#i never actually made an animation before or even made art in like a year but it not like anyone will play it anyway so im unconcerned

[typopoet]

hey any cellists out there want to play 'Pulled' from the addams family musical.

If someone does i swear I'll get off my deppressed ass and make a wenclair animation to it.

[mako-island-moon-pool]

I really do deserve a fucking apology for all the times my friends and family valued strangers on the internet and their opinions more than me

How am I supposed to be just fine with being ignored for years and years or bullied for openly liking what I like, only for those same fucking people to then turn around YEARS LATER, AFTER THE DAMAGE WAS ALREADY DONE, and be like "actually this is cool, so glad I found it" while still ignoring me. Why am I not allowed to be fucking pissed about it? Why is it considered ""gatekeepy"" when I get upset someone who deliberately ignored me for years and insulted the shit I enjoy when I asked them to get into it cuz I thought they'd like it suddenly finds interest in it because it got popular online, not because I'd been begging them to give it a chance and to listen to me for years???? Why is that not allowed????? THAT'S SUCH AN ASSHOLE MOVE, WHY IS IT 'NOT OKAY' TO BE MAD? WHY DON'T THEY GROW A SPINE AND APOLOGIZE FOR DISMISSING ME FIRST? HOW ABOUT THAT?????

[theshitpostcalligrapher]

please tell me this manga/comic/show exists i do not wanna have to make it

okok I've posted about this before but I'm watching animation content on youtube again while getting work done and by GOD I WANNA TALK ABOUT THIS AGAIN

There's a specific concept I want to consume as content/art so badly but it came to me in a stupid dream. BUT. Sometimes, a dream means I DID see a hint of it somewhere and my brain accidentally plagiarized it which provides me with the teensiest sliver of hope that exists already and I don't have to work on it

It's a kind of a reverse isekai, right? But instead of an instant portal, it's time passing. And what I mean by that is that it's a Sun Wukong story, but the branch off is that after the main events of Journey to the West he gets either water temple'd or trapped in magic sleep again, not for a few hundred years but a few THOUSAND.

He wakes up to an incredibly far-flung China that remembers his myth and only his myth.

The art style that operated in this dream was sort of. Textured but 3D? Think nimona's buttery lighting but instead of emphasis on light and shapes to operate with the stained glass and solarpunk-medieval style the models are textured in a way that just invokes traditional brushwork and colour bleed even in a more cyberpunkish setting. Think like. Whenever there's a night scene the astigmatism glow of lamplight bleeds a little, like ink feathering on paper.

It's a little bit of a Steve Rogers treatment in a way, the world has moved past him, but also completely mythologized and capitalized on that mythology. Rather than treat that man out of time narrative as an aspect of backstory, it's the MAIN character narrative, because this ISN'T a world that needs him. This world is doing pretty okay, actually.

This a story about him.

Not about his feats or how cool his powers are or the 8 gajillion things the magic staff can do but just.

How ya doing, bud?

From the vaguely coherent notes that I could garner from my sleepily typed googledoc, it seems that I wanted this to be a love letter of sorts to the Asian diaspora experience? A specific sort of loneliness? Where the world you experience has a sort of disconnect in that it makes plain you belong there but you also don't, you never have, and there's no way to go "back" but going forward feels like groping blind through the muck. How much right to the past does he feel like he has? When it's been built into something he can't recognize and is clearly important to other people.

I want the pickup of the plot to gain him friends, family, maybe even a conflict or two but the stakes should never elevate vis a vis physical enemies to battle.

It'd be about 2/3 of this sort of narrative drawn story and the other 1/3 just hogwild worldbuilding and design

I've looked at a few other journey to the west adaptations but they mainly just use him as a funky lil action figure hero that's there to be cool as hell and save the day

99% likely this is just a thing my brain is made up and I'd need a several million budget and about 25 additional skills to start the ball rolling but hey, worth it to ask yall again

[lilybug-02]

Happy 2 Year Anniversary to The Chara Timeline ✨

I FINALLY made drawing references for you guys, yippie!✨

It’s wild how long I’ve been working on this comic without reference sheets. I’m never that consistent with my art style, so I figured it was a waste of time 🫥💀😔 this is my first full comic okay…

Thoughts and Feelings About the Comic Below ❤️💖💕💞

Wow. It’s been 2 years??? I thought I would be done with this comic in 2 months! I don’t know whether to feel worried or accomplished!!

(With months between each update, I understand why it’s been 2 years. I’m a slow writer and artist and well- many things have come up in my life that had to come first, like my sisters wedding! 💞 and college 😅)

I want to thank my family and friends (WHO DO NOT READ THIS COMIC- THANK GOD) 💕 AND I want to THANK YOU! The readers! 💐💐

You guys are relentless! I’m as impatient as traffic and yet you guys wait for weeks or months at a time for like 4 pages?! You guys don’t even complain!!! I truly want to thank you all for that ❤️ it helps me so much. Being busy and getting burnt out are common and it helps me feel relaxed that i'm not on a timer. Literally tho- you guys keep this comic chugging I swear. Tysm 💐

Unorganized rambling about the comic ahead :) ⭐️🔥

—

My feelings with this comic are actually so complicated. On one hand I hate looking at my older art because GOD IT LOOKS SO OFF I want to stab it, and then on the other hand I am so so proud of myself for even continuing it this far. Ngl the weird route has been one of my favorite parts of this comic. It took me FOREVER to figure out an ending, but damn do I still get chills >:) hehe.

I’m still miffed that I named this project “Deltarune: The Chara Timeline” I could have gone for something so much COOLER. Doesn’t help I use like 7 different titles for it either. We got Deltarune the Chara timeline, Deltarune chara timeline, THE Chara timeline, chara timeline, Ct??? Man,,, I’m crazy. I take after my family so hard. We have 3 names for each of our dogs 💀.

Comic/Animation Tip i have learned. It is VERY GOOD to make the character relatively simple in design. Shape language is also super important, ((but I never really got around to doing that before I was half way through the comic, woops.)) These things can make ur process go by so much faster. This whole comic has been a HUGE learning curve. LIKE OH MY GOD. I had to learn how to draw backgrounds, write dialogue, plan a story, learn how to draw fast and draw noses (which god damn I really still can’t). And I had to learn how the heck to squeeze art into a tiny page and make it not look grainy. It's intense!

Anyways.... this has been such an awesome opportunity! Thanks Toby Fox!

I totally ran out of “art time” for my iPad and wanted to finish this today. So it’s a bit rushed. I’ll add weapons and possibly the other characters later :)

Oh shi- I forgot to add this grainy image of the next few pages lmao

[beatcroc]

a year!!! as of today i have now been drawing these funny little pizza freaks, to the exclusion of almost everything else, for!!! an entire year!!! i wanted to do a nice group shot/lineup of everybody to compare to when i first started trying to draw them because oh boy were they bad. i never even posted most of them anywhere because they were so bad. but im posting them here, now, to see how everything's changed/evolved.

this is probably the hardest time i've ever had trying to figure out how to work with a style, but we got there eventually; i'm pretty happy with the handle i've got on everybody now...dont let ur memes be dreams. lots of unimportant journaling and idle thoughts abt it below.

older pics

the first one is the VERY first time i drew them, before i thought i was going to actually have any interest in drawing them [lmao]; it was just the one isolated image, for my friendserver, to illustrate the funney message, so there was no attempt to make it Good or actually understand anything going on w/ the designs or style.

second is the original run of practices sketches to start trying to figure them out for real; done after i started having ideas for the comics and such and realized oh god maybe i am actually gonna draw fanart for this. [again, lol, and lmao.]

third one is the first pt art thing i posted on here. there were a couple weeks of sprite studies between this one and the previous image. the one on the top right wasn't part of that post i just threw it on as space filler; i'd intended to shift to doing Sprite Redraws But Stylized to explore tings more, but that was the only one i did. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

individual characters

peppino: by far the hardest dear god. bro what ARE your shapes how DOES your face work. jesus christ. everything i have trouble with this style for, peppino has it in excess. i draw in polygons! i need consistency! and that is the last thing this kind of style is concerned with. they are made of squarshy clay and i do not understand how to mold them. i was really hoping trying to learn this game's style would GIVE me that kind of flexibility for fun exaggerated facial expression but i don't think much came of it in the end 😔. anyway on the bright side all this means once i got peppino figured out a little bit everybody else clicked way easier.

fake peppino: honestly i never did anything with him on purpose except for how his eyes work + the perma-smile thing. i figured ok hes supposed to look weird and off model so whatever happens with him happens. and it did. and it kept happening. it is still, in fact, happening.

noise/ette: somehow, for every bit that peppino was the least natural thing i've ever tried, these two worked pretty much right off the bat. i still don't understand it, seeing as pretty much all the things at play for peppino are also at work for them. i think the new sketches are actually a little worse than older ones but not enough that i care.

gustavo: really funny bc i drew him on model twice and just went 'okay, cool nice, easy, um. he doesn't have any fucking legs?' fortunately he was the only one i had a strong idea for how to stylize him [square] and it worked exactly as i was hoping so wahoo.

brick: is an animal and therefore 5000x easier and more natural for me to draw/stylize than anything else in the cast. that is Just a rat bro. i can draw a rat.

gerome: i think the funniest one here. the most drastic and least necessary change imo. i was gonna have him be really small at first, like smaller than the noises, but then i just... didn't. he's just peppino-sized now. also i gave him like. actual human facial structure, which is funny bc in most cases i'd do anything to avoid, but it works well for his being A Rock to give him some angles and definition like that+ to differentiate his vibe from the rest of the cast who are all very squishy. also since he is essentially Just A Head it's good to emphasize that too ig.

john: i only drew john a couple times but he gets to be here because i like him. and because most of the stuff i applied to gerome was readily applicable to john, though i did try to keep him a little more uncanny because he is a Huge And Lanky Freak. i hate that he is barefoot btw but idk how to make his color balance look right with shoes.

pizzahead: i did not want to put him on here honestly but i Have drawn him a handful of times and more importantly i didn't know what i was gonna do with john's pose if i didn't have him there to be glared at. the only thing that's different with him is giving him wider-bottomed pants, which i got from when i tried to draw these guys in clone high style [i never posted that one either][i will eventually]

snick: he gets to be here because 1. he's like 6 lines 2. i like him and 3. ive scribbled him a few times offhand and it went pretty well

misc

there are some guys missing because those are guys i didn't draw enough [or at all] to have gotten comfortable with them. sorry

i would have Liked to shade these but for the time being i have accepted that my grasp of light/shadow has decayed to the point im not going to be happy with anything i try there, so For Now i am working on my presentation with flats i guess. gerome has a shadow only because he's shaded like that ingame and looks naked without it

anyway if you are still reading [hi?] i get to shamelessly plug now. i'm over the hill of my pizza run now, and while i still have plenty of things i want to make here, most of the bigger more in-depth ones have passed. pizza tower was the first thing in THREE YEARS to get me out of my oc groove to doing fanart, and once i am done with my ideas here i will be going right back to it. if you like my art or how i write characters/interactions you should check out my oc/webcomic blog @jamverse . i can't promise people who like pizza stuff will be terribly into my designs, but i can guarantee i treat my guys with the exact same sort of tone i handle the pt guys with. and hell, i've mentioned it a few times before, but like 70% of my characterization for fake pep is just copied off one of my characters, so if u are going to miss him... he will still be there in spirit >;p

and if you dont care about any of that and are still reading thank you anyway. actually making these comics + seeing how shockingly well-received they've been has done a lot for my confidence, and for seeing that my kind of stuff IS something people enjoy :')

[ponett]

Bobby's 2023 Media Wrap-Up

So! Like I said before, this past year I kept a running list of everything I watched, every game I finished, every new album I listened to, etc., and wrote one-paragraph blurbs with my thoughts on every single one. Please enjoy this journey through everything I liked, or didn't like, in 2023, with my favorites of the year listed at the bottom.

(Yes! This is long!!)

Some notes:

I mainly only included things I finished. Exceptions are marked with an asterisk.

I included some YouTube stuff as "TV shows" - mostly particularly long, high effort video essays and documentaries.

I was a bit less adventurous than I'd like to have been this year. Part of this was just that I felt like I was constantly playing catch-up with Big Releases I felt obligated to check out, and part of this was just executive dysfunction from burnout. Wait until you see how long it took me to beat Mario Wonder lmao

Yes, I need to read more books. I don't read a lot of books these days. I need to get back to Discworld.

COLOR KEY

Video Games • TV / Web Video  •  Movies  •  Comics  •  Music

January

1/15: Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn (MSQ) - Very slow at times, the Primal shit is generally extremely lame to me outside of the boss fights themselves, but god if the quality of life improvements over WoW, the JRPG energy, and the fact that it Actually Has A Story carry it pretty hard.

1/18: Sonic the Hedgehog: Scrapnik Island miniseries - One of the most creative and compelling uses of the Sonic IP… ever? Fantastic little self-contained arc about the struggles of Eggman’s abandoned creations that gracefully weaves between heartfelt optimism and moody horror with some of the best art ever seen in a Sonic comic.

1/18: Mega Man X4 - Glad I finally actually beat this after never even beating any of the Mavericks as a kid! I can see why it’s a lot of peoples’ favorites. The gameplay has very little of that X series bloat and is just fun, especially after getting X’s armor upgrades. (But the story really is a long series of missed opportunities.)

February

2/2: Donks - Felix Colgrave continues to be an exceptional artist. The sound design on this is fantastic and really sells this short as something unique. Had to go back and watch his older stuff again after this.

2/4: Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward (3.0 - 3.3 MSQ) - I get it now. I get why people say this is just a proper mainline Final Fantasy game built into the framework of an MMO. That shit ruled. Not even walking back the drama in Ul’Dah from the end of ARR can sour me on it because the main storyline was so strong.

2/8: Disneyland's Forgotten Sci-Fi Rock Band - Live From the Space Stage - A nice and honest tribute to a group of artists who could have easily been forgotten. In hindsight this feels like a precursor to Kevin’s Disney Channel jingle video, a tribute to the unsung artists pouring their hearts into “lesser” art for a megacorporation, art that was designed to be transient but sticks with people nonetheless.

2/9: Metroid Prime Remastered* - Not gonna finish because I just played through the Wii version in 2021, but still. Very, very pretty remaster.

2/16: Theatrhythm Final Bar Line - It’s more Theatrhythm. What more could I want

2/17: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean (anime) - Probably the best part of the anime so far (assuming they continue on to SBR). A near perfect mix of the more structured plot of part 5 with the goofiness of parts 3 and 4 that crescendos into a fantastic, bombastic, emotional, bittersweet ending. The use of footage from the original opening and the new ending set to Roundabout in the finale were perfect, and made me intensely nostalgic for the early days of my JoJo fandom between seasons 1 and 2 of the anime.

2/22: Aggretsuko Season 5 - I don’t really know what to make of this one. Once you get past the agonizing initial arc all about Haida where Retsuko has to be his overbearing mommy GF who flips out and starts spying on him when she’s left on read and chides him when he misbehaves, it feels like an improvement over the previous seasons. But I don’t know how much of that is due to the extremely low bar set by season 4. And then the ending is extremely rushed and anticlimactic. They got legally married and the only acknowledgement was a shot of them signing the paperwork in a montage partway through the final episode?????????

2/24: Double Fine PsychOdyssey - God, what a journey the making of this game was. I already loved 2 Player’s past efforts at documenting Double Fine’s process, but this takes it to a whole new level. This feels culturally significant. The depth and honesty with which they depict not just the nitty gritty of making a game, but also the inherent struggles of working on a collaborative creative work for years at a time, is astounding. Not to mention that they were there to capture the shift from office life to remote work as COVID hit. So much of this would have been nightmarishly stressful to watch if I didn’t already know how successful the game was, but that’s just because they really didn’t sugarcoat it. And yet even after all that, it leaves me feeling optimistic about video games as an art form in a way that the constant headlines about cynical live service games don’t. There are still people out there pouring their hearts into making real art, and this is their story. Everyone who plays video games should watch this.

