#the morbs as a plot point

[bones-of-sleep]

Umbrella

Rating: T

POV: 1st Person (I found 2nd person to be too clunky for me to write)

Notes: Vessel doesn't speak in my universe, he communicates telepathically. Any full sentences in italics are him speaking, if it's not clear in the story! He can block off this telepathy for private conversations, but in this instance, he doesn't think it's necessary. The other vessels are far enough away, as far as he knows.

Tags in the tags below!

Summary: Vessel is a difficult man to track down when the clouds over his head get too heavy. Lucky for him, his four partners are more than willing to keep searching until they find him and shelter him from his own rain.

"Where's Vess?"

The question was one I had asked every vessel I'd come across in the many shifting halls of the ruined fort. III had no idea, though he didn't seem particularly concerned. He was perfectly content to continue watering the many plants that snaked their vines across the stone walls of the hallway. IV wasn't sure either. Unsurprising, given that his attentions were squarely on decorating a new mask for himself. Sequins were… a bold choice. But if anyone could pull it off, it was him. Probably.

That left II.

I found him where I hoped to find Vessel. He sat in the library with a book in hand, but I knew well enough by now that he had the book more as an excuse than something to actively pass the time. The sunbeam he sat in was more than enough to bring him contentment and peace.

My intrusion into his sunbathing time was regarded with a fond sort of huffiness, followed by him laying down on his back so he could look at me and still be within his beloved beam. "He's come down with a case of the morbs, I'm afraid."

"The… morbs?" I repeated, brows furrowed in confusion. Never in my life had I heard of an illness called 'The Morbs'. Was it… vessel-specific?

"You know, the morbs. The morbids?"

Oh. Perhaps not vessel-specific, but it certainly seemed to affect Vessel himself more than the others. My confusion was quickly washed away by concern that tugged the corners of my lips down. "Ah… well, do you know where he goes, when he gets like this? I haven't seen him in here for a while."

II merely shrugged. "If he isn't in his room, and he's not in the Ritual Space, then I would guess he's out for a walk."

"Then that's where I'm going too."

The Garden was stunning in times where no monsters prowled in its shadows. Golden hour sunrays cast long shadows in the forest that seemed eternally autumn. The lake glittered and sparkled, its gentle waves laughing as they tripped over themselves and broke their fall on the smooth rocks of the shore.

It was there, sat cross-legged on a boulder, that I found him.

Vessel's back was turned to me. His black robe was splayed out around him like a security blanket, and his shoulders drooped. My heart drooped with them. It wasn't often the First of Sleep's Chosen seemed so… small.

"Vess?" I asked softly as I approached. His bowed head lifted, back straightening in an instant, as if he hadn't been the image of sorrow just a second before. "I've been looking for you… are you okay?"

He gave me no answer as I clambered over the rocks to get to him, but he did scoot over a little when I finally got to the one he sat on. I readily took the invitation and plopped down beside him. Close enough that if he wanted comfort, I could give it. Far enough away that space was required, he had it.

Together, we watched the water for a while.

Vessel's face may have been hidden beneath a mask, but that didn't mean he was altogether impossible to read. The longer we sat in silence, the more he allowed his sorrow to creep back into his bones. His head bowed again. His charcoal hands sat limp in his lap, save for the twitches that came involuntarily. A sigh whispered past his lips, followed by an unmistakeable voice that cut through the baseline noise in my mind.

You were looking for me.

Not a question, but a statement.

"I was." I murmured as I glanced at him. His attention was on me now, crimson lines and sculpted alabaster doing well their job of concealing his expression. "You just… seemed off. I can leave if you don't want me here, but I didn't want to just leave you alone if you're hurting."

His answer this time was to reach over and take my hand in his. I laced our fingers together with a gentle squeeze, in the hopes of providing some form of comfort.

Stay… please.

"I'm not going anywhere, Vess."

Silence washed over us like the water lapping at the bottom of the boulder we sat on.

My mind drifted on the cool lake breeze and touched down on every little memory that brought me here. He was quiet in the morning. Not quite his usual quiet, either. Normally there was an attentiveness about him as he listened to all the chatter around the breakfast table. Today, he merely pushed the food on his plate around for a little while before offering it to whoever would eat it and left.

He'd been a hard man to track down for the rest of the day. I caught glimpses of him wandering the hallways before they shifted into different rooms completely. A charcoal hand trailed the top of a ruined wall on the outside, but the next step I took was into the kitchen, in the theoretical middle of the castle. A few hours later I found my way to the Ritual Space, the golden, beating heart of the whole structure, but the door was closed. This castle had admittedly few hard rules. But not entering the Space when it was closed was perhaps the most important.

Finally, Vessel let my hand go to scoot closer and lean against me. His head found it's resting spot on the top of mine, no doubt heavy from all the thoughts swirling around in it.

You were… sweet to seek me out, you know.

"I just didn't want you to be alone while upset, big guy. You don't have to run and hide. Okay? I don't bite."

The others have told me the same.

"Maybe someday you'll believe us!" Came a familiar voice from behind us.

We both turned to see II, III and IV strolling across the grass towards us. I felt Vessel stiffen briefly, as the urge to look like he was really okay grappled with the knowledge that the lie was caught before it was told.

He admitted defeat in a sigh and let himself relax back to his previous position. The other vessels were quick to find their spots around us. III stood behind the boulder, arms wrapped around Vessel's waist, while IV cuddled up to his other side. II perched on the edge of the boulder beside me and gave me a wink before addressing Vessel.

"I see our bloodhound found you."

A weak chuckle rippled through my mind like a stone dropped in a pond. Bloodhound, hm?

"Indeed. None of us could get to you, so when a certain someone came around asking for you, we figured it would be best to give some alone time before we all came charging out."

"Buuut," III started. "As much fun as cat and mouse is, it would be a hell of a lot easier if you came to us!"

"Or stayed in one spot so we can find you." IV said. "We will always be willing to come find you."

I and the others noticed immediately when Vessel's breathing became uneven. He gasped for air, for anything to stave off the incoming flood, but it was of no use. We surrounded Vessel in as many embraces as we could. We held his pieces while he fell apart, safe with the ones he loved.

The sun had already begun to dip beneath the distant horizon by the time Vessel's sobbing quieted to sniffles and hiccups. His breath slowed from quick gasps to deep sighs as he surfaced from the sorrow he was drowning in. II, who had found his way to Vessel's lap, wiped the last of the tears from his chin with a caress from the back of his hand.

"Better, love?"

Vessel merely nodded in response, no small feat considering the fact that his head could barely move. III, IV, and myself had him quite thoroughly swaddled in our collective embrace.

"Good. Let's get inside, then."

The untangling process was… er, interesting. IV may or may not have gone for an impromptu swim, followed by III who apparently thought it just looked fun. One shared look, and before Vessel could react, he was swiped from his spot on the boulder and tossed into the water with them.

II simply rolled his eyes and sat on the boulder beside me, content to watch III and IV get chased for their sheer audacity. Even though Vessel's stride was shaky, even though the wound in him hadn't fully closed, it was impossible for him to keep the smile out of his mental chastisement.

"…The morbs, huh?" I asked II after a little while of watching the aquatic full-contact tag game playing out before us.

II hummed thoughtfully, his gaze soft as he looked upon the sundown scene. "The clouds over his head will pass. I just hope he will come to learn that he doesn't have to sit in the rain all alone."

I watched Vessel jump onto IV's back, only to be thrown off by a tackle from III. The splash kicked up by their roughhousing sent water droplets high into the air, high enough that the setting sun could dot a few with tiny rainbows. The sight brought a fond smile to my face.

"Y'know… I think he's well on his way."

[fisheito]

THE YAKUEI FANGAME

for those who don't know: there is a yakuei fangame!! for free!!! IN ENGLISH?!?!? that i am about to ramble about!! It's got great art, ForReal writing, and as much humour/😨 as NuCa itself 😊😊 also, (almost) everyone has animal traits. YE,A BOYE!!!!

The estimated playtime is 1.5hrs, but I spent 4 hrs trying to complete everything without a guide;;;;;;

Expectation: i bet it's a short visual novel! a oneshot but in game form? if the creator REALLY went hard with the gameplay, maybe they'd throw in a few choices? to unlock diff dialogue branches? an hour of content at most, probably. maybe fluff about yakuei living their everyday lives and being cute/silly together 😊

Reality: everyone in the clan is here. they are in character. their lives are all intertwined and there IS a plot. there are puzzles. multiple endings. multiple CGs. you will need to think. OOPS! EMOTIONS!! GET WRECKED!!! eiden is, as usual, in a neverending Situation and you WILL feel the effects. this is a full-ass game with mistakes lurking around every corner HOW LONG DID THIS TAKE TO MAKE??!?!?! i.e.,

Keep Reading only if you are ok with SPOILERS.

Before we even reach the title screen, content warnings pop up for: sexual implications, cannibalism, drug abuse and my immediate response is HAHAHAHA! Of course!! can't have a yakumo game without cannibalism or vore in it, amirite??? aaaaaaahhhh cLASSIC yakumo 😙😆 <- i'm having a giggle but not really thinking about it. oh, but i'll be thinking about it in approximately 3 hours. fool.

