#i also have so other thoughts not relating to the main themes of the game if anyone wants to hear those

[xxnu11-sku11xx-moved]

Okay, so I just finished my first play through of Slay The Princes today, and I thought I'd share some stuff for fun!

Warning for spoilers under the cut!

Okay so except for the stranger which I did last, I died twice for all of my vessels. The ones I got were:

The Unwound Vessel

The Seething Vessel

The Endless Vessel

And the Burning Vessel

Some fun things I saw on my journey:

I don't think that's just pessimism buddy

That one part of the demo that made the lady kissers go wild

THE FLESH WORRRLD (also hearing the broken cry was super funny to me)

I always love these sprites, some of them have this vibe to them that I can't explain

When you say you're happy with your rewards and you already collected a vessel, She makes you go back and kill yourself

I like this form of her a lot, I just think it's pretty

After this she says she misses home and that she doesn't know what home is, but it's out there(most likely referring to Her, the collection of vessels)

I felt REALLY bad after saying I'd leave her, mainly cuz of her voice sounding so panicked, so I think I deserved to die tbh

I didn't save many screenshot after this, but I'll try to recall some good stuff from my head when need be.

The Smitten is a blight to this world that needs to be stopped/j

A good portion of the voices are down SEVERE actually lol

I just recently noticed that she looks like a face

Also it was funny when the game closed after I said that I want to be here forever

TIME FOR THE NARRATOR STUFF WHOO BOY

I can't fully make out what he is, possibly some wolf/crow mutation? Anyways he basically made us to kill her to eliminate death

Also you can't kill death, death must still exist in a way in order for you to kill her, that type of thinking is flawed

IF WE ARE A PART OF HER, WE ALSO CARRY THE CONCEPT OF DEATH WITHIN US, SO DEATH CAN'T TRULY GO AWAY UNLESS WE KILL OURSELVES, WHICH YOU MADE IMPOSSIBLE TO. OH MY GOD YOU FUCKING IDIOT

Then maybe your dream was flawed from the start? Just a little?

HASTA LV VISTA BIRD BRAIN

I must say that I LOVE this design for her. It reminds me of the birth of venus a bit. And the bodies making up her hair and dress 👌👌

Also she isn't the concept of death, but moreso the possibility of it. Kind of like a reaper?

One more thing!

"Name every woman"

Her silly ass:

[hehe-hoho-ohno]

Submas canon vs fanon

The entire time I have been in the Submas fandom I have seen a lot of confusion about what is canonical and what is a wide-spread fanon. Both in the sense of people thinking things were canon when they were not, and (more rarely) people thinking things were fanon when they were not. So I thought it might be useful to put together a little guide.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with using fanon. I use most of these headcannons in my own fics because I like them and canon is dumb anyway. (Note: pokemon is a huge sprawling mass and tends to contradict itself, and there have been changes across the various games/manga/anime)

All quotations are taken from bulbapidia.

Nimbasa Trio - FANON

Elesa has no connection to Ingo and Emmet besides living in the same place. There is one interaction between them in Pokemon Masters, and while they are on friendly terms they don't appear to be particularly close. Similarly, the idea that Ingo likes bad puns/Emmet does not stemmed from their fanon friendship with her.

Uncle Drayden - FANON

The only confirmed family Ingo and Emmet have are each other.

Cilan is a huge fan - CANON

Cilan is a fanboy of both of them in the anime.

Ingo is the older twin - CANON

In the original Japanese Emmet calls Ingo "nii-san" which means older brother.

"Do you have any siblings? I have an older brother, Ingo."

- Emmet, pokemon masters

Emmet's joltik hoard - FANON

Emmet's galvantula knows the move cross poison. This is an "egg move" which can only be learnt through pokemon breeding. Since it would take several tries to get this move it probably would have left Emmet with a lot of Joltik. In theory. We don't see Emmet with joltiks in canon.

Ingo's kitty smile - CANON

He smiles like that in the manga. (Admittedly, it's not as exaggerated as the full on :3 people sometimes draw him with.) He also briefly smiles in PLA, but less cat-like.

Ingo's perpetual frown is unintentional - CANON

"<player>! Someone just told me something that troubled me deeply! They said that compared to Emmet, I'm too stiff! But that's just a misunderstanding! I know I smile when I'm having fun! I'd even say that I'm quite proud of how expressive I am when I speak! What? You say you've never seen me smile? I-is that so..."

- Ingo, Pokemon Masters

They are both autistic - FANON

They are related to the twin heros - FANON

They share similar themes and motifs to the twin heros/Zekrom/Reshiram but that's it. They have no canon relationship.

Both of them are heavily coded as autistic. However, it's never been directly stated in the games that they are autistic and (to my knowledge) nobody at Game Freak/Nintendo has confirmed anything.

Ingo has a receding hairline - (debatably) CANON

He is drawn with one in the art book. Does the art book count as canon? Until something in the main games says otherwise, probably. (Though there is some argument to be had that it might be an unflattering haircut instead.)

Ingo arrived in Hisui via wormhole - FANON

"For my part, I simply found myself one day here in Hisui, a region whose name I'd never heard... All I could remember was my own name. I was still standing there in bafflement when the Pearl Clan came to my aid."

- Ingo, PLA. (However, the art book depicts the pearl clan finding him facedown on the ground, so take his standing claim with a grain of salt)

We still don't know how he got there. Similarly, it is quite common to show Ingo arriving during a blizzard/freezing to death and generally in poor health/injured/unconsciousness. But the way he recounts it sounds much more peaceful.

It'a also common to have Sneasler be the one to find him. The art book (of dubious canon) shows a human pearl clan member finding him, and Ingo's quote seems to confirm that. It's possible Sneasler was involved but she isn't mentioned.

Ingo got amnesia from hitting his head - FANON

We don't know how he got amnesia.

Ingo remembers Emmet as "the man in white" - FANON

"I'm starting to recall a man who looked... like me. We'd battle and discuss Pokémon, I think... The words "I like winning more than anything else" flashed through my mind just now..."

- Ingo, PLA, about Emmet

He makes no mention of remembering Emmet wearing white or smiling.

Ingo calls her "Lady Sneasler" - FANON

Ingo only calls her Sneasler, no Lady. In fact, nobody calls her or any of the ride pokemon Lord or Lady because...

The ride pokemon are noble pokemon - FANON

There are 10 blessed pokemon descended from the heros of old, and these pokemon are revered by the clans and have wardens. The blessed pokemon are divided into two groups, the rides and the nobles.

The ride pokemon are not called noble pokemon, and they do not get titles. Mai talks about "the great Wyrdeer" but does not call him lord or noble.

"This suggests that even Pokémon that are not nobles can become frenzied..."

- Kamado, PLA, about the ride pokemon Ursaluna seemingly becoming frenzied

Ingo lives in Sneasler's cave - FANON

We don't know where he lives.

Ingo became a Warden because Sneasler liked him - FANON

"I showed a natural affinity for taming Pokémon, which is why I eventually became a warden. But still I wonder what my true purpose is here..."

- Ingo, PLA

There is no further information about his wardenship. There is no information on what his relationship with Sneasler was prior to him becoming her warden.

Ingo likes having photos because of the amnesia - CANON

"Ah, photographs. I appreciate having physical keepsakes—less ephemeral than memories. Would you do me the honor of posing for a photo with me, <player>?"

- Ingo, PLA, at the Photography Studio

Ingo has been in Hisui for XX years - CANON

The art book uses the placeholder XX for the amount of time Ingo has been in Hisui. Some have taken the double digits to mean 10+, however the first digit could easily be a 0. So, we still don't know. Net 0 information.

Emmet must be taking Ingo vanishing badly - FANON

We have not heard from Emmet.

***

That's all for now! I'm sure I've missed or forgotten something, feel free to add stuff in the reblogs! I might edit the list later to add more if needed.

[bizarrebazaar13]

FL-inspired book recs!

brought to you by hotel wi-fi

Locations

The Royal Bethlehem: “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and “The Room in the Tower” by E.F. Benson. these are short stories, not novels, but they are fairly quick reads and are about locations where reality becomes twisted. the yellow wallpaper deals with mental illness and medical neglect, while the room in the tower is more about the overlap between dreams and the real world.

Port Carnelian: Mycroft Holmes by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. ok, hear me out on this one. if you’ve ever thought port carnelian would be great if it actually dealt with British colonialism and racism in a meaningful way and also had a murder mystery, you might like this book. a much younger Mycroft Holmes goes with his friend Cyrus Douglas to Douglas’s home in Jamaica to investigate a series of mysterious deaths.

Ladybones Road: The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley. Nathaniel Steepleton finds a gold pocket watch in his bedroom one day, but he cannot open it or even hear it ticking. six months later, it opens on its own, and an alarm goes off at the precise time that a bomb explodes in Scotland Yard. he then goes in search of its maker, Keita Mori, who claims the watch was stolen from his shop. Mori has a gift for elaborate clockwork, and though he seems kind and relatively harmless, Nathaniel is sure he is hiding something.

Ambitions/Major Storylines

Early Light Fingers: The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz. it’s a Sherlock Holmes pastiche, but it can still be understood and enjoyed even if you don’t share my Sherlock Holmes autism. I specified early light fingers, because the mystery of what exactly the house of silk is, and the theme of corruption in highest levels of society, reminds me a lot of exploring and learning about the orphanage. just a heads up, this book is centered around a murdered child, and deals with the systemic abuse and neglect of children in victorian london. its biggest content warning is also its biggest spoiler, so I won’t give it here, but feel free to ask me. I had it spoiled for me on accident and still liked the book a lot.

Late-game Nemesis: “The Moonlit Road” by Ambrose Pierce. another short story, it recounts in three parts the murder of Julia Hetman, as told by her son, her husband, and Julia herself. it specifically reminds me of the dreams of the dead section of nemesis.

Evolution: Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant. Tory Stewart becomes obsessed with mermaids after her sister Anne’s disappearance. Anne was filming a mockumentary about mermaids in the Mariana Trench, but the ship she was on disappeared, and was recovered weeks later with no trace of the crew. footage was found that appeared to show the crew being murdered by mermaids, but it’s largely believed to be for the movie, not real. seven years later, Theodore Blackwell recruits Tory as part of his mission to return to the Mariana Trench and capture a live mermaid. it hits sort of the same spot for undersea survival horror that the diving bell section of evolution did for me.

Exceptional Stories

The Bloody Wallpaper: Sign Here by Claudia Lux. hell is an office. literally. Peyote Trip sold his soul while he was alive, and now works in hell, convincing other people to do the same. he’s one deal away from a big promotion, and all he needs is the soul of one last member of the Harrison family. normal laws of space and time don’t apply, the real hellscape is capitalism, and secrets don’t stay hidden forever… sound familiar? in terms of violence and body horror, I don’t think it gets much worse than the text of the bloody wallpaper. one of the main characters does have a pretty brutal backstory involving christianity-related child abuse though.