2/25: Cracker Island (Gorillaz) - New Gorillaz albums feel like less of an event these days, but after Humanz it feels like they’re just more chill with the project and their ambitions with it. Every couple years we get some more laid back jams from Damon along with some fun new collabs. Hard to complain. Favorite track: New Gold

2/25: Pool Kids (Pool Kids) - I discovered this band because Derek knows them and was excited when they got a song added to Fortnite through the Bandcamp collab. Always down to find more cool indie rock bands I can vibe with. The mix of dreamy vocals and energetic riffs on some of the tracks here almost fill the Crying-shaped hole in my heart. Almost… Favorite track: Conscious Uncoupling

2/25: Insane in the Rain (insaneintherainmusic) - I thought it was really funny timing when Carlos announced that his first original project would be a jazz fusion album inspired by acts like T-Square and Casiopea right as I was getting into those two specific bands. The final product does not disappoint. Favorite track: Insane in the Rain

2/26: Get Up Sequences Part Two (The Go! Team) - I’ve never been one to believe that a band’s sound has to remain exactly the same forever, but it really does hit you hard that the first two tracks here sound like classic The Go! Team. Their more recent cleaner sound is still here too, though, for a nice mix of old and new. Favorite track: Divebomb

2/28: Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury (Season 1) - Oh my god. Oh my god. I got distracted around the time I was finishing SLARPG, but finally catching up now, wow. My assumption that the seemingly lighter tone of the series compared to the prologue was there to lull us into a false sense of security before twisting the knife when war finally breaks out was spot on. This is peak Gundam.

March

3/4: Pizza Tower - One of the best platformers I’ve played in a long time. It transcends its blatant Wario Land inspirations with the sheer speed at which Peppino can move and the way things like the level design, his wall running, and even the hidden ability to do a second lap around the level reward getting into a flow state where you’re just constantly moving. This is the type of game that wants to turn you into a speedrunner. My only real complaint is a few iffy enemy designs that I wish would get patched.

3/6: Bloons TD 6 * - I bought this before bed one night on a nostalgic whim and then the next morning woke up and saw the Steam receipt email on my phone in one of the most “what did I do last night” moments of my life. I like when the monkeys pop the balloons.

3/7: The Book of Boba Fett - I put off finishing this show for a very long time but finally caved upon the release of The Mandalorian season 3. This show spends four episodes failing to make me give a shit about Boba Fett trying to be “the daimyo” and drive the drug trade off of Tatooine, then just gives up and becomes season 2.5 of Mando, which in turn feels like it undercuts the main series. It fails as both its own story and as a spinoff. I know that finishing this after Andor did it no favors, but WHOOF.

3/12: Obi-Wan Kenobi - Some interesting ideas in the first half hinting at a more introspective show, but it’s mostly swept aside in the back half so it can become a generic Star Wars adventure remixing things from A New Hope and Rebels (and apparently Jedi: Fallen Order). Action scenes have zero stakes because you know nothing can happen to any of the returning characters and none of the new ones are particularly interesting. Why there’s a second climax hinging on a Luke Skywalker death fakeout eludes me. Obi-Wan throwing the rocks at Vader is one of the funniest things in Star Wars history. But it was still better than Book of Boba Fett, I guess.

3/19: The King of Braves GaoGaiGar - Wow, cool robot indeed… GaoGaiGar isn’t going to blow anyone away with its writing, but sometimes you just need a really fun monster of the week mecha show with great action and lovably goofy characters. This is a show where like 20% of every episode consists of recycled transformation, combination, and signature attack sequences and I ate it up every time because they look fucking cool as hell. I don’t care. I’d watch Final Fusion another 49 times.

3/21: The Last of Us (HBO) * - Watched the first two episodes out of curiosity, but I’m not sure if I’ll continue because I don’t give a shit about The Last of Us. It’s definitely a well done adaptation, though, even if I know it’s inevitably going to devolve into miserable torture porn with questionable politics if they adapt Part II faithfully. The ending of episode 2 also lines up perfectly with where I stopped in the game in 2013 lmao

3/27: The Future is a Dead Mall - Decentraland and the Metaverse (Folding Ideas) - Another banger from Dan Olson. This time the premise inherently gives him more time to just show off a bunch of stupid ugly bullshit made by crypto guys, which is fun. My main complaint was that I wished he would’ve brought up Second Life more as a point of comparison (a thing I basically always want out of discussion of “the metaverse”), but he at least did touch on it in the last section.

3/31: The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog - I can’t believe after years of begging for the supporting cast to get more and better material in a Sonic game I got my wish in the form of a freeware murder mystery VN released for April Fools. This kicked ass.

April

4/7: Berserk - Completed Miura’s run and caught up on the chapters that have been released posthumously. It’s hard to say anything that hasn’t been said about Berserk, universally agreed upon as one of the greats of manga and fantasy fiction as a whole. What begins in its first few volumes as a nihilistic and edgy action comic built to facilitate as much sex and gore as possible quickly evolves into something deeply human and vulnerable and beautiful, both figuratively and in terms of its lavish art. The world sucks and is immeasurably cruel, and you will see that cruelty illustrated in graphic, sickening detail repeatedly throughout the series. (Perhaps a little too often throughout the Golden Age, where it feels like Miura never misses an opportunity to threaten Casca with sexual assault mid-battle.) But the point isn’t to wallow in that misery. It’s the story of a victim of horrific abuse learning to slowly open up to others, having those people he cares about torn away from him in the worst night of his life, hardening himself into a cold killing machine, and then slowly learning to open back up again, even if it means leaving himself vulnerable to more hurt. Anyone who says that the series peaked with the eclipse and went downhill in the “Guts’ JRPG Party” era is missing the point. Guts needed to find new people in his life to care about, to begin to find happiness again. Because no matter what unspeakable things Guts has gone through, it’s still possible for him to heal and to be loved. It takes time, but eventually you stop and realize that life has moved on.

4/8: Dedede’s Drum Dash Deluxe - Skipped it upon release because I didn’t particularly care for the minigame in Triple Deluxe, and I didn’t miss much. It’s fine as a little distraction, but not as a standalone rhythm game with only seven songs. If you don’t bother with the hard modes or chase after high scores this game is 15 minutes long. Oh how I yearn for Kirby to get the Theatrhythm treatment.

4/10: The King of Braves: GaoGaiGar FINAL - Eh… It was okay. Lots of cool robot fights, but said fights are stitched together with a mediocre plot that tries too hard to be more “mature” than its unabashedly schlocky kids’ show predecessor. Not crazy about the ending, either, which tries to be a bittersweet farewell closing off the series once and for all while also teasing that maybe there’ll be ANOTHER sequel after the OVA series they literally called “FINAL.” Ah well.

4/11: The Owl House - Sad to see this one go, but it’s hard to imagine them doing a better finale than this, even if they had gotten the six seasons they deserved. I’m not as obsessed with The Owl House as I probably would’ve been had it come out when I was, like, 20, but it’s a really fantastic show for all the reasons people always say. Great characters, great world, great story. I love that this starry-eyed fantasy story about a teenager finding love and a place where she belongs is also set on the rotting corpse of a titan with Hieronymous Bosch-inspired scenery and freaky monsters everywhere. What a great mix. If anything, I just wish I would’ve watched the first season as it aired so I could’ve had more time with it.

4/29: Mega Man Battle Network 3: Blue Version - FINALLY beat this via the new collection, 20 years after playing it as my first Mega Man game. (Technically my first was White, not Blue, but whatever.) There are more annoyances than I remember - lots of really really bad forced backtracking sections where you have to revisit every previous part of the internet, low chip drop rates, some really aggravating bosses like BubbleMan and KingMan, etc. But it’s still a great time overall. It’s Battle Network. In the back half the story gets surprisingly emotional, too. I was always under the assumption that the Hub stuff never came back up much in the story after 1, so I was pleasantly surprised with how relevant it was to the emotional arc of 3.

4/30: Mega Man Battle Network 4: Red Sun * - Yeah I’m not playing through the whole thing lmao. I just wanted to play the first couple hours for nostalgia’s sake, and as a baseline for how much better the rest are. Even before getting deep in the game and having to deal with all the shit gated between doing two new game+ playthroughs, it’s immediately obvious how much of a downgrade this one is. Tons of glaring errors and typos all over the script, blander music, a way more boring aesthetic for the internet, and a premise that mostly just recycles the tournament idea from 3.

May

5/14: The Venture Bros. - Glad I finally sat down and watched all of this with Anthony after having seen one (1) episode as a teenager and a bunch of random clips in the years since. Great show. Some jokes in the early seasons haven’t aged gracefully, but what the show grows into over time... man. Hank and Dean go from being the butt of the joke to being characters you actually sympathize with - while still also being funny little goofballs. And the journey Henchman 21 goes on throughout the show. Man. Amazing that a comedy like this could run for 20 years and maintain its level of quality. Can’t wait for the movie.

5/18: Future Me Hates Me (The Beths) - Okay yeah I’m now just discovering bands through Fortnite lmao. I can’t complain really, they pick some really great indie artists for the in-game radio stations. Anyway: It’s very easy to win me over with a combination of energetic power pop, catchy guitar riffs, and earnest lyrics like this. One of those albums where three or four tracks in I know I have to buy it. Favorite track: Not Running

5/18: Jump Rope Gazers (The Beths) - Ditto. Favorite track: Dying to Believe

5/18: Expert In A Dying Field (The Beths) - Another good album. (I’m listening to these in release order.) I’ve been a bit slower to warm up to this one, initially thinking it was a little too mellow overall, but it might be my favorite after a few listens. Some real high highs. Interestingly, the lead singer’s New Zealand accent is also coming out more in her singing? Favorite track: Your Side (or maybe Head in the Clouds)

5/19: The Super Mario Bros. Movie - As a Mario fan, I think I enjoyed it? As a movie, less so? It was decent, in spite of feeling like they came up with a list of fun action setpieces first and then wrote the absolute bare minimum possible for the story scenes tying it all together. Full thoughts here. (This is the first movie I’ve seen this year, huh? I really don’t watch a lot of movies.)

5/23: Don't Know What You're In Until You're Out (Gladie) - I feel like I don’t like Gladie as much as I should. Their style of noisy indie rock is very much in my wheelhouse, and I do enjoy listening to them, but I dunno. Maybe it’s that the particular style of vocals makes it more monotonous to me. A good album nonetheless, if not 100% my thing. Favorite track: Nothing

5/24: City Slicker (Ginger Root) - Yes I am still making my way through Bandcamp artists I heard on Fortnite don’t @ me. Any excuse to get me to listen to some cool city pop-inspired funk like this is a good excuse. Favorite track: Loretta

5/24: Rikki (Ginger Root) - Favorite track: Why Try

5/25: Spotlight People (Ginger Root) - Favorite track: The Classic

5/29: Succession - A good dramedy series that increasingly focuses more on the drama than the comedy as it progresses, but it’s hard to complain about that since the drama is so compellingly produced. I enjoyed it. That being said, I kind of rankle at the claims that it’s The Greatest TV Show Of All Time. It’s great, don’t get me wrong. Amazing performances all around. But the show LOVES to spin its wheels, to repeat itself, and to let most of its interesting dramatic developments fizzle out before anything really comes of them, almost as if the show is constantly getting bored with its own ideas. To some extent this is intentional - Logan Roy is the untouchable billionaire, his kids fail at everything (but will nonetheless remain billionaires), and in the long run none of them really give a shit about anything other than their own status. But it’s not like things tend to visibly impact anyone else, either, be they supporting characters or the world at large. Even the Big Scary Election, where the Roy siblings are directly responsible for plunging the nation into chaos, ultimately has zero impact on the finale a mere two episodes later. Certain Other Things do have an impact in the last season, though, allowing things to meaningfully change for the cast and for the show to sit with the ensuing drama, which has stopped me from souring on Succession more. There was finally a payoff for something. But it does still kind of feel like a show that goes in circles until it’s ready to call it quits, even if those circles did contain a lot of great acting and music along the way.

5/29: Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts - I’d watched the first 12 episodes when they originally released, but I guess the Netflix binge release and the fact that all three “seasons” came out in one year led to me waiting until it finished… and then I just never got around to finishing it. Glad I fixed that! Really fun and stylish cartoon with an art style reminiscent of Teen Titans, a hip hop-filled soundtrack, dynamic fight scenes, and a colorful post-apocalyptic world filled with mutant (mostly anthropomorphic) animals. I’ll admit that at times I do kinda roll my eyes at Kipo’s unshakeable belief that everyone can be friends in a way that I don’t necessarily with similar shows like Steven Universe, and not every joke lands, but I dunno. It’s a kids’ show. That’s to be expected. It doesn’t detract from the overall package for me.

June

6/1: Craig of the Creek (Season 4) - It’s been years and I’m still processing the fact that kids can turn on Cartoon Network and hear Jeff Rosenstock. Anyway! Craig continues to be one of the best cartoons on TV, consistently funny and creative and way more engaging than a show about a bunch of kids LARPing in the woods has any right to be. This season turned into One Piece with the gang effectively hunting down the Poneglyphs in search of a legendary treasure. The kids think it’ll be magic. It isn't. An increasing number of cartoon logic gags aside, this show is firmly set in the real world. Does that make it any less interesting? Hell no. Season 3 turned a game of capture the flag into an all-out five episode war between the heroes and villains, filled with dramatic turnabouts and a climactic guest appearance from Del the Funky Homosapien. I’m sure however they wrap things up in the (sadly shortened) final season, it’ll be great. (Also? I would watch a whole show based on that “what if” episode that jumped forward to everyone’s 20s.)

6/6: Barry - Holy shit, what a show. I ended up binging it in less than a week in a cycle of “okay, just one more episode.” The way this show is able to swing between tones and genres while still feeling like a cohesive whole is truly masterful. It’s a layered character drama, a tragic crime thriller, a farcical comedy, an understated action series, a surrealist morality play, and a scathing satire of Hollywood, all in one. Even within the criminal underworld subplots the show ranges in tone from Breaking Bad to Paddington 2. And it works! While the show naturally gets bleaker over time as it confronts the repercussions of Barry’s murders, it never completely loses sight of its comedic roots. My favorite episode was easily season 2’s “ronny/lily,” a mostly self-contained episode that somehow manages to keep throwing the perfect curveballs to escalate its dark comedy.

6/12: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Extended Edition) - Y’all heard of this movie? Pretty good, it turns out. (I’d seen the theatrical cut before, but this was my first time watching the extended edition. I’ve also only seen parts of the other two movies, so it’s time I finally watch all the extended cuts. The Gollum game pushed me to this.)

6/13: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Extended Edition) - give it to us RAW and WRIGGLING

6/17: The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Extended Edition) - I’m not crying YOU’RE crying

6/22: Clone High (Season 2) - While the first episode being about “cancel culture” (or, more accurately, a teenager from 2003 being transported to 2023 and putting his foot in his mouth a lot) put a lot of people off, I ended up enjoying the new season of Clone High. The new clones grew on me as the season went on and their roles in the web of teen romance melodrama crystalized, and it made me laugh a lot, and Cleo/Frida is galaxy brained. Also they played one of my favorite Antarctigo Vespucci songs like a minute into the first episode. I don’t think I could really ask for much more.

6/28: The Mandalorian (Season 3) - I'd been watching this weekly but put off the last episode for no real reason. Responses to this season have been all over the place, but my blistering hot take is… it was fine. Is it as good as the first season? Probably not. But Mando no longer needs to carry the whole franchise on its shoulders and set the bar for how good the live action Disney Star Wars shows can be, because Andor exists, and it’s never gonna top Andor. The Mandalorian is free to just be a pulpy space adventure show where Giancarlo Esposito plays a scenery-chewing cartoon villain and a little puppet does wire stunts. These are things Andor cannot and should not do, but that’s Star Wars, baby. It’s delightful. I could watch Grogu get underhand tossed like a sack of flour all day.