Come to think of it, I don't think this game has a Log function. If someone finds it, please share the magic keys 😥 i wish i could have read past text... i've accidentally skipped a lot of stuff... oh well. let this be a warning to my future self: USE ALL YOUR SAVE SLOTS! FREQUENTLY! EVERYWHERE!

HALF SNAKE YAKUMO! HALF SNAKE YAKUMO!! HALF SNAKE YAKUMO!!!!!!!!!! *slams my fists on the table*

having yakumo worming/trailing behind eiden is so cute i'm just gonna walk around in circles on the screen while his tail wiggles

this demon king shows up and i immediately wonder if it's the other Eiden. he has the same goofy dramatic energy. please don't kill Other You, eiden... make love, not war.......

edmond as a horse yokai is PERFECT 😭

the way i YELLED when i saw edmond appear!!!!!!!!! i thought this game was just gonna be yakuei. to have MORE characters included?!?!? AMAZING! MORE THAN I COULD ASK FOR!

i really truly wish to disturb the worker in the fields, . please. please let me disturb them

the FEAR i felt when the bartender said his cookie had alcohol in it=--!! I WAS RIGHT THERE WITH EIDEN, SLAPPING THE COOKIE OUT OF YAKUMO'S HAND. NONE FOR YOU. FORBIDDEN

eiden being respectful and constantly saying "I'm not that nosy" in other peoples' houses?? WELL I *AM*!! LET ME INNNNNNNNNNNNN

"It's empty, like my soul." 🤝 we too

looks like i managed to screenshot morb and aster ? i was probably so enamoured with morvay's roundness that i simply had to take a picture. HURRAY FOR FAMILIARS!!!! THEY'RE HERE!!!!!!! and they're bickering, like usual. these sprites are adorable. i stare at morb a while longer.

aster is EVERYONE's landlord. so powerful and cute at the same time. terrifying. i legit laughed tho because really, the writer has SYNCED UP with the nuca wavelength. plot holes? no such thing. everything is explained, but with reasons across the entire spectrum from Logical to Ridiculous 😆

BLADE AS A FLUFFY SOFT PUFFBALL 😭 AND HOW HE DOESN'T UNDERSTAND DANTE'S TSUN-NESS . THEYRE SILLY TOGETHTTEHR!!!! blade dressing up as fluffy sphere is so precious… like how he would wear pajamas even though he doesn't need to sleep!!! he wants to look cute and dress up like his friends!! and have fun sleepovers together!!!!!!!!!

In retrospect, this was where i went wrong. At this point, i had ALREADY COMMITTED A GRIEVOUS ERROR. This early in the game, and i'm locked out of the true(?) ending!! WOOPS;;; I thought the game would be straightforward? HAH! Not to a tomfool such as myself!! This was the beginning of Me Making Every Possible Wrong Decision , thus extending my playtime to a time faaar longer than expected 😅. I am not a Gamer. Nor am i genre-savvy. my poor decisions have doomed me to wander through the assets for eternity, trying convoluted tactics that have no effect on the story, while not noticing the IMPORTANT stuff.

What did I do? I chose to accompany morv through the forest. "i don't want morv to be in danger! At least if eiden and yakumo are with him, there'll be less chance of him getting morvnapped!" WRONG! Morvay is perfectly capable of scouting by himself. i should have believed in him more. i shouldn't have tried to smother him with my love. this incubus is older than me, and i should have respected my elder's independence 😣😩

I do not wander deeper into the forest as a result. Straight to rei's we go. Mr. Science Bird sends me out on plant-picking duty, and I think I'm soooOOoo clever by gathering more plants+flowers than I need.

Rei says he only needs 3 of each, BUT THERE ARE MORE THAN 3 HERBS/FLOWERS IN EACH FIELD. Thus, I shall pick MORE than the minimum amount! Maybe it'll be like the Rainy Day event, where the virtualias will be the key to escaping the yokai realm...?? where every person who needs to escape , needs to have their own flower?? so if i gather up enough to save at LEAST yakumo and eiden, and maybe some others who might be trapped.......

WHY IS THERE ONE VIRTUALIA THAT I CAN'T REACH? ?!!?💢💢 (inhales deeply) it's fine. i'm sure the creators wouldn't have designed that so it would be a game breaker. besides, it's not ethical harvesting to take EVERY flower at once. i need to leave some behind so they can regenerate at a healthy rate. don't be greedy!! don't clear-cut the forests for their strange herbs/virtualia resources!!!!! (i later went back to both fields and clear-cut the forest floor of all their strange herbs/virtualia, since i was paranoid and thought i would need a pair of plants for every clan member in the game. i don't know why i thought that. i didn't even know what the plan was afterward. the numbers don't even work out!!!! i just collected EEVERYTHING I COULD REACH . IN CASE OF EMERGENCY. UNPREDICTABLE PLANT EMERGENCY)

got to pet the dog . Top tier game A+++++

I hand over the plants. Rei shoos me out. I panicked when we first finished chatting with rei because SUDDENLY, THERE WAS NO WIGGLY SERPENT BEHIND ME AND I WAS LIKE YAKUMO? YAKUMO WHERE DID YOU GO? YOU DIDN'T WANDER TOO FAR OFF, DID YOU? IF I GO INTO THE FOREST ON MY OWN, WILL EIDEN DIE? IS THIS WHERE IT ALL ENDS? YAKUMOOOOOOOOO WHERE ARE YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU oh./ oh, there you are. HI!!!!!!! phew [yakumo and eiden have a cute lil moment by the campfire and i am relaxed, content, just chillin.]

(once again, in retrospect, i should not have been so attached to yakumo. it's good to spend time apart....)

I can't access the forest paths that I missed earlier, so I go ahead with the plot and tell Rei that the food is ready.

At the demon king's castle, i have a grand time investigating all the assets: - Discount statues - that suspicious bookcase (EVERY bookcase in this game became suspicious after I read that restaurant menu. I kept thinking kuya was going to pop out of one. That, or I had to collect 9 bookmarks from 9 separate bookshelves in order to gain the 9 Leaves of Respect kuya holds for eiden, which would somehow ensure a successful escape). - stained glass windows just like in the Nu World event - ominous clock ticking at me - that massive door that WON'T BUDGE? err.... well maybe it'll unlock after I explore the rest of the castle!

I find it a bit strange that the game would include so many clan members, but not quincy or kuya. maybe... they were too powerful to be dragged into a world like this? or they're super elusive and aren't meant to "show up" as obviously as the others??? <- delusional thinking. quincy and kuya ARE supposed to show up. skill issue.😑

So I explore the RIGHT side of the castle. um. and finally the doubts about yakumo are starting to solidify.

Audience: You're kind of slow, aren't you, Fish?

WELL!! i know that the disclaimer at the beginning said that "following yakumo's advice" would not necessarily get you the ending you desire, ., , , , so i knew that yakumo would have his own goals in mind....... but.................idk, i didn't have a reason to go against his decisions so far in the game?? he and eiden haven't been faced with a huge divisive decision so far, right???

Audience: what about "make sure to stay close to me, Mr Eiden"?

yeah.. when he said that, my instinct was to immediately split off from him in the castle but i... never got the option... 😞

anyway. i'm wandering thru the flesh maze in which i check EVERY dead end. i try to INTERACT with every dead end. idk if there are multiple rooms hiding in here. i gotta be thorough (.there were not multiple rooms in there. flesh-scouring chump.)

Only when I'm standing in the yaku-room replica do i give a SEVERE side-eye to yakumo He won't let me check the thing next to the anemones HOW DARE HE STOP ME FROM LOOKING AT SOMETHING. WHAT AR EYOU HIDING. LET ME BE NOSY. I'LL INVESTIGATE WHATEVER I WANT

what are the red anemones for, yakumo. what are they for? WHAT SECRETS ARE YOU HIDING FROM US?!?!?! HIDING THE TRUTH DOESN'T PROTECT US YOU KNOW, TELL US THE TRUUUUUUUUUUTH

After eiden TRIES😒 to investigate everything and i have a giggle at yakumo weakly yet firmly stopping eiden from talking about their roleplay mirror escapade (yakumo. it's just you and eiden in the room.are you only stopping him from speaking because you'll die of embarrassment? come on 🤣), i leave the room... i investigate the out of place knight statue in the main hall... it tells me about the hidden mirror! and i

ENDING 2/3: WHAT THE FUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJ I THOUGHT WE WERE JUST HAVING A FLUFFY GOOD TIME DOING FAVOURS FOR FRIENDS AND ADMIRING EVERYONE'S ANIMAL EARS YAKUMO WHAT DID YOU DO WHERE IS EIDEN ARE WE EIDEN? IS EIDNN REAL??????????? YAKUMO SPEAK TO ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAA

NOW BEGINS THE TIME OF RELOADING SAVES. REPEATEDLY. AND STARTING ENTIRELY NEW GAMES BECAUSE MY SAVES WERE NOT VERY ORGANISED OR PLACED AT KEY JUNCTURES.

I START COMBING THROUGH *EVERYTHING*. VISITING THE SAME BUILDINGS AFTER EVERY PLOT POINT. TALKING THROUGH THE SAME DIALOGUES AGAIN AND AGAIN. I WILL FIGURE THIS OUT.