Totentanz: Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. set in late 1920s Mexico, the story follows Casiopea Tun and the Mayan death god Hun-Kamé on a journey across Mexico and eventually into the underworld. Casiopea finds Hun-Kamé’s bones in a chest in her grandfather’s house, and when she cuts her finger on one of the bone shards, Hun-Kamé becomes bound to her. together, they must find the rest of his body, which has been scattered around Mexico by Hun-Kamé’s brother Vucub-Kamé, who took over control of Xibalba from him. Hun-Kamé intends to retake Xibalba, but he and Casiopea must face sorcerers, demons, and twisted family dynamics- and that’s before they even get to the underworld.

[pumpkinsplots]

Writeblr Intro

Hello, writeblr! I finally caved and got tumblr, mostly because I love rambling about my wips and hearing other people ramble about theirs and all of that lovely stuff, so this seemed like a great platform to do that. With that being said, I plan on posting about my wips and ocs, as well as art related to those things, so if that interests you at all, I’d love to see you stick around. Also feel free to call me either Pumpkin or Maria, it’s entirely up to you!

About my writing

I’ve found that I really enjoy writing in a variety of genres, so hopefully at least one of my wips will tickle your fancy. Though I’d say a common thing for me is that I really like to world build, so my wips tend to be sci-fi, fantasy, or magical realism of some variety. Anything where I can put my own spin on the setting is something I’m bound to enjoy writing about.

I write in third person, usually with multiple povs, and I really enjoy character driven stories.

I often like to have a wide variety of ages in the cast, and if I had to pick a favorite trope it would be found family, so that’s usually present to some degree in my stuff.

Tonally, I always include light-hearted moments here and there, even if the wip is very bleak. It provides some levity, and I think it makes the painful stuff hit a lot harder. This is probably partially why I put some thought into each character’s sense of humor.

Most of my wips are geared towards older teens and adults, but I’ll get more into content warnings when I talk about each individually, because it really varies.

I’m one of those writers that kills off a lot of characters, so this is your warning not to get attached /j

I’m demisexual, so at least one character being on the ace spectrum is like a requirement for me at this point.

I’m a plantser, and pretty bad at staying motivated to actually finish first drafts.

About my wips

Falling Up

Falling Up is a sci-if story set in the future where Earth is a utopia where inhabitants experience little to no hardships throughout their lives. The deceased are replaced with AI created to replicate them, and everything is automated to the point where people no longer need to work to make a living. This lack of struggle results in dull, perfect lives and skewed morals. The people crave entertainment, even if it means making others suffer for it. Quasdom, a miniature man made planet initially intended to be used to separate deviants from the rest of the perfect society, is used as a catalyst for entertainment. The people of Quasdom believe that those on Earth are superior to them, and that Earth is a place where any wish can come true. This leads to the tourney, a death game between groups of ten on Quasdom, being viewed similarly to winning the lottery. The winning team gets to go to Earth, after all. Being chosen for the tourney is the luckiest thing that can happen to you. There’s no hard feelings between participants, death is completely painless, and the afterlife will welcome any participants to a better life than they previously had. There’s nothing to fear, so smile and put on a show.

A large cast and lots of character deaths

An exploration of why we get so attached to fictional characters, and how fiction can have an impact on reality

Probably going to be a trilogy

Content warnings include language, some unsettling themes, depictions of mental health issues, and generally things that are more psychological. Despite it being a death game, there’s no gore, like at all. The people on Earth may be desensitized, but they aren’t accustomed to seeing blood, so the tourney is designed with that in mind

Facade

Facade is set in a world where the living world and the spirit world coexist. Due to some actions by the main antagonist, about 20 years prior to the current story, spirits started getting aggressive and sort of going haywire. They possess any person they can, turning the individual into an uncontrollable killing machine. The best defense to this was the invention of a certain kind of mask that prevents possession, and masks quickly became widespread. Since there’s no known way to reverse spiritual possession, the only solution is to kill those that are unfortunate enough to meet that fate. A group led by an anonymous vigilante known as K9 seek to find a way to reverse possession. Many enemies are made along the way, and there are countless obstacles to face.

Its setting is based on Singapore and set in the 90s, though there are many creative liberties taken

The wip is currently pretty no plot just vibes

Themes about individuality vs equality

Content warnings include language and some sexual content

Facade: After Dark

While Facade is currently no plot just vibes, developing the characters led to me thinking of the plot for a prequel. Is it a self-indulgent novella about two of the characters I love? Yes, absolutely. In summary, it’s a romance novella about the the relationship of Leijing and Iris, and their struggles in navigating the wild world of Facade. They have vastly different upbringings and experiences, but their differences bring them together in more ways than one.

I have so much backstory for this pre-established couple and I couldn’t think of a good way to incorporate it into the main story without cutting a bunch of it, so boom it’s a prequel now

I’ve found that working on a wip that’s more low stakes and simple is really fun—I tend to get stressed about my more ambitious plots, so this wip is a great change of pace

Leijing is demisexual with little interest in anything sex related and Iris is an omnisexual sex worker, and the story explores how a world obsessed with all things sex can effect both more sex-negative and sex-positive people

Content warnings include language, explicit sexual content, and potentially triggering subject matters. This is my only wip where it’s strictly 18+!

Lights Out

Sunlight is the essence of life. Without it, the world would wither away. However, a dangerous new life form of unknown origin festers in the light. With long, elegant glimmering limbs, high intelligence, picturesque precision, and a craving for flesh, these organisms pose a major threat to humanity. But for some odd reason, these creatures refuse to step into any area where the sun doesn’t touch. Much of humanity takes to the shadows, building elaborate underground tunnels for civilizations and doing what humans do best—using their resources and ingenuity to adapt.

Has two protagonists that butt heads but start to develop a father daughter dynamic. A young adult girl who’s from the underground and unknowingly part of a cult, and an older man with one leg who’s so stubborn he’d rather fight and die than flee to the darkness

Lots of creepy cult imagery and themes about religious trauma

So much banter of course

Content warnings include language, disturbing imagery, and gore

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading! Asks, comments, tag games, and messages are always appreciated, and I’d love to hear about your wips as well!

[clayderogatory]

okay let me just say i am a big music nerd and also a big resident evil nerd. put two and two together, and now you have this. greetings and salutations everyone and today i am going to analyze and discuss the 4 major boss themes in resident evil 4 remake and my interpretations of each one.

note that i am no big music theory major, but i know way too much about resident evil and i know how music can influence how someone can feel and how it can relate to the characters they are for.

the bosses i am going to be talking about are as follows:

Bitores Méndez, Ramón Salazar, Krauser, and Osmund Saddler.

they will go in order right under the cut!! i hope u enjoy because this actually took hours to write im not even kidding.

Bitores Méndez:

Starting off with Méndez, his boss theme is very very different from the OG. What the Remake has, I believe it further demonstrates and shows to the player through music more insight on how he is presented in the game.

In the original, his theme is really just...eerie. It's unsettling, with much of it being very high pitched and almost just screaming in your ear. Some really other good examples of this are like—for instance—the very end of the Undertale Genocide route or like Something in Omori. It's made to be unnerving, like something is incredibly wrong in the situation you are in. But for Méndez's theme in the OG, it's really as far as it goes. It's just high pitched noises with creepy sound effects, almost like something is chasing you. There's even remnants of someone screaming in the background if you listen super closely.

The thing I love with the Remake is that they added so much more to this theme. Firstly, they kept that eerie high pitched noise that was primarily in the OG's soundtrack, in the background. That feeling and that aspect is still there in the song, but they added more instruments so that it was definitely more of a boss theme. There's drums, violins, tubas, etc. Those were at least the main ones I heard upon inspection.

Méndez is supposed to be the first big bad in re4r, he's kind of like the strong and seemingly invincible character for a good long while. He doesn't talk much, he's just there to follow Saddler's orders and to carry out his will. You have to try to avoid him in many cases because you can't get past him, but now you're in a situation where you have no other choice but to fight him. The music really amplifies this because it really conveys that feeling that he's like a mindless soldier. He's extremely intimidating, a lot of the music feels like it isn't leading up to this big finale or any sort of release. It's meant to build up tension or suspense, and it isn't much of a build up.

Méndez is there for the purpose to kill, with Las Plagas infecting his mind so badly he doesn't even have thoughts of his own anymore. That's only the first half of the song, because the second does get interesting.

It turns very fast paced and hurried. Like a cat and mouse chase, there's even an added primarily male choir in there to further add to the eerie feeling. It gets a lot more intense, because further in the fight, Leon is doing more to injure Méndez and that tension is finally rising to where it's a much more intense battle because Méndez had mutated a second time and now they are at each other's throats and the heat of battle and the burning building is probably getting to the both of them. And the tension is rising, rising, the music gets louder and its crescendoing more and more and then, it goes quiet.

it's not a big flashy ending, it just fades out to quietness. all of it is over, you can take a break and let what just happened sink in. it's so much more interesting and i do love they incorporated the same eerie noises from the OG into the remake's.

----

Ramón Salazar:

Up next we have Ramòn Salazar, and his remake theme is one of my favorites in the whole game. But starting with the OG, it lays a pretty decent foundation. There's that eerieness to it in the first, but then it grows a bit bigger. It primarily has a lot of organ parts to it. Plainly stating, Ramòn is from Royalty, he lives in a castle and had people do his bidding and such. His official title is of a Castilian.

He is also very weak compared to everyone else, and he hides behind the stronger ones with his rank and title. Organs are very primarily used in settings of where we are now, a very gothic style castle where before Los Illuminados came, everyone there was very Catholic. Which in other cases, they can be heard in churches as well. They're typically seen as very creepy instruments that unnerve many people. There's also usage of violins and a choir, which give this feeling of almost like a Haunted Mansion like sound as if there were ghosts taunting you.

Interestingly enough, there's also some more modern hints in the song with a faint electric bass in there. It's also a little waltzy, like it has elements where you could kinda dance to it. It has a similar tension where it rises and rises and then goes quiet again.

But what I really want to get to now is his remake theme, holy shit it is so so SO amazing. Ramòn in remake is very vastly different from OG, he has that same element of being weak and using his authority to always have a higher ground, but he isn't nearly as cowardly. He has a way more sadistic mind to him, and even in records found in the game, he was described to be this nasty little guy who reveled in seeing people suffer.

he also presents the whole section as like a story or a play. He calls Leon a "gallant knight" and Ashley the "princess fair." He's over dramatic, and he sees himself as a higher being than the others. Except for Saddler, because he worships the man—like everyone else.

Already within the theme we are starting off BIG, it's loud, dramatic, very fitting to how he sees everything as a show, a drama even. We get a lot of build up within the first 35 seconds or so. They utilize a lot of choir parts within this, mainly SSA (sopranos and altos) to make it very high pitched and giving that eerie vibe again. The title of the song comes into play too, "Baile de la Muerte," or as translated, The Dance of Death. Already off the bat it sounds as dramatic as the music is, and because the song is very much a waltz.

It's also something to note that Ramón moves around a LOT in this fight, similar to how you move in a dance. But he looks a lot more like a horrifyingly mutilated bug so it's more annoying than anything.