July

7/2: Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury (Season 2) - LOVE WINS. (More nuanced take from way later: It definitely feels like a lot of the more messy political conflicts in this show got swept aside by the big final battle where some more easily resolved family conflicts take center stage. I’m not sure the ending is the most satisfying. But also this show only got half the episode count that damn near every other Gundam show ever made got, so that might be a factor here. Idk. Still one of my favorite Gundams.)

7/4: Final Fantasy XVI (watched Anthony play) - I had to write my longest Medium article ever about this one because I was so frustrated

7/10: Home Movies - “Things I like that I’ve never seen in full” has certainly been a recurring theme this year. Home Movies remains an all-time classic of animated comedy that went out on a high note before things got stale or the characters became parodies of themselves. While it’s mostly known for its funny improvised banter, throughout the last season you can really see the arc where Brendon no longer enjoys making movies, yet he feels obligated to keep using them to escape from the real world. In that light, the ending where the nature of their dysfunctional makeshift family is cemented, Brendon’s camera suddenly breaks, and life moves on really does feel like the perfect note to end on. Truly one of the best to ever do it.

7/15: The Legend of Zelda - Tears of the Kingdom - Wow. Just… wow. I had serious doubts about TotK in the months leading up to release due to how close Nintendo was playing their cards to their chest. I didn’t want this to be a Saints Row IV, where the game is fun enough but the recycled map makes it feel like a rehash. Instead, I found a game that made me look at BotW’s map in a whole new light, brimming with so many more things to do and people to meet. Add on a better, more versatile set of tools, more varied dungeons and bosses, and a story that I felt was told somewhat better and we’ve got a real contender for my new favorite Zelda game. It was hard to tear myself away, but as this list shows, it’s been basically the only game I’ve played since it came out.

7/16: Sonic Prime (Season 2) - I liked the parts with Shadow and Chaos Sonic, but I’ve come to the sad conclusion that most of this show is just mediocre. More thoughts here.

7/18: We ♥ Katamari Reroll + Royal Reverie - “I’m a dog, but I love Katamari Damacy.” Truer words have never been spoken.

7/19: Transformers: Rise of the Beasts - Pretty good! It didn’t blow me away, but after how bad the Bay movies got I’m just thankful to have a decently cohesive Transformers movie where the human story is okay and I like the bots (although half of them needed more screen time), even if it is just another Hollywood blockbuster about two sides fighting over a macguffin that devolves into a big CGI battle against an army of nameless monsters in the third act. This is basically a mid-tier MCU movie but with Transformers, which won’t do much for most people, but again: the bar was underground.

7/22: The Venture Bros.: Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart - God DAMN. A phenomenal ending for the series. While I would have loved to see a full final season to get some more one-off episodes in there, this doesn’t feel creatively compromised in any way–either due to the time constraints, or due to a desire to make it more marketable as a movie. It really does feel like they just took their outlines for the canceled final season and gently massaged them into the shape of an 84-minute movie, and I mean that in the best possible way. It’s completely on par with the previous seasons. A hilarious and fitting sendoff for one of the greats of adult animation.

7/23: Beautiful Katamari - This was one of my first Xbox 360 games, but a frustrating temperature-based level made me put it down for 16 years. “Maybe it won’t be as bad now that I’ve beaten the first two games and am better at Katamari,” I thought. Nope! Still an absolutely dogshit level. But also, turns out the whole game is only like two hours long lmao. It’s still Katamari, so it’s still fun - the final level in particular, which seamlessly takes you from ground level all the way to space, feels like a logical endpoint for the series - but beyond that it just doesn't have the same soul without Keita Takahashi's input.

August

8/4: Doom Singer (Chris Farren) - I’ve been waiting so long for Chris and Jeff to do another Antarctigo Vespucci album, but god damn. This is the best of Chris’s solo work, and a contender for his best record, period. Every track’s a banger, with more energy than some of his previous solo work but also a good deal of variety. Favorite tracks: First Place, Cosmic Leash

8/4: Transformers Earthspark (Season 1) - This show had a bit of an uneven start, unsure if it wanted to have the emotional maturity of a more serious action cartoon or a preschool cartoon where the characters have little kid mood swings and outbursts and learn basic lessons. It also felt like it was speedrunning its Wholesome Found Family Dynamic with characters who just met, which didn’t feel earned. While these problems never completely go away (see: the cheap and corny way the otherwise very dark season finale suddenly resolves), the show improves quickly, and the positives outweigh the negatives. It’s so great to have a Transformers cartoon that feels fresh, giving us a post-war setting with a bunch of new characters and new dynamics between the Cybertronians and the humans. The returning characters are also uniformly great as the old veterans overseeing the new generation. (Reformed Megatron! Danny Pudi as Bumblebee! Steve Blum returning as Starscream! Keith David as Grimlock!!!) And those super dynamic action scenes! I can nitpick, but Earthspark’s a ton of fun, and easily the best new Transformers cartoon since Prime and Animated.

8/5: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (remaster) - Everyone who told me this game was a masterpiece was right. I had played the first chapter when it dropped as the demo for the iOS version years ago, but never went further than that until now. What a game. Absolutely incredible through and through. Great story, great twists, great characters, great puzzles, great art direction. Everything comes together so perfectly to form a totally unique, unforgettable package, a top tier video game murder mystery. Everyone should play this, preferably going in as blind as possible.

8/15: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (Season 16) - Wow! Recent seasons of Sunny have been kind of up and down, with some interesting experiments (Mac Finds His Pride, the Ireland arc, etc.) paired with some comedic duds. Most of this latest season is standard fare for the series with fewer big creative swings, but it’s just hit after hit in terms of comedy. Not a single dud, whether we’re seeing Mac and Dennis try to start a rental business for inflatable furniture or watching the gang meet Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul, believing the entire time that the latter is Malcolm from Malcolm in the Middle. Even the attempts at topical comedy landed better. Easily the funniest season in years.

8/16: One Piece Film Gold - It’s easy to see why this one has kind of been forgotten in the wake of Stampede and Film Red, which revolve around established fan favorite characters, but this was still pretty fun. Perhaps a little too long, but it’s fun to see the Straw Hats fool around in a giant casino and do a heist. They definitely cranked the fanservice up even more than usual in this one, though, as I probably should have expected for a movie made alongside the anime’s adaptation of Dressrosa.

8/17: One Piece: Stampede - This one goes for a different kind of fanservice. While most One Piece movies are isolated from the ongoing plot and its expanded cast of characters, Stampede instead asks “What if we just put damn near every active character on the same island and had them fight?” The answer: a fun time! It would get old if all of the movies were like this, but after a bunch of movies that are just like “the Straw Hats are gonna land on another new island and fight some more weird guys” it’s fun to see characters like Law and Buggy and Smoker get in on the fun. It’s also nice to get a movie with the Wano era art style, and Usopp surprisingly gets some really good character moments in here.

8/18: One Piece Film Red - This really is the best of the One Piece movies, huh? (Baron Omatsuri is a close second.) It really feels like a change of pace after the last four with the most interesting and emotionally engaging story out of any of them. And even if the events of these movies are never canon, it still feels significant in my understanding of Shanks as a character as we move into the final phase of the manga.

8/21: Pikmin 4 - The opening hour of the game made me really question if they’d changed too much, with all the focus on your new dog unit over your Pikmin and the extremely dull, drawn out dialogue scenes with your new companions back at the base. But once I got into the swing of things I had a blast. This is probably my new favorite Pikmin game. There’s a great mix of activities here to keep things fresh. I also really ended up liking Oatchi’s role as basically your second captain who can also serve as your tank or a rideable mount. The Dandori stuff and nighttime missions in particular show off how useful Oatchi is for your multitasking without necessarily overshadowing the Pikmin.

8/22: Never Get Tired: The Bomb the Music Industry! Story - I literally backed this on Kickstarter eight years ago (my name is in the credits!) and then never got around to watching it for no reason. It’s on YouTube now, and Jeff’s got a new album out next week, so now feels like the perfect time to watch it. And man… what a great documentary. Obviously I’m just a fan of the band, but this also really spoke to me as an artist. Jeff wanting to stick to his principles and give out his music for free and play cheap all ages shows, his discomfort over the idea of selling merch, and the struggles that come with not playing the game like that… It's hard. They readily admit that Jeff is an idealist, that people fight him on this stuff, that he’s missed out on some big opportunities because of these stances, and that he’s had to compromise a bit on some of these things over time. But that incredible climax with their final show, including a full opening performance of the slowly building “Campaign for a Better Next Weekend” and the closing performance of “Future 86” where the whole audience is singing along as the members of the band are hugging and crying… it’s beautiful. This may have been a band where the members had to go back to their shitty day jobs after every tour because they weren’t selling out arenas, but their art meant something to people, and that makes it all worth it.

8/25: Nimona - I haven’t read the original comic (yet), so I can’t compare them too much, but it’s nonetheless pretty apparent that some things were softened and easy kids’ movie jokes were added by the studio to squeeze this graphic novel for teens into a PG animated movie. Regardless, the emotional throughline hits REALLY hard, particularly the very blatant trans allegory and the climax. (It’s no wonder Disney was afraid of this movie seeing the light of day lmao.) The animation is also very squishy and fun to watch throughout. Great movie.

8/26: Puss in Boots: The Last Wish - Spider-Verse really has done so much for animation, huh? This one was as good as everyone said. Beautiful use of stylized color and lighting throughout, and every time this movie very conspicuously shifted to different framerates for a flashy fight scene it owned. Very cute and heartwarming story, too, which thankfully gave its second act plenty of time to explore the cast and let them go on their journey, unlike a certain plumber movie that came out a few months later. Also I would let Death [redacted]

8/28: Holocure: Save the Fans! - This isn't really something I can beat, but I've been addicted to Holocure lately. I don't even watch VTubers aside from maybe seeing a funny Korone animation every now and then, this is just a really, really good freeware Vampire Survivors clone with a huge roster of varied characters to pick from.

8/31: HELLMODE (Jeff Rosenstock) - A new album from Jeff is always a major event for me. If there were any worries that he was starting to go soft at 40 (because one of the three singles off this album was a gentle acoustic piece), the frantic opening of this album put those worries to rest. The first two tracks are Jeff screaming out for help as he’s pulled in a million directions by the chaotic state of the world, a theme that becomes the thesis of the album. I’d say it lags slightly in the middle, but overall this is another extremely well-rounded record full of bangers that’s unapologetically Jeff, with possibly my favorite closing track he’s ever done. Favorite tracks: I WANNA BE WRONG, 3 SUMMERS

September

9/3: One Piece (live action, Season 1) - They did it. I can’t believe it, but they did it. While I have my nitpicks (Usopp and Sanji don’t get enough big moments to shine), this is an extremely solid and faithful adaptation of the first few arcs of One Piece with a great cast. For the most part the changes feel smart and logical, and the big emotional beats of the story are all there and executed very well. I doubted it a little in episodes 2-4, where the Orange Town and Syrup Village arcs saw some major changes to shift the action indoors, and the increased focus on the drama in favor of repeating every gag and battle from the manga 1:1 took a bit of getting used to, but by the end I was having a blast. It’s a different take on One Piece, but it still feels like One Piece. Genuinely very excited for season 2.

9/4: Pseudoregalia - A great little N64-style 3D Metroidvania focused on platforming and very satisfying movement. I always love entries in the genre that are less prescriptive in what order you have to tackle areas in, a la Symphony of the Night or Hollow Knight, and this one’s great in that regard. While there are a number of new moves to find, most of the map is open to you very early in the game, and smart use of your moveset can allow you to “sequence break” without even realizing it. (You would not believe how long I went without getting the wall run.) I do wish it had a map, but that’s already being patched in.

9/6: Bomb Rush Cyberfunk * - Not a bad game at all, but I quickly remembered how bad I am at skating games, so like… eh? Not sure I have much desire to play past chapter 2. Also the soundtrack is sadly kinda hit or miss for me outside of the obvious Naganuma tunes.

9/9: The History of the Minnesota Vikings (Dorktown) - Jon Bois never misses. Even as someone who doesn’t actively follow sports, Jon Bois is a master storyteller, using graphs and statistics and funny anecdotes to explore these deeply human stories. He can convey why people care so much about these teams, these people, and sports in general, and how our popular sports reflect on American culture. He could tell the story of just about any team or player in any sport and I just know I’ll come out the other side a misty-eyed fan. And what a fascinating cast of characters we have this time, with origin stories for everything from the Hail Mary pass to a Minnesota state supreme court judge to the Griddy. Nine hours well spent.

9/10: Timespinner - A fun and highly polished Metroidvania that maybe doesn’t quite have enough of its own identity in its quest to replicate Symphony of the Night…but also, like, this was pitched as a Symphony throwback on KickStarter in a pre-Bloodstained, pre-Hollow Knight world, so I can’t really blame ‘em! Stopping time to avoid boss attacks is fun, the pixel art is gorgeous, and I liked the dark science fantasy story about warring empires and meddling with time a lot more than I thought I would - lore journal text dumps and all.

9/14: The Decay of Sam & Cat (Quinton Reviews) - All the stuff at the end with Matt Bennett (the actor who played Robbie on Victorious and Sam & Cat) in this was really good and sweet. It’s that kind of thing that makes these videos feel like they’re still worthwhile on some level. But the padding and the things Quinton chooses to spend the colossal runtime on does drive me more and more insane with each passing Nick sitcom video. I don’t know how much longer he can keep this schtick up. I hope he’s able to move on to other things before too terribly long instead of continuing to extend this “miniseries.”

9/19: Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales - AKA Insomniac’s Marvel’s Spider-Man 1.5. It’s fun for the same reasons Peter’s first game was fun. I had a good time swinging around New York again in preparation for the sequel, and there’s a lot of cute stuff with Miles becoming Harlem’s neighborhood hero, but WOW did the Underground v. Roxxon conflict fall flat for me.

9/20: I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson - I understand so many posts now.

9/25: Spider-Man (2002) (rewatch) - It’s you who’s out, Gobby! OUT OF YOUR MIND!

9/25: Futurama (Season 8) - I was ready to be a hater, recalling the fact that Futurama has already had three “perfect endings” with the show getting a little weaker with every revival. Then I watched the first new episode on a whim and thought it wasn’t bad, so I was like, eh, sure, I’ll watch the rest. Overall Hulurama is hit or miss. There are chuckles to be had, and it sure as hell beats modern Simpsons, but almost every episode is either a belated take on an overplayed Topical Issue (the pandemic, Amazon, cancel culture, etc.) or a direct sequel to an old episode people liked. Or both! It’s also really noticeable that certain voice actors sound way older - Billy West is struggling with the Fry voice in particular, and it hurts his comedic timing. But just when all hope seemed lost after the nigh-incomprehensible toy-themed anthology episode, possibly the worst episode of the entire series… the last episode, where the Planet Express crew explores whether or not the universe could be a simulation, was really, really solid. Great note to end on to make me not regret my time with this season as a whole.

9/26: Spider-Man 2 (2004) (rewatch) - Once the GOAT, always the GOAT.

9/27: Spider-Man 3 (rewatch) - Revisiting this movie for the first time since I saw it in theaters… it’s not bad. It’s fine! It continues to have the heart and sincerity that make the first two movies work. It’s just not as concise with three villains vying for the spotlight, but I also wouldn’t cut any of them, necessarily. I guess Eddie/Venom would be the easiest, but Peter getting the black suit and giving in to his resentment feels too central to cut. (Yes, even with Emo Peter becoming a meme.)