Going through the game more carefully makes me realise how many things i missed. This... this is no joke. This game has LAYERS and GrassTheOriginator was noT PLAYING AROUND WHEN IT CAME TO THE DETAILS

FIRST OF ALL!! I CAN'T BELIEVE I MISSED LUNCH!!!! HOW COULD I HAVE MISSED LUNCH WITH YAKUMO'S BELOVED GRANDPARENTS?!?! i was positively negligent. how could i have not checked in with granma and granpa at every step of the way to make sure that they knew where we were and that they were both healthy and thriving. i cannot believe i only checked the house ONCE in my 1st playthrough. i missed out on eiden bullying yakumo + yakumo getting flustered + grandma's "youth are so lively♥ haha". HOW DARE I!!!!!

When I GET TO EXPLORE the forest paths i missed last time, Discovering the bed in the woods had me go🌲🌲 AHA!!!!!! YES! i knew something was missing from my first playthru!! i did NOT MEET EVERYONE and we all know eiden's not completely happy until we're with EVERYONE IN THE CLAN

mr quinquin hasn't made his appearance. that elusive beast. i must lure him out. for completion's, sake. for EITO'S TRUEST HAPPINESS!!!!!!!!! *RANSACKS GRANDPARENTS' HOUSE FOR SNACKS*

because i saw that ONE little tree glitter with animal essence, i started suspecting EVERY tree that looked like it

I save scummed for a while to see if approaching the ✨tree at different points would bring out kuya or something. or maybe even the tanuki. something that will help me get the good ending?

(it was probably the tapir. i forgot that the game page on itchio mentioned fanciful capriccio until i got to the true end.. so... Past Me thought kuya was jumping from tree to tree to make me chase him around)

i ended up inspecting EVERY LITTLE TREE I COULD TOUCH

yep, definitely a tree.

GET OUT HERE YOU DAMNED FOX YOU'RE THE ONLY ONE I HAVENT MET YET!!! GET YOUR UGLY FACE IN HERE!!! OLD MAN!!! BESTOW UPON ME YOUR REALITY-SHATTERING WISDOM, RIGHT NOW!!!!

Quincy SAID you were lingering around. SHOW YOURSELF!!!!

I WANT TO KNOW WHAT THAT GRAVESTONE IS. IN REI'S YARD…. REI, PLEASE…… THERE ARE TOO MANY SECRETS. IS IT MOM? IS IT THE REAL REI? IS IT SOME RANDOM CORPSE YOU STOLE FOR EXPERIMENTS? PLEASE!! I'M LOST IN THE WEB OF LIES

i love how every time i check rei's shelf, i see a new drug. Bone fixing juice (not a drink)? Pure liquid caffeine (maybe garu got into that…)? fox repellant??? 🤣🤣🤣 only the necessities!!

* crawling out of the dirt, bruised and bleeding, after trying slight differences here and there . to try and figure out the true ending for myself* WAIT… I HAVE ONE LAST THING I MUST TRY… THE HERBS… GIVE REI THE WEIRD LITTLE GIFTS!! THEY'RE LUCKY GIFTS, RIGHT? IT'S NOT BAD TO USE GIFTS LIKE THIS, RIGHT..?!??!?!

YEAAAASSSSSSS!!!!!! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS YTEAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NEW PATH! NEW THING! I BROKE THROUGH! THAT'S THE LAST CLAN MEMBER YEAH! YEAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!I MIGHT BE ABLE TO MAKE IT THIS TIME!!!!!!! YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU STUPID OLD FOX!! YOU'RE INFURIATING IN EVERY UNIVERSE!!! IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND (or maybe i'm just bad at this game. maybe everyone else playing this diidn't spend hours Doing EVERYTHING wrong, before FINALLY doing the ONE correct thing 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣) the whole "seeing kuya's expression all blurry" is such a cool image tho i'm like, of course yakumo is fighting it but kuya is stubborn and will still knock at the glass between his purple self and dream-eiden heheheehheeh ominous purple peepaw is here to insult everyone in a plot-expository manner. finally.

Just taking a moment to appreciate yokai birdy rei putting yakumo through the lab assistant wringer. :) destroy him, sweetie.

.approaching yakumo at the campfire afterward. WAIT NO I COULDNT RESIST AND I MADE ANOTHER BAD DECISION BECAUSE OF THE COMPLETIONIST'S URGE

"don't tell hiim", i told myself. if you tell him, that alerts him to kuya's presence, and your new knowledge,, and he's going to DOUBLE DOWN on keeping you captive and i've only gotten 1 ending despite all my random tinkering so I BET YOU THAT THIS IS WHERE THE LAST TWO ENDINGS SPLIT

Brain: DUDE DO NOT TELL HIM Me: But yakumo keeps saying "Please feel free to tell me if anything is bothering you, Mr Eiden." So why wouldn't Mr Eiden tell him about what is bothering him? :< Brain: YOU'RE GONNA BE SO PISSED OFF Me: [tells yakumo anyway] …….timeskip…………. -> yakumo going "i didn't want to do this to you" Me: SAVE FILE????NOW???????!😨 -> ENDING!!! GET EATEN, IDIOT

Me: 😶 Brain: what did i tell you. i told you not to tell him. AND LOOK WHERE THAT GOT YOU. YOU FOUND OUT WHWERE THE CANNIBALISM CONTENT WARNING CAME FROM, BECAUSE YOU CANNOT RESIST MAKING STUPID DECISIONS Me: but but but isn't it good to keep the line of communication open? how is it a healthy relationship if eiden keeps secrets from yakumo? wouldn't it be more progressive to tell him the truth of seeing kuya, so he can have time to contemplate his actions-- Brain: YOU IDIOT!! YAKUMO IS NOT IN HIS SANE MIND NOW. OPEN COMMUNICATION IS NOT THE SITUATIONALLY APPROPRIATE MOVE. HE'S BEEN KEEPING THIS WHOLE WORLD'S TRUTH A SECRET FROM YOU,, RIGHT??? SO YOU CAN KEEP A SECRET. SHUT UR M OUTH. Reload your save and pick the right answer for once in your life, PLEASE Me: 😔 ….. ………… ok but what if i DON'T reload from the decision of whether or not to share kuya's presence with yakumo……. AND I JUST RUN FROM HIM *NOW*? THERE HAS TO BE A REASON THERE'S A SAVE POINT THERE, RIGHT? if escape was impossible, they wouldn't give you a checkpoint like that, RIGHT??

Audience: you.. you didn't think about running at ALL? Me: Nope Audience: what, so you just let him get you? Me: Yep. Just stood there. I figured my decisions already sealed my fate. The cutscene was just playing out. Audience: After a save point. Me: Yes, after a save point. Audience: Have you... ever played games like this before? the little adventure rpgs with pixel art? Me: No, but i've seen people play things like Ib and Ao Oni Audience: you need to run- Me: right... you DID need to run in those games Audience: after strategic save points. because there's a chance you might want to RETRY that sequence Me: OH..... Audience: ,if you didn't just. stand perfectly still Me: ... i may have zero survival instincts. please be patient. 😂

Brain: OMFG WHY MUST YOU INSIST ON-- Me: I SWEAR I SWEAR!!!!! I JUST WANNA SEE WHAT HAPPENS. IT PROBABLY WONT CHANGE ANYTHING MAYBE. AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH RUN TO THE YAKUROOM WE HAVE THE PATH MEMORISED SINCE WE'VE GONE THROUGH IT SO MANY TIMESSSSSSSSSSSSSS

actually. this chase reminds me of something. you remember back on DIK Island and eiden is chasing dante on the beach and if you're foolishly optimistic enough, you can pretend they're surrounded by shoujo bubbles and flowers while they giggle and prance along the shore but reality hits and it's full of claws yeah. Eiden dreaming of a flowery situation while ACTUALLY dealing with something ... a little less peaceful. there's no end to eiden's troubles, huh.

ok. back to it. let's see what's in the yakuroom... ]reads the new description for the anemones[

[hisses in a breath] yikes….///////////.😬 not the "anticipation" yakumo lied about…. uhm, uh,..... maybe i accidentally made it onto the true ending path. maybe it WASn"T about lying to yakumo at the campfire Brain: I am so fed up with you Me: 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔 WAIT!!! NOW I'M IN THE ROOM ALONE!! TIME TO READ HIS DIARY AND GO THROUGH ALL THE STUFF HE DIDN'T WANT ME TO CHECK YEAAAAAAAAAAA Brain: all this hiding stuff ,,, feels like... being held captive in an unhealthy relationship, bro Me: you're a bit behind the plotline dude we just narrowly avoided getting devoured like pull-apart bread Brain: fair enough. carry on.

oh…. yakumo…………. baby………………………..😫😢😭😭😭…………………… eiden was so right… indulgence is NOT necessarily the best step… urrgh,, eiden you are so cool and emotionally smart and skilled and i'm so glad you can navigate these messy social waters better than i ever could..!! especially when so much is at stake 😨

wait. why is there a flesh maze in the first place? Audience: it's yakumo's braaaaaaaaain and what are the weird holes?? Audience: yakumo's brain on DRUGS!!!!! we're running around in yakumo's brain on drugs, full of dead ends. Got it!

then we're talking to yakumo in the shifting void: my expression the entire time is EYES BulGING. FACE FROZEN. MOUTH IS :| I AM SO STRESSED

gets reset

SUNUVA ABITCHUOIGFHFHFHFFIEOFDSRDFKOWAPESOI I ANSWERED WRONG, DIDN'T I I DIDN'T MATCH THE RIGHT NAME TO THE RIGHT ACTIVITY i"M GONA FEAUISRHGOIEFRIEOSGPAWEFISPIPDKAESEPFESFAFPGO 8CRAKCS OPEN YAKUMO'S DIARY we're MEMORISING THIS WE ARE EMBEDDING IT INTO OUR LONG TERM MEMORY. LET'S GO COME ON! WE WILL DO THSI!!!!!!!!!!!

