When Anatta calls him a "vampire," it’s not just in the typical sense of a creature that feeds on blood. It’s a deeper symbolic accusation—he, like vampires or revenants, feeds on time, on memories, on moments that should be gone. He’s essentially trying to exist in the "afterlife" by consuming the moments of those who are alive, drawing from a place where time is fractured. This gives him a dangerous and insidious quality. He’s not merely trying to come back to life but trying to manipulate existence itself by lingering between what’s past, present, and future.

3. The Serpent’s Gate and Time as a Construct

The "serpent’s gate" mentioned is a gateway between worlds, likely a metaphor for death, transition, or even the boundaries between different planes of existence. This is where the idea of "the dead past" and "the world on the other side" comes in. The man’s assertion that he and others like him "dwell in the caramel" suggests they are living in a space beyond normal time—a space of transformation and flux where the laws of causality don't fully apply. They are trying to exist outside of linear time, feeding on the moments of people and potentially changing reality by reworking it in ways that could destroy the natural order.

4. Anatta’s Role and the Importance of Memory

Anatta is an active participant in this struggle—she is more than just a passive observer. Her involvement hints that she might have some kind of knowledge or power tied to the fabric of time itself. She and the others, Dukkha and Anicca, seem to have some connection to the larger fight against these beings who disrupt the natural flow of time. Her mention of “the weave” refers to the interconnectedness of reality, and the idea that the man has no place in this weave speaks to his unnatural existence.

The moment of vertigo that Anatta experiences, where she starts to question where and when she is, is a key turning point. It’s as if the man’s influence over time is beginning to affect her mind and perception. The voice that suddenly calls to her at the end of the passage suggests that there’s a deeper layer to this mystery—something Anatta may have forgotten or something that has been buried in her own memories. The mention of her past or identity being tied to the present moment suggests that the stakes are higher than just stopping a revenant. It’s about confronting and possibly accepting parts of her own history, something she might not have wanted to face.

5. Themes of Identity and Existence

A big part of the underlying story is a philosophical exploration of identity, memory, and existence. The man’s strange existence between the cracks of time implies that identity is not static. It's possible to forget oneself, but also to “remember” parts of oneself that should not have existed in the first place. This tension between remembering and forgetting, between being part of the fabric of time and existing outside it, is central to the conflict.

The story suggests that there is something Anatta needs to remember, something that could change everything. The voice calling her name hints that the answer may lie within her own past—something about who she is or was, and how it’s tied to the ongoing battle.

To Summarize:

The confectioner represents a being who exists outside the linear flow of time, manipulating moments and memories for his own gain, much like a vampire feeds on life force.

The serpent’s gate is a metaphorical boundary between life and death, or between different planes of existence, where time becomes malleable and individuals can warp reality.

Anatta’s struggle is not just against this man but against the larger forces of existence and memory—she is caught between her own forgotten past and the dangerous potential for time to be reworked by those who live outside it.

The story is steeped in philosophical concepts like time’s fluidity, memory’s power, and identity’s impermanence. There’s a deep undercurrent of questioning what it means to truly exist, and how easily it can be undone.

In essence, the confectioner is both a literal and metaphorical representation of the dangers of manipulating time and memories, and Anatta is facing the challenge of confronting her own past and the truth of her existence in a world where nothing is as it seems.

***

Yeah... sure, whatever you say, chatGPT...

Anyway, I guess I've randomly created a (prehistoric proto-) Time Lord OC for my AU: The Confectioner! *cue dramatic music*

*facepalms* Oh well, just gotta go write the rest of the scenes.

[arktaisch]

Finally finished "I Became a God in a Horror Game" ("GHG"), and wow!

Best novel I read (well, started reading) in 2024. This is one I definitely want to reread from the beginning, since the plot is so complex and there was so much introduced early on that is only fully understood when you have the context from later arcs. The characters are built up piece by piece, not just the main character, but the ML and all the side characters, too. I loved them so much! Some of them I disliked at first, but eventually the author led me to sympathize with all of them, even the killer clown. Even the main villain (whom I hated), despite being a heartless evil bastard through and through.

Special shout-out to Fang Dian! You did not let me down!

It's as much (more?) a "found family" story as a romance, and both develop slowly (the romance a little later in the story). The romance is there, but characters have their memories erased, so it's hard to see, and the impact from some things is only clear in hindsight. It's an intensely painful, angsty romance, but by the end I was really rooting for them.

[SPOILERS AHOY!]

