#BUT I JUST HAD TO FUCKING WATCH THE VIDEO ESSAY ON IT AND THEN GOOGLE AND I WANT TO THROW UP

[bunn-iiii]

me when I fall down a rabbit hole and spend literally over 7 hours reading a first hand account of a horrifying situation and it feels like the pages are never ending and I get so deep into it all that I immerse myself too far and feel like everything is out of control and I'm in the situation that I'm reading and I'm trying to fight tooth and nail to escape a situation I'm not even in but have somehow entered into the mindset of someone who is.

[strstab]

𝐛𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐚 - 𝐣.𝐦

summary ; you see a tiktok trend and decide to see if you boyfriend will help you participate in it

pairing ; jj maybank x fem!reader

notes ; soft jj, kissing, video filming, hp & family guy references

a/n ; my first public writing, hopefully ppl see this. if y’all do send requests? i think you can do that.. but enjoy <3

— tiktok in question —

scrolling on tiktok with kie sitting next to you, you came across a video of a girl putting makeup on her best friends face. you let out a small giggle at the thought of your boyfriend with mascara and pretty pink lips.

“what’s funny?” kie asked turning to peek at your phone.

you showed her the video and got up to go find your beloved boyfriend, who coincidentally, had just walked into the room.

“jj, can you help me with something?” you looked at him with pouty lips and sparkles in your eyes only he could see

he lifted a brow and grinned as he looked at you, knowing you were up to something, “it depends on what that something is, baby,”

kie let out a quiet laugh from behind you as she threw your phone towards him, letting him watch the video you previously showed her. knowing you’d be able to convince him happy or not, you started searching through the drawers of your vanity in hopes of having your makeup bag in one of them.

“no way,” jj scoffed with a shake of his head, “you’re not putting makeup on me.”

giving a knowing look to kie, she walked out and closed the door behind her.

this is where the fun began.

after 10 minutes of begging, smacking, pecks to the cheek and tugging, you finally managed to convince your lover to let you do his pretty boy makeup.

you sat on the counter of your bathroom sink with jj standing in between your thighs with his eyes looking straight at you.

“don’t give me that look” he said with a quick eye roll

you smiled as you uncapped the ‘better than sex’ mascara in your hands, “roll your eyes and i’ll poke your eye out with my wand.”

“wand? what are you a witch?” he replied with a soft grin. you lifted his chin and softly ran the inked bristles across his long lashes. god those lashes of his you wish you had. why were men blessed with female preferred features?

“i am, i casted a love spell on you a couple years ago,” you laughed and scolded him for blinking shortly after.

he stared at you in silence, admiring your pretty eyes that tend to crinkle when you smile. the soft lips he kissed every morning he woke up next to you. your perfect nose that just seemed to fit your face structure perfectly. everything about you he fell in love with more by the second, minute, hour, and day.

jj was never good at english class, but ask him to write an essay about you and you’d get a 20 page google document.

getting sucked out of his thoughts as you painted his thin lips a soft shade of pink, “what’s on your mind, j?”

“nothing, just how powerful your spell is on me. did you go to hogwarts, baby?” he questioned with a smile, pushing the strands of hair that covered your pretty face behind your ear.

“fuck yeah, i was fighting dementors and shit” you answered while filling in his eyebrows and putting highlighter in the corners of his eyes.

you finished after another couple of minutes and while pulling out your phone to find the audio you were going to use, jj spoke up with a concerned tone in his voice,

“are you actually going to record me in this?!”

looking up from your phone to look at him you saw his filled in eyebrows furrowed, “duh, that’s the point of the trend, j” you stated.

you weren’t going to let his worried expression get to you because you knew you’d be able to kiss it away in a couple minutes.

he let out a whine in protest but you had already started the video, doing your part, you lip-synced

“do you or do you not feel bonita?”

and with a turn of the phone, the camera faced him and he slightly panicked not knowing what to say.

“you didn’t tell me what i’m supposed to say!”

your lips shaped into an ‘o’ and proceeded to explain how to do the tiktok.

once again, with the flip of the camera jj awkwardly worded his part

“...uhm i feel bonita”

“wonderful, because you look bonita!” you grinned and went back to your phone to caption and post the video

jj pushed your phone aside and placed his lips on yours, in desperate need of affection. you let out a quiet gasp as you were caught off guard but kissed him back anyways.

he placed his hands on your cheeks and pulled away slowly. “do my lips feel prettier?”

you snorted, tilting your head in confusion

“y’know, because they look prettier, do they feel prettier?” he asked again, trying to explain his question

you placed another kiss on his lips and nodded, “yes they feel prettier, baby”

he picked you up, wrapping your legs around his waist as he peppered your face with kisses, leaving pretty pink marks on your glowing skin.

he smiled, pleased with the outcome of his make over.

a win is a win.

check out ocean eyes 🌅 water drops 🧴 & pretty present 🍰

WOAHHH FIRST WRITING HOW WAS THAT.??

hopefully people see this 😓

but anyways i’m a whore for some jj fluff, and the trend has been flooding my fyp so ofc i had to write for my love ❤️‍🩹

[vshushmshu]

pickup lines

usually the red eared slider’s flirts and compliments were flowery, over the top with heaps of silly, and you would roll your eyes at each and every one. grand sweeping gestures, an arm slung around your neck, or running his thumb over your knuckles with a wiggle of brows that didn’t actually exist. it was entertaining, something you would never actually admit outloud, so you never really shut down his teasing. you only let it happen for the hell of it. yeah.

a wink that looked as if his eye momentarily had an uncontrollable spasm, “i would never play hide and seek with you, because someone like you is impossible to find.”

you grimaced as he walked over to sit beside you on the rooftop, “i honestly wish i could hide from this.”

finger guns, “are you from tennessee?? because you’re the only ten-i-see!”

a huff, looking over the city once more before you stopped patrolling for the night, “new york, buddy.”