Brain: Wait. How did you answer the clan member section wrong Me: um. i. well, i just based it off memory. i didn't think the number of blank spaces meant anything….. Brain: dude. the number of blank spaces SPELL OUT THE NAME OF THE CORRECT PERSON, SO MAYBE THEY MATTER. Me: oh. uhhhh. ahahahaha. well. it's 2AM. we've been at this for a while. i don't think i'm picking up on obvious clues anymore. um...not that i was picking up on them earlier either….. Brain: facepalm faceslap deskpalmdeskface sigH

oh. OH!! ok, so!! trying it again!! eiden moves closer with every right answer, right?! yeah! so! we might be able to reach yakumo if we-- AH SHITE HE DIDN'T MOVE FORWARD FOR THAT ONE

gets reset

OH COME ON!!!!!! YAKUMO!!!!!!! YOUR LOVE IS WAY TOO INTENSE YOU'RE KILLING ME HERE I'M GETTING DELIRIOUS FROM EXHAUSTION I CAN'T KEEP DOING THIS <- will continue doing this until I GET THE ULTIMATE HAPPY ENDING FOR THESE TWO. DON'T CARE IF MY EYES DRY OUT. WE HAVE TO DO THIS TONIGHT

reloads last save YAKUMOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! [YELLING INTO THE VOID]]] YAKUMOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! PSPSPSPSPSPSSPSPSPSPSSS COME HERE SAD SNAKEY THIRD TIME'S THE CHARM! I"LL GET YOU THIS TIME, YOU ACCURSED OVERBEARING SNAKE

i wonder what happened when eiden locked himself in yakumo's room. did that door slamming in yakumo's face wake him up a little? did yakumo regain a bit of sense, like, "OH NO MR EIDEN DOESN'T WANT TO SEE ME... I'VE SCREWED UP..." because i feel like if he really wanted to, he could... idk, phase thru the door or just break it down or something but he didnt

so, does that mean he still respects eiden's agency in that sense? did he immediately deflate when he lost direct sight of eiden? ? ? like one of those predators in a trance where if you remove the target from their sight they just kinda... flop like fhlkjlbbvvvbvrnrmbrbr.

did yakumo immediately start crying and sulking and wallowing like "ohhhhh i'm so horrible how could i have thought of hurting mr eiden i can't believe i was about to vore him i'm so hopeless and terrible and i've screwed it all up and --- etc.etc."

and curled up into a ball and that's where we find him in the void later? he slinks off to some one dead end of the flesh maze and stews in his silent sadness until eiden emerges from the room and finds him...🤔? and tries to talk to him..? oh please oh please let eiden reach yakumo this time ----

Yakumo: Mr. Eiden--

[I IMMEDIATLEY START SCREAMING IN MANIC EXCITEMENT] YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA BEAT THE LOOP, BAYBEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HE WOKE UPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA bashing my head repeatedly on my desk at6 the pretty picture AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA :'3 and now i'm smiling… oh…. my heart… they're going to be ok…. yakumo is going to heal…. …… WAIT DID I EVER GET AN OFFICIAL ENDING #3? IS THERE STILL ANOTEHR ENDING?! I HAVE TO GO BACK IN

Brain: you NEED TO GO TO SLEEP

Me: I DON'T NEED SLEEP I NEED YAKUEI ANSWERS goes into an old save ok. what if THIS TIME i DON'T tell yakumo about kuya? ….. ………. OH THE HALLWAY WON'T EVEN LET ME IN. OK 😫 ALRIGHT SO THAT'S NOT AN ENDING BRANCH. but. BUT! THAT MEANS I WAS RIGHT ! Mr Eiden SHOULD feel free to tell yakumo what's bothering him! HAHAHAAH!!!! ONE CORRECT DECISION MADE !!! SUCCESS!!!!! Brain: you could have reloaded a save file where you did something ELSE wrong, you know. it's not like you're actually keeping track of which-- Me: YYou know what. i'm satisfied. i got the good ending after evENTUALLY figuring things out! i played the game!! i did it !!! i can finally check the guide and see what i actually missed. aahhh. what a feeling of accomplishment. my eyes are indeed dry and burning. I REGRET NOTHING!!! I have felt many emotions tonight and i will not forget this Experience…

reads the guide omg i gotta go back in the game and find the extra content THIS IS TOO GOOD TO PASS UP

The first time i tried pulling rei out, i felt so bad that i never tried again because why would i want to hurt rei?? the game dialogue actually changed to include his broken bones, so that means i did substantial damage. rei is delicate!! he doesn't like pain! i will treat him gently!!!!!

If you DON'T treat him gently... Does dream rei get so fed up with Eiden's actions that he slams a book on yakumo's head and ends it all? he's like: no more. no more of this stupid dream pain. you have both found the end of my patience. [BOSS BATTLE CHIME, GAME OVER]

But the guide tells me something happens if i try 5 times. so. [does it]

i was laughuing so hard at the "well, now he's got more broken bones" BUT THEN HE ACTUALLY DIED I OH MY GOD REI I AM SO SO RYRRE SORYRR AHHHH NO I MEAN well, i . what did i think trying to . . . how many bones did i break. what a way to go. under a bookcase because a couple idiots were incapable of learning from their actions (me. I'm the couple idiots). oh… REI I'M LAUGHING BUT CRYING HOW DID THEY THINK OF THIS ENDING. WHOHOW>>??? IT'S . SO RANDOM. BUT SO HILARIOUS BUT ALSO I'M SO MAD AT MYSELF I FOOLED MYSELF INTO THINKING THAT REI WOULD BE FINE AFTER ALL THAT PHYSICAL DAMAGE WHY WOULD I EVEN BELIEVE---😂 I'M CRUSHED (not as crushed as rei AHAHAH OHHHHHH oh now i've made myself sad again)

----------------------------------------------------------- ok. time for the last thing i didn't do?

when the game first told us NOT TO WANDER, lest the knights deem us a threat, i was INTENT on wandering "after i meet aster, i'm gonna wander as much as i like!!! they can't stop me!!!! THE LAW CAN'T KEEP ME DOWN! I'm a REBEL"

i was not a rebel. i thought that daring to interact with the knight's tents AT ALL would count as "wandering". so after leaving aster's tent, i investigated all the other tents, expecting to get in trouble for interacting with the king's stuff. But punishment never came? so i thought i was getting away with something >:3 Haha!!! I wandered successfully! No. i just followed instructions without realising. I needed to NOT visit aster first. that's ACTUAL wandering. let's try that. 😑

HOLD ON I THOUGHT the King would ARREST US for trespassing and , maybe we get executed..? BUT I DIDN'T EXPECT DANTE AND BLADE AND FORCE US INTO TRAINING GIVE US A GUN AND SHOVE US INTO THE CASTLE ON A SPEEDRUN 😂😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣

OMG THE AFTER SCENE DID. DID THEY MAKE ASSETS FOR THE BROKEN STUFF TOO OR--- DID IT ALREADY EXIST---- WELL WHATEVER IT'S STILL FUNNY AS HEUEIFJISJIAOIKPAL oh… OH THIS was tHE LAST ENDING uhhhhhHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I MEAN I GUESS YAKUEI ARE HAPPY IN THIS ONE, TOO but… wow… gee…….. i'm….. i need to do some thinking about all this… and the ramifications…. and… yeah……….. totters off in a daze

[papermonkeyism]

I think I'm finally starting to recover, after a few years of artistic dry season.

The plague was a big hit, then losing my job and finally my social life collapsing once my IRL DnD group basically disbanded pretty much destroyed what creative juiced I had always lived on up to that point, and it's been HARD to just not having any desire to be creative or do anything.

But now that I have a job again, and have had it for long enough my bank account is stable, and having been adopted into a new DnD group that's active both in-game (weekly game sessions!) and outside of it (we actually talk and communicate generally as well! It's mostly online, but it's still more than I've had in years), I have started to feel more like myself again. That, and the brain meds. I can't overstate how big it is that my default doesn't have to be brain fog anymore.

Like, I'm doing evening doodles again? I'm actually having fun thinking up creatures and characters and plots again? I stopped carrying my sketchbook and pencil case with me everywhere I went during my dry stint of nothing, but now I actually feel like I'm missing it when I don't have it on me at times, like during coffee shop visits.