9/28: Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake - I wasn’t really sure what to expect with this one, especially since I was never really a fan of the genderbend episodes in the original show. (At the time they mostly just felt like an excuse to crank up the teen romance stuff to 11.) But MAN. This was a fantastic coda to the original series. It made me care about Fionna and Cake and their friends as their own characters separate from their original counterparts, it gave the Simon/Betty arc a much more satisfying (if no less bittersweet) resolution than the original finale had time to do, and it even managed to be a multiverse story that didn’t make me roll my eyes in 2023. A+ all around. Makes me wanna rewatch the original show again. [spoiler: I did]

9/29: Meanwhile (aivi & surasshu) - It’s been a whole decade–they were busy with, you know, all the music in Steven Universe, among other things–but we finally have a new aivi & surasshu album! Their chiptune/piano fusion style is familiar, but they’ve definitely grown as composers in subtle ways. Favorite track: Time Travel

October

10/1: This is Financial Advice (Folding Ideas) - A lot of the nitty gritty finance law stuff turned into white noise for me, but still, great video. I had no idea that the GameStop stock craze devolved into this bizarre cult that thinks they’re going to crash the global economy and rise from the ashes as the new kings with the value of their GME stocks. Glad this video exists to try and balance out the narrative.

10/5: Sonic Frontiers: The Final Horizon DLC - Good ideas, absurdly frustrating and tedious execution. Full thoughts here.

10/10: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (rewatch) - I didn’t plan this, but very fitting that I would end up rewatching this on 10/10.

10/12: Half-Life Alyx but the Gnome is Self-Aware (wayneradiotv) - ha he! (Seriously though, that finale was a fucking masterpiece. The RTVS crew has an incredible knack for using the framing device of video game livestreams to blur the lines between comedy and horror, or ironic anti-humor and complete sincerity. I’ve never seen anything else like this.)

10/15: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse - Not sure how much I can say that hasn’t already been said. The most visually creative movie I’ve ever seen, grounded by some really excellent storytelling about Miles (and now Gwen) that’s probably better than his actual comics. But it also does feel like it’s about to end and then the movie just keeps going like ten times over lmao. Can’t wait to watch this a second time on a better TV.

10/20: Sonic Superstars - A mostly really solid and fun 2D Sonic game that’s unfortunately dragged down by an extremely hodgepodge soundtrack and some overly drawn out boss fights. I spent HOURS trying to beat the final boss of the bonus scenario (which is required for the true ending in this one) before giving up. Really a shame that that’s the note I’m leaving the game on, because I otherwise enjoyed it, but ah well. More thoughts here.

10/27: Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 - Another good Spider-Man game from Insomniac. Liked the story more than the one in Miles Morales, but maybe not as much as the first game. Extensive thoughts here.

10/28: Venom - Was in the mood for more Venom after the game. As expected this was not a very good movie, but the dynamic between Eddie and Venom made it a fun watch. Tom Hardy is constantly about to shit his pants in this movie. It’s great.

10/28: Venom: Let There Be Carnage - I had a way better time with this one. Is this a good movie? No. But it cranks the insanity of the first movie up to 11. Goofy as fuck in an extremely watchable way.

November

11/5: Pluto - An absolutely masterful series that anyone interested in sci-fi needs to watch. The anime adaptation was great, and I immediately understand why people who’ve read the manga speak so highly of it. Really makes me want to get into Astro Boy more, and also read some of Urasawa’s other works.

11/18: Scott Pilgrim Takes Off - Wow, just wow. When news of a Scott Pilgrim anime broke I was cautiously curious to see if we’d get a more direct adaptation of the comics, and instead it veered off in the exact opposite direction in the best way possible. This is almost entirely a different story, one that’s in conversation with the previous versions (sometimes in very meta ways), and I think it’s really valuable to see O’Malley revisiting these characters with new things to say about them. The major story divergence gives us a chance to examine the characters from a new angle - particularly Ramona, who’s the real protagonist of this version, and the evil exes, who completely steal the show. This was a great reminder of why I fell in love with this series as a teenager. I now genuinely hope we get more Scott Pilgrim.

11/22: Void Rivals (Issues #1 - #6) - The first arc of the new Robert Kirkman series that kicked off Skybound’s new “Energon Universe” is now complete, and I’m left thinking Void Rivals is… okay? I thought the first issue was a decent (if not particularly original) sci-fi comic with an appealing art style, which just so happens to also briefly have a Transformer in it so there can be a Big Surprise. And the series still hasn’t quite shaken that feeling to me. It’s an okay sci-fi series that arbitrarily dedicates a couple of pages of every issue to something from Transformers, but I’m not really sure what the shared universe stuff adds to Void Rivals, or what Void Rivals adds to Transformers and GI Joe. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

11/22: Journey to EPCOT Center: A Symphonic History (Defunctland) - Yeah, gotta be honest, I only got halfway through this one. It seems like Kevin just 1) really wanted to push himself creatively and 2) make a love letter to Epcot, and while I respect that, I think it suffers as a historical documentary. It’s Fantasia but for the creation of Epcot. That might be very impressive on a technical level, but it feels more like a piece of Disney propaganda than prior Defunctland videos due to a lack of context and nuance. 

11/24: Aperture Desk Job - A short, sweet, and funny little tech demo for my new Steam Deck set in the Portal universe. More effort was definitely put into this than was strictly necessary.

11/26: ESCHATOS - I am not good at bullet hell games, but I enjoy them from time to time and I really love this one’s FM synth soundtrack, so I picked it up on a whim in the Steam sale. I only beat it on Easy, but still, I had a lot of fun with it! It’s straightforward but very flashy, with the camera dynamically zooming around from set piece to set piece at ridiculous speeds and each level segueing directly into the next. The lack of a powerup system on the main mode in favor of just needing to know when to use your different shot types makes it feel very approachable.

11/27: Lunistice - A great little 3D platformer with a good soundtrack that I had fun hunting down all the secrets in. This is an easy recommendation for fans of games like Kirby or Klonoa - whimsical games set in colorful dream worlds where the underlying story can get a bit more somber. (Although the story in this one is mostly told through mildly cryptic lore dumps, so your mileage there may vary.)

11/28: Spark the Electric Jester 2 - The leap from 2D to 3D here is impressive, but this is very clearly a rough draft for Spark 3. Very, very fun Sonic-style 3D platforming, but the combat is lacking and the storytelling is just kinda bad. More extensive thoughts on this and the above two games here.

December

12/2: Fortnite (Chapter 4) - This was my first full chapter of Fortnite, after having been roped into the game by the siren songs of Zero Build mode and Goku during Chapter 3. This means it’s harder for me to compare this chapter to previous ones, but still, Fortnite remains a genuinely very well made Battle Royale shooter that’s a blast with friends. If I have any complaint about this Chapter, it’s that they would regularly introduce zany ideas and then slowly reel them back in, whether it was the Augment system or the increasingly mundane movement items. It also felt like it was a little too easy to get the perfect loadout in every match, meaning the final showdown would almost always be against players with Slurp Juice and gold shotguns. And I missed the smaller mid-season map updates of Chapter 3. But overall I still had a really good time, and look forward to playing more for the foreseeable future.

12/4: Plagiarism and You(Tube) (HBomberguy) - This will get written off by many as “YouTuber drama,” but this really is an excellent video essay that feels like the kick in the pants that YouTube needs. If video essayists are gonna be a major source of information for so many, then they gotta have standards. I also think it does a good job of highlighting the people that have been plagiarized and trying to drive more attention their way in an attempt to right those wrongs.

12/6: Transformers (Skybound comic) - We only got the first three issues of this in 2023, but I just HAVE to say something about how incredible this series is here. Daniel Warren Johnson is knocking it out of the park. This is the new bar for Transformers. The hand-inked art is extremely dynamic and full of character, and the story is using the familiar beats of G1 Transformers but doing very new things with them. You can tell this from the very first page, but the emotional scene of Optimus accidentally crushing a deer in the forest and realizing how fragile life is on Earth sealed the deal for me. And yet in the very same comics Optimus can do suplexes and clotheslines and lord knows how many other wrestling moves on Decepticons, and it doesn’t feel like tonal whiplash? These comics just fucking rule, and anyone with even the slightest interest in Transformers should be reading them.

12/8: What We Do in the Shadows (Season 5) - [spoilers] WWDITS has very much settled into being a status quo show. Every season has its own little arc where one or two things change to keep things interesting, but then everything returns to normal by the end. Guillermo finally becoming a vampire, only to become a human again in the end, might just be the most egregious example of this yet. But also… the show’s still really funny? And I continue to be happy that Kristen Schaal has stuck around as a series regular as the Guide. So it’s hard to complain. I could see the show running out of steam over the next few seasons, but it’s still hitting for me right now.

12/12: Pony Island - Finally got around to this since the trailer for the sequel dropped. I feel like playing this years later in a post-Inscryption world where Pony Island is a known quantity kind of lessens its impact, but still, it’s a fun and funny puzzle game where you try to hack your way out of a possessed arcade machine. I’m not sure I found it particularly scary, but I’m not sure it’s supposed to be? The way the game messes with you during the Asmodeus “boss fight” was probably the highlight for me. I also like being able to say things like “The part where you have to not kill Jesus was so hard. I kept getting terrible butterfly patterns.”

12/16: Breaking Bad VR but the AI is Self-Aware (wayneradiotv) - As always, Wayne and co.’s commitment to the bit is unrivaled. This kind of got interpreted as just a way to troll HLVRAI fans, but so many moments in this genuinely made me laugh out loud.

12/18: Soul of Sovereignty Prelude - As someone who would list Cucumber Quest as a big creative influence, I was naturally very excited for this first chapter of GGDG’s new visual novel. Their mentality of both scaling things back in terms of labor while also going more shamelessly self-indulgent in terms of storytelling after burning out on making webcomics has really spoken to me, and WOW, the end result of that new process of theirs is shaping up to be something really special. The art and music are sparse but extremely evocative, giving you the rough sketch of the world and letting your mind fill in the rest. The story blends literary high fantasy vibes with the style of fantasy seen in ‘90s JRPGs (you can definitely tell this came from an idea for an RPG), but rather than constantly winking at the audience and making self-aware video game references it plays these storytelling ideas extremely sincerely, giving them real dramatic weight while still indulging in fun tropes to their fullest extent. While it’s a far cry from their most famous work with much more mature content, GGDG always excels at creating characters and worlds that immediately grab me. I can’t wait for the rest.

12/18: Barbie - I’m only… what, five months late for the whole Barbenheimer thing? Perfect timing. Anyway! On the one hand, I get the critiques saying that this movie is just a major corporation funding a self-aware feminist critique of their own product as a marketing ploy. And I kinda agree with that. And the movie is a little too long, and I don’t really know what to think of the way the Barbie/Ken conflict plays out. Anthony asked me to summarize what the story ended up being about, and I had no idea what to even say. But also… I did still like the movie? We don’t get a lot of cartoonish, absurdist, fourth wall breaking comedies like this anymore, and this is a good one of those. Also the whole cast is great, the set design is kind of stunning, and the cinematography is consistently appealing. I wouldn’t say it’s a revolutionary work of feminist filmmaking by any stretch, but it’s a good comedy movie.

12/21: Dr. Stone: New World - Man, Dr. Stone is great. I’ve said this many times, but I just love that this series uses all the trappings of shounen that would normally be used to hype up the protagonist learning a new move to instead hype up things like the protagonist building a loom or a hot air balloon. It’s shounen Bill Nye. I didn’t completely love everything about the Treasure Island arc this season, but it all built towards a really fun climax with a lot of satisfying turnabouts where the heroes use their ingenuity to just barely win.

12/23: The History of Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out World Records (Summoning Salt) - Truly one of my favorite Summoning Salt videos ever, even with how repetitive Punch-Out can get to watch. It’s just so hard to beat “and that runner… was me.”

12/24: Super Mario Bros. Wonder - What more can be said that hasn’t already been said? It’s the best and most creative 2D Mario game since the ‘90s. The only real flaws are that it’s a little easy, the Search Party stages are annoying in singleplayer, and I wish that every boss prior to the final boss wasn’t just some form of Bowser Jr. fight. But those aren’t nearly enough to drag the whole experience down. It was a blast.

12/24: Do a Powerbomb! - Got this from Anthony as a birthday present. This is the previous series by the creative team currently doing the new Transformers comics I was gushing about a few entries ago. Even with the high bar set by those comics, Do a Powerbomb! exceeded my expectations. Holy shit. An absolutely entrancing fantasy wrestling miniseries full of dynamic, energetic action and tons of heart. These comics where a guy wrestles a giant talking orangutan almost made me cry. Twice. An instant favorite.

12/25: Adventure Time (rewatch) - We ended up finishing our rewatch of Adventure Time (the main series, anyway) on my 30th birthday, which feels appropriate. I already kinda knew this, but this rewatch has truly confirmed that Adventure Time is my favorite TV series of all time. The entire show is even better on a full series rewatch. In hindsight, even parts that annoyed me when they aired end up being important parts of the beautiful tapestry that is this series. The many low points of Finn’s adolescent love life are important stepping stones in his growth as a person, which leaves him in an extremely satisfying place by the end. Jake having kids didn’t get to be a huge status quo change because they grew up instantly, but then they did a bunch of fun episodes about Jake’s relationships with his adult children that deepened him as a character. And most of the big lore questions they kept teasing over the years (“Where’d the humans go?” “Who are Finn’s parents?” “When’s Finn gonna get a robot arm?” etc.) ended up getting satisfying and creative answers, because the show left itself the room to figure those things out later. This is a truly special, one-of-a-kind series, one that lasted nearly 300 episodes and yet still seems like it was over too soon. And yes, I did in fact cry during the final montage, like I knew I would. I will always cherish this show with all of my heart.

12/25: Olive the Other Reindeer (rewatch) - Haven’t seen this one since I was a kid! It was a favorite of mine back then, and while it might not be quite as funny as I remember it’s still very cute, with a 2D/3D hybrid art style that remains very unique and appealing. As an adult I can also appreciate the cast they got for this, with like half the cast of Futurama bolstered by guests like Michael Stipe from REM and The Sopranos’ Joe Pantoliano.

12/26: Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio - Anthony and I capped off our Christmas with the most jolly and festive stop motion movie of all! Jokes aside, man, what a beautiful movie. The animation is immaculate, and we really just don’t get children’s animated films like this anymore. Ones that overtly feature real world politics and religion and so many other dark themes in a way that doesn’t talk down to kids or sugarcoat things. This one hits hard. We need more movies like this.

12/31: Oppenheimer - This was an interesting one. Despite being three hours, the way that first hour jumps around in time makes it feel like Oppenheimer is constantly being propelled forward through life at a breakneck pace, swept up by the rising tide of nationalism in spite of his personal left wing politics, never really reflecting on what he’s doing until it’s too late. Then when he’s no longer useful to the empire, he’s chewed up and spat out, only to eventually be honored as a national hero as a symbolic gesture. It’s a compelling story. However, I’m a little torn on how certain aspects of history were framed. Does the abstraction of the bombings detract from the true weight of those events, in favor of sympathizing with the man who built the bomb? Or is it clever a way to show how the realities of the war were compartmentalized away by people who were complicit in its most heinous acts of violence? One minute a bunch of physicists are talking theory, thousands of miles away from the theaters of war, and the next they’ve killed 200,000 people. So which is it? Eh, probably somewhere in the middle, I guess. But I liked it overall.