“you never humor me…”

“you have no idea.”

an irritatingly wide smile, leo splayed out on your bed, “this might sound cheesy, but i think you’re really grate.”

you turn from your homework to cock a brow at him, “…puns? really? you’re stooping to puns now?”

“hey, a turtle’s gouda do what he’s gouda do.”

“i hate you.”

“awww, i love you too!!!”

you were drawing with mikey when your self-proclaimed bestie barreled in, “i seem to have!! lost my phone number!!!! can i have yours?”

the orange clad turtle seemed to be holding in the fattest cackle, so you ignored him to look at leo with a fairly neutral expression, “i thought you already had my number?”

“yeah, but i kinda… deleted it just to make this work..”

“…you’re stupid. i’m friends with an idiot.”

he pouted, until his phone lit up at an unknown number’s message, “and i’m friends with a meanie pants… oh! thanks!”

you shoved your phone back in your pocket while mikey eyed the two of you, his red striped brother already tapping the number into your contact once more, “sure, mhm.”

nabbing a piece of popcorn from your bowl, eyes scrunched from his simper as he glances at you, then lets his eyes land back on raph and april’s mario kart game once more, “it’s a good thing i have a library card, because i am totally checking you out.”

“…aren’t you illiterate or something? do you even know what a library is?”

“shut the fuck up….”

he looked up from his comic as you flopped onto his bed, just having listened attentively to another one of donnie’s infodumps, “did you just come out an oven?”

you huffed, draping an arm over your eyes, “no, leo.”

said turtle leaned over to poke your cheek with a snicker, “‘cause you’re hot.”

“goddammit, leo.”

“is this hogwarts express, because it feels like you and i are going somewhere magical.“

you stared at him as he gestured to a newly opened portal, “man, i swear, are you getting these from buzzfeed articles?? ain’t no way you pulled a harry potter line out your ass like that.”

“…is your name google? ‘cause you got the answers for everything i’m searching for.”

you swore you saw the face of a slider caught, and your eyes twinkled in amusement, “so, you are.”

“LEAVE ME ALONE.”

“your hand looks lonely. want me to hold it for you?”

you readjust your grip on your weapon, eyeing him in a sort of flabbergasted way, “lee, we are literally in the middle of a FIGHT.”

“right, whatever.”

you both were on your phones, the turtle laying on you scrolling through god-knows what, while you watched a video essay on something you were to inevitably forget about. you snickered at an elaborate joke about something or other, and the slider grinned a little, “roses are red, violets are blue. with a smile like that, looks like i’m doomed.”

“…”

you were tempted to kick him off, something inside you churning, but you just refocused on your video once more. his face seemed a little surprised in your peripheral vision, but at what, you couldn’t be sure.

leo sat beside you in blankets, barely conscious in his goofy pajamas during the latter end of a movie night, everyone else already asleep (except for donnie, who could care less about anyone else as his eyes stayed glued to the screen projected on the wall, hyperfixated on a jupiter jim movie he’s no doubt seen a thousand times over), “are you- did you fell from heaven- cause- fuck. i forgot how that one goes.”

you hid a grin behind a facepalm, equally fatigued as his head dipped to rest lightly on your shoulder, neck giving up on keeping it upright, “of course you did.”

sometimes though, those bits of flattery are uttered so quiet, barely above a whisper, the turtle holding such reverence in his tone. like now, just before he drifts off to sleep to no doubt drool all over you, the slider makes himself comfortable buried in your side. you still when his cheek rubs against your shoulder, a content sigh escaping leo while he wraps his arms around you in your shared blanket nest, “hm mwarm… i wish this would last f’rever..”

you can’t doubt that it’s sincere when it’s said like that. you look away from the movie to stare at him with tired eyes, face warm while you fiddled slightly with your fingers, buried under the blankets wrapped around your own body. leo started snoring in record time, light chirps coming from him every time he shifted in his sleep, and you rest your head on his. maybe you wished that too, maybe your mouth twisted into the smallest of frowns, but you decided not to dwell on it.

letting your eyes drift close, and pulling the red eared slider closer, you knew you were going to wake up to dumb pickup lines that held a bit too much sincerity in them. maybe you were glad.

[rat-rosemary]

To be frank with you, I don’t think that Dream went about announcing or creating the USMP in a good way.

For starters, Dream could have shown basic respect for Quackity and waited before announcing his SMP. He couldn’t even congratulate Quackity for the QSMP without making it about himself. Dream didn’t even wait a month before announcing the USMP, which you must admit is very similar to Quackity’s idea, which has been in the making for way longer than Dream’s has, based on how Dream doesn’t even have all 60 members of his server nor, you know, an actual quality translator (at least based upon his most recent video).

Plus, what connection does Dream have to other languages? I, for one, distinctly mentioning something about how the only language he speaks is winning, and yet now he’s all for overcoming cultural bounds and uniting people from all across the world? I acknowledge that a person’s opinions can change, but then again, there’s the matter of timing that I mentioned earlier.

Overall, I don’t believe that Dream would have been condemned this way if he had announced the USMP later. However, I do believe that he is being heavily inconsiderate of Quackity and that there is a very high possibility that he is trying to ride off of Quackity’s coattails for whatever reason. That reason could be relevancy, as with the obviously faked letter that he supposedly got from Google (obviously faked because of the multiple spelling and grammar issues), or it could be that he is trying to replicate the DSMP and its popularity again.

Regardless, even without getting into the moral qualities of Dream’s character and whether the accusations about him are true, it’s obvious that he is being rude to a certain degree (the degree of which is debatable, but the rudeness definitely not) towards Quackity and what he is trying to achieve with the QSMP.

Sorry for typing out this long essay, but I feel strongly about this topic, and whenever I feel strongly about something, my brain goes into writing mode (it’s the autism—just kidding, of course). I hope I didn’t come off too mean, I just wanted to share with you my views on why the Dream might not have the best intentions for creating the USMP.