And I kinda... want to MAKE a thing again.

(Just thinking out loud again, pay no mind.)

I miss having a Project.

Jumping back into making fully plotted out comic feels a bit too much at this stage, though, so I probably won't dedicate myself wholely to something of that scale.

I don't know what exactly will be the final shape of Arcanth's eventual thing, but I'm currently enjoying myself in the fiddly worldbuilding stage. (And just so you know, in the slight off chance that I might maybe pick Wurr back up again some day, I probably won't tell you about it. After all this time and all the messages I've gotten, I don't trust you guys with that one anymore. Even if I would eventually get back to posting it online, it won't happen untill I have a full year's worth of buffer and that would still be a loooooooong way from now even IF I got back to it full time, and I still have that day job besides anyway.)

But what if...

I think an art book or a zine or something might be more achievable at this point.

I feel like the dinosaur project thingy needs some more fiddling with its eventual format (I know I already have enough concept doodles to fill a zine on its own, but I crave an excuse to go ham with watercolors and make full illustrations), but it's one option I still want to make eventually.

And I kinda want to do a slight redesign for the Singing People. (I bought a skull replica a while ago that had narrower snout than how I had drawn them. And I know it doesn't matter that much, and I can always invoke artistic licence and "they aren't necessarily supposed to be any specific real life dinosaur species, it could always go with the 'undiscovered' route if I feel like it and the Troodon/Stenonychosaurus material is super fragmentary anyway", but I'm pretty sure it would bother me anyway if I didn't at least try it out and see how it looked.)

Though I think I got an idea about what to do with Entica!

Those of you who've been here a while know that one started out as my pandemic project. The world had just shut down along with my job warehouse, things were still new and uncertain, and I suddenly had so much free time and not much to sink my creative juices into, and I wanted something low pressure to do.

So I dug up an old setting from my teenage years two decades ago, gave it a facelift, threw out my teenage baggage and just ran wild. No planning, no plot, just art.

The "no planning" part did get back to bite me when the morbs eventually hit and I finally ran out of the creative juices, but that's still a lot of very good material, right there, ready to use.

But I just thought of a new framing device that would work with the already existing material AND give the character more of a goal and agency to make plotting more fun! And I think I like it.

Instead of a random scribe with no background from a place I didn't bother designing who just wants to see the world, Didor now works for a library that has sent her on a mission [to document something and/or take a message to *place*]. She still wants to see the world, but now she has a background, goal and a motive to do so!

And instead of just hanging around at Maaro's cart while Maaro does her own unrelated thing, Maaro is actively helping in her goal! While also doing her job.

I feel that having Didor be on a field work mission would give it more structure while not having to technically retcon anything already existing, and gives more solid excuse to do things than "random encounter number 82" would. Also potential reasons for further adventures ("While you're already out there, could you maybe also do X on the way?")

Also I want to insert nawani in it earlier. I didn't even have them as part of the setting untill psrt way through, and I want to show them off more.

Maybe a travel journal, perhaps?

[duskkodesh]

What six specific comics that fall under the Marvel Horror banner would be on your favorites list?.

SPECIFIC comics? Oh I must list!!! LISTS! Sorry, the brain divergence adores lists! though... you know all my picks will involve Morb. Because I'm me. Sooooo...

#6 - Marvel Premiere #28. first appearance of the 'Legion of Monsters' but really it's just a feature comic where they threw together four fantastic horror characters to run a plot about aliens, loss, and fleeting hope. It's campy as heck, and very 70's but very good. #5 - Adventures Into Fear #27. This was the start of a second arc after the absolute craziness of the Caretakers and Martine and... cults. look it was unhinged. This is also the first encounter with Stroud, some great cliche' panels, and good camp. #4 - Vampire Tales #1. This is just an absolute crazy launch into Marvel's black and white magazine world. It is every bit a product of its time in the best way. #3 - Marvel Preview #8. Blade. Blade Vs. Morbius. At one point he tries to pin Morbius on a rooftop by making him look at a cross. Look, if that has not won you over I have no idea what to say. #2 - Giant Sized Werewolf by Night #4. A tragic story that really examines Morb's priorities. It features Martine in a main way that even gives her some agency in the plot. #1 -

...look if you know me or have heard me rant you know my absolute favorite comic in existence, in perpetuity, is absolutely Vampire Tales #10.

This is a story in three parts that spans the issue. The art is beautiful. The story is succinct and could exist all it's own divorced of any other media. It is amazing. It is everything to me. I would marry this comic and argue with it over what to have for dinner each night until my death. I would kiss its forehead and tuck it in. Please, please read it. They reprinted it and all the Vampire Tales in paperback (though the art definitely loses some tones and some text is lost on a few splash pages.)

[fiymywings]

i wont drag this out too long i prommy but i just wanna get some of my ymkr thoughts out

the one thing im most sad about ymkr eos'ing is, karma and alma genuinely were one of the better (i wont say one of the best since "best" in context to a very personal disorder that changes person to person is very very subjective) DID reps, esp in mobage

karma isnt this murderous evil dude and he doesnt attack people at random or for fun or anything, hes cold sure but its very clear in story he holds resentment towards the world and himself for being the "evil" that he feels alma cant bare to hold himself and talks a lot about just wanting to disappear once his job is over which i think is smth that resonates with quite a few alters that hold onto the trauma of the system and protect the host both in one

alma isnt scared or afraid of karma either, both because of his own personality and emma's own word that karma isnt a bad guy

i also really liked that switch triggers didnt feel too janky, though it did lead to me also getting jumpscared With emma when karma did show up but i much prefer that over a 10 second thing where someone yells "HES MORBING!!!" or overemphasis on the switch, sometimes switches do feel overdramatic but a lot of the times it just kinda happens

and to reiterate on my point from "karma isnt murderous", while he does attack people in some of the stories, a lot of it is justified in that alma is about to get seriously injured and hes often trying to de-escalate with no results. this is Wildly Different from media where say the alter is killing people to relieve stress (COUGH.) or just attacks people for being mildly annoying (COUGH .) protective alters, surprisingly, tend to be much more harsher or strict on perceived threats than random people! thats their whole job!

i know from experience some people tend to be iffy on the whole two alter only system format but i really truly dont think the alter count really matters, CPTSD does tend to cause more issues with your identity in context to dissassociation but if someone only developed one extra person in their noggin despite everything then more power to them, im Still splitting even in my mid 20's because of horrific depressive episodes alongside me recovering from some other trauma i experienced

this doesnt necessarily make the 2 alter thing Unrealistic, but its a testament to how strong they are at heart and moreover how strong their traumaholder is for having kept themselves together and helping the system move together as only two. obviously some people will also only have some issue with the same trauma while others will develop really bad issues (i.e. alma developing a system from his families death while hollow seemingly only developed OCD tendencies as a trauma response)

i think the difference of circumstance kinda matters here because almas case was a genuine arson due to slander while hollows case was a genuine accident that he holds guilt over unknowingly feeling like if he'd just taken the machines apart the fire wouldnt have happened (speculation! i dont know if he ever actually came to this conclusion yet but ... well :,) )

ANYWAY . going forward due to my lack of knowledge on the main story i hesitate to say i'll continue to write alma and karma's/hollow's story in plot to ymkr, but i cant really bare to leave them behind either, so ill probably just keep writing them with my oc/sona (oc for hollow, sona for alma/karma) and continue developing them within what i can !!! i'll love them forever and no service end will ever change that for me \o/

again, i'll be trying to archive their things, but i will have to do so cautiously because my phone storage isnt infinite...

i don't know, i think i just need some time T_T;; this isnt the only thing i'm kinda grieving the loss of in the span of a few weeks, though as silly as it is considering the game isnt living breathing, because its so personal to me im actually feeling a bit pained about it + the back to back losses is kinda taking a toll on me so i'll just be logging in and doing what i can... ill start archiving in october since i have quite a bit of time to grind and get the last meister pieces to fully max out the recent hollow

[metalsonicreblog]

* Spoilers for Bendy and the Dark Revival

I did not have high hopes I'm terms of story, and sadly I was right. BATDR is one of the most 'okay' games ever, especially its ending. Very overwhelming.

So apperantly everyone in the studio is just, not real I guess? Henry is just a thing Joey made to torture. I don't know why this was the direction they took. Kind of thought there was importance of them setting up how a soul works, and how that a toon needed one to be perfect. But I guess Ink Demon can just, do that now?

Which I really did not get. I predicted it. I predicted a lot of these plot points, but. How is Ink Demon able to switch between Bendy and Ink Demon. Is Ink Demon aware of this- is Bendy aware? Is it just that Bendy is just a little guy and than suddenly morbs into Ink Demon. Like a werewolf or something. Never really explained!! At all!! Like a lot of things!!

There was like, only two letters from workers from the studio from BATIM. I kind of felt a whole lot of, no character anything? Like the only characters who are developed are Audrey and Joey. What is Allison even doing. Why was her reason she can't let Audrey come is Tom. When later you can pet Tom.

Did I mention that this game ends like how Mario Odyssey's ending is. If you know you know.

I kind of thought we'd get more of the cult, but Sammy shows up for 0.03 milliseconds before dying. Henry has a model now which is cool I guess.