12/31: Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe - I’ve been really surprised by how good this rerelease is. It kind of flew under the radar for me. I liked the original game, but at the time it also almost felt like the New Super Mario Bros. of Kirby. It was a straightforward throwback game where you went through a grass world, then a desert world, then a water world, etc., and also they added four player co-op. But returning to this one after the kinda mid Star Allies has made me appreciate just how solid RtDL is as a Kirby game. I really like the updated graphics, too - yes, even the new cel shaded outlines around the characters - even though I didn’t think it looked that great in screenshots. Also the two new copy abilities (Sand and Mecha) are fun, the minigame collection is shockingly fleshed out to the point that they could’ve sold it as a standalone eShop game, the collectible character masks are fun, and the new epilogue mode where you play as Magolor is one of the coolest bonus modes they’ve ever done. This is a top tier Kirby remake any fan of the series should check out.

Ongoing things I followed in 2023 that don't have a blurb:

Halo Infinite multiplayer

IDW Sonic the Hedgehog (main series + specials)

One Piece

Chainsaw Man

My Hero Academia (not caught up)

The JOJOlands (not caught up)

Things I started in 2023 that I still need to finish:

Freedom Planet 2

Hi-Fi Rush

Live A Live

Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

Picross 3D Round 2

Rhythm Heaven MegaMix

Mega Man Battle Network 5: Team ProtoMan

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart

Spark the Electric Jester 3

Sonic Dream Team

One Piece (Wano arc, anime)

Jujutsu Kaisen season 2 (I’ve already read the Shibuya arc already in the manga, though)

Astro Boy (2003 anime)

Futurama (original run rewatch)

One Piece (manga reread)

The Amazing Spider-Man (Lee/Ditko era)

Scott Pilgrim series (reread)

And finally... my favorites of 2023!!!

Overall favorite game: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Favorite indie game: Pseudoregalia

Games remastered in 2023 that are now among my all-time faves: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, We Love Katamari

Most pleasant surprise in gaming: The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog

Favorite film: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Favorite live action show: Barry

Favorite anime: Pluto

Favorite anime written by a Canadian guy and an American guy based on the Canadian guy's old graphic novel series: Scott PIlgrim Takes Off

Favorite live action adaptation of an anime that I still can't believe they didn't fuck up: One Piece

Favorite Western cartoon: Adventure Time: Fionna & Cake

Favorite older cartoon I only got around to watching in its entirety this year: The Venture Bros.

Favorite documentary: Double Fine PsychOdyssey

Favorite semi-improvised semi-scripted absurdist comedy/horror/tragedy Twitch livestream performance art thing: Half-Life Alyx but the Gnome is Self-Aware finale (wayneradiotv)

Favorite manga: Chainsaw Man

Favorite older manga that I only read this year: Berserk

Favorite Western comic book: Daniel Warren Johnson's Transformers

Favorite album: HELLMODE (Jeff Rosenstock)

And that's a wrap!!!!! Happy new year, everyone! Here's to me maybe actually reading a goddamn book this year

[whywoulditho]

"the fandom ruined mha" is one of those vastly popular opinions that i've never quite understood. because they honestly...weren't as bad as people made it seem??? i swear people with zero fandom experience will see a thirteen year old in cheap cosplay having fun and say shit like "ew i hate this fandom you're ruining it" like maybe leave the goddamn kid alone??

mha has a very large fan community, and what makes it a little different than most other anime fandoms is that mha was specifically targeted for a global audience. they did their best to avoid any quirks and cliche tropes of anime that would go over non-japanese' heads. the art style is pretty cartoonish and it's got lots of references to western comics. there's a whole ass movie set in the US. what i'm trying to say is that a large, international fandom was always what they were going for, and it was well received. it was one of those shows that you'd kind of had to watch if you wanted to be in anime spaces back in like 2016-2018. mind you this is when even aot wasn't that popular. and when something is so popular, there's gonna be lot of weird people in the fandom. BECAUSE most of them will be people who have never been in fandom spaces before. the "cringy mha fans" that were the butt of every joke in anime discord were more of than not minors having just been introduced to anime or fandom culture as a whole. there were lots of weird stuff, i admit. but was it ever really that serious? like why couldn't yall just leave those people alone??

another thing people just couldn't stop talking about was how there were way too many ships in the fandom but 1) why is that a bad thing? and 2) of course there were gonna be a lot of ships in a show that introduced TWO WHOLE CLASSROOMS OF TEENAGERS AS THE MAIN CAST who interacted all the time. not to mention all the students from other hero schools, upperclassmen, pro heroes & teachers. there are like a million characters in this show and the more characters the more potential ships -it's fucking common sense. i think what really happened there was that people outside of the fandom looked at the fanmade content and thought the fandom must have been obsessed with ships. when in reality i think the fans were really chill about it. most of them were multishippers, they didn’t mind the other pairings. i understand that for an outsider's eye all the ships and disclose must've looked chaotic but in fandom spaces people know how to filter the content they engage with so there really arent any serious "ship wars" going on anywhere except for maybe instagram comments.

i am not saying all the ships were unproblematic, there were some pretty weird ships going on too, but honestly i thought half of them were jokes? or at least crackships? and if you compared the number of fics those kind of pairings have on ao3 to the more family friendly ones you'd see that there really weren't an actual fanbase for any of those weird ass pairings.

i think the core of mha fandom has never been as chaotic as others thought it was. mha fans were interested in the story, the fights & the character development while casually enjoying ships as well. it wasn't that serious until yall started bullying a bunch of kids online. with the rise of tiktok and the boredom the pandemic caused there were a huge amount of amateur content. i'm not saying i've never seen a mha fan being genuinely cringe. i just think the mature response to those posts would have been leaving the poor kids alone.

yesterday i've seen a youtube video about how awful mha fans are and this guy just showed a clip of a bunch of cosplayers outside of what was probably an anime convention dancing to gangnam style and he was going on and on about how annoying they are. and it made me so angry because where the fuck did these anime fan bourgeoisie snobs come from telling people they can't have fun at FUCKING ANIME CONVENTIONS??? i dont know if you've ever been to one but an anime con is basically the only place that's supposed to be safe to do cringe shit like that. everyone goes to those things in cosplay, some better than others. but last i checked everyone was pretty nice to each other, complimenting each other's costumes, asking to take photos. the cosplays don't have to be good, they don't even have to be complete. a convention is the one place you can show up in a wig you bought off ebay and a costume you finished making the night before. i dont know what yall are on but people go to those events to have fun. not to be filmed and made fun of. and from my personal experience having been in fandom spaces since middle school, someone who dances to gangnam style in a cheap todoroki cosplay is an infinitely nicer person than the stuck-up loser who makes a video complaining about it

[charmandabear]

Christmas

Summary:

Sleeping in your childhood bedroom with your parents on the other side of the wall is probably the worst place to fool around. Bummer that you and Astarion struggle to keep your hands off each other.

Pairing: Astarion/f!Reader Rating: E Word Count: 1.6k Tags/Warnings: more smut than fluff, modern au, christmas smut, vaginal fingering, dirty talk, keep it the fuck down

Read it on AO3.

Thank you again to Idylla for letting me use their amazing art for the banner! Part 2 of 3(?) of Midwinter Nights! Definitely absolutely not based on a true story.

Midwinter Nights: Yule | Christmas | New Year's Eve

It's not that you were nervous to introduce him to your parents, but you certainly weren't free of anxiety.

But the second he turned on that Astarion charm, relief rushed your body. They were absolutely enamored with him, your dad almost alarmingly so. You had never seen him laugh louder at someone’s jokes, clearly vying to impress your partner.

He looked so cute helping your mom trim the tree, carefully placing ornaments according to her strict instruction. He indulged her desire to spread family gossip halfway through her second glass of wine. He would occasionally throw a smile towards where you were curled up in a cushy chair with a steaming mug of hot chocolate, flashing a cheeky hint of fang for your benefit. Your parents don't need to know about that yet.

You finally bade your parents goodnight and retreated to your old bedroom. They had converted it into a guest room long ago, but there were still hints of your childhood in it. The stuffed animals that adorned the bed, the old dresses hanging in the closet.

You turned out the lights and slipped under the covers next to Astarion, rubbing your cold feet against his even colder legs. You turned over to face him, basking in the sight of his skin glowing beneath the twinkling fairy lights.

“My parents really like you,” you said in a whisper, cognizant of them possibly hearing you on the other side of the wall. He rested a hand on the slope of your waist, thumb stroking absentmindedly.

“Don't sound so surprised, darling,” he chuckled. “You say it as though I don't know how to behave.” He punctuated the statement with a rakish grin, really driving home the point.

“Right, because when I think ‘Astarion’ my first thought is ‘someone you can take home to mother.’” 

“I'm certain I have no idea what you mean,” he said, and planted a chaste kiss on your forehead. You smiled and burrowed into his chest, excited to fall asleep and for morning to come.

You tilt your head up for one more goodnight kiss. He obliges, and his lips taste sweet, the hot chocolate still lingering. Your breath catches as he presses into your lower back with his hand, deepening the kiss ever so slightly. You snake your hands up around his neck, lightly running your fingers through his soft silvery curls.

If you were smart, you would have broken the kiss and turned over to go to sleep. Lying in your childhood bedroom with your extremely attractive vampire lover while your parents slept on the other side of the very thin wall was not the time or place to start anything.

But you are not a smart woman.

You pressed your body into his and relished in the breathy groan that escaped his lips. He slipped his tongue into your mouth, the taste of desperation and heat flooding your senses. You clawed at his back and neck, chasing every inch of his body and searching for relief from that mounting pressure in your belly. He slid his hand down your ass and hooked your leg around his waist. Beyond your control, a small voiced moan made its way out of your throat.

“Shhhhh!” He hushed you before trapping your lips into another kiss, effectively silencing you. You tried to swallow back your breaths, keeping them light and shallow to prevent any more noise from leaving your body. It proved harder when he caught your lower lip between his teeth, his fangs pricking the sensitive flesh without actually piercing any skin.

Your contrasting desires to satiate your hunger for him while also staying quiet enough to not be overheard were at war with one another. You pulled him on top of you with the leg around his waist and he drove his hips into yours, giving you the slightest hint of his growing arousal. You inhaled a ragged breath in between increasingly ravenous kisses, your hands desperately searching for more of him and his touch.

The mounting heat and pressure between your legs was starting to overwhelm you and you shifted your focus onto controlling your increasingly needy mewling. You buried your face in the crook of his neck in the hopes that it might absorb some of the sound. He didn’t make it any easier as he continued to slide his half-hard erection along your cunt, the two thin layers of fabric between you dampening with every passing minute. You clamped your teeth down onto the skin there, not biting so much attempting to use his shoulder as a gag. This backfired as the second your teeth made contact, he let out a sharp hiss as his hips bucked, setting off another groan that died in your throat.

Your knees fell open further and you could feel the outline of his length press into your folds. You tightened your grip on his shoulders, wincing as you tried to suppress the obscene noises threatening to escape. But you ached for more, the need for the relief his touch provided was starting to consume you. You grabbed the back of his head, bringing his ear in contact with your lips.

“Please touch me, quickly,” you begged in a sharp whisper, unconcerned with how pathetic you sounded. He pulled back and his red eyes glinted with mischief, an impish grin spreading across his lips.

“All right, but not a sound, understood?” he purred, and you clamped your lips shut as you nodded impatiently.

His touch was cool he trailed it down your front, sending a shiver through you. He slid his palm flat against your pubic bone, fingertips barely touching the top of your slit. Your mouth dropped open but you managed to maintain your silence even as your hips jerked into his hand. His opposite hand snaked behind your neck and he crushed your lips into his once again, swiping his tongue along your bottom lip. He dipped a finger between your folds and you could feel his lips curl up into a smile.

“Darling, is this just from me?” He clicked his tongue as he lazily swept his finger up and down your slick. “So eager.” You couldn’t respond, you only clenched your teeth as your hips cantered into his touch. His cool digit between your hot lips sent a shudder rippling through your body.

“You love it when I touch you like this,” he purred, and you immediately caught on to what he was doing. You would not last long with him crooning into your ear, never mind having an easy time keeping your voice down. His lips brushing along your ear made your breaths come high and hot, and you tightened your fingers in his hair.

“Look at you, coming undone,” he continued, unphased by the pain from you tugging on his hair. He gently circled your clit, just enough to tease you and not nearly enough to satisfy. You thrusted into his hand, aching for relief.

“You want it so badly, little pup.” You could feel the pet name on his breath tickling your ear and you swallowed the whine threatening to emerge. “You want to scream my name, but you can’t.” He slid a finger inside you, moving it excruciatingly slowly. You bit down on your knuckle as you tried to fuck yourself on his fingers, begging for more. You’re so rarely this quiet and you can hear the squelch of his fingers as they pumped inside you, and the extra sensory element made you all the more wild.

“If I give you what you want,” he looked down his nose at you and you could see the arousal in his eyes, “will you need me to make you stay quiet?” He was beginning to pant, too, his heaving chest rhythmically pressing into yours. You kept your lips closed tight as you nodded in desperation. He shifted his weight, clamping his free hand over your mouth and pressing your thigh up with his knee so he could get a better angle into your cunt.

He began to properly thrust his fingers into you, the crook of his thumb hitting your clit with every downstroke. His hand muffled your cries as they grew increasingly needy. You rocked into him and the bed began to emit a tiny steady creak. But you were so past the point of caring, all you needed was for him to give you your release.

“That's a good girl, let go, love,” he whispered roughly into your ear. His praise and encouragement were enough to send you over the edge, your hips rutting into his hand as your cunt clenched around his fingers. He rode out the waves of your orgasm with you, and you can feel his ragged breath on your cheek.

The two of you slowed, and before he even took his fingers out of you you were both listening intently for any sign of movement on the other side of the wall. When you deemed it appropriately quiet, you fell into a fit of giggles. Astarion pulled his hand out of you and dropped his forehead into your neck, shaking with silent laughter.

“That's a dangerous game you're playing, Ancunín,” you whispered, breathing not yet returned to normal.

“You were the one begging, you needy little thing,” he responded with a smirk, barely visible in the low light. You playfully shoved him off you and rolled onto your side, snuggling your back into him. He wrapped his arm around your waist, planting a soft kiss on your shoulder blade. You closed your eyes, praying there wouldn't be any awkward conversations at breakfast.

[reachartwork]

[private please, if thats alright] i used to follow you for your ai stuff back in 2021/22 when things were first kicking off (actually i thought you'd quit because of all the scandal lol) and the models and output were a lot 'sloppier' and kinda illegible but as far as i can see the stuff you're working on now is clearer looking and more coherent, so i was wondering - do you have any thoughts on the 'aesthetics' of AI and what specifically brings it unique merits and strengths as an art tool? for example i personally find a lot of modern ai art to be boring and soulless looking because it has neither stylistic interest (compared to the blatant 'inhumanity' of older models) nor a human person making base-to-base decisions about what it looks like, but i also havent been really paying too much attention to the AI scene except when it comes up in images searches. also, sorry if its not a question you want to answer, but do you do any more traditional styles of art as well? i find my art sensibilities are really effected by the mediums i work with so i would love to know if you have any similar experiences wrt ai and non ai works. thank you!

this is a side account so i can't answer privately, but, that being said;

i actually agree! for general purpose arting i preferred the secret horses style of total illegibility, and my main goal in my secret projects is to be able to reorganize around that style but with sharper, crisper lines and higher resolutions. part of why the whole "secret horses" style of ai medium fell through the cracks was because a: diffusion models were significantly faster and b: diffusion models scale upwards significantly better - they can produce higher resolutions and perform upscaling, which CLIP + VQGAN (the old method that made all the jank we all used to love) can't really do.

i think people whose sole interest in ai is making shitty advertisement images, or giant anime boobs, or some other lowest common denomenator slop, like... okay. you do you, the saying is "90% of everything is shit" for a reason, but obviously i think that's incredibly boring. i think the reason we see a lot of it is because a: the Good Artists who use AI are still effectively social pariahs, particularly on twitter and tumblr, just via dint of their medium, and b: ai puts art making in the hands of EVERYONE and it turns out not everyone has good taste (see: 90% of everything is shit), so you just see a lot more shit by volume.

anyway in terms of "traditional art" i am an author (READ CHUM) and a bassist, although i haven't been in a band in many years as my arthritis prevents me from playing for very long or very well anymore. if you mean traditional art as in like... paint and easel, or pen and paper, the answer is no. i've never had the ability to comfortably grasp anything with my hands even before the arthritis happened and now i lack not only the fine motor skills for it but also the pain threshold. i do like legos though, and i'd love to start making lego dioramas.

thanks for asking :)

[meowmeowriley]

Anybody else see that art on Twitter of Soap as an Animal Crossing villager, and then the other art of that Soap sitting on Doom Guy Ghost's shoulder? Anybody else feeling so incredibly normal about it? Anyway. Have this.