Okay so i also talk a lot but my thoughts come a lot more fractured so you might see a ton of edits to this post

So first of all, i actually do agree that the announced of the usmp was not very good. Personally i think he should maybe have waited a bit more, or idk, but i do agree that it didn't come out the best way

The thing about connection to other languages I think that Dream is doing it both because of some of his friends (Korean in specific, Tina really want to learn korean again after she lost most of what she knew, and there are a few more youtubers Dream is friends with and/or knows that know or are korean) and because he genuinely enjoyed connecting with people from other places and languages! Idk if you saw him during the squid games and more even on spreen's heaven event but he was clearly having lots of fun and really really loving talking to people

And a thing about the Dt that most people who dont watch them dont really know, is that they're all kind of shy around new people. Dream is exited but kind of scared, Sapnap is really really shy and will stick to people he knows (you can see on his first irl stream with Karl, he looked like a spooked cat) and George will be weird with people he doesn't know but he doesn't really make a connections quickly like how Quackity for example does

You can really see how these events left a really strong impact on Dream (and his community!)

(Also, some other languages might also been chosen because of his friends, Foolish, Tubbo, Tina and [Oh fuck another person but i forgot her name] were/are working really really hard on learning Spanish, but didn't really get a chance to use it. Other ones, like Japanese, might just be a "oh! I bet there are tons of cool people there" but really i dont know the streamers, so i cant say for sure)

I can talk a bit about why portuguese tho! Most big brasilian youtubers started out as minecraft youtubers, and they're actually really big! I cant really vouch for them (they're not bad, just... like annoying bad, except that one guy, but we dont talk about Monarca) some of our youtubers were on the top of all creators on the site a few years ago (i havent really looked since then)

So it's a big untapped community that does actually love interacting with people from other countries (there's a reason that "come to Brasil" is a meme, other then the fact that no band ever comes to brasil)

I cannot comment on the google thing because i genuinely dont really know what you're talking about

But about congratulating Quackity, I think multiple cc's were congratulating Quackity and saying his project was really cool (including Dream) even before it was announced, and im pretty sure he congratulated Q after the qsmp trailers came out

But yeah, again I think it was kind of weird how the announcement of the usmp came, but i dont think it was because Dream genuinely wanted to hurt Quackity or try to overshadow him

About the quality of the translation, i actually think its kinda funny? It definitely shows that Dream (and Callahan! Who is absolutely incredible) were actually trying to create this themselves and not just copying from something else.

I also think its not meant to really be perfect? I for sure think it will be better when we see it live, but I think the usmp and the version of the translator we see in it are not meant to be the best version it can be, but more an example so people can take it and alter it and transform it. Thats why i think its free to access and edit, because it was meant to be taken and changed by the community

But hey! One of my favorite tropes is language barriers, so i might he a bit biased on the "It's okay that the translator is glitchy thing"

(I also think that language is so complex that the translator will never truly be perfect, with complicated words and frases and *regional dialects and words that dont truly have translations, like "saudade" or "cafune", i think that there will always be little misunderstanding and confusion and bugs, but we can just pause and try to explain it differently, like it always is in conversations)

[*side note, im kind of doxxing myself a little, but my dialect literally replaces the word "thing" for the word "train" and we only do that in my state. You can also always tell when someone writes something in portuguese making sure that people could translate it because we talk/text completely different, you can translate você but not ce so some things get caught up]

This is actually really nice! Its nice to share views without being aggressive and going for each other's throat. I hope is discussed everything? It's 2:31 am and im sick so i might have missed something and im glad to talk more about it if you want to

But yeah, long story short, i do agree that the delivery of the usmp was weird and kind of disjointed, but i think it came from a place of genuine love and excitement with Dream, he just hyperfoxused on it and forgot to think of some stuff. And i think it will be fun to have multiple multilingual smps and that in the ends usmp and qsmp will be different in some core ways

I hope i wasnt rude as well! If i did i genuinely didn't want to come off as agressive

[butcherlarry]

I was tagged by @burins in a people I want to get to know tag meme! Thanks for the tag!

Last Song: I was actually listening to this in the car as I was coming home from work today, Sexkiller on the Loose by Carpenter Brut. I really like this whole album, Trilogy , and listen to it all the time when I'm traveling. It's nice thinkin' music for me, but I have to be careful because it's very easy to speed when listening to the upbeat songs.

The last podcast I listened to was the most recent Behind the Bastards episode, discussing Michael Lewis and the terrible book he wrote about Sam Bankman-Fried. I also completed a re-listen of BtB's six part series on what a bastard Henry Kissinger was, in honor of his death.

The last book I read was Axiom's End by Lindsay Ellis. I might have stayed up until 12:30 am finishing it, and was VERY TIRED when I went birding the next day. Reading this book finally pushed me to get a library card so I can read the next book, Truth of the Divine. I've been holding out on getting a library card for the last couple years because my life has been so hectic with multiple moves. I've finally settled down enough where I can get a library card, and this book was the push I needed to finally do it.

My favorite color: purple! I just really love that color. If you look in my closet, you'll see a lot of purple clothes :)

Currently Watching: What everyone else on the Internet is watching, Hbomerguy's Plagiarism video essay. I couldn't watch it all yesterday and have one more hour to go!

Last Movie: Barbie! I watched it with my two best friends over a discord chat. One of them hadn't been able to see it yet, so we watched it together. It was also lovely to catch up :)

Sweet/Spicy/Savory: Hmmmmmm. I'm a sucker for sweet things, but sometimes that gets to be a little too much for me. So sweet and savory or sweet and spicy are always favorite combos of mine.

Relationship status: Single. Not really looking for anyone either. I'm starting to suspect that I'm aro as well as ace.

