echthr0s

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I have no beef with being "spoiled" about various media and I rarely go out of my way to avoid spoilers and in fact I think the entire concept is a bit out of hand and there's a great Key & Peele sketch that sums up how absurd I think it is-- anyway, not the point, the point is that, that being said, it's also interesting to go for years not knowing a single thing beyond the broad strokes about something before finally getting into it

I have no idea how I went all this time without really knowing anything about CP2077 (maybe it's because all people seemed to do was complain about it, lmfao) (and most of the actual content I did see was virtual photography and therefore almost entirely divorced from the context of the game), but finding out exactly how Johnny Silverhand ends up in your brain was a wild ass ride

and recently I was walking around (I mostly spend my playtime walking around) (kind of out of homesickness; CP2077 is NYC Pedestrian Simulator to me) and suddenly Johnny went "hey check this out" and I turned around and there was just a whole ass tarot card art on the wall. (that no one else can see. basically a hallucination.) and I don't know what that's about, and I won't know what that's about until I find all of them and unlock the rest of the quest, and I'm so fascinated. of course Vexx would just start seeing tarot art on the walls, though. that seems very much like something that would happen to one of my avatars

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It is interesting to note how present-incarnation media-based nostalgia feels in comparison to pangs of homesickness or bittersweet familiarity that stems from my existence in the universe that media is based on.

I'm fond of Ul'dah because that's the first city we encountered way back when we first started playing FFXIV, and it feels like "home" in that sense. And I'm fond of Thavnair and the Azim Steppe because those are Dayir's homes, and I feel Dayir's bright effusive joy at seeing those vistas. And I'm... fond? of Garlemald because those are the sights that Zenos remembers best, but it's also a dark, trapped feeling. This is the place that made me, for better or worse. It is as beautiful and as forbidding as the depths of the sea, and as full of monsters.

I think there's probably like 10 different separate unique feelings I have had and will have about various locations in FFXIV because of the 3+ (Dayir's existence is also multiplicitious in its own way) separate perspectives I have access to. And that's just in one piece of media.

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cw bit of a hater moment but I think one of the wildest things about becoming numbers-focused as a fanartist is that "popularity =/= quality" applies to fanworks just as much as it applies to, like, Marvel movies or whatever. just saw a bit of writing that made me physically cringe away from my screen a little and I got to the notes and there were 3k notes. meanwhile my mutuals write mindblowing shit that routinely get <10 notes. this is like how I often fall in love with movies that are not highly rated on Lboxd/RT/etc -- it is because they are singular and unique works that are not made for widespread appeal, but may have deep personal resonance with certain people, one of whom happens to be me.

if I make this a post it will be engraved on my memory and thereby dissolve any trace of numbers lust from my mind forever

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if you ask me, gen-AI exists for one clear and noble purpose: to generate machine-made horrors beyond our comprehension 🖤

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the realism in CP2077 is insane. like how you'll have the WALK signal and be crossin the street and some dickhead will still come careening around the corner without looking and mow your ass down

oh, also I went to talk to some cops because I was on a quest for them and when I walked up to them one of them yelled "YOU FUCKING CUNT" and pistol-whipped me for no reason

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getting to the end of an expansion is always a great time for me because I get to unlock a bunch of new dungeons and raids. and then I remember I have to queue for all those dungeons and raids

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A simple nightgown or something similar, most of the time. But after a while she observes how some of her lovers really do get into acts of ritualistic service, so she will sometimes wear more elaborate daywear before falling into stasis so they may indulge in the devotional act of undressing her and wrapping her in soft silks or what-have-you and putting her to bed. It's knightly enrichment <3

4/29/25

What does your wol(oc) wear to sleep?

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listen, I love Stormblood but every time I play it I gotta once again be reminded that Squeenix really thought to try to convince me that this lass

is the natural daughter of this guy

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welcome to Spring Mode: Evil Edition! you have activated the Bug Lover package, which means ants will now manifest in your bed physically

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me: "OUGHHH I haven't played my Hades savefile in THREE years, I have no idea what I'm doing anymore. what does this button do. ooo shiny weapon. how do I punch the skellyton"

me 2 hours later: *has escaped the Underworld twice in a row*

me: "oh. huh. seems I have figured out how to punch the skellyton REAL good"

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there's always one thing you gotta keep in mind when it comes to remasters: remember when your loading screens used to be .5 seconds?