***

"C'mon uncle John, would it kill you to smile? Pretend you wanna be here?" Soap was doing his best, he really was. He loved his nephew, and when his sister Isla said he couldn't go to the convention because it was too far away and he didn't have an adult, well what are uncles for?! But he hadn't taken into account that 1) he's never been to a cosplay convention and 2) he's seriously out of his depth when it comes to the colorful characters around them. If anyone asked he'd be mortified to admit that he'd spent the better part of his leave following his nephew around, taking pictures of him with characters from various video games and anime. No, he'd be keeping this experience to himself.

"I'm not not enjoying myself." Andrew rolled his eyes. "I just don't know any of the characters. I haven't played a video game in ages, and I've never watched anime." Plenty of other soldiers did watch anime, and there was nothing wrong with that, he'd just never joined in.

Andy snorted. "What was the last game you played, old man?" Soap resented that. He wasn't even thirty yet.

"I dunno, Halo maybe?"

"The original?!"

"Think so." Soap said with a shrug.

"So the year I was born. Got it." Yikes.

Suddenly Andy was excitedly pointing at a large man in green and gray armor, in the middle of a crown. "Oh you have to recognize that guy!" And did he ever. How could anyone not recognize Doom Guy? And he was holding the BFG.

"Ohhhohohoho yeah. I know Doom Guy." John had nearly forgotten how much he'd loved the Doom games as a kid. "And before you say it, those games are old, even for me."

"They redid the games in 2016 and 2020. It's relevant again." Oh. And with that Soap was once again being dragged toward some random person in a costume.

Something this guy was getting right was that he wasn't speaking. He'd nod, wave, aim his gun, but he didn't utter a word. Soap couldn't see a thing through the helmet visor. I wonder if he can even see outta that?

The guy caught sight of them, evidently he could see, and tilted his head while looking down at Soap. "That things pure dead brilliant." He found himself marveling at the BFG in the man's armored hands.

It looked like it was actually made of metal. And it actually glowed! How the man had gotten the green lights to work, he was dying to know. Trying to configure it in his head, he nearly missed when the man held it out slightly for him. "Can I?" He asked, just making sure. Oh he'd kill for something like this in the field. Pure devastation. Doom Guy nodded and John took the gun. Holding it, it was a hell of a lot lighter than he'd imagined. The fuck is this thing made of?

Andy popped up beside him. "Can we get a picture with you mate?" To that, Doom Guy nodded. Maybe Soap would tell people he'd been here, he wanted a picture of him holding this gun hung up at his desk.

Andy backed up, people kindly stayed out of the way as the picture was taken. Doom Guy posed, crossing his arms over his massive chest. Soap held the gun as best he could like he would a rifle. Not aimed at anyone, but ready. "We're good." Andy called. Doom Guy  held up his hand to stop him, then stuck out one finger and swirled his hand around. "Huh?" Andy thought for a moment. "Another?" Doom Guy nodded and gave a thumbs up. Really taking his character seriously. Who were they to deny him, this was cool as fuck. Soap readied himself to take the next picture, giving the camera a feral grin, just like the first, when Doom Guy placed a hand on his shoulder and leaned down.

"Enjoying the convention Johnny?" Startled at the use of his name that he knew he hadn't given the man, he whipped around, instinctively pointing the gun in his hands at the chest of the other man.

Then it dawned on him. "Ghost?!" He asked incredulously. There's no fucking way.

The man in question began laughing. He reached up and removed his helmet. Shaking his head, Ghost's messy, dark blonde hair flew in every direction.

Unlike Las Almas, he wasn't drenched in sweat, there was no grease paint, and light brown hair was longer and curled slightly. Shit he had freckles. Shit he was cute. Dangerous thoughts, John.

"I didn't think this was your kinda thing, Johnny." Ghost said with a crooked grin that perfectly framed his crooked teeth.

John was no saint. He'd been flirting with Ghost since they met. Secretly really wanted to have sex with him, but he'd only seen the man's face that one time, and now his mind was going a million kilometers an hour trying to take in every inch on display. Thoughts both pure and impure ran through his head, and the only thing that managed to make its way to his mouth was "Where'd you get this thing?" Normally he was a better flirt, but normally he was flirting with the visage of death. Not a pretty man with freckles. Well he was, but not really.

"I made it." Ghost shrugged, armor clacking as his shoulders rose and fell. "Same as the suit. It's all EVA foam and 3D printing."

"You made this?!"

"Yeah? I made my masks too. What, you think I bought those?" Ghost smirked.

Andy had jogged back over. "I took a video, so we could take screenshots." He handed the phone over to Ghost.

"I'm absolutely keeping this, Johnny." He said as he typed in his number and sent the video to himself. Damn, Andy got Ghost's number before he did.

"Johnny?"

"Shut it, Andy." He warned. "We work together. Never in a million years thought I'd see him out here though."

"I go to any convention I can make. It's fun. I have other suits. Isaac Clark from Deadspace, Master Chief from Halo. I like to wear them and make people smile. I don't get to do that often." He seemed lost in thought for a second, face darkening. Just as quickly as it had happened, the expression was gone. "You go to conventions often?"

"First one. But I could be persuaded to go to more." John smiled his best flirty smile. Andy snickered, and earned himself an elbow to the ribs.

***

Now I desperately wanna see Soap at a con dressed like Isabelle while holding the super shotgun.

[spockandawe]

Now. Here's the big project! I made a test notebook for once in my life, but I've never enjoyed making notebooks and I'm always chasing that sweet, sweet dopamine. So the test notebook was like... 90% in parallel with the actual book, just rehearsing each step real quick before I did it on the real thing. And what I did was a fresh binding of 'it's about the bones 👌' by @sunderedstar. I had a typeset file ready to go, I'm in the middle of relistening to the audiobooks, it was perfect! And then I zoned out and accidentally cut a whole cover's worth of leather and not just a spine and the whole project ESCALATED 🤣

First, the k118 binding went beautifully. I really do recommend it. It can be done with an oxford hollow to give you a breakaway spine, but I... didn't do that! I stuck to the old timey examples I've seen where it's a tightbacked style and, yeah, it still opens SO far, it's an absolute doll. The style is characterized by vellum strips on the spine used to attached the cover boards and give them the security and flexibility without added bulk. I got impatient trying to differentiate between PAPER vellum and ANIMAL vellum in search engines and just said screw it and went in with the paper vellum. I still have actual vellum getting shipped to me, but truly, the paper stuff worked amazingly. I'm not sure how durable it is, in terms of years of life, but if feels REAL good now. Also. Finally had a thematic excuse to use this beautiful lacquered paper.

I also remain very proud of my typesetting for this book. Warning that you can glean HtN and NtN spoilers if you read the text closely! But scope out that hand I subbed in for the emoji in the title, that's important.

Because now that I was committed to all this leather. Something I've been procrastinating on for MONTHS is learning how to properly tool leather. I have a set of brass stylus tools that ought to be up my alley! Freehand drawing was my first creative hobby of note! This interest dates back to like, fifth grade, and it was time to GO for it. So. I modified the ninth house skull to have some sick shades, made the IX on the forehead more scrawled and scratchy, and drew a skeleton hand over the art I used for the title page. I printed my lines and traced them through printer paper with unheated tools. This was extremely rad, but I couldn't stop there. The next day, I went back over my lines with heated tools, and the level of crisp was SO delightful. I'm still very new to this, still learning how these tools and the material even handle, but oh man. I am actively antsy to find the next project to do this for, this was SO much fun, I enjoyed it so much, and I love this book to pieces!

[redgoldsparks]

March Reading and Reviews by Maia Kobabe

I post my reviews throughout the month on Storygraph and Goodreads, and do roundups here and on patreon. Reviews below the cut.

Delicious in Dungeon vol 4 by Ryoko Kui

I'm reading these books so fast I can barely remember which parts of the plot happened in which volume but know that I am still having a great time!

Delicious in Dungeon vol 5 by Ryoko Kui

Oh, this story has taken a darker turn, and also just introduced a whole bunch more characters. Will I be able to keep track of them all? I hope so!

Dragon Keeper by Robin Hobb, read by Anne Flosnik 

Unfortunately, this is definitely the weakest Robin Hobb book I've read so far. I was expecting to like it less than the glorious, 5-star previous trilogy, but I actually think I'm going to skip the rest of the Rain Wild Chronicles and read summaries online to get to the next Fitz books. This book follows five main POV characters. This works fairly well for the first half, when the characters are all in different physical locations. However once all of the characters meet up, we start getting the same scene from multiple different POVs, which feels extremely repetitive. Also, almost EVERY SCENE includes a flashback, often a lengthy flashback, sometimes to something that happened only the previous day and could have been told as present-moment action. This writing choice baffled me. It's something I can't remember struggling with in any of Hobb's previous books, but by the end it was driving me up a wall. The book also moved very slowly; the stakes feel lower, and the character far less emotionally true than in the two Fitz trilogies. Disappointing, but I will keep moving forward towards the next part of the series I want to read.

Delicious in Dungeon vol 6 by Ryoko Kui

Damn, a lot of characters get murdered in this volume! Good thing almost everyone who dies in the dungeon can be revived. Also, very excited to finally meet the cat ninja I've been seeing fan art of since before I even started the series :3

Delicious in Dungeon vol 7 by Ryoko Kui

I am still completely caught up in this series. I love the glimpse of Senshi's past revealed in this volume, and the lore of the dungeon that is still being revealed. There was a line in here about how the dungeon leaves you alone if you don't ask much of it, but that if you have strong desires it throws even more obstacles into your way. Our heroes have such big goals right now, but they're marching ahead regardless!

School Trip by Jerry Craft 

A satisfying new installment in the New Kid series from funny, talented, charming Jerry Craft! I appreciated how this volume started to complicate some of the students who had been left a bit one-dimensional in previous books. Several people stood up to and called out a bully; new friendships were built; and Jordan Banks left Paris even more inspired than ever to follow his dreams of becoming an artist. This series has a lot of jokes, but also a lot of heart!

A Frog in Fall (and Later On) by Linnea Sterte 

Minor frog is less than a year old, and is dismayed when winter begins to steal all of the light and warmth from his world. Instead of bunking down safely with his mentor to wait for spring, he sets out on a journey with two vagabond toads passing by on a quest to make it all the way to the tropics. They tramp through the Japanese countryside, encountering tree spirits, new friends, dangers, and views the likes of which minor frog had never even imagined. This is a gorgeous book; every page worth pouring over, an economy of line and detail building a beautiful and mysterious world of talking animals and miniature packaged foods. Made me want to draw.

Dark Rise by CS Pacat read by Christian Coulson 

In 1820s London, orphaned Will tries to earn enough as a dockworker to survive- and evade the killers pursuing him. Violet dresses in her half-brother's clothes and sneaks onto a ship in the Thames to watch a man be branded with his master's mark. Katherine excitedly anticipates her engagement to one of London's richest and most mysterious lords; his gallantry nearly makes up for the fact that he's twice her age. And in the bowels of one of that lord's ships, James tortures a man for information. All of these characters are 16 or 17 years old, but all of them are tangled in an ancient conflict between the Light and the Dark which stretches back into an age of magic before history. This is CS Pacat's YA fantasy debut, and it contains a lot of tropes very familiar to both YA and high fantasy- there are shades of both Tolkien and Rowling in this. Its fast-paced and action-packed, but especially in the first third of the story, the characters all felt fairly thin. None of them have quirks, hobbies, career hopes, relationships outside of immediate family, school, or work; or much more than a brief sketch of past. It took until the mid-way point for what I consider Pacat's major strengths as a writer to emerge: intense, homoerotic interpersonal sparring between characters operating under major power imbalances. Every scene in which the seductive, manipulative, powerful evil gay faced off against the good boy chosen one crackled with energy. Unfortunately, there were only four of these scenes in the whole book. It ends on a cliff-hanger, because of course it does, with a tempting set up for book two; but that doesn't entirely excuse the fact that the first 50% felt like set up. I will definitely keep reading, but long-time Pacat fans should take note that this is toned down version of what I expected based on Captive Prince.

Feeding Ghosts by Tessa Hulls (re-read before event)

What an accomplishment! I savored every page of Feeding Ghosts, absolutely floored by the labor and courage that went into the writing of this book. The inking is gorgeous, the history is clear, digestible, and devastating. This book threads the line between honesty and compassion in a way that I appreciate so much in any memoir, but especially one dealing with family. Hulls lays out the story of three generations of women starting with her grandmother, Sun Yi, a Shanghai journalist who faced intense persecution during the rise of Communism in China, who penned a popular and scandalous memoir and then suffered a mental breakdown. This left her only daughter, Rose, a student at an elite boarding school with no parental figures and no other family to lean on. Eventually Rose earned a scholarship to an American university and in the end moved her mother into her California home. Sun Yi haunted that home during the author's own childhood. The unexamined trauma and codependency of Sun Yi and Rose drove the author to the extreme edges of the Earth, seeking freedom from their ghosts. But in the end, she stopped running from her family history and turned, instead, to face it. Shelve this book with Maus, Fun Home, Persepolis and The Best We Could Do. Re-read it for a second time and got even more out of it on a second pass.

Delicious in Dungeon vol 8 by Ryoko Kui

Laios and company realize that their encounter with changling mushroom rings had more consequences than they'd realized- its the body swap episode! This visual humor is contrasted against increasing dangers from both above and below, as nastier monsters and political machinations begin to close in on our heroic adventuring party. I'm now over halfway through this series and almost feel like I should start reading it more slowly to savor it, but I'll probably just keep devouring it instead.

Lunar New Year Love Story by Gene Luen Yang and Leuyen Pham

High school senior Val grew up knowing her family was unlucky in love; for generations, relationships in her family have ended in heartbreak. Her childhood love of Valentines Day ends with a shocking family revelation and what feels like the beginning of a curse. Then her Vietnamese grandmother sweeps her off to a Lunar New Year celebration in downtown Oakland and a pair of cute lion dancer boys catch her eye. Could one of them break the spell on her heart? This story offers a classic and satisfying rom-com, with Val torn between an outgoing, rich, but flaky boy and a broody, shy, loyal one. The story takes several kdrama style twists and includes ghosts, saints, red envelopes, confessions, fights, reunions, tears, and kisses. For a comic, its wordy; the pages are dense with small panels and thick with dialogue, but also illustrated with such warm, humor, and realism. I really liked that the story included as much of Val's relationship with her family and best friend as romance. And the lion dancing scenes practically leap off the page with color and energy!

Witch Hat Atelier vol 10 by Kamome Shirahama

This series remains as visually stunning as ever but I'm struggling with how every single book expands the cast. There are so many characters now that I don't care about that much, and have trouble remembering from volume to volume. I wish the story line would stick more closely to Coco, her classmates, and their main mentors!

Delicious in Dungeon vol 9 by Ryoko Kui

Oh the stories are all converging! The savior at the bottom of the dungeon is probably a demon! Ituzumi saves the day! I am still having a great time reading this series.