The game play is also a whole lot of nothing. There is like no enemies ever besides some lost ones. Didn't think we'd actually only see the butcher gang only once. And only seeing our first searcher way into the game. I understand not wanting to overwhelm the player. With how many enemies there can be sometimes in batim. But pretty sure everytime lost ones appear they just almost immediately are too much. I understand no boring puzzles or what not. But during this nothingness I wish we had character moments. Because there is almost no character.

I like the implication that projectionist dies every single time loop. Lmao

I felt like the plot was kind of picking up during Susie's section. But then I realized the games almost over and it has to end somehow. And it just resumed to being a whole lot of nothing happening.

[mostlygibberish]

"It's Morbin' time."

I liked the part when he Morbed on those guys.

No, really, I actually watched Morbius. I figured there's no point seeing 365 movies in a year if I'm not going to include the single greatest accomplishment of film-making released in it. It wasn't the most offensively bad thing I've ever seen, like some would have you believe, but it was certainly a shitty movie.

The plot made very little sense, none of the characters had comprehensible motivation for their actions, and things just sort of happened like they had a script framework they had to fill out, because they probably did. The tone shift between any two scenes was completely unpredictable, and it was never clear why anybody was reacting the way they were to the insane shit taking place. 

Multiple people watched somebody Morbing out (literally transforming into a Nosferatu looking monster) and just took it ridiculously casually. When he jumped like 25 storeys up a stairwell, the cops said "Hold your fire!", like they were dealing with a regular fleeing guy and not a magic vampire. The best part is that approximately ten seconds later the main cop was somehow up there on the roof confronting him.

Jared Leto seemed incapable of emoting even before he became a CGI monster, and I found him as annoying as always. Matt Smith, despite already looking vampiric to begin with, was horribly cast as the villain who entirely lacked motive. Turns out his stupid dance scene is just as funny in the movie as it was context-free on youtube, because it actually has no context. It just hard cuts from a serious laboratory scene to him dancing and Morbing out, to remind you he exists.

Adria Arjona was pretty good, but her character was presented as a love interest without bothering to include any actual relationship development. I hope appearing in this didn't hurt her career too badly, though it looks like she might be signed up for a sequel if and when one eventuates.

There were these two cops that kept showing up, but ultimately they contributed absolutely nothing to the movie. I think they may have been intended as audience surrogates or comedic relief, but whatever the plan was it didn't work.

All the fights were dull and entirely rendered in terrible CGI. You couldn't really follow what was happening spatially because of the way everything was just muddled blobs smacking against each other in dim lighting. It all looked shocking dated.

Morbius had the power of flight because he had bat DNA and bats can fly. Obviously that's the thing that lets the bats fly, right? Their genes and ability to... see wind currents? The wings are really just for show, everyone knows that.

Even the end credits were a confusing mess; Neon vector graphics bombarded the screen like we just watched some retro 80's callback, accompanied by music that made me think I was in a day spa awaiting a relaxing mud bath.

The most egregious sin of Morbius is that it had not one but TWO sequel hooks, assuredly planting the seed for the living vampire's triumphant return to the silver screen, and a cinematic universe capable of effortlessly overthrowing Marvel and DC.

A literally perfect piece of pure kino that everybody should immediately watch. Also an entertainingly shitty movie.

[fuckmaster-unlimited]

My name is Walter Hartwell White. I live at 308 Negra Arroyo Lane, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87104. This is my confession. If you're watching this tape, I'm probably dead– murdered by my brother-in-law, Hank Schrader. Hank has been building a meth empire for over a year now, and using me as his chemist. Shortly after my 50th birthday, he asked that I use my chemistry knowledge to cook methamphetamine, which he would then sell using connections that he made through his career with the DEA. I was… astounded. I… I always thought Hank was a very moral man, and I was particularly vulnerable at the time – something he knew and took advantage of. I was reeling from a cancer diagnosis that was poised to bankrupt my family. Hank took me in on a ride-along and showed me just how much money even a small meth operation could make. And I was weak. I didn't want my family to go into financial ruin, so I agreed. Hank had a partner, a businessman named Gustavo Fring. Hank sold me into servitude to this man. And when I tried to quit, Fring threatened my family. I didn't know where to turn. Eventually, Hank and Fring had a falling-out. Things escalated. Fring was able to arrange – uh, I guess… I guess you call it a "hit" – on Hank, and failed, but Hank was seriously injured. And I wound up paying his medical bills, which amounted to a little over $177,000. Upon recovery, Hank was bent on revenge. Working with a man named Hector Salamanca, he plotted to kill Fring. The bomb that he used was built by me, and he gave me no option in it. I have often contemplated suicide, but I'm a coward. I wanted to go to the police, but I was frightened. Hank had risen to become the head of the Albuquerque DEA. To keep me in line, he took my children. For three months, he kept them. My wife had no idea of my criminal activities, and was horrified to learn what I had done. I was in hell. I hated myself for what I had brought upon my family. Recently, I tried once again to quit, and in response, he gave me this. [Walt points to the bruise on his face left by Hank in "Blood Money."] I can't take this anymore. I live in fear every day that Hank will kill me, or worse, hurt my family. All I could think to do was to make this video and hope that the world will finally see this man for what he really is.

thank you for not morbing me i’m sure it took restraint

[melodiouswhite]

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde rewritten - Ch. 60

60. Happy birthday to a mad scientist

.

This time Utterson was the one to organise everything.

After all, today was a special day: 27th May, Jekyll's birthday.

Technically it was Hyde's too, but he had been created at night, so his celebration would wait – he had wanted it so.

Thus, the daytime belonged to Utterson and Jekyll.

“Happy birthday, Henry!”, the lawyer greeted him, “You're past the age of fifty now! How does it feel?”

The blond glowered at him: “You're older than I, you know the answer!”

“Point taken”, Utterson laughed.

Jekyll chuckled, when the lawyer presented him with tickets to an opera that would be performed today.

“That's so you, Gabriel. But I love going to the theatre or the opera with you.”

Utterson laughed: “Yes, because you love me. Now do come. It will start in two hours, we must not be late. You're going to like it, it's a comedy.”

Jekyll blinked: “This early in the day?”

“This early in the day. After that, we will go to my place, I'm cooking for you. I will not take no for an answer.”

The Doctor giggled: “As if I could possibly refuse that offer!”

.

Utterson was right; the opera was comedic gold.

Not just once Jekyll laughed along with the audience at the witty dialogues and the music was so cheerful and upbeat, that it raised his spirits even higher than they already were.

In his joy, he took the high risk of taking Utterson's hand.

The lawyer blushed a little, but didn't pull away.

Fortunately Jekyll remembered that they were basically in public, before anyone could see it and retracted his hand. At the reminder that his love for the other was illegal, he got the morbs.

“What's the matter?”, Utterson asked worriedly, when he noticed.

Jekyll sighed: “I wish we didn't have to be a secret.”

Utterson frowned a little. “Yes, me too. But let us not dwell on that now. Carpe diem, my friend.”

“Yes, you're right.”

.

After the opera visit, they decided to take a walk in the nearby park to enjoy this beautiful spring day, before they would go to Utterson's.

“It's very warm today, isn't it, my friend?”, Jekyll noted.

“Perfect May weather”, Utterson agreed.

The two conversed like ordinary friends, as they walked.

“Spring is my favourite season!”, the Doctor proclaimed, “When the fresh green leaves and all the flowers come out of hiding and the birds sing – even here in London!”

Utterson chuckled: “Truly, though I will always be partial towards autumn, when the leaves unfold all their colour, before they wither and are carried away by the wind – it's just so poetic to me!”

Jekyll grinned. “Shall I wax poetics about the seasons right here in the park, my friend?”

Utterson glared. “Don't you dare, Prof. Dr. Henry Jekyll!”

“Alright, alright! I'm sorry!”, the blond laughed.

.

They continued their walk and then went to Utterson's humble abode.

“I haven't been here in a while”, Jekyll remarked, as he entered. “Is it just me or is it looking even cosier than last time? Did you finally hire a housekeeper?”

The lawyer laughed: “I did. Or to be more specific, Lady Summers told me that her niece – the daughter of her hair stylist – had just learned how to keep house, so I let her work for me and Lady Summers pays.”

Jekyll grinned. Clever Lady.

“Speaking of Lady Summers”, he said, “Isn't she in Cornwall to check on her estate and visit her in-laws?”

Utterson nodded. “Yes, I got a telegram today. She's enjoying her holiday and wishes you a happy birthday.”

Jekyll couldn't help but smile.

“Her birthday's on 15th October, right?”

“It is”, Utterson confirmed. “She's less than five months younger than you, just a kind reminder. Now, Henry, why don't you sit down, while I cook us a good meal? Miss Mariner isn't the best cook, so I do it by myself. You can look through my books meanwhile.”

The Doctor took a seat and relaxed, as the lawyer scurried through the kitchen.

Instead of taking a book to entertain himself in the meantime, he listened to Utterson's voice, as the black-haired man was singing something in Italian, while he cooked.

Jekyll didn't listen to the words, he was too captivated by the other's singing.

I still think he should have become an opera singer instead of a lawyer, he thought.