String instruments are HUGE in this song, and especially that choir part mentioned earlier coming in really heavy towards the middle. There is some more SATB (soprano, alto, tenor, bass) at this part compared to the beginning. There's already so much tension because the song starts big and keeps. getting. BIGGER. towards the end the choir part keeps striking with more and more tension, its keeps building and building, and then HUGGEEE beat drop where there is just this beautiful and amazing finale that is just so so SO dramatic and theatrical. it's like the big end to a show, the strings are fast and furious as the drums are striking and LOUD, and what i believe to be brass instruments just killing it. and the final note ends on a high ass note for the choir and all the instruments coming together to deliver the end of this AMAZING track.

its a dramatic piece for an equally theatrical and dramatic character, and it leaves with this satisfying finish before ending and letting it all settle again.

---

Jack Krauser:

Now with Krauser's theme, it is my favorite in the whole game. I could loop it for hours because it's so catchy and it even ties back to previous lore with his character. Firstly to compare to the OG, the OG and remake are already extremely similar.

It's very strong and heavy, like how Krauser is. It's also very dramatic and one big thing to notice is that there is this kind of very fast drum that is prominent. It's kind of something that you would hear in a theme pertaining to jungles and whatnot, which IS important. I'll get to that in a moment, but, it's a very fast paced song. It does have that tension because Leon is facing a formidable for that he used to know. There's a lot of build ups ready for a beat drop that just adds so much to the intensity. There's not much to say because the melody and sound for this song is pretty much the same as remake, but obviously they expanded on it.

what i really want to get to is remake, because they utilize SO many elements in this to make it really powerful and to support Krauser's character. First and foremost, Krauser and Leon's relationship in remake is different than OG. In OG they were more "comrades" who fought with one another in the military, but in remake, Krauser and Leon, have this relationship where he was his mentor. They both know the same combat skills, it just comes down to who can apply them better in their fight. That's what makes Krauser so terrifying, because he knows everything Leon knows to a higher degree.

As well as that jungle aspect maybe coming from Darkside Chronicles that expanded on Leon and Krauser and Operation Javier. I thought that was a neat touch to add with the music as well, but anyways, this piece is powerful with the primarily male choirs, harmonies, and so. much. buildup. it's leading up to something so much bigger with it's fast paced structure. there's a lot of heavy drums that are just going and going, and it eventually leads to this HUGE beatdrop that really makes it feel more like a final battle. Leon is facing someone that was close to him, even if he was a huge asshole, he was Leon's mentor and taught him everything he knew.

it's so heavily dramatic because the stakes are high, Leon has to get to Ashley before it's too late and try not to get killed by his teacher. It repeats until at the end It leads up and up until it goes to this somber music. Leon has to kill someone he did care about. He proved himself worthy and now has to take the final blow, all while trying not to cry because he was forced into doing it. It leads up to this big big tense feeling until he strikes the blow and it's over.

"I taught you well, Leon."

"That you did, Major, that you did."

---

Osmund Saddler:

With Saddler, it's, again, similar to the OG and to be frank, I'm just gonna talk about the remake. Saddler is so interesting because the whole game has been leading up to him. He's a mystery, he is the leader of Los Illuminados, the one with all the control over everyone in the hivemind. With his theme, they really use a lot of the choir instead of the instruments taking over.

The reason due to this is probably all of the religious themes within Saddler and how he is literally a cult leader. within churches, there are usually church choirs that sing which is probably why it's very abundant in the theme. The music is matching with the choir a lot, and a lot of drums are used in this piece. Compared to some others, there are a lot of flowy parts to the song and also some very staccato moments where it's very on the dot. Especially in the middle where it's very big and intense.

This is a serious battle, Leon has to kill Saddler to get rid of Los Illuminados, and it isn't an easy task. They really keep that feeling of it being such a tough fight and that it is menacing, Saddler is not just a pushover. He wants to spread his cult across the world and he will stop at nothing to try and achieve that. It mainly repeats a lot due to it obviously being a boss theme and it will repeat until you kill the boss, but the ending is so interesting as it goes from this very flowy and moving section, and then it goes down, and then ends abruptly with even a hint of organ snuck in there.

Saddler is posed as a threat, on or off screen, and his theme definitely delivers on that as well.

---

and that is a wrap! if you made it to the end, you get a cookie 🍪

and if anyone wants to discuss anything more, feel free! these are my thoughts and ideas of all of these themes and how they relate to all of the characters they are for :)

[inbarfink]

I already talked about, like, the Obvious Symbolism of Simon reaching his lowest point literally dressed like the Ice King and then gradually gets back to his old outfit as he starts climbing out of his depressive spiral, at least somewhat.

But it’s also really interesting, maybe even more interesting, how Fionna’s outfit has been gradually shifting and changing with basically every adventure.

My first thought was that it really shows Fionna coming into her own as a character. The more she grows and also the more character development she gets - the more the audience learns to see her as more than just Girl Finn - the more her outfit moves away from just being a slightly girlier version of Finn’s classic look and into being its own thing. 

Because Fionna is her own character. 

But my second thought was more about the first time Fionna’s classic outfit got an update in this series.

This wouldn’t really relate to my first reading, since it just kinda makes her outfit closer to Finn. But it does relate to the most important Theme that her character arc revolves around - Fantasy versus Reality.

Fionna starts out the story interacting with the idea of magical adventure and heroism via the lens of fantasy. She compares everything to video games and just thinks about everything in terms of it being cool and fun and she literally tries to chase down a person from her dreams.

And her mindset was probably only reinforced by discovering she was literally created to be the Main Character in God’s little fantasy universe literally created out of self-indulgence for his silly little stories.

And because of that, she starts out the story with a huge Protagonist-Centered-Morality blind spot where she can’t recognize when she and Cake are in the wrong

And she rushes into action and violence just thinking it’s ‘cool’

And, like, in general acting without thinking of the consequences.

And at basically every step of this adventure, these kinda actions clashed against the reality of her situation. And it all started when she pointed out to her own creator that the outfit he designed for her is cute - but extremely unrealistic for an adventurer like herself

And from there we move to Fionna experiencing more and more of the harsh consequences of assuming everything should fit into her fantasies of heroes and villains 

And that she should punch first and ask questions later 

And in general that it’s always better to trust her guts over her head. 

And with every one of her experiences, the bright and adorable outfit that is a reminder of her origin as God’s Most Self-Indulgent OC gets tweaked in more way - turning it into something that looks a lot more, for the lack of a better word, gritty. And also turning it further and further away from the outfit of her own literal fantasies.

And all of these horrible traumatic experiences and the general dangers of the magical and very different world she’s in have all weathered down Fionna’s original optimism and eagerness and brashness that originally defined her and turned her terribly overprotective and scared instead. And it really reminds of how Simon’s own trauma weathered him down. 

Turning him from a kind man with a passion for adventure and the fantastical and a powerful parental instinct to a miserable jerk who aches for mundanity and made a little girl cry

Until he got to his very lowest point.

So I’m guessing next up for Fionna is getting to see her regain some of her old identity that the Trauma has been tearing away at - getting back some of that cheerfulness and brash attitude and adventurous spirit. Because while it has put herself and her teammates and others in serious troubles - it’s also been a huge help at other times (especially as she's a good counterbalance to Simon ‘slow but dependable’ Petrikov)

She needs to find the balance, learning the lessons from her multiverse adventure without losing all the things that made her Fionna Campbell in the first place.

And I wonder if this development is gonna be paralleled with a return of some of the more ‘classic’ elements of her look - or if her outfit is instead going to diverge farther?

[biocrafthero]

An analysis of WKTD and HWBM in relation to psychology, Christianity, and oppression.

Spoilers for almost all of We Know The Devil and parts of Heaven Will Be Mine (only stuff from when you play as Saturn tho that’s the only character I’ve played as so far)

This post is very much off the cuff so it is quite messy but I really needed to put my thoughts into words, I guess. Hopefully it makes sense, and sorry if there’s any errors!

vvv Analysis under the cut because this post is LONG vvv

Okay because when WKTD said “the devil is the shadow of man cast from the light of god” and when HWBM said that the Existential Threat was just a byproduct of the shadow of humanity cast from gravity (via humanity’s Culture) its like the enemy that humans want to fight is just themselves. The concept of the “shadow self” (also called the id, but I’ll be using shadow instead) in psychology refers to the parts of oneself that does not fully fit in with what society expects of them (Super-ego) and sometimes separately from the true self (Ego), typically leading to rejection of those aspects and self-conflict.

Now, please note that I haven’t 100%’d HWBM but I have 100%’d WKTD, and in that game the true ending results in the main trio all becoming devils and embracing those sides of themselves they’ve been running from for the entire game. The thing I quoted earlier is an actual line from the game said by god, the line following it being “the meaning of this phrase is that there is no devil.” Only through self-acceptance and helping each other alongside ourselves do we really reach the true ending to these stores.

While WKTD leans more towards individuals, HWBM puts more emphasis on the idea of the collective shadow; the story still focuses on individuals, yes, but is very much about the conflict between a humanity that is tearing itself apart over the things that don’t fit the collective image. The main conflicts of the story focuses a lot on that general unrest, and was initially the Existential Threat, but after that dissipated humanity still saw its own shadow, this time in itself. An email you can find in the game even says that “In abandoning Existential Threats to address the threats of our home, it will inevitably result in us turning to conflict between humans one more. And in turn, the Existential Threat will thrive.” The Existential Threat literally feeds on unrest and trauma, manifesting as paranoia and leading humanity to fight it, only for them to find that they were just fighting their own literal shadow.

It’s also important to note that HWBM briefly mentions that the Existential Threat is tangentially related to “their cousins on Earth, and even those are so weak kids with radios can take them out”. This, while it can easily be seen as a nod to WKTD for those who played it, the fact that the reference is super blatant (along with the mention of the Scout programs, likely referring to groups like the Summer Scouts from WKTD) leads me to believe that these two stories exist in roughly the same universe (or at least their worlds do, maybe not the characters present in the stories themselves existing at the same time*). This is for a very specific reason, and it has to do with the themes both of these games are tackling, regarding acceptance of the self, both on an individual and societal level, symbolized by the apple.

Both games reference the apple when talking about the idea of becoming something new, sometimes even beyond humanity. It’s about the embracing of the shadow and all the parts of yourself, seeing yourself as a whole being and accepting all of it. The joy and contentment brought upon yourself by finally letting go of all that repression and division, even if the world around you is going to perceive those parts as scary or ugly. Bad endings in these games are brought about by rejection of the self, which makes sense considering all the themes around queerness and transcending one’s humanity, so obviously and fittingly the true endings focus on healing oneself by accepting all of their aspects as part of the greater whole.

The apple in these stories, especially noticeable in its original thematic incarnation in WKTD, is in reference to the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden from the Bible. Man was forbidden from eating the fruit, but Eve (VERY important to note that the dev studio is named Worst Girls Games btw) is tempted by the serpent (was not originally the devil, but came to be in the New Testament) to eat the fruit, which they do and become aware of themselves. God banishes them from the garden for breaking this rule he set out for them, also punishing the snake in the process due to how it tempted Adam and Eve. This incident is referred to as the “original sin.”

What is interesting about this part of the Bible though is what God says at the end of Genesis 3, right before the banishment actually occurs: “And the Lord God said, ‘The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.’” The specific wording of “become like one of us” in the context of the apple metaphors from the games from Worst Girls Games is super intriguing to me, mostly due to how the idea of becoming something new is super common throughout these stories—becoming the devil in WKTD, and becoming one’s Ship-Self in HWBM.