Current obsessions: BIRDS. Omg, birds. I blame my cats for this, I got a bird feeder to hang outside a large window at my old apartment to entertain them. Well, it ended up entertaining me too. Now I have a nice camera, multiple bird field books, and I go to the local arboretum every Sunday to go birding. It's my "go out and touch literal grass" day. And it's so much fun to see the birds throughout the year, especially seeing which ones stay in the area and who migrates/come back. The dark-eyed juncos and white-throated sparrows are back and I'm SO HAPPY to see those little guys! I post my pictures on my bird tumblr or Bluesky, as well as the Batfam discord server I'm in :)

Last thing I googled: How to take the FUCKING knife guard off our back up meat slicer to clean it. I wanted both slicers going because we had 100 POUNDS (45+ kgs) of deli turkey to slice for my company's holiday party and it was dirty from the last time it was used. I have NO IDEA how the FUCK we got it off the first time. It should be simple! There is a long pin/bar you unscrew in the back! But it still wouldn't come off!! I think there is some kind of safety we're not triggering, but I have NO CLUE what it is. The manual it came with and the manufacturer's videos on YouTube were NO HELP. I blame the French (the slicer was made in France).

I'm tagging @ktkat99, @betta-male, @sunny-in-gotham, @halehathnofury, @froizetta, @superbattrash, @lizyarikus, @sisaloofafump, and anyone else who would like to join! No pressure though! :)

[cadybear420]

Getting to know people better

Thanks to @peonierose, @tveitertotwrites, and @aces-and-angels for the tags!

Last song: I don't remember... I think the intro theme song to "From Russia With Love". That shit slaps.

Favorite color(s): Either purple, green, or black.

Currently watching: Nothing new. Mainly just YouTube video essays. Also rewatching some episodes of Garfield and Friends.

Last movie: In theaters: I think Oppenheimer? It was alright but I could not deal with that fucking theater seat for a 3 hour movie lol. At home: Everything Everywhere All At Once. It uh... quite surprised me. A bit of a fever dream, but it was mostly a fun one.

Currently reading: Books-wise: It's been a while since I read an actual book. I'm hoping to get back into it but I'm not sure what to start with. Choices-wise: I'm on my SEVENTH fucking replay of OG HSS, for the purpose of making a record of all the choices I make in the game so I can better construct my MC Evie's personality. And also so I can see Aiden again. I'm also diamond-mining The Billionaire's Baby, and I have a bunch of other books on hiatus.

Sweet/spicy/savory: Sweet and savory. I never liked spicy foods much despite being South Asian lol.

Last thing I Googled: "this is how terfs think skeletons work"

Current obsessions: OG HSS. I hate that even though I'm on my 7th playthrough, I've never made an actually different MC from Evie. I have tried Evie in a few different routes– I had her romance Michael in two playthroughs, do band in one playthrough, and I did a sort of a semi-"you suck" playthrough prior to the current one. But I've never actually played as a different MC, and there are so many different routes and route combos to try and SO LITTLE TIME ARRRGGGHH AND I ALSO PLAN TO DO MY SECOND PLAYTHROUGH OF HSS:CA SO I CAN GIVE IT A SECOND CHANCE AND MAKE HEADCANONS ABOUT WHAT THE OG GANG WAS UP TO DURING THAT TIME AND I ALSO HAVE PERSONAL SHIT IRL AGH- [cady.exe has stopped working] Sorry bout that, shit gets overwhelming

Currently working on: A timeline documentation of all the in-game choices for my HSS MCs Evie (OG) and Cher (CA). So I can better construct who they are as characters and other headcanons like what happens off-screen. I'm in the middle of writing a fanfic about that roller rink trip MC and Aiden go to with Aiden's parents in Book 2, it's going great so far but I'm stuck on how to end it.

i'll tag: Anyone who wants to participate

[ace-reviews]

Anime Review: Trigun Stampede

Originally, when this series won the poll to see which of this season's anime I would review, I was planning to rewatch the 1998 anime in order to better discuss the differences between the two series, since I've never watched the movie or read the manga or seen any of the other adaptations that may or may not exist. I ultimately didn't because I have super important video games to play, but it's probably fine. I'm sure there are plenty of comparisons between the two just a Google search away if that's what you're interested in.

I watched several disconnected episodes of Trigun in high school and watched the whole series a few years ago, in the background while I played some video game or another. Basically, while I definitely enjoy and have fond memories of it, I've never had the deep and abiding love of the series that a lot of other millennial weebs have.

I didn't retain much about the plot or the history of the characters, but I remembered that Vash is a plant (though not the kind I originally thought of) who likes love, peace, and donuts; Meryl and Milly were trying to keeping him from causing more property damage; Wolfwood dies; and Knives is yandere. That's about it. Even so, I was put off by some of the seemingly arbitrary changes made for Stampede--mostly the decision to replace Milly with a middle aged alcoholic named after an actor and the introduction of Vash and Knives' backstory in the first episode.

I left the first episode feeling largely ambivalent toward the whole thing, and when the second episode was out I was busy watching other premiers so I didn't bother with it. Then I got caught up with the third episode and was blown the fuck away.

Knives has always ever been "Vash's yandere brother" to me. I remember little about him from the '98 series except that he exists and was the bad guy. When he was introduced in the first episode of Stampede playing piano while draped in that weird blobby shroud thing, I found it a bit silly. Like, "ooooh look at him he's so scawy lmao". Then he showed up in episode three and was fucking terrifying.

The highest point of the series is the episode detailing Wolfwood's backstory, which is presented in a charming picture book style that looks very nice and contrasts nicely with the really dark shit being covered. If I wanted to, I could also write a separate essay just talking about how Knives is the best character and how he was totally right all along (some of the shit he gets up to in the last couple episodes crosses over into 'what the fuck dude' territory, but he is supposed to be the bad guy so it's fine).

The environmental messaging is a bit hamfisted, but considering the current state of the climate I think we're far past the need for subtlety--if anything, we should probably start looking into beating people 'round the head with actual hammers instead of merely metaphorical ones lest this series become based on a future true story.