Had to take the last few chapters slowly: the knives kept coming and every single chapter/death was devastating. And then, when I thought we were done, that there was no one left… there was one. Bai Liu himself! Bai Liu and his younger self, before he met Xie Ta, and how his younger self reacted… another knife right through the heart.

The last three chapters were a bit rushed, to get to this happy ending (and I missed seeing some of the side characters, like Hearts, Georgia and Armand, Du Sanying, Phoebe, even Daniel). And I'm still not sure how Fang Dian pulled off her "cheat" (so she and LYZ and Spades had their memories) --- maybe I missed something. But it doesn't matter that much to me, since to me Bai Liu's side (humanity) already won when he reset the world lines, removed Bai 6, and locked the gate, and that part was basically set up through the whole novel up to there, so yeah.

While it was set up from the beginning, the beginning (first couple of arcs) is misleading. It gives the impression (well, it did to me) of being a "normal" infinite flow with a game set-up, where the main character is a typical Gary-Stu but is otherwise a regular player just like anyone else in a regular (for the genre) kind of game. Then in the third game, you notice that it's strangely personal… is it just coincidence that it seems to be based on the character's real life childhood?

Then comes the Heretic Handling Bureau and Rose Factory arc and Tang Erda's POV and everything blows up. We gradually realize the game we thought we were seeing is not the true game. Bai Liu isn't just a Gary-Stu, he really IS the center of the universe and all the games he enters really are arranged specially for him (and the people around him). The spectator gallery scenes are toned down a bit, as are the "gaming mechanics" bits (like filling out the monster books, getting special rewards, level ratings and mortality rates, stat sheets, etc.) and "normal" human players fade into the background as we go deeper into Bai Liu's plot.

Bai Liu's "bad luck" thing was also mostly dropped, which is just as well --- I didn't think it was convincing or worked well in the first place. To me, the "luck" plot device only worked as part of Du Sanying's tragic life. Du Sanying didn't get as much of the spotlight as other side characters, but the bits he did get were interesting with how "luck" had affected him.

I felt the pacing of the story was well done. While it was really long, I don't think there were any superfluous arcs (the few bits of fluff in between were needed as a breather between the heavy stuff) and each arc, while they also tended to be long, still moved along and continued to hold my attention. I tend to drop a lot of novels when I get bored or I feel it's getting too repetitive or pointless, but I didn't this time, even though I ended up reading the last few arcs in Chinese which slowed me down considerably! (Though now I have experienced a new form of typo, in which an entire word can be deleted from a text… the chapter with "不" and "了" missing really confused me at first.)

The arcs got shorter towards the end, which I felt was a good thing, because it's time to focus in on the conclusion, and when it gets to one-chapter-one-death, that focus made each chapter hit harder.

So basically, Bai Liu is like the kinder, gentler Satan where everyone is glad they sold him their souls, and as a reader I'm sobbing when those souls get destroyed and Bai Liu has to see the paper soul banknotes fall out of his soul-containing wallet and burn to ashes in front of him. Damn you, Bai 6!!! But for ten years of family, friendship, romantic love, Bai Liu will guard the gate forever and protect the people he cares about even after all memories of him have been erased from the universe…

[He has countless soul notes, money, honors, victory. He has everything.

He lost his best friends, family, himself. He has nothing.] (Chapter 580)

But…

[Don't be afraid of parting from your loved ones. In the end we'll meet again.]

So yeah, even if the end was a bit "and then a miracle occurs…" it's beautiful and I love it.

[arktaisch]

Yep, they sure are a circus...

(Chapter 526-527, the context is they're trying to ally with a group of freedom fighter witches (all women) who are suspicious of them.)

How Bai Liu describes Liu Jiayi: The first to cry for me, to heal me, was a witch child. She is one of the friends I treasure the most in this world, for her I'm willing to give her my life, victory, and trust. If she is, according to God's design, evil, wrong, and born in sin to atone for her guilt --- then for her, I will kill God.

Me: Aww! How far they've come since they first met! Not that many more chapters before he kills God, presumably.

Then, the next chapter:

How Bai Liu describes himself: All I care about is my boyfriend and money.

Me: Look at that character development! He added "boyfriend" and even put it before "money"!!!

How Bai Liu describes Tang Erda: He exhausted all his efforts chasing a one-sided romance.

Me: hmm...

How Bai Liu describes Mu Ke: He has heart disease and can't think about doing that...

Me: ...