There’s also the framing of the serpent in these stories, as well. The serpent in modern Christianity is almost always depicted as the devil, tempting humanity away from God throughout almost the entire scripture. In the book of Revelation, the devil is said to have gone to direct war against God and fighting against his angels; “Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fight back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.” These verses can easily be seen in parallel to WKTD, with how the devil forms are said to be unstable and her world more fickle than god’s, and how in HWBM the Ship-Selves are delicately maintained by the Lunar Gravity Well.

But here’s the thing: the framing of the devil in these stories puts it in the position of being correct, with humanity making the right choice to follow it. This may sound strange, almost like villain behavior, until you remember these games deal with themes regarding repression of the self under an oppressive society, which is why these societies tend to be characterized by Evangelical conservative Christianity. Under this lens, alongside the themes of queerness and transcending humanity (rising to the throne of god, in a way), everything begins to click into place. The idea of being forced to live a certain way by a society that hates parts of your very being is killing our main characters, and they want a way out. The personification of the Collective Unconscious (ex: the devil) gives them this out—even if it’s less concrete and stable than the known world (the light), the unknown world (the darkness) is what truly gives our characters the freedom they desire.

They cannot do this alone, however, as we see in the Bible further into the book of Revelation, when the devil is aided by a beast from the sea and a beast from the earth, all three of them holding one another up and emphasizing one another’s’ powers and authorities. This, of course, most likely is reflected in the games in the main trios we play as. While I am still unsure about specifics, I trust you guys enough to understand what I’m getting at here, even if my speculations are likely flimsy at best. Either way, the idea gets across—the true endings for the games can only be obtained if everyone supports one another properly.

The scripture states that the devil does not have long on earth to do what he wishes (“… [The devil] is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short.”), but that doesn’t stop him from trying at all. When it comes to the games, in WKTD the main trio stay in the cabin only for the night (player choices start at 7pm and the final one is at 1am, 2am onward being the ending you got, so choices go on for 6-7 in-universe hours), and in HWBM they have eight days to get back to earth before humanity declares them to be a threat. In both stories, our protagonists are all under strict time limits to do what they can in order to get the outcome they desire. As it’s said in WKTD, “the devil only ever gets one chance.”

Even though in the Bible the devil is ultimately defeated, in these games it’s the opposite. This is less about the theology they draw from and more having to do with undoing oppressive power structures through solidarity and community support while doing what you can to avoid infighting. Systems of hate and oppression are easily undone, which is why they put in so much work to scare you away from even trying to undo it and make you fall in line; resistance scares oppressors. Of course, resisting is not an easy task, but that’s just part of the work—they don’t call it a fight for no reason, after all.

Accepting all aspects of yourself and embracing that is the first small, yet very important step, to rejecting oppressive systems as a whole, and when society as a whole accepts what the system rejects, that system will inevitably fall, freeing those who are under it. Even though the world that comes after may be more uncertain and unstable that the last one, we still have each other to rely on and a foundation to build something greater and healthier than before.

So, roughly and basically…

Super-ego = God = Culture

Ego = Humanity (consistent throughout both games)

Projection = Light = Gravity

Resistance = Radio = Ship-Self

Shadow (personified by Collective Unconscious) = The Devil = Existential Threat

Acceptance (of the Shadow) = Apple (consistent throughout both games), characterized by devil possession forms and Ship-Selves (Ship-Selves are dual natured like that, I think)

… Or something like that. I dunno, I’m not a psychologist.

Once again, I have seen all of WKTD, so I can say these things concretely about that story. However, I have not seen all of HWBM, so it more so feels like I’m making guesses as to what happens in that one, so just bear with me. I’ll be super hype if I’m correct in my theory/analysis.

*On this note, it is very amusing to me to imagine the WKTD trio as space mech pilots. The idea of the main cast of HWBM having to deal with devil possessions is also very fun :3

Sources for information + screenshots I’m referencing

Wikipedia: Shadow (psychology) (links throughout the article lead to other things I’ve mentioned like the Collective Unconscious)

Bible Gateway: Genesis 3, Revelation 12, Revelation 13 (New International Version)

(from WKTD) (not my screenshot, stole this from my friend) (hi Ash <3) (platonic)

(I don’t have a screenshot of the line that comes afterwards or the line talking about the metaphorical apple in the epilogue of the true ending but I know they’re there. I have it in my brain. I’m too lazy to get a picture of it just trust me I know what I’m talking about trust)

(from HWBM) (screenshots taken by me)

(I don’t have absolutely everything either just work with me here sorry)

[willnaib]

having a lot of thoughts about weeping scope and what the design means for levi’s character. more under the cut because it gets LONG. brief cw for a levi-typical drug reference in the second bullet point

two major things i’m focusing on here which are the fact that weeping scope is entirely nude and the obvious giant gun growth. which are kind of the only two things he has, so it’s the only two things to focus on. anyway.

naked

i wouldn’t really point this out since funger is funger but most of the other moonscorched forms do have some form of clothes. weeping scope is ass naked though. he’s completely exposed and has nowhere to hide.

- someone else pointed out in a fic that his jumpsuit covers everything except for what really matters (the track marks on his arms) and while obviously that’s not entirely relevant to weeping scope it’s still. that theme of exposure

- additionally the lack of genitalia/hardened over area where genitals would be — again considering how funger loves gratuitous nudity, big thing here that levi Doesn’t have anything there. (you could take this as trans coding but i feel like they would’ve been more obvious about it considering marina, but regardless) there’s a lot of conclusions to be drawn from that but i think the most noticeable is how the game does go out of its way to hammer in that he’s still a kid. he’s hit puberty (mostly) he’s 18 but he’s still a scared child. underdeveloped. etc

his head exploded and now there’s a gun

something i noticed when going through the enemy list (confession: i haven’t played funger yet because i do not have the right computer. sad.) is that it resembles the platoon enemy in structure and texture which is actually pretty interesting considering the platoon’s nature as a not-very-sentient weapon despite the fact that it is specifically described as a moonscorched human. that’s slightly off topic but i don’t think the texture resemblance between weeping scope’s gun and the platoon body is a coincidence

- what i’m literally thinking about irt the gun being Fucking Huge is the fact that it’s oversized and how that relates to being a child soldier. his main gun itself (rifle) is also very very long. too long for his tiny malnourished ass. it’s huge and unwieldy and

- takes over the entirety of where his head used to be. he literally has no way to think anymore. it’s just gun. no head. no thoughts. just gun and obviously fear and sobbing because even when less than human he’s reverted to extensions of both sides of himself: the terrified child and the mindless soldier. all he can do is cry and shoot. all he can do even as levi is cry and shoot (it’s all he’s good for, it’s all he’s meant for — while it’s a funny interaction, i do think about the segment in prhvl bop where he plays the piano and says it’s too late for his life to change trajectory [how old are you?] 18) — but it’s. so much more obvious and inescapable as weeping scope

[sari-artworks-schyzotypalmind]

Hot take regarding Heihachi Mishima coming back.

I know I said my page was going to be art focused from now on but I need to get this out of my chest.

I´m a veteran Tekken player, since 3 . I basically consumed any Tekken related media too (the mangas, comic books, the animated movie, the CGI movie, the horrible live action one, the anime on Netflix, etc)

Tekken 8 for me was a perfect conclusion for the story. I know that Kaz and Jun had an open ending but it was ok, she is going to take him to wherever she wants, maybe to retire, heal, you get it.

But... the whole clash between Kaz and Heihachi was CLOSED, ended in Tekken 7 in a very emotional manner, it was peak.

In Tekken 8, the final confrontation between Kaz and Jin was INCREDIBLE. I got shivers with Jun stands, T3 Jin theme ost, Angel Jin, etc...

It was cool as it is. It is true that Reina was very disappointing lore wise, I thought she was going to play a bigger role but it was, ok I guess??? leaving an opening to Tekken 9 as her as the main villain probably.

Now, after FINALLY progressing the story for all our main characters we get THE STUPID GRANDPA BACK. Seriously, am I the only one pissed??? it hasn´t even a WHOLE GAME without him. It makes zero sense, it destroys everything that happened during the climax of Tekken 7 and 8. We go back to the starting point. Is getting BORING and tiresome.

I get it... main Heihachi players missed him, cool. MAKE HIM A FLASHBACK.

Heihachi got his own flashback in Tekken 7 along with Kazumi and even though she was dead the whole time, she was still playable. They could have done the same with him.

Kazuya didn´t get ANY flashback of him and Jun in Tekken 2. Why???? Do we even know his aspirations appart from "muh control of the world" . NO. NOTHING.

They could have also bring Jinpachi back as a playable character in a flashback mode telling us about Kazuya childhood. But no... we got CANONICALLY GRANDPA RESURRECTED AGAIN.

Also... isn´t it misogynistic as well???? Jun was missing for +20 years in real time, she didn´t appear canonically since Tekken 2 and the old fart comes back not even one game later.

Same with Kazumi... she HAS THE DEVIL GENE. Heihachi only broke her neck ONCE and she can´t come back ???? COME ONE BAMCO.

Jin and Kazuya have died multiple times and survived others because the Devil Gene allows them to but not for Kazumi???? The true inheritor and probably pure blood devil gene user. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK.

Bruh... honestly. it pisses me off.

On the other hand... Heihachi gets thrown into a volcano, no human being can survive the erosion and melting of the body because of the lava.

Also, I´m pretty sure Heihachi didn´t gave her a proper shinto burial. She came out of a volcano in arcade mode, so Im 100% sure he just tossed her body along with the tiger into the lava. According to Shintoism, if someone doesn´t get a proper burial, they can come back as a vengeful ghost. So she can be brought back as well, not only as an evil ghost but also BECAUSE SHE HAD THE FUCKING DEVIL GENE.

I love Tekken lore to the core and Namco has just killed any progression the story had.

[factual-fantasy]

28 asks! :DD Thank you as always!! 💖💖

@astaherussy

My FNAF AU has been sorted out. In the sense that the timeline has been re-written enough that I can go back to drawing it..

Now the next comic in the AU is a re-write/re-draw of my old FNAF comic, Moon Malfunction. A few months ago though there were several time sensitive projects that came up and I needed to shelf Moon Malfunction 2.0 until they were done. Well now they're all done.. but Moon Malfunction is gonna take me some time to get around to..

For the past few months I've been in a really bad spot mentally and physically. And taking on my FNAF Recap/Repair project is just not something I feel I have the mental energy to do at the moment.. All it feels like is a one big pile of work. And all I wanna do I just draw what ever comes easily to me and focus on recovering..