Of course, Utterson was a good lawyer and just as suited for that work, but still … it was such a shame.

It wasn't long, before the most delicious and tantalising smell waved over from the kitchen, making Jekyll's mouth water.

It was middle afternoon, when Utterson came to serve the food.

“Buon appetito”, the lawyer wished him and the two wasted no time in digging into the food.

“Mmhh! Oh, it's scrumptious!”, Jekyll cried enthusiastically, “Really, Gabriel, your cooking is to die for!”

Utterson chortled: “Well, it wouldn't be very beneficial to die for it, would it?”

.

After their meal, the two just sat on the couch, cuddling.

“This is perfect”, Jekyll whispered.

Utterson hummed in agreement.

Edward should be here though, he thought, Then it would be absolutely perfect.

“I love you so”, the blond sighed happily.

Utterson sighed as well, but bitterly, because he still couldn't say it back.

Jekyll noticed and took the other's hand. “I know, Gabriel”, he soothed the older. “Don't beat yourself up over it. Edward will never be able to say it either.”

“I'll be able to say it one day”, Utterson promised, “I know I will! Just wait for me a little longer.”

Jekyll laughed: “Please, Gabriel. Why should I not be able to hold out just a bit longer, when I have loved you for so many years, while thinking you would never love me back? I don't mind waiting for a bit longer, now that I know that you love me – and in a way, Edward too. Right, you do?”

“Point taken”, Utterson chuckled and kissed the other. “And yes, there is no denying that I've grown very attached to him. Though I wouldn't say that I'm in love with him just yet.”

“I know”, the Doctor replied, “Knowing you, my dear, you would tell him so, once you're sure that you do.”

“Certainly would”, the lawyer laughed. “Do you think he loves me?”

Jekyll smirked: “Oh, absolutely! Don't tell him I told you this, but …” he woered his voice to whisper conspiratorily, “… He is heads over heels into you! Completely smitten! He's just unaware of it – or in denial.”

The two giggled like a chatty old couple plotting mischief.

“Don't worry, I won't say anything”, Utterson snickered. “I don't want to put him off now, do I?”

.

After escorting the birthday boy home in the early evening, the black-haired lawyer said goodbye.

“Thank you for the best birthday I had in decades”, Jekyll whispered, looked around to see if someone was looking and then clasped the other's hand.

“Anything for you, Harry”, Utterson smiled. “Goodbye, my mad scientist.”

Jekyll laughed: “Goodbye, my musically gifted lawyer! And enjoy your night with Hyde – I'm certain, he will be delighted to take you to some romantic location again.”

Utterson smiled lopsidedly. “Oh, I already have my plans for the other birthday boy too. Don't worry about it. “Good rest evening. Now, where is our little troublemaker?”

“I'm heeeere~”, a guttural voice responded from the background and Hyde emerged.

“Hi, Gabe”, the brunet purred.

“Hello, Edward”, Utterson chuckled. “Ready for your own birthday celebration?”

“Is Lady Summers the most stalwart person in London?”, Hyde retorted, “I was created ready!”

The two older men chuckled.

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again

writing this one the day of which is a little terrifying. laid low by seasonal allergies yet again

listening the band Jungle’s song Pray, the last one off their 2018 album For Ever. i listen to vanishingly few albums all the way through and this is one that’s very nice to have on while i do boring busywork. this song feels like walking into a sunken garden. i started to try to tell the story of a particular garden that i love but it’s hard to convey that sensory memory and the knowledge (as you are experiencing something!) that you’re going to look back on it and wish you’d retained more. spooky/beautiful/melancholy

reading when i haven’t been reading any published books i want to talk about i look at what i’ve recently clicked on at wlw American news & culture site Autostraddle. i have mixed feelings about them but am hopeful that their new road map will make the site less rich-white-married-cis-astrology-cat-lesbian focused. i will continue to whitelist them in my adblocker and buy their very cute merch when i can bc i feel that a wide variety of queer news sites is important even if i personally find the depth to which astrology is baked into other articles not specifically about astrology fucking insufferable. something something lasting change and representation is a battle of inches and not black-and-white morality.

ANYWAY.

they put out a good roundup about queer labor activism (mostly US-centric, bc it’s an american holiday) for labor day.

playing bioshock is not a good game for my particular brain at this particular time, so i’m back in new vegas poking around freeside to verify some shit. current mod loadout thoughts: i cannot get the seamless freeside mod to work which is somewhat disappointing, bc while having it divvied up into a bunch of little chunks you have to pass through on the way to the strip proper is cool from a worldbuilding standpoint, it would also be cool to not have to sit through a bunch of loading screens.

like the clint companion mod, lee’s barks are broken as fuck. he spits out a random line every two minutes or so, there are no specific combat or idle barks, personally i would have picked different lines but i refuse to make mods. the nine or whatever lessons in Death Rides a Horse are all delivered out of order which is extremely funny to me. this is a fairly decent likeness for the pretty awful fo3 & fnv character creator

watching a bunch of daniel craig’s bond movies this week and was going to talk a little bit about 1) my nostalgia for bond movies and 2) my theory that if a government agent plays a major role in a movie it’s copaganda but, predictably, i want to dunk on a cowboy movie instead. while trying to source the lines in the lee van cleef mod mentioned above, i found that almost none of them are from the dollars trilogy and are instead from Death Rides a Horse (which you can watch for free in 720p with subtitles here and marvel with me about how many plot points it shares with For A Few Dollars More). this explains why lee is wearing an absymal vest as the default armor, bc here is the vest in the film.

what the whole fuck. was lee allergic to stereotypical cowboy wear? what the fuck is going ON with this garment??? why the bias??? tape??? why those buckled fasteners??? WHATS THE FUCKIN DEAL WITH THIS VEST AND WHY IS IT LIKE THAT. the contrasting collar/cuffs/lapel trim on the coat proper are also kind of a lot but this ensemble is wretched, if all that contrast edging is leatherette i’m going to Riot. du pont’s corfam was undergoing heavy marketing around the time of filming, so it’s probably not the fun 1920s du pont leatherette, coated in nitrocellulose!

the movie was fine i’m just. really stuck on this vest. might as well turn the “watching” category into a “let’s talk about costumes” category at this point tbqh

making whenever i move somewhere new it’s weirdly hard to start new projects, which is not a problem i have in any other phase of my life. finished this adorable drippy “got the morbs” patch which is technically the first new thing i’ve made in this house that i’m happy with- pattern from @crapstitch​/on a scrap of white 14ct DMC aida/an entire skein of DMC #730. really got down the the bare end of the skein there, did not have enough to backstitch around the MORBS. may or may not actually stitch it down in this spot on my nerd jacket bc it does take up quite a lot of real estate (jacket previously featured on this blog)

[downtofragglerock]

As I've said previously, it is now my dream to make a low budget remake of morbius, but have the plot be completely different because I've never actually seen morbius and my only exposure is through one or two plot osmosises and memes. So here’s what I've come up with so far:

Includes time travel in the plot since I heard doctor who is in the actual movie but they’re copyrighted so just keep that plot point as a tribute

Morbius’ actual name is Dr. Acula, since “Michael morbius” is a copyrighted character

Similarly, morbius is now morebius to avoid copyright

In the future, morebius gets a robot sidekick who looks like a fusion of a duck, a paper mâché robot, and one of those grabber puppets who find at the zoo gift shop

Travel to future which just looks like the southern california wilderness, not the marvel greenscreen, explicitly comment on how this is better

Character named cowboy (they’re a girl) they enunciate kinda weirdly (sort of southern sounding)

Cowboy is a time traveller from the future, brings morebius to the future

Morebius is also the name of a race of science vampires from the future that morebius is now a part of thanks to gene stuff

Cowboy gives exposition on what happened in the future and the origin of the morebius people, splice in footage from fritz lang’s metropolis while doing so, alluding to: buildings, homoerotic track races, alien gardens where the lesbian hordes that secretly run the city live, robots, creepy gremlin man, and the satan machine

Gorillas are a proposed reason for why the future city crumbled, alongside legitimate social issues and upheaval, and the satan machine getting loose

Of course morebius has to say all of his iconic catchphrases, all of which are variations on the word morb

Eddy (spelled with a y because Eddie Brock is a copyrighted character) and venom (idk what to do to get past copyright on that) show up in the post credit scene, having a lover’s quarrel over Eddy (supposedly) forgetting their anniversary

[duskkodesh]

Dusk Reviews 5: Adventures Into Fear

Welcome back! We’re up to Morb’s next appearance which for our purposes is Adventure Into Fear #20. AIF was a series which started as just “Fear” and a way for them to sell some reprinted 50′s and 60′s pre-hero Marvel comics. Think Monster and Scifi stories written by Stan Lee. Stuff from comics like Tales of Suspense, Strange Tales, or Tales to Astonish. Now after issue nine the comic became titled as we know it now and feature stories with Man-Thing. Fun fact, issue nineteen features the first ever Howard the Duck who was supposed to be a bit of throwaway satire but proved popular. Speaking of popular look at the billing they gave our boy on this cover!

Morb was actually pretty damn popular after his debut, one of the major reasons they turned him from a pretty straight antagonist to a somewhat wobbly Greek tragedy. God, I have to apologize ahead of time because I will abuse that joke.