How Bai Liu describes Mu Sicheng: Transportation or monkey, take your pick!

Me: !?! *falls over laughing*

NPC summary:

一个男同，一个当男同都失败了的半男同，一个无性恋心脏病患者，一个交通工具和猴——你们怎么看都和正常扯不上关系吧？！

[One gay, one half gay who failed at being gay, one asexual heart patient, one transportation tool and monkey --- however you look at it, you guys are nothing like normal ? !]

See, now that scene at the end of chapter 527 was actually hilarious. Unlike the cross-dressing jokes they have in these novels, which I personally have to (mostly) grit my teeth through and the "ha ha, they think he's a she, wants to date 'her', ha ha ha ha" plots. (I'm so glad the narrative doesn't treat Hearts as a joke!)

[arktaisch]

So am I hallucinating or is this a bootstrap paradox? (GHG spoilers)

Anyone else read this novel who can tell me if I'm way off in my understanding of the plot?

I'm gonna need to read the whole thing again to understand it more clearly! Right now I'm having a hard time keeping the timeline(s) straight. (I'm not even done yet, and I'm forgetting what happened in the beginning! At the Witch Trial arc now. It's so slow because machine translation is a pain and so is learning to read Chinese!)

Here's my attempt at sorting it out (major spoilers!):

Ok, so the original Bai 6 is an actual "evil god" (Yog-Sothoth) who controls (? or is) the gate through which infinite (well, lots of them, anyway) world-lines go. Observing the mortals in the worlds, he thought they were interesting. They evolved qualities that he did not himself possess. So he messed around with them, as you do. Also, he got bored and wanted to retire, but only if his replacement was more powerful than him and had this weird thing, this "soul" that the mortals are able to develop. So he experimented to understand what it means to have a soul and how to generate one. Apparently love and suffering and connections to other people are involved…

He creates a living image of his ideal person, but it is basically just a soul-less statue. But since he doesn't understand it himself, he fails to create any souls. He tries all kinds of things to awaken Tawil (his perfect statue), but Tawil has no understanding of love, hate, resentment, suffering, friendship, etc.

He also drops mortal clones of himself into each of these world-lines, but they turn out to be disappointments, too.

The humans show some promise (especially Fang Dian, who is probably the ultimate catalyst for salvation, by what I've read so far… hopefully the rest of the story doesn't ruin her for me) so evil god Bai 6 starts up a game with them. Fang Dian is locked out as a hostage/stake for the game, so the main opponent ends up being the Prophet. They mess around with the rules a bit to get the balance right (a boring victory is useless for Bai 6). Maybe the struggle from their opposition will get him what he wants!

Now we are in trial 658, the last world-line in the game.

It's different: Lu Yizhan is dropped in when Bai Liu (called Bai 6 at the time) was 14, still at the orphanage, at the time of Xie Ta's "death", hugging the corpse at the bottom of the pond. The change is because XT drags LYZ in early and begs him to save the boy, who XT says is a good boy, not like all the others. LYZ hesitates, but takes a huge leap of faith and doesn't kill a (so far) innocent child.

Now why would XT think that? It seems that in every previous world-line, young B6 was attracted to XT (a fellow outsider and physically appealing to him because Evil God!B6 made XT that way) but XT ignores him completely no matter what B6 does to get his attention. Frustrated, B6 ends up murdering XT (it doesn't take, obviously). B6 only knows power/money/greed and ends up in the game.

Ok, but in 658, XT is different. He has a soul! He takes the initiative to befriend B6. And as a result, B6 learns from XT's friendship, and begins to develop a soul, too (and falls in love with XT). Later, LYZ and Fang Dian reinforce that, and the renamed Bai Liu really does become a good boy, even though it takes time and he is very walled-off and suspicious at first (and he was right, LYZ did have ulterior motives!).

So how did XT grow a soul?

In the Boathouse (Evil God Ritual) game, which was the original first instance in all previous world-lines rather than Siren Town, Evil God!Bai 6 had manipulated things to give his "statue" (Tawil) love and suffering, but none of it touched Tawil… until Bai Liu is dropped back into that world-line, #657. (In the body of his teen-age self, but with his adult memories.) This Bai Liu is in love with "his" Tawil, but this one, being from an earlier world-line, doesn't have those memories yet. This Tawil is still the one that doesn't understand human feelings and lacks a soul.