Soooo for the time being,, my main FNAF AU might not see any updates for a bit.. Though I haven't forgotten about it and I do want to get back to it at some point soon. But for now I want to cut any work out of my relaxing/drawing time and just draw what ever I want. Which atm is pirate cookies-- <XDD

They're also great for grabbing something across the room while I stay in bed 😎😎

Why haven't I drawn anything like that yet- what--

I might just have to at some point! :00

@ardent-38

AWWW THANK YOU SO MUCH!! THATS SO SWEET!! BUT ALSO LSKNAKJ XDDD

I never thought of it like that! Anyone who gets into the game through my characters is like a lactose intolerant person recommending an ice-cream joint- and they're very persuasive! XDD

But fr, thank you! And hey, even if my characters aren't in the game, they'll always be here on Tumblr waiting for you XDD

Actually, I wasn't! :00 I haven't seen that episode of the Cuphead show. But I'm assuming its about Cala Maria and Captain Brineybeard, yes? If so I can easily see the relation XD

(Post in question)

AAAA THANK YOU!! The comic was different than what I'm used to. But it was a nice change of pace. I'm glad you liked it! :}}}

@badlyblurry (Post in question)

FRRRRRR THO He's been holding that glow back for a while. Trying not to send the wrong messages to Blue and potentially damage their friendship 💔💔

XDDD ITS OK!! THANK YOU SO MUCH!! :DDD 💖💖✨

@mod-bubamon

I have! In this post you can see 3 of them floating behind Melvin! (The anthro donkey)

And in this post, you can see Melvin holding one while it passes away... :((((( Sad day for sure.

Well? What did she taste like? XDD

Oh wait you're dead my bad-

Unfortunately I cant think of any songs that would match each crew members theme.. Rn all my brain can think about is this 👇

@nunyabusiness459 (Comic in question)

🥰🥰THANK YOU!! :DDD

What is primordial dough? :0

@2006-stupid-thatsme

Thank you! :DD Though unfortunately my fwernnd, I am known for being very bad at explaining how I do art things. :(

If I tried to explain my thought/design process it would just be a lot of word spaghetti that boils down to "uhhh... I just drew it.,. aandd if it dont look good.. draw it differently.. until it looks good-"

My advice would be to look on YouTube for character design tutorials or ask some other artists that have artwork similar to mine and see if they can help. :( Again, so sorry! I wish I could articulate my thoughts better 💔💔

@beryl-shade

This actually makes me think- Google says that if you add too much sugar to a cookie they become brittle.

Huh,, makes me think. If one of the cookies was baked with too much sugar.. they'd break real easy.. hmm.. 👀👀

@whereismycupofcoffee

@artistiemi

Thank you so much!! :DD I wish the same for you!! ✨💖✨

@sunnys-bloog

I've thought about drawing them! :0 And I thiiink I drew Franny one time..? The Blue one. Although I don't think I'll be able to find the sketch unfortunately-

NOT THE GUMDROP BUTTONS!!

tbh though I think they'd see him as just a normal guy! :0 Right..?

@beryl-shade

I'm not sure.. considering what I know about the games.. I thiiink they'd be horrified?? <XDD If they understand that they're made of dough, it'd be the equivalent of a human walking into a giant meat factory where they chop up meat and make weird false humans..

Okay yeah, they'd be horrified for sure XDDD

@wdillustration

:DD THANK YOU SO MUCH!! :}}}

@neo-metalscottic (Cookie run post in question)

AAAAA thank you so much!! I'm glad you liked it!! :DD As for the power, I think you're right about it being a rare occasion. And the idea of her gaining better control over it over time? While her love grows as well?? Perfection. But man I'm also tempted to make it so she can change when ever she wants. :( I really like drawing her and Seafoam together like that.. 🥺

As for the Colossal squid episode,, I'd have to go back and re-watch it to decide if I'll keep it for my AU or not..

But thinking about all the stuff you described about a violent altercation and nightmares?? 👀👀 Its giving me ideas! XDD

Now if the crew did face a violent altercation like that, I imagine their #1 goal would to protect the Octopod. That's their home man! They would probably do what ever they could to get the octopod away from the situation. Like the Captain manually piloting it and some of the crew being sent out in gups to distract the squid. Stuff like that :0

@luna-purple454

AAA IT WAS ON THE 10TH BUT THANK YOU!! XDD :DD

@khoiazo

It was on the 10th actually- and hey thanks! Seam could probably use the calories <XD

@unpopularartist14 (referencing this ask post)

<XD oh boy, what a stark contrast between the sides--

@shaziztrazh

I didn't have them in mind while designing them,, though maybe I took some subconscious inspiration? I see the similarities! :0

[sirfrogsworth]

It's hard to be nostalgic about Tumblr without remembering my friend Tru.

Truett McGowan.

What a fantastic name.

We met each other because we were both tech geeks following Leo Laporte. He was the very first live streamer. Originally he hosted a TechTV cable show called The Screen Savers. But once G4 took over and focused more on video games, Leo's show was cancelled and he was looking for a new way to broadcast content.

So he built a studio near his home and created his own infrastructure in order to live stream video on the internet. He called his new show "This Week in Tech" or TWiT for short.

Along with his new streaming venture he created a TWiT community using an open source microblogging platform called Laconica. It was a form of Twitter that you could create specifically for a single community. Basically a custom niche Twitter feed. I was trying to be a web designer back then, so I created custom themes for Lacnonica.

This was my own personal theme for a website that I ended up never launching.

Leo called his custom Twitter, "The TWiT Army." And I was his graphic designer and webmaster. I made all of the cute little graphics for the website.

I also did fun holiday themes...

For the Thanksgiving theme, if you hovered over the Turkey it would change to being cooked.

I also took it upon myself to photoshop a little army helmet on the avatar of every single user of the site.

This was the zombie avatar I made for myself during Halloween.

The TWiT Army was also where I started posting my first attempts at Photoshop comedy. Many of them related to The TWiT Army.

And The TWiT Army is where I met Tru. He used a space invader avatar. I made him a couple of different versions.

You may have seen his avatar on the sidebar of my main Tumblr.

We became fast friends. We finished each other's jokes. We talked pretty much all day, every day. He loved Apple back then. I was strictly PC at the time. So we debated about that quite a bit. He would probably be astonished I have a MacBook and that I really love it too.

Our friendship lived in a little text box. We never talked outside of instant messages. But it was one of the most profound friendships of my life. I loved Tru just as much as any friend I've ever known in real life.

Tru started blogging on this brand new site called Tumblr. He reviewed apps for the iPod Touch. Not the iPhone, as that wasn't yet a thing.

I made the banner for his Tumblr.

He kept trying to get me to join Tumblr, but I was busy trying to create my own custom comedy website. But my site kept getting more and more complicated and I could never quite finish it. I was trying to arrange guest authors and create 3 months of content and I was always futzing with the theme and never happy with it.

I was getting frustrated that I could never launch my perfect comedy website and Tru suggested just making a Tumblr and posting funny stuff so I could be creative and have an outlet until my big site was ready to launch.

Little did I know Tumblr would end up being my big comedy website. Eventually I abandoned months of work and just stayed on Tumblr. All of my success here is pretty much because that little space invader pestered me to join when I was being stubborn.

Unfortunately, as some may have figured out already, the story gets sad from there. Tru mentioned briefly that he had a heart defect, but he never said it was serious. He acted like it was no big deal so I never thought too much about it.

We always talked through instant message and email, so we never exchanged phone numbers or addresses or anything like that. Tru was a very private person so he never even published an image of his face online. I only knew him as a space invader.

One day I woke up and sent him a message and got no reply. He usually woke up before me and answered as soon as I said hello. This had been our routine for nearly a year.

An hour went by. Two hours. Three hours.

It was odd for him not to respond for that long. I was really worried but all of my TWiT friends told me I was being paranoid. But there was a huge knot in my stomach telling me otherwise.

But then those hours turned into days. Days into weeks. Weeks into months. My worry grew exponentially as more time passed. I didn't know what to do. I tried finding his family. I even looked into hiring a private investigator. I don't know if I have ever felt a combination of depression & anxiety that intense.

In my heart, I knew what had happened. I knew that heart defect took his life. He was only 26 and it just didn't seem fair. But the not knowing for certain ravaged my mental health. Before all of this I had lost nearly 90 pounds and I gained it all back.

I think maybe a year or so later I found a friend of his who knew him in real life. They were finally able to confirm my suspicions. He passed away from his heart condition. That was my first real experience with grief. But I was so thankful for that bit of closure. I was finally able to let go of my anxiety and mourn him properly.

But Tru gave me such a wonderful gift. He pushed me to just start making things. To stop stalling and just create things to make people smile.

And you all probably know the rest from there.

[dramadramallama]

Love Supremacy - brain rot part 1

So I have a problem. I enjoyed the first half of Love for Love's Sake without knowing I would get absolutely bowled over by the second half. I have so much to say holy fuck, I'm all over the place.

Unfortunately for everyone, my brain has been love supremacied, and I'm unable to move on. The show has a high rewatch value. It’s full of details; big, important ones, and small, insignificant ones, but they all add a lot of weight to the story. I need to exorcise my thoughts for my own sake. I guess if I have to intellectualize it somewhat, I really liked the show cause it’s perfectly balanced in terms of structure, and its themes. Judging from the amount of notes I have made on this show on my second watch, it’s safe to say it’s got some substance. It cleverly uses a mise en abyme, “a story within a story (within a story)” to really stack all those layers, and answer an age-old, quite difficult question: “what’s crucial to a happy life?” Dialogues, scenes, characters, and motifs all echo, mirror, and circle back to one another, giving the story enough dimension to avoid banalities.

Simply put, the thesis of the show is surprisingly philosophical, with universal themes. It posits that life is neither fate nor chance, and the answers are in mundane details of life. "Happiness is hidden somewhere in each of our days."

It’s obviously about love; a double love story even. Myung-ha learns to love someone else, and himself too. It's about life, and it's about death, new beginnings, and everything in between. The show made me feel like this, and like this, and like this, and...

▶️1. Mirrors/Symmetry

2. Fate, Free Will, and Happiness

3. Game/Reality

The story structure is very symmetrical. Circular almost. I LOVE IT, I EAT IT UP LIKE A HUNGRY, GRUBBY GOBLIN. Things begin where they end, elements keep repeating themselves like a series of mirrors.

By going through the game, Myung-ha finds himself on the other side of the mirror: he is supposed to find his own happiness, and will to live.

Yeo-woon is introduced to the audience as a sad side character in someone else’s story, victim of his “fate.” He almost perfectly mirrors Myung-ha: his background is eerily similar to his. He was raised by his (recently deceased) grandma, with an absent mother and a dead-beat dad. He’s lonely, unhappy.

When Myung-ha first meets him, Yeo-woon is resolutely standing on top of a building, about to fall or jump, which directly parallels Myung-ha's own suicide. In this new iteration of life, in this “game,” he saves Yeo-woon from hurting himself, which is the start of his own salvation. Saving Yeo-woon, the poor guy who didn’t get his happy ending, is saving himself. Yeo-woon is like a version of him right before he lost control of his life, after his grandma died, and he felt abandoned by all. It’s the core of the game, and the core of the drama, but Myung-ha (and we, the audience) can’t understand it right away.

Several details, in retrospect, show that he is the driving force behind this "game", and that it’s, by lack of a better term, both a test (as in, an exercise, a learning mechanism) and a Test (as in, an exam you don't wanna fail.) Myung-ha’s main, most important mission is to “make Yeo-woon happy.” Which he happily and enthusiastically tackles. He does what we all do: he takes a liking to the character most relatable to him. Time and time again, the way he reacts when presented with someone who struggles the same way he did is very telling.

He provides comfort. The comfort he lacked in his own life. (distant sounds of my heart shattering.)