Ultimately, though, Trigun Stampede is fucking phenomenal. I'm not going to say 'you owe it to yourself!!' to give it a second chance if you bounced off the first episode because the only things you owe yourself are food, water, sunshine, and love, but I doubt you'd regret giving it another go.

[rexbolt]

10 Mutuals I'd like to know better

Tagged by @seithr!! hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

Last song I listened to: ummm. the jingle bells song in deltarune. just downloaded the flac files for the ost of chapter 2 and am having a sonic experience

Favorite content to watch: video essay:)

Favorite games: deltarun on the brain rn. splatoon and dgs and ffxiv (i guess)

Favorite color: purple:)

Favorite animals: MY CATS

Favorite food: GNOCCHI SUPREMACUY 🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔

Sweet, spicy, or savory: all of them i love spice i love sweet i love savoury i love food in my mouth i'm about to absolutely fuck up some gnocchi with arrabiatta and peperoncino it's got everything i'm about to have a sweet/spicy/savoury explosion

Current obsessions: idek i'm riding out the between-period between having things to think about. last one was bg3, now i'm just doing oc-tober every day to occupy the brain

Last book I read: last one i finished was the gods of tango! can't recommend that enough if you're partial to uhhh extremely raunchy and raw expressions of love & the feminine identity in penniless immigrants in argentina. very hard to read at times but it's kind of euphoric despite all the hardships. annddd I'm reading Carmilla right now :) prepping to run curse of strahd and I've had it downloaded for ages ehe

Last thing I googled: potato emoji

Relationship: so lucky :)

Fun fact: my notes for curse of strahd look like a kpoppie's stan notebook. tonal whiplash

i havge 1 mutuals. feli and vince and des you can do this one if u want :) and hemmorhoidbabe69 :)

[xzeihoranth]

It began with the forging of the three-

I'll start again.

It began with BioShock Infinite.

Now obviously, it didn't all begin there. It's the third game in a series that itself is a spiritual successor to another series. But that's where we're starting our story. Or where I'm starting this one. Like most things that came out in the fucking early 2010s, it has not aged well. I'm not qualified to talk about the racism for reasons that would be blindingly obvious. Most people in this hellhole are too harsh on it, or harsh on it for what I consider the wrong reasons (hint: your internalized misogyny may be showing).

At the time, I really liked it. It 'woke me up' out of a sort of stupor I'd been in for a while. So I eagerly awaited the story-based DLCs.

They were dogshit. Or more accurately, the second one was dogshit and would be worth an entire essay on its own. In fairness it was made while the studio was being shut down because the lead "auteur" Len Kevine (not his real name) was taking his ball and going home in more ways than one. He started his own studio shortly thereafter, and is still working on the first game there almost ten years later because he's an indecisive both-sidesing hack who keeps getting distracted by the new craze in whatever video game he played last.

Anyway: they were dogshit. I decided to rewrite them. In Absentia was a meandering project that took me about two years, but it mostly holds up. While trying to get a handle on how to write the main character I did a search for 'omnichronal perception' or something along those lines, and ended up on the Power Listing wiki. One of the other listings on that page was for a set of contact lenses on the SCP wiki. That's a second rabbit hole right there, and one I spent many years thereafter browsing.

After In Absentia I started work on another project that didn't pan out for a variety of reasons. It and my time with the SCP wiki sort of came to a head with the release of SCP 3999, which is just monstrous and wonderful at the same time. Right from the quotation at the top of the page, which introduced me to yet another rabbit hole I'm still going down today*, and then finally closing out with (and I maintain this wasn't there when I first read it, though I'm not going back through the edit history to check) a triumphant rendition of 'Sunday (Finale)' from Sunday In The Park With George.

What is that third rabbit hole? Well, the SCP wiki has a neat little habit of cross-referencing other SCPs, whether by name or by some other aspect. Sometimes they're hyperlinked, sometimes they're not. The quotation I mentioned contains the phrase 'Eleven-Day Empire', which I took to be another SCP, so I googled it. Except...it wasn't. It directed me, of all things, to the Doctor Who wiki and explained that it was a reference to a Doctor Who spinoff I'd never heard of before, and with good reason. It's been described as 'Doctor Who without the Doctor', which isn't strictly accurate: there are a few Doctor-shaped holes in the texts, as people have noted. (Though for legal reasons, they aren't named.)

Maybe I've beaten around the bush long enough. It's Faction Paradox.

Toward the end of my attempt to write that project from before, I kept imagining someone standing outside the house where most of the narrative was taking place. Just watching. Then, in...I can't remember the year, or the month at this point, but I want to say it was either 2018 or 2019, I had a dream. I can only remember three things from it now: the Twelfth Doctor (who was only in it briefly), something about the TARDIS being a tree, and the phrase The New Omnifitense. The strangest part was, I'd skipped most of the Twelfth Doctor's run; not out of any moral stand or anything, I just missed one episode and even back then I knew that I'd be hopelessly lost next time around, so it sort of snowballed.

Each of those aspects I managed to work into Blood and Tears, in addition to the things from 3999. Blood and Tears is still close to my (pardon me for saying so) heart; it came out almost exactly the way I hoped it would, which is no mean feat given the scares I had in 2022.

If you somehow made it this far, thank you.

[alchemist-yamira]

Let's get to know each other <3

Tagged by @yeeticusdaweary Thanks! I'm gonna figure this out I suppose

-Last song : Pocket - Louie Zong (Going for the song that's been most in my head in the last 24 hours)

-Favorite color : Purple is the obvious, based on just my whole everything. However I also love teal/cyan so really it's just off-blues I suppose.

-Currently watching : Yea, uh. I've been wanting to watch more "Traditionally produced" TV, but in lieu of that, lots of comfywatches on Youtube: RTGame and Wirtual to eat/decompress, Moon channel and other video essays for more "Interesting" content.

-Last movie : The D&D movie at behest of one of my IRL friends. It's aggressively "Okay".

-Currently reading : I have House of Leaves on my end-table. I've been terrible with reading though as it's been sitting there for half a year.