A Dowry of Blood by ST Gibson read by Abby Craden 

A short, very queer, very poly retelling of Dracula focusing on his coven of enthralled lovers. I liked the way the book breezed through history, as the dysfunctional little family moved from one major European city to the next, with snatched moments of glittering joy interwoven with violence and plague. The story is fairly simple, and has a happier ending than I expected, or honestly think the characters deserved.

City of Dragons by Robin Hobb

I DNFed the previous book in this series and just read a summary online before skipping ahead to this one. I think that was a very good choice for me. This third one was more engaging and a bit more action packed, with some cool discoveries about the city of Kelsingra and the nature of Elderlings. But the Rain Wild Chronicles as a whole do not stand up to the quality of the Farseer books. There are so many POV characters that a few of them get only two or three scenes in this whole book. I don't feel that I deeply know any of these characters; while at the same time watching Hobb pair them off at an extraordinary rate- in the last book five sets of characters got together and in this book an additional two couples are developing feelings for each other. Between this and a kidnapping, a birth, a murder, and a lot of blackmail, this series feels like a soap opera.

Delicious in Dungeon vol 10 by Ryoko Kui

Almost two TPKs in this volume, yikes!

Delicious in Dungeon vol 11 by Ryoko Kui

You know shit's getting serious when the character who has been the series main villain up until now is partially devoured by a different, worse villain. Exciting changes coming to this dungeon under it's new lord and master!

Squad by Maggie Tokuda-Hall and Lisa Sterle

When Becca gets invited to sit with the popular girl clique at her new high school, she's thrilled. But the friendship turns bloody and complicated when she learns that her new friends are actually werewolves who need to kill and feed on a human once a month. If she joins them, Becca will gain superhuman strength and a pack; she'll never have to fear a male predator again, because she will be a predator herself. I loved the queer rep and the twist on werewolf lore; I wish it had been a little longer and more developed. Give me multi-page transformations sequences!

Delicious in Dungeon vol 12 by Ryoko Kui

I love seeing all these plot lines come together! Building towards a wild climax.

Delicious in Dungeon vol 13 by Ryoko Kui

I went out and *bought* vol 13 of this series because my library didn't have it yet, that's how hooked I am. And now I have to wait until JULY for the final volume! (But also, thank goodness I didn't get into this series any sooner or I'd have a much longer wait).

[stayinguplate]

Chapter 1 falling down

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Okay so before I get into this this is an AU created by @moshispace I had offered to write the story for them and they agreed but most of the credit is for them since they came up with this amazing AU , I’m just the writer the only thing I own and will be doing is the art for the story ( reader as Alice in picture above). So this is a yandere ROTTMNT ( rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles)AU Alice in wonderland and you can check out @moshispace to see more on how they describe it .this is going to be a mix of the live action and animated movie.also I’m going with the reader having they /she/her pronouns please don’t attack me ₍^ ܸ. . .ܸ ྀི^₎ʃ

Okay enough yapping from me . WARNING: this story will have yandere tendencies if you are uncomfortable with that topic please don’t read, there will also be some dark themes so please be aware. There will also be some slight bad language

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

.

.

.

.

As a child reader always had an odd imagination

but they always had amazing ideas her father

was always encouraging them to keep going with

their ideas ,reader always told her father about

her ‘friends’ and how they had odd but amazing

and crazy adventures ,always mentioning the

snapping turtle with a pocket watch and a trench

coat who led them to the entrance to

the adventure with the others ,at first readers

father was worried that there was an actual

dangerous snapping turtle but after observing for

30 minutes he knew that no snapping turtle was

there because they didn’t have or live near a

pond .

As the years passed reader grew turning 8 and

their adventures grew more less frequent , they

Had just stopped playing outside and started to

Get more interested in painting and spend their

Time in their room painting out unique

landscapes that have never been seen before they

seemed so wonderland like it was odd .

( not me having to do math to get the years right on readers age ㅠ ㅅ ㅠ ♡)

Though readers father adored the art that they

had made it was just as unique as there odd

personality .

7 more years passed by and reader eventually

became a beautiful young woman turning 15 ,one

day readers friend sunita had came over offering

to go to the flower field by the river just to read

And hang out ,reader had agreed thinking it

would be fun, they had told their father and

headed out with sunita.

After 10 minutes we had finally made it to the

flower field we had finally settled down in a nice

spot, sunita had been peacefully reading her book

that she had brought while I had been working on

a flower crown , After I Finish, The Flower, Crown I

Realized that sunita fell asleep I smiled softly as I

gently placed the flower crown on her head, I then

heard a ticking sound ,a sound of which a clock

makes , it felt so familiar I got up, stretching as I

look around, not hearing anything. I shrug as I

was going to wake. Sunita to go home, but then I

heard it again the soft ticking .

I looked and walked around to see if I would hear

it again not even a second later I heard it again it

was coming from the forest. It wasn’t like a scary

force, though it was just the one that always had

the usual river that people will go to have a picnic.

Sometimes I remember my dad and I used to go

sometimes when my mom was alive.  as the

sound kept ticking I decided to investigate and

see because there couldn’t just be a random

clock in the forest. 

I had inside the forest looking around. It seemed

like the tick kept getting farther and farther away

or that’s what I thought until it stopped. I walked

around confused before I felt something, grabbed

my ankle and tug as I screamed in shock as I trip

and fell. 

I looked down as I fell. It seems like I was falling

into a hole, except there was stuff my adrenaline

was rising. I couldn’t really focus on what I saw

but my falling didn’t last too long as I fell to the

floor. 

I grunt softly in pain as I lay on the ground for a

few seconds before slowly sit up extremely

confused I then slowly stood up as I then looked

up seeing the place I felt from I then began to see

my surroundings as I saw a small door I crouched

down on my knees as I tried to open the door but

as I twisted the doorknob I realized it was locked i

sigh as I looked around as I then saw a glass table

that had a key and a small glass bottle that had a

note tied to it saying ’ drink me ‘ and a small little

cookie that said ‘ eat me ‘ .

I then paused as I then felt like I was

hearing whispers. I turned around and looked to

see my surroundings.’nothing.’ I thought to myself

as I grabbed the little bottle and little cookie. 

I then took a sip of the bottle I grimaced slightly

from the bitter sweet taste ,but then I felt my

stomach twist as I then realized I was shrinking I

let out a small gasp, confusion as I look at myself

I then realize my clothes did not fit as I grabbed a

pice of fabric to look like it would fit and tied it

together. I was happy with my work as I got out

from under the big piece of clothing that I shrank

out of . I realize then that i left the key on the table

i sigh as i then realized i dropped the cookie i then

scurried to it as took a bite it was surprisingly very

good but then i dropped the cookie as I felt

myself grow, as i grew to the ceiling i grunted as i

carefully, picked up the key, I then grabbed the

tiny bottle drinking the last of it I went a little as

the taste was still very bitter. I then shrink down

to tiny again, thankfully I had the key now and I

was the right size enough to fit through the Door .

I then put the key in the door and unlocked it. The

door creeped open as it showed as somewhat

cloudy sky, but it was still blue and a garden like

landscape I then walked through after taking a

few steps. I hear the door creaking close behind

me. As I walked down the stone steps with the

Mossy greenness on the steps a few odd

insects pass by I looked around confused, there

was odd large flowers odd insects I didn’t

understand what was happening, but it all felt so

familiar deep down.

As I turned around for a moment walking

backwards through an overgrown plant stone

Entrance “ this is all so odd but so …familiar “ I said to myself

“ see i told you it was her!”

I jumped in shock as I then heard a voice I then

quickly turned around as my eyes widened in

absolute shock

.

.

.

.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Okay so hopefully this was good and i really hope you all liked it especially the original person I offered to write it for but other than that, I hope you all have a good day or night or even afternoon. I’ll see you later. 

[merp-blerp]

Things about Cinderella's Castle I'm excited about already as a big Cinderella fan

THE PUPPETS!!! I love puppets and I love seeing puppetry get used more and more—it's such an underrated art form! And the puppet models look stellar!

I love the idea of the step-family being trolls. I was wonder if they were always trolls or if they got sort of cursed. But Step-Mom flays women and wears their skin to fool everyone??? Very Grimms Bros style, I love it. I don't mind dark takes on Cinderella, so I'm intrigued. I wonder if that's why they're jealous of Ella, cause she's a normal human (supposedly), and so they try to demean her like a troll, to get her on their level or something.

With characters like Sir Hop-a-lot and Crumb, I'm curious what their role is. Are they Ella's animal friends that she gave goofy names? Sir Hop looks like he's a part of the royal court in some way, so does he somehow work for the prince? Will it be kind of like Wicked where the anthro-animals are a race amongst humans? Are they looked down on like the trolls? Is it fair that either group is looked down on?

CRUMB! Crumb is a perfect name for the mouse! I'm shocked I've never heard of a mouse named Crumb before.

I've talked before about how I see the early Disney princes as symbols of their princesses' freedom rather than characters and that's why they're "flat". I like that the prince in this show sounds like a parody of that. Like, "What if that flat 'character' was treated like a real character, but still with a similar flatness to him?" I like it. I trust Starkid to do that well.

I'm currently theorizing that Kim's Fairy Queen character will be a combo of sleeping beauty and the fairy godmother, based on her description in the 4/6 live stream and description of the video announcement saying "Kim will awaken the Fairy Queen from her slumbering prison in the realm of death". I don't even know if they'll implement other fairytales into this particular show, but I'm excited.

I love the possibility of a fairytale multiverse from Starkid. Hope that happens one way or another.

WOC CINDY! WOC CINDY! WOC CINDY!

I'm hoping for sapphic Cindy too, Mariah's comment got my hopes up. I'm trying not to get too attached to that idea, but as a lesbian woc that would kill me to see. Correct me if I'm wrong, but SK hasn't had a main queer couple since Firebringer, so it'd be cool to get for me, especially since Cinderella's my favorite fairytale and theater is one of my favorite mediums to consume stories with.

I've seen people theorize that the song in all the trailers is from a bard's perspective. I get that vibe too.

I know I sound like a 5-year-old, BUT I'M SO EXCITED TO SEE WHAT THE BALL GOWN WILL LOOK LIKE! The cover of the 4/6 livestream seemed to give us a slight taste of it. This gold and purple ensemble maybe. Purple is typically the color of royalty, so I love the idea of incorporating it in Ella's dress. And I like the use of rhinestones in her makeup. I wonder how they'll do the dress transformation if they do it. I actually hope we don't see it in its entirety till the show is on stage; I don't want the reveal spoiled.

One thing about Cinderella that's very important to me is the abuse aspect of the tale. Depending on how similar this show is to the traditional version of the tale, I hope it's not ignored. I'm pretty sure it won't be.

EDIT: I made another list of things after the 4/13 livestream

[callmedylan]

Susie and Ness siblings AU info/fact dump cause I’m obsessed and need to tell everyone about it. (Warning: referenced child death, kidnapping, mourning, Some Mike x ness, and lots of angst and fluff.)

info before hand: ness is the waiter at sparkys in the fnaf movie and Susie is the girl who possesses chica. This will have some SecurityWaiter sprinkled in.

Ness is 3 years older than susie, being 10 when she disappeared at 7.

Ness was 100% a sisters brother, and always preferred to play Susie’s games like dress up and tea party instead of playing stuff that “boys his age should of been playing”

Ness learned how to style hair since he’d always style Susie’s hair for her, he even put her hair in the pigtails she’s rocking in the movie. He gets a little emotional whenever Abby asks him to style her hair in pigtails.

Ness went to Freddy’s with Susie and his parents and left susie alone to grab them some pizza but when he came back she was gone, and he never truly forgave himself and thinks it’s his fault William took her.

the two were so close they even shared a bedroom, and ness didn’t mind her putting or setting up her toys on “his side of the room” since he enjoyed playing those type of games with her.

Ness wasn’t a stereotypical brother and never picked on her, nor bully her. He actually adored her and the two never fought.

(this one’s rough, buckle up.) when susie went missing, Ness didn’t touch or move anything in their bedroom. He kept all her cluttered toys + clothing on the floor, kept her tea set on their play table set up, and didn’t touch any of the stuffed animals or blankets on her bed. Eventually after a couple months their parents wanted to clean out their bedroom of Susie’s stuff since it was too much of a reminder for them. Ness kicked, cried, screamed, and begged them to not get rid or move any of it because as he put it “she’ll need it when she comes home.”

ness often sees himself and Susie in Abby and Mike and on the anniversary of her disappearance he can’t be around the two at the same time since it’s too hard for him so he usually stays in another room in the house or just doesn’t visit them.

ness and susie loved to bake together.

ness’s relationship with his parents became strained over the years due to Susie’s disappearance and now the two don’t keep in contact much anymore (except for a call every once in a while).

ness, similar to Mike, has a constant reoccurring dream of the day susie went missing; but unlike Mike, he doesn’t try to constantly relive the dream and instead does his best to avoid it and doesn’t do anything before bed that could trigger him to dream about it (like eat any pizza, play music before or during sleep, watch any media that involves partying, or any neon based lights.)

Ness is unaware of Vanessa’s involvement in Susie’s disappearance, nor that she possesses the animatronics. Mike spares him those details for his well being.

Susie disappeared a week before his own birthday.

And that’s all I have so far, hopefully y’all enjoyed this. If you wanna use this AU or anything do credit me! I might post some art about it in the future! Hopefully this angst made you cry! (Not actually) and I hope I don’t sound utterly insane for making an AU like this.

[cornerstoreclown]

Unlikely Guardian

Summary: This is a short one-shot (4114 words approx.) where the reader (Gender Neutral) is being followed on their way home by someone other than their familiar companion, Art. It doesn’t end well for the people who tried to harm the Reader. Where is the safest place to be from danger, than in the arms of danger itself? 

Warnings: Sexual harassment (Catcalling w/ gender neutral terms), attempted murder, gun violence, murder, stalking, depictions of violence, blood. 

Author’s notes: I don’t really have much to add here, other than that thanks for the support from the community so far! You all have been very kind. 

------------------------------------------------------

“Fuck, it’s cold.” You mumble to no one but, well, yourself. 

You should have brought gloves when you walked around the city today. The air is cold, dry, and bitter and nipping at your exposed fingers. It wasn’t that bad on your way to the local pharmacy when the sun was still up, but over the course of time it took for you to get there, wait in a long ass line, pay for your medicine and finally leave, it’s gotten worse. Then, to top it off, you were hungry after that trek and walked an additional distance to get something to eat, because in no way you felt like cooking tonight. Now you were carrying not only your medicine, but leftovers to take home. At least the food smells good from the plastic bag you’re carrying it in. Your medicine is tucked in your backpack you have over your shoulders.  

This was the sucky part about November—the clocks jumped back an hour last week, and now it’s dark before it’s even five pm. Halloween came to an end not too long ago and some people still have yet to take down their creepy decorations, you notice as you walk down various streets on your way back. You didn’t mind it, though. Halloween was one of your favorite holidays, and the macabre never bothered you. It was an escape and maybe a coping mechanism for the terror that was actual reality, or maybe you just really liked this type of stuff. 

It’s dark out, the sun has long since set hours ago. The sounds of leaves crunching under your feet as the wind blows them in your path accompanies you amid the peaceful quiet of this often empty part of the city. Walking alone at night was often considered something dangerous for many, yourself included, but you needed your medicine, and you really didn’t want to be without it. It was easier to walk around during the month of October at night, and it was perhaps the only time you actually took your time when coming home from any late night escapade. The reasons for your late returns home varied, whether it be because you went out to eat by yourself, went to the movies, or just a general night time walk around to appreciate the spooky decorations. 

Those leisurely carefree strolls were all because you had Death’s eyes on you at all times. 

Art. 