This changes when Bai Liu visits him in the temple. Tawil begins to feel something for him, but maybe it's just because he's there, he can meet his eyes without going crazy, and so on. That isn't a true, two-sided love, so Bai Liu keeps visiting, but stays outside and refuses to talk to him. Love through suffering is the Evil God Way (TM), but hey, it works for them! Stuff happens, Bai 6 meddles, but NOW Tawil has a soul and loves Bai Liu back… but they can't be together across the world-lines.

So now 658!Tawil has a soul and loves Bai Liu, so he can be there for young 658!Bai 6, who doesn't understand human feelings and lacks a soul.

So they have souls because they gave each other souls and there's no first or second, because it's a time loop! (I just miss Xie Ta, though. Spades may technically have the same soul, but personally I don't like him as much and it messes up the symmetry to me!)

[arktaisch]

I think I'm enjoying these infinite flow novels so much for many of the same reasons I love Doctor Who: you have a cool core cast of characters who run around in adventures in completely different settings (and genres) and there's a sense that you can throw your crew into anything you want, however crazy. You can have a lot more variation in tone/rules/whatever because the local reality is limited in scope to the current adventure and you can change everything for the next one.

The recurring characters gain experience and a bit of genre savvy, while the "local" characters for each adventure are more naive and play it straight (Doctor Who doesn't call them NPCs like infinite flow novels tend to do, but that's basically what they are). We get to meet new characters and new stories as we go along, and a lot of the fun comes from main characters interacting with the transient ones.

You can spend some time getting to know the local characters, then kill them off horribly, have them suffer terrible irreversible tragedies, etc. etc., while the core characters mostly have plot armor (though not completely), so you kinda have your cake and eat it too. Each instance/adventure can have its own little mysteries and soap opera plots for the main characters to discover, all while the recurring characters can have also relationships with other "adventurer" types, whether as allies, enemies, or whatever. So you can have long arcs that span a bunch of individual instances as well as the local arcs.

I also like how the infinite flow novels are willing to take their time and spend many chapters on a single adventure. The pacing feels more like classic Doctor Who rather than the 1-2 episode modern style.

Anyway, for a long time I had never found another show that quite scratched the same itch as Doctor Who did for me, but now there's something close (though not so long-running, obviously, and I haven't come across a character I like as much as the Doctor, yet).

[arktaisch]

Yog-Sothoth!!!??!!

Ok, I totally didn't see that coming, though I should have, since the name "Tawil" was dropped at the end of the first arc. I just didn't realize/notice Tawil was that Tawil: Umr-at Tawil, the Most Ancient One, the Guide, etc. etc. (Though some people were saying Bai 6 acted more like Nyarlathotep than Yog-Sothoth with the messing around with humanity, and I kinda agreed with that, but it does make sense to be Y-S with the multiple world-lines stuff.)

So does this mean this is another one of those weird self-cest stories? That'll be second infinite flow self-cest webnovel I'll have read this year, huh.

Well, I guess I'll see... another hundred or so chapters to go.

[arktaisch]

Years ago the book Lungbarrow was released online on the bbc classic dr who website, (as well as being a directors cut) artwork was produced for the story. Sadly the bbc since removed it from the site and only some of the images were archived on backups of the web page.                          

  So a while back I scoured the internet for every image I could find (which had been saved on random fan sites and elsewhere) as the copies of most of the images which were in the pdf  (which had been available for download from the bbc site) were quite low resolution.                                                                  While doing so I compared the images which had been archived on the bbc site (and a few cropped down versions of some images I could not find a full version of)  to their lower resolution equivalents in the pdf. 

I found to my surprise some of the images depicting the same scene were completely different! (some had a face and some other details redone, with most other element roughly the same while others were whole different pictures) 

All of what Imanged when I did this several years I saved (which is good as some of the sites with some of the image fragments have now gone) and as it came up in a conversation I was able to find them here they all are. Enjoy.

(Note as I said some the images are cropped down, or have had something saved on top of parts of them. I am posting these versions as they are higher resolution than the complete lower res version I am posting as well)   

There are people on standing on the tiled floor but the resolution  

The rest of this image of badger fighting is missing

(note the artist has since redone this image but I am not including that version here as It was created after the fact)

Someone (no spoilers) tries not to fall from the balcony 

It’s raining fish - Hallelujah!

lungbarrow Orchid Lizard attacks

The Doctor shields Quences’ body from the Drudges

Gallifrey distant past (in the others time)

Someone edited attempt to show an intact lungbarrow included as its higher quality than other images

A textless version of the cover and a piece o art work done for the doctor who magazine at a different time