But Yeo-woon isn’t the only one mirroring elements of Myung-ha’s life. Sang-won is a careless, tough-looking student, who seems slightly directionless. He picks fights easily and has a reputation at school for being “crazy.” He also smokes and rides a motorcycle (both illegal lol). His mom having abandoned Myung-ha, it’s also relevant to note Sang-won doesn’t seem to have a very good relationship with his own mother, and craves her attention. Although, he is your typical badboy, he is overall nice, sensitive, and has good intentions.

Myung-ha himelf appears to have been quite the turbulent student, with his own “mad dog” nickname. He, just like Sang-won, knows a thing or two about school fights, also drives a bike (lmao 100% sure he didn’t wait to have a license to drive though). Although he berates Sang-won for his rebellious side, with the patronizing tone of someone who’s done it all before, he shows genuine care.

Finally, Kyung-hoon. To me, he’s like another facet of Myung-ha’s personality. An absolute sweetheart, without friends, but always ready to help, and open to be befriended. While Myung-ha seems nonchalant about speaking badly of himself, he cannot stand it from others. He makes him his friend on the spot.

Once again, he provides like-minded friends the safe space he probably would have liked as a troubled, most certainly depressed teenager. Of course, it turns out Yeo-woon hates himself the most too (and by extension, dislikes everyone else.) It's the first clue for Myung-ha to realize some self-love might be the answer.

As it will become increasingly clear, Myung-ha has no issues protecting, providing for, and loving others, but fails to realize he should do the same for himself to achieve balance, and maybe, a little bit of happiness. The journey to get there makes him care for someone else the way he should care for himself, love someone else, like he should love himself. 

The last episode does a wonderful job of confirming what seemed to be threaded through the whole show, and explaining very clearly, in no uncertain terms, what it was all about.

However, the interesting aspect of this “mirror world," is that all of them, and Yeo-woon in particular, flip the script, in more ways than one. They all are a reflection of Myung-ha's life, but transcend their condition of “fictional character.” They’re not virtual. Yeo-woon is not made of something unreal, and he’s not a messed up copy of someone else. He has his own needs, desires, and quirks.

I don't think I can name them all here, but one of my favorite circular storytelling moment happens when Yeo-woon parallels Myung-ha by running to "find his fave." That moment in ep 8 counterbalances the one in ep 1.

Nothing is written in stone, and both of them set off to build their own happiness, against fate.

[sarahlizziewrites]

Writeblr for newbies

So you joined Tumblr to talk about your writing. Maybe you're published and you want to promote your works, or maybe you're wanting a supportive community of fellow writers, or maybe you're just writing for the hell of it and want to show the world your blorbos.

Welcome!!

Being a part of the writing side of Tumblr is a little bit like being in kindergarten and all the kids are talking about their imaginary friends to each other. Except some of the kids have published stories about their imaginary friends in real books you can buy. It's so cool.

I have made some wonderful friends on Writeblr, I've ARC'd and beta'd books for people, and I've gotten a lot of warm fuzzies from sharing my snippets and my characters. It's somewhere between self-promo and group therapy, but it doesn't feel like either. It feels like a wonderful community of writers supporting each other.

The Writeblr lingo can seem a little intense at first so I thought I'd set up a guide. If I've missed anything lmk!

WIP - stands for 'work in progress' (plural: WIPs). Any piece of writing (or poetry, or any kind of art) that isn't completed yet. This might be the first draft of a story, or the nth draft of your novel, or the not-yet-posted chapter of the fanfiction you're writing. WIP is a state of mind: it might be nearly complete, or it might just be an idea with a few hundred words attached to it. Talk about it as much or as little as you want.

WIP intro - a totally optional (and honestly a lot of hard work sometimes lol) post explaining the main themes/background/plot/characters of your WIP. Something you can link people to so they good a good idea of your WIP and what it's about. Similarly, character intro, for individual characters within a WIP, often with art/picrews.

Tag game - the lifeblood of Writeblr! In its most basic form, someone tags you in a game, you play the game, then tag other people you want to play the game. Lots of people do 'open tags', which you can also pick up. These games can range from making picrews of your characters to posting a snippet or multiple snippets. A few common ones at the moment (these change often!) are: Find the Word (the tagger gives you words to find in your WIP, you post a short snippet for each word, then give the people you tag new words to find); Last Line (you post the last line(ish) you wrote, or wrote recently); 9 Lines 9 People (post 9(ish) recent lines, tag 9(ish) people). There are so many more, and new ones being created all the time.

Blorbo - your OC (original character) that lives in your mind rent-free. The one(s) you would commit war crimes for. You know the one I'm talking about. In addition, blorbo trading and sharing is encouraged in the Writeblr community.

Ask game - a post that you reblog, usually containing a list of prompts or questions, that encourages your followers to ask those questions in your ask box. It is friendly to drop an ask from the game to the person you reblogged the post from.

Weekly asks - if you've asked to take part, questions about your writing in your inbox, related to a certain day of the week. There's Worldbuilding Wednesday (WBW), which are questions about worldbuilding, Blorbo Blursday (OC questions), and Storyteller Saturday (STS), questions about writing in general. These questions can be very generic and vague, or can be about specific characters/stories.

Pinned Post - basically, an 'about' page. Talk about yourself, your WIPs, the kinds of things you like, whether you want to be involved in Writeblr games, whether your asks are open. You don't need one, but it can be a handy reference point for your followers.

Taglist - sometimes, Tumblr posts get lost on the dash. If you are interested in a particular WIP, ask the author if you can be put on their taglist, so you can get notified every time they post about it. They will love you for it, seriously!

Overall, on Writeblr, it is always encouraged:

to talk about your stories and characters as much as you like. People might not follow along at first, but they'll get on board!

to reblog others' writing/snippets/promo. We're all relying on each other for our sanity here, and a nice comment in the tags never goes amiss either!

I'm sure I've missed something - feel free to add!

[otogariado]

i am always skeptical of media where the monstrous creatures of evil are painted as irredeemable and truly inhuman because they aren't capable of thinking and feeling like humans—it's easy for it to fall into so many -isms, notably ableism and racism. it's like the age old argument against robots except make it fantasy, and to have it painted in such a cut and dry way sets off alarm bells.

but i think the way frieren (the show) handles its demons and the concept of them only being able to mimic human speech and other parts of human culture and not understand it is actually good. in that, intrinsically, frieren (the show) is about human connection. they put a lot of emphasis on human understanding as well as compassion. and i think it's fundamental that frieren (the character) is presented the way she is—an elf who is also inhuman, but is so very human in her sentience anyway. she doesn't perceive a lot of things similarly to humans because of the gap between her morality and the morality of humans, but still she is able to shift her perspective the more she interacts with people and the world around her and the more she opens up to it. when your main character is presented as an "outsider looking in" and is going through an arc of self-(re)discovery, it changes the game when you introduce demons.

at first i was heavily against demons being painted in such a frank way. it's been a while since i watched that arc when it was released, but since then i think the concept of the clones in the dungeon during the second exam in the exam arc adds more insight to it. the clones don't have actual minds, but try to perfectly recreate them instead. and now i understand and accept it. you can mimic and recreate a person from the ground up so perfectly, but it comes with the caveat of no matter how perfect your mimicry is, if it's all logic and algorithms then that's just not human. even if a person is very logical and rational in their way of thinking, people are imperfect. there's always factors that influence how we think and feel (even if we're someone who doesn't 'feel' as much as other people), "noise" that would count as human error. and that's something the demons never account for. as people have put it, how terrifying is it to recreate something without fundamentally understanding it.

and now it's very interesting how timely this theme is in frieren with regards to discussions about the (mis)use of AI and topics like AI art. it's a whole other discussion entirely, but it's really fascinating timing that these discussions kind of align. i don't believe AI is inherently "evil" (and i don't like how most people talk about it like it's a boogeyman) because ultimately it is supposed to be a tool and it depends on those who program it and wield it. but i firmly believe that AI is not meant to replace humans, because it just can't. it's meant to augment our lives for improvement but never completely replace anyone. AI art in particular can almost be related to frieren directly: AI art is generated through an algorithm. yes, AI follow decision-making algorithms and that's how it learns and comes up with outputs. but ultimately these decisions could never come close to the thought process a real human could have. an AI can mimic a pattern it sees from a certain artist, but it can never recreate the artistic vision that the original artist had that lead to that very specific decision. and people are inconsistent; it's only natural to us humans. the downfall of AI is that since it is decision-based, it has to follow a certain set of rules, and that in of itself already hinders it from ever coming close to humans. because humans are constantly changing, and people can react to an event they're re-experiencing differently than they did originally. i used to hate onions as a kid and now i love eating them. do you think demons have a concept of that in the universe of frieren?

[cursedvibes]

My JJK Arc Ranking

Culling Game (ch 159-221) + Baka Survivor (ch 239-243)

Perfect Preparation (ch 144-158)

Itadori's Extermination (ch 137-143)

Death Painting (ch 55-64)

Shibuya Incident (ch 79-136)

Vs Mahito (ch 19-31)

Fearsome Womb (ch 1-18)

Hidden Inventory (ch 65-79)

Shinjuku Showdown (ch 222-262+)

Kyoto Goodwill Event (ch 32-54)

Cursed Child (Vol 0)

Note that this is my personal ranking of which arcs I like the most and least, not any objective statement. Like for example, I think Hidden Inventory is well-written, but it doesn't interest me much, that's why it's further towards the bottom.

With the manga drawing to a close, I thought I'd write down my thoughts about what we've gotten so far and what I like or don't like in the different arcs.

Culling Game

Starting at #1 with the Culling Game Arc. It's where my interest in the story really picked up and I got invested to the point of bothering to write analyses, dig into the lore and historical background and even start writing fanfiction. Culling Game is the meat of the story, where we got introduced to new important lore of characters, further explored their themes and connected dots that had been set up before. It is sort of a lul after the big climax of the Shibuya Incident, but I think that's also what was needed here, since this is more of a section where Gege takes time to explore concepts and characters further. Shibuya is a big payoff for the first part of the story and Culling Game builds on that, it establishes a level ground for the last part of the story. Characters like Yuuji and Maki for example found themselves fundamentally changed after Shibuya and used this time to find their footing again and try to create a new way for themselves to move forward. In Yuuji's case he had to do it twice even with the massive turn of not being Sukuna's vessel anymore aka having his role, purpose and ideal death taken from him. He catches himself relatively quickly though.

Also this arc just had a lot of moments I really like, actually most of my favourite moments in jjk happen here. Like Kenjaku calling Yuuji their son, Yuuji's fight against Higuruma, Maki's awakening, Noritoshi reconciling with his mother having a new family, Kenjaku & Uraume rolling up to the White House, the Yuki vs Kenjaku fight, the Heian trio spa day, Yorozu's backstory, Kenjaku and Tengen getting Sukuna's mummy and much more. The fights were for the most part also great. You always took something new away and I liked how we were slowly spoon-fed information about the Culling Game and Kenjaku's plans. Almost every chapter had something to pick apart and even with the cycle through the colonies there was always tension because you didn't know what this would all lead to. Even when the protagonists were doing well, things could change at the drop of a dime. There was a false sense of security. The main group got a little bit of control only to have it ripped away when they least expected it.