-Sweet/Spicy/Savory : All good, but if I had to pick 1 it'd be savory, followed by sweet. I actually REALLY like spicy, the problem is that spicy feels like a modifier to other tastes. Many things I like are spicy, but you can have sweet/spicy, savory/spicy, and others, it's rare spicy occurs on its own, and life would be lesser with it gone so??? Maybe Spicy on principle...?? Idk, that one's hard.

-Relationship status : Single, I think I'd like a relationship but finding people through a "dating scene" sounds like hell to me.

-Current obsession : Pixel art, No longer a burning need but I'm keeping up with it! A few video games have been cycling through my brain the last month: Sea of Stars, Darktide, and Armored Core 6. Darktide probably has/had the most staying power due to its multiplayer nature.

-Last thing I Googled : The Guild Wars 2 paper bag helmets to show off to two friends. Before that was Lake Michigan Ice Caves (Very cool, highly recommend if you haven't looked at them before)

-Currently working on : PhD program trying desparately to keep up, like bailing water from a sinking ship some days. Want to experiment with RP ideas desperately but feel held back by my the mix of other interests and current life needs. Fucking around casually with pixel art experiments, trying to get more of a handle on adding detail and making 'bigger' projects.

Tagging for funsies: @probablypercyjackson @lacking-in-enthusiasm and @shadowgast4t

[iamafanofcartoons]

Media Criticism is DEAD, there are no more good critics. LET PEOPLE ENJOY THINGS!

One of my pet peeves is that a lot of the time, people hating on X thing will just regurgitate whatever video essay they got their opinions from verbatim, so you get the same, tired criticism play out every time. Yes, I've seen the hbomb video, and its garbage!

I used to have a friend who basically just parrots certain opinions and it's super annoying because you can literally see him change his own opinions to suit critics, like at least have some original opinions man!

Its genuinely exhausting that everyone today is a mini critic. Every new game, movie, show, ect has to be criticized to the ends of the earth, even if some of those criticisms make no sense at all. even before a new game is out, people have to say it'll be shit with no evidence. can't even discuss a new game coming out in a discord of people who play the first game because they're all 100% CONVINCED without a shred of evidence that it will suck and the devs will fuck it up beyond belief, despite the fact that the only thing we've seen so far are concept arts and 2 trailers. Nobody can be fucking positive about anything anymore and its god damn atrocious. I'm so sick of it.

I'm really sick of people cynically criticizing everything over the most minute details, and it's exhausting talking about media with people like that. 

Obviously people can criticize things but a lot of the time it feels like people are trying to use criticism to make their opinions "objective" instead of just... not liking it. 

You can't just say "not for me" anymore, you gotta write a video essay on why this thing is actually bad.

If you say "I think RWBY is really good" of course people are gonna disagree and that's fine.

 But what I find annoying is that you'll go "Hey this RWBY fight/character is cool" and you'll get flooded with "RWBY BAD WATCH THE HBOMB VIDEO!!"

Imagine spending 2.5 hours watching bald neckbeard cinemasins take a giant dump on a passion project, but somehow you don’t have 5-10 minutes to use google search to see if any of what he said was true. Spoilers? Most of it was slander and libel.

And these are the same people that never recognize forced straight ships that pander to heterosexuals.  Examples?  Sorry, I don't have the time to list 95% of all media with a romance that aren't romance genre.

God forbid someone wants two fictional women to kiss...or two men for that matter.  LGBT media is always criticized more harshly than shows with no representation at all.

It especially sucks because I do think people should have the right to criticize things, and that no piece of media is above criticism, but when everything is 100% criticism 100% of the time it just… doesn’t even mean anything anymore.

It's also hard to criticise things like this when something actually is poorly written, because the worst bigots and haters come out of the woodwork and latch onto your criticism as a "look, we're right" kind of thing. It makes it hard to actually critique progressive media a lot of the time.

A lot of folks just want to hide their hatred for LGBT and for women. I guess I’d rather have poor representation than no representation at all.

Let people enjoy things instead of being a pretentious killjoy who's never had fun in their life unless they're shitting on someone else's fun.

It gets tiring to hear the exact same criticisms of a character I like every goddamn time I bring them up. It may be new criticism to people saying it, but it's mentally taxing hearing the exact same points a hundred times.

[purplesurveys]

1727

Did you get enough rest last night?  I really didn't. I slept at 5 AM thinking that would surely let me sleep in the entire morning, but my body still automatically woke me up at 9 and didn't let sleep again by then.

What was the last thing that kept you awake?  That would be right now – I finished off the entire first season of D.P. which I ended at around half past midnight, and now I'm back in my room downing the rest of my coffee with no intention to sleep yet, even with just four hours of rest haha.

If you have pets, do they sleep in your bedroom at night?  No, they have their own corner in the living room.

Can you sleep with background noise or does it keep you up?  It helps me fall asleep as the light noise gives me a sense of security, so I kind of need it.

Do you ever take naps? Do you take long naps or little power naps?  Occasionally. I can never do power naps as they always end up feeling super insufficient for me, and I prefer having 3-4 hour naps.

What helps when you have trouble sleeping?  I'd need to go through my phone and watch a lot of videos since that quickly gets the job done.

Who was the last person to cook you a meal? What did they make?  My mom made pasta for sharing a few days ago.

Who was the last person you cooked a meal for? What did you make?  I don't cook for anyone, because I don't cook.

Who is your female celeb crush? (If applicable)  Song Hye Kyo, Park Jihyo.

Who is your male celeb crush? (If applicable)  RM of BTS.

Tell me about an interesting article you’ve read recently.  Andi shared a pretty unique piece with me this morning which was basically a personal essay of why McDonald's' Coke seems to taste better than Coke literally anywhere else. It was silly yet insightful, mundane yet so weirdly intriguing and fascinating. For somebody who doesn't even like soda, I found myself reading until the very end. I liked it a lot and subscribed to that author right away lol.