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apparently the halfway mark of FFXIV's MSQ so far is roundabouts "The First of Many" (the quest that unlocks the bottom half of the Peaks in Stormblood), so I'm now halfway through the MSQ... sure don't feel like it

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as a coda to what I was talking about last night… a funny thing about social media is that it creates (or exacerbates) a bottomless hunger. you think, “if I just had a lot of followers, I’d be happy” or “if just more people sent me asks about my OC, I’d be happy” or “if I just got more reblogs, I’d be happy”, but there is no solid number of followers or inbox messages or reblogs that will satisfy that desire. in fact, the more of the above that you get, the less happy you’re likely to be. (and obviously, this is all data culled from observation only – I’ve never been in the following positions, but over the years I’ve followed a lot of people that have high amounts of social media visibility. someone will always be the exception to these examples, but 100% accuracy in predicting human behaviour really isn’t anywhere near the point I’m trying to make here.)

if you get a lot of inbox messages, you might be upset about how many of them are nasty anons, or that out of 60 messages only 25 are asking about the particular OC you want to talk about that day. if you have a lot of followers, you might notice that more followers doesn’t necessarily equal more follower interaction, which gets more and more frustrating the higher your follower count grows; or you might find out that having such a huge audience makes you feel more anxious and more self-conscious about stuff you happily and freely shared before, and you become more sensitive to the feeling that people don’t actually like your content. if you get more reblogs, the bar of “how many reblogs = good amount of reblogs” will just keep rising. if you get an average of 50 reblogs on your art, you’ll want 100. if you get 100, you’ll then want 300. if you get 300, well, why not 500? that other artist gets 500 all the time. it sounds incredible and paradoxical, but it happens with shit like money and possessions, too. the more you have, the more you think you need.

and comparison is a self-esteem murderer, and a relationship murderer. like, instantly. being on tumblr makes it nearly impossible not to compare yourself to other people, especially other creators. one of your mutuals gets more attention and validation than you do, and more than likely you’re going to end up feeling like shit about your own creations, even if you normally think your creations are pretty good. it’ll become a contest, and it’ll make you resentful towards that mutual, even if you normally love and support that mutual. and like… they’ll feel it. and it’ll spread, because it’s contagious like that. then you’ll get a bunch of people feeding off each other’s resentment and turning it into self-righteous outrage – “we deserve more reblogs! if you don’t reblog our work, then what’s the point of us posting it at all?” which, I mean, come on. (a similar thing happens with commissions, and honestly… there are so many of you, and most of us have so little money. can you imagine the indecision paralysis I would face if I came into a spare $60 or so to spend on one commission? who do I choose? who do I possibly choose?)

my point is, we’re irrational creatures whose ability to rationalise doesn’t really have as much sway over us as we’d like to believe, and, like… this shit is all about feelings. we want to feel validated and appreciated and for our work to be meaningful to other people. but that’s a nebulous and capricious feeling, and not necessarily grounded in reality. if you don’t feel that way, it’s easy to blame something like “I don’t get enough reblogs”, but that’s just a rationale you create for why you feel like crap, and gives you someone/something concrete to blame. sometimes we just have a hard time feeling the validation and appreciation that people are already giving us. even if only one or two people appreciate your existence and your creation, then still, those one or two people are worthy of being acknowledged and not passed over for “greater numbers”.

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new old man yaoi just dropped: Charon Hadesgame and Shakin' Bones Southofmidnight

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the fucking BLIGHT???????????

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a funny thing I've noticed as someone who gets real nosy in the notes of posts is that sometimes notes will be missing depending on whose blog you're looking at the notes from, and I don't know why BUT I assume is related to blocking, so I've concluded that if half the notes are missing when looking at a post on my dashboard but they reappear if I look at it from OP's blog then the mutual that reblogged the post must have half the people in the notes blocked 💀

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prisoner in pink :)

the only thing I've got to say so far (besides "woag shiny...") is that it was wild of Bethesda to make Uriel look more fuckable than Martin