Art was your friend you made a few years back during one Halloween, who, after countless encounters and even a sleepover —if you could call it that—he had at your place last fall, eventually came to be… A sort of unofficial partner, you suppose, because you’re not really sure what you two are. He had a tendency to emerge during the tail end of September and lingered all throughout October before going rampant on the 31st like he was ticking on some sort of internal clock. Maybe he’s an evil Halloween spirit. Or a demon. Devil? You don’t really know. Point being, you had your own attack dog, or attack clown, in this case, who clearly harbored some sort of care for you, though to what extent you still don’t know. You try not to think too hard every time November comes around, lest you start to feel lonely again and let the pangs of yearning for his company become so strong that you’ll feel sick. 

He killed people. You knew that. But he was nice to you… even though sometimes you did question if one day he’d turn on you and you’d end up on the back of a milk carton. Sometimes being around him felt like being around a wild animal, because he was about as unpredictable as one. You supposed you could sympathize with people whose life work was taking care of exotic dangerous animals—it was the creatures' beauty and the appreciation for what those predators were that kept those people around. In your own way, you could say you thought the same about The Miles County Clown. 

You even remember one night last October you were walking home in the dark, and he had been stalking you up until the moment you left your apartment, waiting for the moment to effectively scare the shit out of you, hammer out and positioned to show he was ready to attack. He was fully successful in that mission, and initially it made you angry as he stood there pointing and laughing after your soul just felt like it left your body. You remember calling him an absolute asshole and playfully giving him a light shove to his shoulder while he was still in hysterics at having made you jump and yelp. You didn’t laugh, but you did smile at him. You told him next time you’ll have to jumpscare him and threaten him with a hammer. The expression he gave you was a surprised face that melted into a mischievous smile which told you that he, for sure, would like to see you try. Challenge accepted. 

You smile a little to yourself as you reminisce on the good times you had with him while walking, but your attention flickers when you hear the sound of what you thought was something like a glass breaking behind you. 

You stop in your tracks, turning your head, smile disappearing, eyes scanning the surroundings trying to find the source of the noise. All you see is a bunch of brick buildings, but no sign of anyone. You did see a rat run across the street from the sidewalk that you’re on, though. You feel yourself deflate a bit and relax, watching the critter until it is no longer visible. At that, you turn on your heel and continue walking.

“Hey, hot stuff!”

Someone was calling out. You didn’t think much of it, or, you chose not to think much of it. You heard it loud and clear off in the distance behind you. They must not be talking to you, no one really talks to you. You keep your stride.

“Where ya goin’?!”

You grip your plastic bag full of food tighter by the handles, a little more speed to your walk. 

“I said HEY! HOT STUFF! WHERE YA GOIN’?” 

The voice is somewhat deep, and that’s already a bit of a reason for your blood to be pumping quicker. You feel ice run through your veins as you start to have a run to your walk, and then a full blown sprint. You just wanted to be left alone, and you were too anxious to look back over your shoulder for fear of what you might see. Just a few more blocks and you’d be fine! You’d be able to get to your building, run up the stairs to your floor, lock the door, and hopefully, that would be that! You’d keep your phone close at hand if you needed to call anyone! You’d never travel down these streets again, maybe not until next October, you tell yourself! It’s fine, you try to lie to yourself, it’s fine it’s fine it’s fine it’s fine it’s fine—

“Fine, have it your way, then!” 

Words haven’t ever struck fear into your heart in such a way as they have now. It prompts you to look over your shoulder to finally see a man, rather nondescript and unremarkable. Clearly by his body language and the way that he’s slowly walking towards you versus running, something is terribly off. Where did he even COME from?!

“Why in such a hurry, sexy?” 

You skid to an immediate halt as a new voice comes not from behind you, but in front of you. You look ahead to the source of the sound, seeing out from the alleyway in front of you, two more men step forward, cutting you off from going any further. Fear has a tight grip on you, and you’re briefly paralyzed. With a delayed start, you reach for your phone in your pocket too little too late, your fingers frantically trying to dial 9-1-1, but you’re cut off just at the second you’re about to press the phone symbol as one of the men before you snatches it.

“You don’t need this.” The one who seized your phone says, smirking at you before he throws your phone on the ground and smashes it beneath his foot with one, two, three very hard stomps. You’re mortified and horrified, taking a few steps back as your flight response kicks in, self preservation urging for you to run. You go to run back the way you came, but immediately bump into the first man you saw that was calling out to you. He’s taller than the other two behind you, and he’s walking forward, forcing you to back up until you’re almost caged in by all three of them. There’s still some space left, but not nearly enough to try and get out without bumping into them. 

“H-Hey,” You hold your hands up by your sides as a gesture of your submission. “Listen, I-I don’t have much, but if it’s money you want, I can give you money.”

You really didn’t have a whole lot of cash on you. You were barely hanging on until your next paycheck. All you got to your name right now is maybe thirty-seven dollars? It’s not a lot, but it was something. 

“I give you money, and you let me go, and I don’t tell anyone about any of this, okay?”

The two men behind you chuckle, as does the one in front of you. It only fills you with dread, and the seconds that pass feel like agonizing hours. You’re living out literally every second of your life right now, and you hate it. 

“Tell?” The laugh of the man before you continues, his backup chorus over your shoulder following along with him. He’s brandishing a switchblade now, holding it to your face, and you try to lean away only for the men behind you hold you in place by your shoulders. You shut your eyes tight and wince. 

“You’ll be lucky if you’ll be even able to talk again once I carve up that face of—”

You hear a sickly wet thunk! in front of you. 

“What the—?” One of the men behind you says. 

“Oh, fuck.” The other one behind you says, and you feel both of the men’s grasp on your shoulders vanish. 

“IT’S HIM! IT’S REALLY HIM! HE DOES EXIST! RUN!”

Your eyes open at that, seeing that both men took off in two different directions. You felt one run in the direction where you came from, and one run where you were initially going before you were stopped. When you look in front of you, you see the first man who was the start of all your problems, frozen in place with pure shock, eyes wide and jaw slack. You notice he’s falling forward, and with adrenaline rushing through you, you yelp and dodge him as he falls face first onto the ground just at your feet. 

There’s an ax in his back. 

You look up quickly at that, shock and surprise leaving you bewildered as you recognize your savior standing before you, donning the familiar black and white.

Art?! October was over--Why was he still here? Did he come back?

That bliss is short-lived when you see he’s holding a gun pointed in your direction, until you realize it’s not at you, but over your shoulder. Art’s expression is stone cold. There’s no smile. Whenever Art wasn’t smiling, you knew that it was bad news for whoever was on the receiving end. Fortunately, it appears as if you're not on that end.

You quickly move out of the way, looking off to where he’s aiming. One of the men who ran the direction you were headed to go home hasn’t gotten very far, and you’re bracing yourself for the loud noise, covering your ears with your hands. 

The blast from the gun is loud, and you still flinch when he fires it. You didn’t get to see the exact moment because of that, but you see blood spurting from the back of the fleeing man's skull seconds before he crumples dead to the ground. Art was great with his aim when he really put focus into it. You glance back at the clown, seeing him slowly lower the gun down to his side, staring off straight ahead at the limp body with no emotion. 

“Art!” You exclaim, dropping your plastic bag and running right for him. Contrary to how that might be wise or sensible considering he was holding a gun and is an unpredictable murderer, it was an absolute relief to see him. He catches your intentions immediately and opens his arms slightly for you to bring it in. He's not smiling but you catch a glimpse of his teeth as they were often exposed, grinning or not. Your arms wrap around him tightly, and he’s able to effectively stand his ground without the weight of your form making him stumble back. He’s as sturdy as a pillar, and you feel his arms around you. His gun points downward at the ground from behind you. Your backpack is largely in the way, but his free hand rubs at the back of your neck in an oddly reassuring way that tickles you. You’re jittery, and you sway a bit in his arms as you both stand there in silence for those few seconds. You finally nuzzle yourself against his chest, and inhale. 

Your nose wrinkles, and you pull back just enough to look up at him while still holding on. Is that sulfur you’re smelling? 

“Ugh. Art, you smell terrible. Where have you been? Did you just come out of a volcano?” 

He looks upwards at nothing in particular, purposefully looking rather thoughtful to indicate that he was thinking. He squints after a few seconds, then is reanimated again, giving a gentle sway of his head, followed by a shrug of his shoulders.  He’s essentially telling you, ‘yeah, something like that’.  You’re not going to ask about it further. The smell is god awful, but at least he’s here. You’re willing to put up with it. 

“Well… Thanks for saving me. I missed you.” You tell him, but he’s not responding to your words. Instead, he’s looking at you and inspecting you, turning your head this way and that. Normally the man was all smiles and grins, but when he was angry, he was angry. He’d flip back soon, he always did. 

“I’m fine, I–”

Art interrupts you with a finger in your face, telling you to stop for a second as he licks his thumb and proceeds to wipe your cheek, rather aggressively to the point where it feels like he’s trying to actually move the skin off your face. You must have gotten something on you somehow, but you don’t know when. Maybe there was some food on your face from earlier. He’s looking comedically focused.

“Yes, thank you,” You tell him. 

Once he sees that you’re okay and your cheek is now clean, he gives you a gentle pat on the side of your face. You watch him through tired eyes.

“I‘m really glad to see you.” 

He looks flattered, putting his hand to his chest as if to give a coy ‘me?’ gesture, brows raised and teeth showing in a smile, and you purse your lips, then show a smile of your own, giving a nod. You’re willing to forgo the fact that he smells like he literally just came from the pits of a fiery hell, and lean against him for another short while for comfort.  And he lets you. 

As you both stood there in the stillness of the night, it didn’t take long for it to be interrupted by the sounds of groaning beneath you. Both you and Art look down, and see the man who had the ax sticking out of his back rouse, glancing up at the both of you. You stare down at the man as the stranger’s eyes meet yours, meanwhile Art only looks down at him in mild disgust, brows furrowed, lips pulled back and teeth showing, holding a silent snarl. 

“You mean to tell me…” He says, a resigned and weak laugh coming from his lips. You’re almost getting the vibe that he knows that he’s not getting out of this alive, compared to the other two that took the flight response. “That you two fucking freaks are together?” 

The Miles County Clown’s reputation has only been growing over the years, much to Art’s delight. There were very few who didn’t know about him. He had a reputation to maintain, after all. So well known, yet damn near impossible to catch. He was a blight, sent from whatever depths he came from to torture mankind. 

Makes you wonder what that said about you, given that he’s tolerated you and hasn’t murdered you yet. 

“I should have guessed. You look like you came from the fucking circus. Your wannabe poser buddy over there can’t even kill people right like the real Miles County Clown.” 

The audacity that this man and his two friends had to try and harm you, and then for him act like you’re the problem and insult your physical appearance on top of it. Now that the shock has had time to settle in and your emotions have rearranged themselves proper, you feel anger. Rage. A fury beyond what words could ever hope to paint. Your veins feel like they’re on fire, blood boiling hot. You let go of Art, who is watching you with fascination and delight as you make your way over to the stranger with clenched fists. Art’s smile is wide, and he looks about as devilish as ever. 

You are experiencing righteous fury. 

“You don’t get to say that to me when you’re on your deathbed, and my friend here is very much the real thing.” You tell him coldly, kneeling down to his level. You press your tongue against  the inside of your cheek, assessing the man. The ax in his back was pretty deep, no doubt paralyzing him from damage to the spinal cord. Art made it a point to immobilize him so he couldn’t harm you further, you realize. “I think he was just saving you for later.” You look over your shoulder at your clown companion, who has his head held high, teeth still bared, but a sense of … joy? In how you’re standing up for yourself, and him. 

“I want him quiet,” You tell Art. “Permanently.”

The man’s expression falters. You stand back up, and Art has his gun held out for you to take. He points towards the familiar black trash bag a few feet away from where you both are.

“You want me to pick the weapon?”  He gives you the most enthusiastic nod, silently cackling as he does so, gently giving you a push in the proper direction. You go willingly, peeking over your shoulder to see Art kicking this man in the gut a few times. The man is wailing with each hit. 

The man who got shot in the back of the head had it easy. 

Making your way over to the bag, you open it up, seeing an arrangement of items. Plenty of tiny handheld improvised weapons that you’ve seen him show you before. Nails, a hammer, some standard tools that you’d find in a doctors office and others that belonged more in a construction site. After maybe half a minute of careful inspection, it’s the boxcutter knife that catches your eye. 

Examining Art's gun, you carefully put the safety on and unload the magazine, place it in the bag, then finally toss the gun inside next. Once you have that settled, you reach for your torture accessory of choice.

With weapon in hand you walk back over to Art, who was still rather ardently tormenting this man, giving the most gleefully silent laughter you’ve seen from him in a while. You clear your throat and he takes a second to stop what he’s doing, hand extended out for whatever weapon you’ve decided to give him. He’s still looking down at the wheezing assailant-turned-victim, but turns his head when you place the box cutter knife into his open palm. Your fingertips brush against his during the exchange, and your eyes meet his. 

Whatever you’re feeling, it’s a lot like a high. 

“Will you come visit me tonight?” You ask him, a hopeful look in your eyes. He gives a lopsided smile and a shrug. There’s a glint in his eye, and you understand that he’s not done. There’s still the one who got away. 

“Well, I have leftovers if you drop by. It’s ramen, but I think you’d like it. It’s wiggly like worms.” Your lips turn upwards into a fond smile. The man had the oddest affinity for insects and other invertebrates. He’s eaten a few before, too. You were trying to have him try other things than people and sweets, but you weren’t going to knock him too hard for eating invertebrates. It was protein. A win is a win.

He looks as if he’s about to react to your kind offer, but the sound of the man beneath his feet groaning disrupts your conversation. Art punishes him with another swift kick, this time in his chest. The ax has been removed and tossed to the side, presumably done when you had your back turned. You suspect Art removed it to expose the wound wider and possibly to dig further into with his bare hands or that box cutter knife. However, all of that is speculation based on what you know in regards to how he murders people. You can only guess. 

“Please! Have mercy! I-I-I was just kidding earlier!” The assailant cries out. Art is gleefully showing the blade to him, fervently nodding his head, as if to say that ‘yes, this blade is going to be going in you, multiple times!’. The man’s pleas mean nothing to Art. This man is a pathetic waste of flesh, muscle, and bone, and Art knows he’s going to delight in cutting him open like a package and slicing through the skin like it’s box tape.

You swallow and look over at Art, then the pleading man. Before Art gets too into carving this man up into a masterpiece, you put your hand gently on his shoulder as he’s leaning down, preparing to cut him. The clown’s arm is raised, but he keeps it there when he feels your touch, and he turns his head to you. 

“I’m heading home,” You tell him. “Stay safe, please.” You reach for your broken phone nearby, knowing you’ll have to replace it later. You’ll be more upset about your phone once all of what’s happened tonight has time to process.

He gives you a thumbs up with his other hand and then gives a friendly goodbye wave, and you return it, before turning your back to him. You refuse to look, because hearing the sounds of flesh being sliced repeatedly and the blood curdling screams is enough for you. You grab your plastic bag full of leftovers, and begin walking away. 

It was only a matter of time that you’d start to hear police sirens, and you don’t want to be there for when that will happen. If someone hadn’t already called the cops, you’re sure they would eventually. The cries for help are loud, but the gunshot was louder. 

You start to run, taking off as fast as you can for home until your lungs burn and you’re wheezing. You make it home safe and sound, and for a second you debate on locking the door, wondering if you should leave it unlocked for Art. Deciding to be safe and not to press your luck, you do lock it. If Art really wanted in, he’d find a way in your apartment.  You never did get to ask him if he was always around all times of the year, or if this was just a one time thing and he sensed you were in trouble. You place your food on the counter, and prepare yourself for a long shower with full intentions of afterwards turning on the news, maybe to see the fate of not only the two men who bothered you, but the third one who got away. 

And maybe, you tell yourself, just maybe when you get out of the bathroom you’d find a clown sitting on your couch in front of the television, stained in blood and gore with a trash bag by his side, sloppily eating leftover noodles.