Do you have a favorite Marvel character?  I'm not into anything superhero.

Favorite DC character?  Yeah, no.

Do you read comic books?  I tried getting into them but I got tired of faking it LOL so I just accepted that comic books and superheroes and I will never mix.

Has a horror film ever actually scared you? Which one(s)?  I found Paranormal Activity to be a refreshing horror concept for its time and it successfully gave me the creeps, especially with the multiple endings. The sequels unsurprisingly didn't hold up the same magic but I'm very much willing to defend the first movie to my grave haha. OH Midsommar was also super freaky. I nearly refused to drive home that night because I was afraid of seeing the trees in the neighborhood suddenly pulsating.

What was the last horror movie you saw? The Menu counts as horror-ish, no?

What was the first horror movie you remember seeing? What did you think of it?  The Exorcist. I was 12 and immediately downloaded a torrent when a quick "what's the scariest movie ever" Google search led me to that movie. In hindsight, though, because I already had expectations of how scary it is, I think that sort of pre-conditioned me to be more sensitive to the jump scares and all the freaky shit that happened in the movie – so 13 years ago, I was definitely spooked.

Realistically though, I feel if I watched it again now at 25 I'd probably find some of the effects more comedic than scary, BUT one thing I'll never get over are *those* demonic images that pop up like three times across the movie. Regardless of how old I get I feel like I'll always look away from those lol.

Name a few historical figures you find interesting. Why?  I recently learned about Herbert K. Pililaau, the US soldier who fought off Korean soldiers on his own while the rest of his crew? platoon? (idk terms) had been assigned somewhere else at the time. Fucking dude kept firing until he was out of ammunition; then switched to grenades; then when he ran out of those too, ended up with knife in one hand, fist in the other to fight the best and longest he could before he was finished off; when he was found, he was surrounded by more or less 40 soldiers he managed to kill. Obviously I don't support war and this is a shitty story all around, but this scenario is straight out of a movie.

What is your favorite historical film and why?  Gone with the Wind. I have yet to understand the complexities and deeper contexts behind the Civil War and all other questions related toit; and when I say it's my favorite it's largely because of the production value and how unprecedented such a movie was to have come out at the time it did.

Do you usually enjoy historical films?  Yes, as long as they don't extremely deviate from or betray things that actually happened, especially if we're covering atrocities or human right violations.

Name a sequel film (any franchise) you like better than the first film. Why is that?  Shrek 2. It's the Shrek movie I grew up with so I'll always be biased towards it.

Which do you find most interesting: Greek, Roman, or Norse mythology? Why?  Eugh, I really dislike mythology haha.

Which tale from whichever mythology you listed above do you find most interesting?  I read Percy Jackson and that's the most I'll read as far as mythology.

Do you collect anything? What was the last item you added to that collection?  Just BTS merch. Last things that arrived were my copies of D-Day and Face, but I'm expecting my orders of Jack in the Box and Layover to arrive October latest.

Do you have any houseplants?  We do, but it's my mom who takes care of them.

How do you like your tea?  As coffee.

Who is your favorite Muppet?  Wasn't really raised on Muppets.

What is your favorite type of bird?  Penguins. < Yes.

Which streaming platform do you use the most, if any?  Spotify.

What is a skill or useful piece of knowledge you wish you’d learned sooner?  How to pack smart.

What is your favorite vampire movie?  TWILIGHT SAGA ALWAYS AND FOREVER

Your favorite fictional couple?  Chandler and Monica from Friends; Glenn and Maggie from The Walking Dead; Mark and Joanna from Two for the Road.

Do you have a favorite historical couple?  Not really, no.

Have you received any good news recently?  Nah.

Have you learned anything new recently?  I took the 16 personalities test earlier for my ~annual check-in and found out I've switched from an ESFJ to an ESTJ. No big change other than the fact that I apparently think more with my head now hah.

[yellow-yarrow]

i wish i had the confidence of a man making youtube video essays lol just watched a video on accelatorism & i know very little about philosophy but i have read some mark fisher and i have read a little bit about the ccru and nick land and even i was like, hey there are some incorrect things being said here. here i am reading fucking,, lyotard to make one d.e. post so i wont say anything too stupid, while other people are monetizing their 1 hour google research lol. it wasnt a bad video btw they just got some things wrong

[theaceofskulls]

Time for a YouTube rant because honestly the adblocker thing has finally pissed me off enough.

Youtube has fundamentally become a fucking awful experience as of late so its insistence on you watching the ads is laughable. It's a fundamentally worse experience than it was 10 years ago and it only continues to get worse.

About 5 years ago I had to start curating my own suggestion feed because its algorithm promotes controversial videos and ragebait reactionary content over more researched and well produced videos. And this is after the algorithm had already been hitting creators hard in a way that directly promoted those types of creators rising to the top. Animation, video essays, anything that prevents regular, speedy uploads were being buried while reaction content (either people watching something and reacting to it or having hot takes on current events) were being rewarded.

This led to megachannels, effectively production companies which would use a large amount of smaller creators to supply more constant content, which had their own issues as all these types of ideas do. But in terms of a user experience, it also made following these channels annoying when you were only there for one creator or show.

And then there's the issue of the change to ads from sidebar content, to popups, to full on adroll inserted in the middle of videos. Ads got more intrusive and made the viewing experience worse. Over the past few years I began to despise opening videos on my phone that I quickly searched for only to be greeted by a half loaded ad that blared at top volume.

And these ads aren't curated. It's laughably bad what random ad can be shown to you, including content that breaks Youtube's own terms of service.

Added to all this is the fact that Search Engine Optimization has been gamed by so many different people over the past decade that all the larger sites are awful to use to find things anymore. In the past year I've had to deal with no less than 5 extremely frustrating points where I knew exactly what I'm looking for but Amazon, Google, and Youtube have recommended me everything tangentially related to what I'm looking for, even when I'm including half of the specifications into their search bars. Hell I've found youtube results crowded with reaction content to the original stuff I was searching for that was on youtube itself from people I've never heard of in my life and only because they linked the video themselves in the description did I find the original.