Baka Survivor

I put the Baka Survivor arc up here as well because while it might technically be during the Shinjuku Showdown, I thought it was so far removed from the fight against Sukuna that it's reasonable to see it as its own mini-arc. Plus, I think this section is a lot better than the majority of the Shinjuku Showdown. It's like Gege took some time to play around and write what was fun to them, the stuff they actually want to write. The end was a bit...meh. Mainly because of the context of this fight and Kenjaku's larger role in the story, especially what Kenjaku's death this early would mean (or not mean...) for Yuuji. Yuuta's integration here was also very weak because while he might have reasons to go after Kenjaku that were a little bit explored (although I think you could've done way more with it than just "wants to do it for Gojo" after all a big theme of this fight was connecting with other people and building friendships/partnerships, which is something closely related to Yuuta's character), he was absolutely irrelevant from Kenjaku's perspective. You could've put anyone in his place and it wouldn't have changed anything from Kenjaku's point of view. Well, maybe if you put Yuuji there, but Gege was clearly not interested in exploring their relationship like that....

Anyway, I have raved about this arc a lot on my blog already, but in summary I absolutely love how we explore both Kenjaku and Takaba further, compare them and their understanding of comedy/curiosity and how both of them struggle to open up to others, show their real self and make themselves vulnerable. I especially think that this was actually thematically a very nice end for Kenjaku. They indulge in what they really want, have fun without the need of excessive cruelty (although there was violence from both of them) and they allowed themselves to connect with someone else again and make a friend. Chasing after their superficial goals of merging humanity they lost their closest friend, Tengen, were thrown into doubt and Takaba both offered himself as an alternative and pulled them further away from their insane ideas. Best thing about it is that Kenjaku went for it! They got caught up in the comedy with Takaba, they paid the price for allowing themselves such a close relationship with someone else and lowering their guard, and they still didn't regret it. In fact they were glad they spend their time before their death with Takaba and finally having fun. Of course the merger plan continues, they can't just let Tengen die with them or fall into the protagonists hands and it is too late for Tengen to change back anyway, but I absolutely love Kenjaku's character development here. Just remains to be seen how Takaba will leave this fight and how he will react to having once again lost a partner.

Perfect Preparation

Really like this arc for all the new lore we get as well as emotional chapters like the Zenin massacre and Yaga's death. The introduction of Hakari and Kirara was fun too, but the highlight for me is definitely the meeting with Tengen and Maki's massacre. Ch 145 and 146 might be in the top 5 of the chapters I have reread most often. You always find something new there and there's so much about the relationship between Tengen, the Star Plasma Vessels and the six eyes to take apart, particularly with later reveals like Yuki also being a Star Plasma Vessel. Those two chapters were also what first really got me more interested in Kenjaku and their history with Tengen. It's when it becomes apparent just how much Kenjaku has planned and arranged over the past millennium and it also raises even more questions of why Tengen never mentioned them before and how Kenjaku could stay undercover for so long.

Then we of course also have the Zenin massacre. I like how it starts with giving us some clan politics. I love that shit. Wish we got something similar for the Kamo and Gojo, but oh well. Maki's meeting with her mother when she goes for the weapon storage is already pretty chilling, but it's even better when you see her mother go from "why can't you make me proud of you for once?" to "I'm glad I gave birth to you". Shows how much she suffered under the Zenin as well, despite playing by their rules. Too bad she only came to the conclusion to treat her kids decently when it was already too late. Maki also only found out her mother did care about her and was the one to finish off Naoya when she was already dead. Just like her reunion and clearing conversation with Mai, it all happens just a little too late and that's what makes it so wonderfully tragic.

Also shout-out to Yaga's death scene. I've come to appreciate it much more recently and I particularly like seeing him together with all the other autonomous cursed corpses he keeps hidden away and the hints of the friendship he has with Kusakabe.

Itadori's Extermination

Honestly, I mostly like this arc for its atmosphere. It's one of the instances where you feel the most just how much destruction, chaos and desolation Shibuya and the start of the Culling Game caused. The main characters roaming the streets all split up and sleeping by campfires, the broken buildings and civilians hunting for scraps of food, curses praying on desperate humans...it's great. Wish we got more of that later on, but I only really got a similar feeling when the foreign armies attacked.

And of course we get the fateful Itadori flashback here. I don't know how many hours I spend looking at those two pages and taking the dialogue apart. Just two pages and I've become utterly obsessed by this weird family. Also the first time we see Kenjaku in a vessel that is not Geto, so that's extra nice.

I remember also really liking Yuuta's reintroduction when the chapters first came out. He looked so much worse than in Vol 0, so that was really intriguing. Bit disappointed there wasn't more conflict and it turned out he looks like shit because...well, that's just his look now. Still good arc.

Death Painting

I like this one because it's where Yuuji, Nobara and Megumi feel most like a team going on a mission and solving a mystery. Especially the opening of it, with weird paranormal events that remind you of classic Japanese horror stories is really nice and always manages to draw me in. Kinda wish there were more missions like that just for the sake of atmosphere, even though I don't think the story necessarily needs it. Seeing Mahito and Kenjaku capture a civilian man, strip him, nail him to a wall and then feed him a cursed fetus was also insane. Never get tired of watching/reading that no matter if it's the manga or anime. Vol 7 was the first jjk volume I ever bought and I remember how striking it was to open the book and start with that scene. Gave me chills.

I also love the entire fight with Eso and Kechizu. One because I just like their characters and getting introduced to the background of the Death Painting's existence was interesting, but I also really enjoyed Yuuji and Nobara's dynamic here and their talk about what it means to kill.

Shibuya Incident

Really good arc and what made me more interest in how jjk would continue when I first read the manga, but rereading it there are definitely some fights and scenes that really drag for me and I end up skipping whenever I read it again or when I watched S2. Like all the curse users working for Kenjaku that ended up being entirely irrelevant. The backstory of Ogami and the guy with the big eyes was nice because it gave us an insight into what the life of regular curse users (not big hitters like Geto or Kenjaku) is actually like and how society changed when Gojo was born. That's some world building I very much appreciate. Aside from that all the curse users are very forgettable though. There's a reason I only remember Ogami's name and none of the others'. Some other stuff also just comes down to character preferences like I'm not that interested in what Nanami or Ino were up to and Toji was also...eh. Nice, but I'm not losing my mind over it. Nanami's death scene is great though. I mostly love Shibuya for its later stages. Yuuji's fight against Mahito, how seeing his friends and civilians die through his inaction makes him breakdown, how his world view changes over the course of fighting Mahito and their scene at the end when the roles of predator and prey are reversed. Kenjaku's entrance and explanation of their plan and what was to come is also very interesting and probably the part I reread most in this arc.

Vs Mahito

I gotta say I do really like Junpei's story and his developing friendship with Yuuji. Yuuji's first few encounters with Mahito are great as well. It's nice seeing them get to know each other and seeing the inciting incidents that cause both of them to gradually get more and more obsessed with killing the other. I also really appreciate this arc for giving us some of those slower scenes that are just focused on Mahito, the curse family or Mahito & Junpei talking philosophy. Mahito is a quite fascinating character even in his simplistic cruelty and here you can also see the most just how horrific, but also intriguing, Idle Transfiguration is. This arc has one of the best horror in jjk and I appreciate the anime for emphasizing the comparisons to the Human Centipede movies and human experimentation even further. It's really close between this and Shibuya Incident. I just ended up putting Shibuya higher because when it hits, it hits hard and I still like the high points it has more than the Vs Mahito arc. Still appreciate the groundwork this arc laid for Shibuya to be as impactful as it was.

Hidden Inventory

Like I said in the beginning, I do think this arc is well-written and I think it's a great way to flesh out Gojo and Geto's characters as well as give us more world building and establish the background presence of Tengen and the connection of the Star Plasma Vessel and six eyes to her. I'm also convinced that what we learn here about the Time Vessel Association and the cults that build around Tengen will become relevant again when we get to the Heian flashback and Sukuna's/Tengen's/Kenjaku's backstory. Still have that "Kenjaku created the Time Vessel Association in the Nara period" theory in the back of my mind. This lore is also the main thing I like about this arc. Don't get me wrong, Gojo and Geto's struggles and change in mindset is nice too, but I don't care much about Gojo and don't like Geto, so I ended up focusing more on everything around them. Including Riko. I find her story, the way she grew up and her inevitable death very interesting. Episode 3 of season 2 is still my favourite episode of the season of maybe even the entire anime because it's just that beautiful and I love how they added to the themes of her character by connecting her to the ocean. The inside of the Tomb of Stars is also so eery and entrancing, I could soak in that atmosphere forever. The only reason it's so low is because a lot of this arc is dedicated to Gojo and Geto and their relationship etc. While that is absolutely necessary and was very well done, it's not something I'm much interested in.

Fearsome Womb

Start of the series. It's really those first few chapters and the mission at the detention centre I like about it. It's where you see Yuuji still quite naive and ready to play the hero. I am very interested in his life before joining Jujutsu Tech and when he first got introduced to jujutsu, so this is always nice to revisit and see how he acted before he was forced to become a seasoned sorcerer very quickly. Those glimpses of how Yuuji was always a bit of a loner and also extraordinary from the start due to Kenjaku's meddling. Knowing his family background makes these scenes now even more interesting. His mentality back then is also what makes the moment in the detention centre so special, where he realizes Sukuna isn't Kurama and won't be a convenient power source for him. He could die if he is careless (which he is, of course, he never dealt with anything like this before) and he is scared of it.

Besides that, I also like the introduction of Kenjaku and the curses, how chill it is and how you see them walking among regular citizens undetected by anyone. I think that's especially a fitting introduction to Kenjaku's character. They are unassuming in the beginning of the series, easy to overlook next to flashy Mahito and Jogo, but that's how they have always been throughout history and it's part of the reason for why they never drew much attention besides the Death Painting experiment, which wasn't directly linked to them. Of course Tengen covering for them was the other big reason.

Overall, nice start into the series, even if some parts are a bit slow and don't animate me much to reread them.

Shinjuku Showdown

Shinjuku Showdown fights on a reread do merge well into each other, but it's undeniable that they are very formulaic. Yuuta starts out the same way Higuruma does. Talking about regrets, giving his all, how he has to end everything with a technique only he can use and then he gets cut down. Same with Maki, Kusakabe, Miguel and Larue. It is all the same. We are currently literally watching a slight reshuffle of the fight that started this arc.

Parallel we learn more about Yuuji's new abilities and Sukuna has to gradually exert more force. Technically a good thing, but it's all so repetitive that it loses more and more of it's emotional impact for me. If there is any emotional impact at all. Eventually it just becomes explaining of cursed technique after cursed technique that won't work anyway with minimal depth otherwise. Things get a bit better when most people have been cut away and we start focusing on Yuuji and Sukuna, but by that point I'm already so tired by everything that came before that I can't get that hyped about it and just want a complete change of pace that breaks all rules that have been set up and introduces something completely new. Like the merger for example... Although I have to say, Kashimo's fight might be my favourite still out of the bunch. Has a lot to do with my particular interest and what I'm looking for in a fight. It was short, but we got a nice wrap-up for Kashimo's character, learned more about the Heian era, explored the theme of love and strength and got what is so far one of the deepest looks at Sukuna's philosophy and mindset.