And on a personal note, those familiar with this blog will know I enjoy video games, anime, and Warhammer, so I have to fight a regular battle with youtube to not try to send me down a far-right pipeline. One which will randomly reset channels I've told it to hide.

Because of this, earlier this year I turned off my watch history because the homepage was getting to be 80% content reacting to content I was interested in rather than my subscriptions or even more of that type of media and 20% of those random suggestions were ragebait. Turning it off meant that my homepage would still try to give me suggestions but it was way more tuned to content I enjoyed and skewed with more of my subscription content.

Well halfway through the year, youtube decided that for the crime of turning off the setting that was making my homepage actively intolerable that the homepage would now look like this permanently

It just keeps getting worse to use even as its competitors begin to cement themselves more in the public consciousness.

Now while they've made the experience worse and worse and sold a "solution" to ads, they have the gall to fight with adblockers in preparation for rolling out anti-adblocking across their browsers in general.

Fuck this company. I hope it bleeds money and keeps bleeding it until the internet begins to heal from what its helped do to it.

[theluckiestrose]

Kinda wack how google's adcenter claims that certain advertisers are only showing up based on your general location and the time of day, while those ads are very clearly and obviously being served based on the content im watching.

I almost never see ads for right-wing horseshit unless im actively watching left-wing content. I have my adcenter set up to try and keep it from serving ads based on my personal data, so it shows the default reasons when i go to look.

I like to watch gameplay videos, lefty news, and video essays and i almost exclusively get ads for shit like prageru and turning point usa on the latter two, while i rarely ever get such ads for the former.

It's just. Can google please be honest. It feels like these ads are being served specifically to harass lefty youtube viewers. If i had thinner skin it would deter me from watching the stuff i like.

To paint a picture: if i were to go watch a Jesse Gender video at any given time today, i could expect to get multiple ads from the epoch times promoting their new transphobic documentary. Going in for a positive, trans-affirming time only to be rebuffed by google effectively saying "no, fuck you. You dont get to live in a trans-affirming world for even a half hour. You will bear witness to this hatred or you will stop watching the videos you want."

Its so goddamn evil what google allows these companies to do, and its cowardly that they dont admit it.

[alsjeblieft-zeg]

242 of 2023

Created by miklotov

Ever heard of Sikth? If not, look them up.

I do know them, they’re one of the bands I like.

So what are you being/what were you for Halloween?

I don’t celebrate it.

Do you like anime? If so, which is your favorite?

Not a big fan. I’ve watched and liked a few, but that’s just it.

Have you ever wanted to be the opposite gender?

No, never. I’ve been quite curious about it, but never really wanted to be a woman.

Have you ever wished you were in another world? Like a fictional place.

No, but I wished reality was different.

Do you own any stuffed animals?

Two, from my husband. One is a cay named Molly, and one is a teddy bear, but he has no name yet.

If someone came up to you and slapped you for no reason, what would you do?

Hit them back.

Have you ever drowned in your own mucus?

I don’t think so.

Ever been out of the country?

I’ve been to six countries in total.

I like pecans.

Yeah, and?

What is your least favorite subject in school?

Literature, essay writing, creatiove writing and all that jazz.

Do you read manga?

No, I don’t.

Who do you think is the sexiest person alive on this planet right now?

Baas B, fight me.

What about... the sexiest fictional character?

I’m not fictosexual.

What's your favorite video game? Mine is Suikoden.

I don’t play video games.

If you grew wings overnight and you could fly with them, where would you go?

Nope, thanks.

Would you even like to have wings? Or would you try to remove them?

I wouldn’t like to have any.

Do you ever feel like you were born in the wrong time?

No, I never felt that.

Do you like bread pudding?

What’s bread pudding??

What's a fictional being you would like to be? Like a vampire, an elf, etc.

A robot, but they exist.

I wonder if it's possible to permanently change your eye color?

Someone tried and went blind, so.

If it were, would you do it?

If it was safe, I’d like green eyes, instead of grey.

Is there a song stuck in your head right now?

Yea, Numb by XXXTENTACION.

I have Sweet Child O' Mine by Guns N' Roses stuck in mine.

Yeah, cool.

Do you ever want to have children?

No.

Ever wanna get married?

I’m married already.

If the Earth only had Palm trees and no other kind.. wouldn't that suck?

Well, at least we’d have coconuts.

I think Oak trees are prettier. Don't you?

Yeah, but pine trees are the best.

Google the name Luca Blight and tell me what you think of him?

Fictional character? I don’t give a fuck.

You didn't, did you? That's ok I didn't think you would.

Sorry...ish lol.

Do you like frogs?

I don’t mind them.

Do you dye your hair?

On occasion, but I haven’t done it in a long time.

What's the creepiest thing someone has ever done to you?

DOes sexual harassment on Instagram count?

Do you scare easily?

No, I don’t.

Does being scared or nervous make you need to poop?

I don’t think so.

On a scale of 1-10, how happy are you right now?

7, I think.

Have you ever wrestled on a trampoline?

No, I haven’t.

Do you like big butts and you cannot lie? I do. :D

I don’t.

I bet that song is stuck in your head now.

I don’t even know what song that is. Not that I care anyway.

Have you ever saw something that you thought was something else?

Yeah, happened.

I once thought that a pile of mud looked like a dog lying down.

Yeah, and?

Ever played Guitar Hero or Rock Band?

No and no.

When you see someone get hurt, does it feel like you got hurt too?

Sometimes it feels like physical pain.

Like if someone got stabbed in the chest, it'd make my heart feel weak

...jeez, it’s getting boring.

What is your greatest goal in life?

To be happy.

Have you ever been bored but didn't feel like doing anything?

I’m not bored.

The internet makes me lazy. What about you?

It doesn’t.

Any last comments?

FFS.