Besides that, on the reread, by the time Kusakabe's fight happens I'm catching myself only skimming the pages. It doesn't help that there's not much initiative happening from Sukuna's side besides the very recent chapters. He's just waiting for others to do something, which lowers the perception of any imminent threat from him. The later half (before Yuuta showed up again) isn't as bad as the Gojo vs Sukuna fight, but I'm still having a hard time staying invested while reading it. Gojo vs Sukuna 2.0 pretty much tanked my interest again. Every week I'm shaking Sukuna to just spit out his backstory already and release Tengen because that's the only thing I care about at this point and I'm bored of this fight. But again, my opinion, others likely feel otherwise.

Kyoto Goodwill Event

Was a bit tempted to put it above Shinjuku Showdown, but at the end of it Shinjuku Showdown still has some scenes I really like, like Kashimo's fight, Yuuji fighting Sukuna and the Sukuna, Uraume and Kenjaku scenes in ch 222. That's more than what I could say for Kyoto Goodwill Event. I don't necessarily dislike it. It doesn't really have any moments that bother me as much as the ones in Shinjuku Showdown, but at the same time nothing in this arc really stands out to me or catches my interest. Often I end up forgetting about it entirely. There's not really much to say about it because I don't have any strong feelings about this one. Not really something I reread unless I'm looking for some very specific information.

Cursed Child

When I first read Vol 0 (right before the Death Painting arc) I thought it was a concept story for jjk. The infant stage of it before Gege made the proper story. Sort of like the original chapter of Naruto where he's actually a fox spirit. Interesting to read to see where jjk started, but not tied to canon. That's also why I didn't question Geto acting very different here. I just though "wow, they made his character way less aggravating". So yeah, Vol 0 is really not something I find interesting or enjoy and I think the writing in it is quite rough. I didn't find Yuuta very compelling. He's an obvious Shinji rip-off, which wouldn't be that bad in itself except I don't find his personality that interesting and him pulling powers out of his ass without any of them being set up prior made me really dislike him. He can just copy techniques now and use them much better than the original person because he's just that overpowered. Who knows how he learned about any of this, who knows what the limitations to any of his powers are, he can apparently just do anything and that makes his fights not very thrilling because there aren't really any stakes. He also has barely any connection to the villain of this arc except that he happens to kill people Yuuta cares about. Geto's ideology is entirely irrelevant. Geto could've said he's killing people because he wants to turn them into Christmas decoration and the fight would've happened the same way. I think putting an ideologically-driven villain against someone whose only care is that his friends are alive and who has also not even the experience to judge if anything Geto says is justified wasn't a very good move. Centring Gojo and Geto's conflict would've been better and also showing us literally anything that would make it possible for us to judge if any of Geto's complaints are justified, if he's talking about real problems. Just going by Vol 0, we don't know that. We can only tell that the bullshit he spouts is an allegory for white supremacy/racism, which obviously is bad. But on it's own it seems like he's just spouting bigotry for bigotry's sake, which doesn't make for a very compelling villain, especially if the rest of the characters and setting don't fit his attitude. Nobody can ever even bring themselves to say something like "genocide bad, eugenics bad". They just don't engage with what he's saying and if that's the case, then why bring it up in the first case. It makes Geto's antics even more unnecessary. On its own it's really not that good of a story and since it's a oneshot with initially no guaranteed sequel, I would expect a bit more.

All that being said, the first time I read Vol 0 I was very annoyed and glad I followed it up with the Death Painting arc, something which is much better written and more up my alley. If Vol 0 was my first exposure to jjk, I don't think I would've continued reading. Having more context from Hidden Inventory fleshes at least out what Gojo and Geto have going on, but my complaints about Yuuta and his lack of meaningful relation to Geto and what he stands for still makes me dislike this arc.

[theresattrpgforthat]

Hi folks, it’s Mint.

I’m on a mini-vacation this week so I’m going to be releasing some recommendation posts for things that aren’t related to requests (easy to queue), and I’ll be back to doing regular rec posts when I get back!

THEME: Cryptids

Whether you’re tracking them down in order to give them your heart or running as fast as you can in the opposite direction, these games are all about mysterious creatures (that usually live in the woods).

OKCryptid, by Tadhg Lyon.

You’ll never forget that night.

You had heard the legends before, of course, everyone had.  Now that you know the creature is real, one thought keeps playing through your mind:

Their eyes were… beautiful. You want to see them again.

Okcryptid is a tarot-based, GMless roleplaying game about finding mysterious, secretive, beautiful creatures, and hopefully, dating them. It can be played by 2-5 players, or as a solo journaling experience.

Regardless of whether you play this game solo or in a group, you will be investigating a single creature or cryptid. You can create a cryptid of your own, or roll from a provided table to make a completely new cryptid. You use a deck of tarot cards to represent facts about the Creature, bring you closer to the final Meeting, or provide prompts for each investigative scene of the game. Characters also have personal scales that will measure how much the Creature either wants to kiss them or kill them, which will affect how the final Meeting goes. If you want a game with a mix of romance and creepy thrills, you might want to check out OKCryptid!

Cryptid TV, by yanahn.

A plague of Reality TV stars has descended upon the sleepy town of Mountain Lake ready to hunt down (and capture on camera) anything that looks even remotely like a cryptid - your crew is among them to cause drama, fake hoaxes, and enact sabotage beyond all reckoning.

The catch? You have only a passing familiarity with eldritch world of Showbiz, also you are all SPOOKY CRYPTIDS.

Cryptid TV is a truly charming hack of Honey Heist that pits your characters against the world of reality TV. You can choose whatever Cryptid you like, although there are six recommended cryptos that come with special powers to make situations really interesting. Will you unveil yourself as a Cryptid and lose all sense of peace and quiet? Will you sell out and move to Hollywood to seek out fame and fortune? Or will you succeed in driving the producers away without blowing your cover?

If you like goofy situations and you want a chill one-shot for the cryptid - lovers in your life, you’ll want to check out Cryptid TV.

Cryptid Rescue, by Renasdoodles.

One of your own has been captured and you’ve taken it upon yourselves to rescue them! One problem: you’re all cryptids and need to keep from being discovered or you too will be captured!

Cryptid Rescue is a one-page RPG that can be played through within a few hours. 

This is a cute little game with two main stats: Stealth and Fright. Each cryptid also has an Attention bar that leads to your capture should you fill it all the way. You fill this bar a little when you successfully frighten someone or fail at stealth, and you empty it a little when you fail to frighten someone or successfully sneak somewhere. The game also comes with a few small roll-tables for the GM to figure out who was captured, where they are now, and what kinds of obstacles will stand in the way between our adventurous little monsters and their friend. If you want a cute, free game with a simple premise, you might want to check out Cryptid Rescue.

The Mystery Creature of Claytonsville, PA, by Nick Wedig.

That summer, our small town deep in rural Pennsylvania was abuzz with strange tales of the supernatural creature.  No two stories of the creature entirely agreed with each other. Everyone who encountered the creature seemed to see what they needed to see. 

Some who found the creature were terrified. Others were spurred out of their stifling, mundane lives. In the end, the creature left the town with more questions than answers. But the lives of the each witness would each be changed forever.

Once the stories started, they came in more and more frequently throughout the year. Then just as they reached a crescendo, the encounters suddenly stopped.

This game can be played in a group as large as 7, or as small as one - just by yourself. You use a deck of playing cards as an oracle for answering questions, both about the town that you live in and the protagonist that the group will be telling the story about. No matter the group size, there will only be one protagonist! After you set the scene and define your main character, the deck of cards is used to determine what obstacles show up, whether the character succeeds or fails, and what aspects of the story come to the forefront in each scene.

This game feels like a cross between a narrative storytelling exercise and a card game, so if you want to introduce storytelling to a group that likes that tactile sensations of board-games, you might find some luck with The Mystery Creature of Claytonsville, PA.

Expedition: Incredizoology, by Imagined Chaos Games.

Explore the Wyldes, pockets of our World where fantastical and mythical creatures roam freely. Trap, train, hunt and co-exist with these creatures and explore the incredible lands they inhabit. 

Incredizoology can be played solo, cooperative or with an 'Expedition Leader' leading the expedition. The Imagined Chaos System utilises the full gamut of your polyhedral dice, moment cards to resolve combat and encounters as well as extensive roll tables for exploration. 

I don’t think this necessarily needs to be focused on cryptids, but there certainly seems to be room for it. The focus is not just on the creatures that you’re exploring, but also the environment they live in: you’ll have to navigate the natural environment, account for the weather, and interact with strange plants as well! There’s also room to explore how people make themselves at home in wild places, although the fact that the default setting is in a colonial period may be a bit of a downside for some players.

I wonder if you could alter the setting to allow for expeditions in different times and places. For example, if you are explorers in a sci-fi setting or a space setting, what changes might you make to make exploration challenging? I’m also curious if you could combine this game with a creature creation game, such as Exquisite Biome, a creature generator that also considers the ecosystems of various fantastic creatures.

You can download free character sheets if you want to take a look at a few bits and pieces, and look at a review for this game on The Gaming Table’s Youtube channel!

MOTH//MAN, by Witch & Craft Games.

A night in the woods…a light in the darkness…an unearthly transformation…

Can you survive the MOTHMAN?

Armed with nothing but your wits, tools, and the clothes on your back, you must brave the forest that this mysterious creature calls home. Your reasons for walking this perilous path are your own…as are those of everyone around you. Every bump in the road is a potential danger, an irresistible call drawing the beast ever closer. One wrong move, and you might find that it had been lurking closer than you ever thought possible.

When the monster finally reveals itself, the night really begins, and only one question remains:

Who is MOTH, and who is MAN?

This game looks to be more suited for fans who like to mix a bit more horror into their Cryptid mix. Moth-Man is likely a real threat - especially since it looks like some party members might actually turn into a MothMan! If you want a game of suspense, surprise, and perhaps even a little PVP, you might like MOTH//MAN.

Loveland, by JD.

Hundreds of years after climate change killed humanity, the cryptids inherited the Earth. Living in the area once known as Loveland, Ohio are the Frogfolk. Not as strong or sophisticated as other new societies, their success can be attributed to their teamwork. Within their village each Frog is a member of a guild. Some are craftsmen, others provide services, but all are equally important in the survival of the village.

You are a member of the Gatherers Guild. It’s your job to venture out of the village, gather supplies, explore ancient ruins, and communicate with other factions.

I find the idea of playing Frogfolk very charming, and I also like the fact that there are various Cryptid factions in this world, including goat-men, moth-men, and green-furred Grasskin. The game seems to revolve around gathering items that various guild factions can use to craft items for you, which will in turn help you venture farther and farther afield. Magic exists in items called Wands, and can only be used once per day before it needs to re-charge. The game is very well suited for dungeon-crawls, pointcrawls, hex-crawls… name a crawl and you can probably do it in this game. If you’re a bit of an OSR fan and you like exploration, you might be interested in Loveland.

Other Games You Might Want To Check Out

Sleepaway, by Jay Dragon.

Apocalypse Roadtrip, by Mina Lenahan.

Cryptozoologist by riseofpanic.

Camp Cryptid, by Certified Milkboy Games.