Our writer here is Mike Friedrich, art by Paul Gulacy. In the history of classic Morb Paul is... not my fave artist. You’ll see why. The comic opens as expected. Morb is hungry, he finds a woman headed home from a party. Nom nom nom, annnnnd then guilt. 

“If she lives”? Morb, you are a freaking doctor. Is the lady alive or not? I swear he shares one brain cell with the other Marvel villains and it is often not his turn to use it. So, he turns in for a nap to give us a conveniently placed flashback of his origin story and the two Marvel team-up issues. We even get to see his very anti-climactic escape from the X-men’s lair and a bit from Vampire Tales 1 which.... again I want to do ALL of Vampire Tales together so AIF first, VT later even though VT was published alongside AIF the stories kind of run separate. 

So, a reverend and a rabbi go into a lab that has a napping vampire in it. What? There’s no punchline, this is literally what happens in our story!

Don’t worry, it’ll only get weirder from here. Morb threatens them but the cool-headed rabbi calms him and talks. Seems he knows Michael’s name and rep being a man of science himself. The pair sets out studying and trying to help Morb but time drags on and Morb gets hungry. Morb attacks but Daemond  uses a spell to control Morb and stop him long enough to reveal he’s actually dabbling in darrrrk magic. Big surprise! 

He uses one of his spells to control Morb to eat the poor rabbi. RIP. Morb at least eating kosher. Okay, I’m at LEAST sorry for that joke! Morb, having eaten at least gains sentience but not control and laments killing such a kind man who tried to help him. Daemond has uses for our vampire tho and off he is sent on a mission to kill someone. This of course is giving him anxiety (More than usual) because he has no idea WHO he’s been sent to kill. We end with him finding his target... a kid? Awwww heck. Stay tuned!

Yep! We end on a cliffhanger! Gotta get you hooked! So, there’s a lot of retread and plot framing in this issue but it’s understandable, just doesn’t really go anywhere. The art is all over the place. Some panels look great! Some not so much, overall this one is a 6/10 from me but I gave a bonus point for sudden evil sorcerer Daemond whipping out his cult robes before he proudly announces he was evil the whole time. Snappy dresser, terrible haircut!

[izolyn]

Okay, so, things I know about Morbius:

-The movie begins with a scene where a chopper sets down in the middle of a mountain forest somewhere. At least one soldier and a guy who is Probably Morbius exit the chopper. (It is traditional to stop watching the movie upon seeing Probably Morbius.)

-At some point in the movie, Morbius says “It’s morbin’ time!” and morbs all over some guys. At some other point in the movie, he also uses a more serious catchphrase, “Alright, no more B.S.”

-At some point in the movie, presumably during a confrontation with Anti-Morb, Morbius summons his Morb-Orb, the deadliest red ball in the universe.

-Morbius is a doctor and a vampire. At some point in the comics he also becomes a zombie.

Based on this information, I have divined the exact plot of the movie:

The US Army brings Morbius to the site of some Ancient Artifact that has been sealed away. They want Morbius to unseal this artifact for them, which he can do because he is a doctor, which of course means that he knows Everything about All Science. Morbius successfully unseals the artifact, but realizes that it is too dangerous to be left in the Army’s hands. The Army attempts to take it by force; it at this point that Morbius says “It’s morbin’ time!” and morbs all over them.

Morbius leaves, taking the artifact with him for safekeeping. More Army guys arrive to investigate the scene; a General declares that they must recover the artifact from Morbius. This must be done in secret, because they cannot risk anybody else also trying to get their hands on the artifact, and also because as we all know from those shitty Army ads, the US Army “fights the battles nobody knows about”. In order to accomplish this, they decide to use traces from when Morbius morbed all over their guys to create their own secret weapon, an Anti-Morb.

While the Army sets to work engineering their Anti-Morb, Morbius returns to his hometown, a city in Pennsylvania called Borgo. Here he continues his work as a doctor by day and a vampire by night, defending the citizens of Borgo from various groups of Evil vampires. We also meet Morbius’ love interest, Jane Doe. The plot thickens when he starts hearing on the news about a series of attacks across the country that bear all the signature indicators of him morbin’ all over some guys except for the part where he wasn’t there and didn’t do it and also the victims may have been innocent people.

We cut back to the Army, who after a series of “tests” (read: setting him loose on innocent people) have decided that their Anti-Morb is complete. In a move that is incredibly surprising to the Army guys and incredibly unsurprising the everybody else, Anti-Morb promptly betrays them and morbs all over their guys (notably, he does not preface this by saying “It’s morbin’ time!”). Anti-Morb then sets out for Borgo, intent on destroying Morbius and claiming the power of the artifact for himself.

Anti-Morb attacks Morbius in Borgo, dominating the initial stages of the fight because it’s daytime and Morbius, as a vampire, cannot use his powers (a weakness Anti-Morb does not share, thanks to the Army’s engineering). Jane Doe intervenes in the fight, distracting Anti-Morb at a crucial moment but being severely injured in the process. In an incredibly heart-wrenching scene she professes her love for Morbius and begs him to feed on her to heal his own injuries; he is reluctant but eventually gives in when it becomes clear that Jane’s injuries would be fatal anyways.

Now enraged, Morbius breaks out his other catchphrase: “Alright, no more B.S.” He summons his Morb-Orb, which is revealed to have been the artifact from the start of the movie. With the power of the Morb-Orb, Morbius turns the tide against Anti-Morb and wins the day.

The post-credits scene has Venom come to Morbius’ clinic for help with the whole eating-people thing. The post-post-credits scene scene has Morbius discover a way to access alternate dimensions, including the various Spider-Man films, by manipulating the shape of the Morb-Orb. “What is this, some kind of a Morbius Strip?” he says.

[duskkodesh]

I’m gonna put this as spoiler free as I can, okay? The complaints are mostly based on the fact that Sony is toying and teasing people on the connection to the multiverse They put hints and things in the trailers that have then been nixed from the main movie. Anyone expecting to have ever seen a real spidey in this was misguided but things like Oscorp and Morb’s venom joke have supposedly been erased. 

Then there’s the matter of postcredit scenes in which they employ a certain villain we’ve seen in the trailers in a way that makes no sense given the facts of Spider-man NWH and his character development from earlier movies.  Now, if you discredit all of that early fan screenings have still been... not well received. Supposedly the plot is nonsense, the visuals are a mixed bag, and some of the actors were even confused about their lines and roles. If you enjoy trashfires you might have fun, but I don’t think this is going to be near as enjoyable as the Venom movies. This might go down as one of the worst comic movies.. comparable to the 2008 Incredible Hulk. But who knows. This is all conjecture at this point. Could be good camp, honestly camp would be right on brand for the character but I hope this helps clear up the raving fanboys anger for you.

But always get the extra-buttery popcorn. Popcorn is just a delivery system for the butter anyways.

I have a genuine question for people who have seen these leaks and shit about Morbius.

Is it really garbage or is it just a bunch of dudebros throwing a hissy fit over shit they didn't get. Like they did with Venom and Venom 2.

Cause I'll be honest, I love me a flaming trash movie as long as the visuals are breath taking. Also I don't actually care if there is no spiderman in Morbius.

I say this as someone who absolutely loves Jennifer's Body, TASM 1 and 2 (all 3 of which were wrongfully slandered to hell) and Halle Berry's Catwoman (so bad it's good and pure camp). Give me the so bad it's good movie cause I'll watch the shit out of it but I just need to know if it's as irredeemably bad as the angry men on yt are saying (I'll need extra buttery popcorn in that case).

[duskkodesh]

Dusk Reviews 6: Further Into Fear

Welcome back to the next chapter of Dusk Reviews. We’re onto Adventures Into Fear #21 and when we last left Morbius he was being controlled by the evil reverend Daemond and being sent on a mission of assassination against his will. On the last page we see he has found his target who just happens to be a small girl. Steve Gerber is our writer here and treat of treat Gil Kane is our artist!

So we start with a recap and then I know I’ve made posts about Morb and kids before (The only thing the movie did right was the way he was good with kids.) but here we get a great example of this as this issue starts with him having such a ‘fuck no’ response to his target that he just flat out breaks Daemond’s control!

Sadly he’s still a vampire and still doesn’t have enough self-control that in walking away he doubles back fully an addict who needs blood, even the blood of a kid. NOW remember how I said these comics get trippy? Well the kid laser blasts him and then summons her alternate form like it’s a damn Pokemon, a fully grown woman in ‘high lvl female armor’. We get a good fight scene where Morb finds time to lament but she slips up and he gets a bite in, causing her to fade and the kid to collapse.

The fangmarks are actually in the kid’s neck, implying the two are one and the same. So not knowing what to do He picks up the kid who’s name is Tara, and puts her in the car he found her in. This is like the only time I can think of in the comics were we actually see Morb drive. Thankfully he doesn’t have to go far. A robed guy levitating in the road stops him and points him down the side road to an old house where more weird guys in robes stand waiting and claiming they can help Tara. They take her and lead him inside. Splash pages!

So I swear I am NOT BSing this. A hundred centuries ago these idiots crash landed on earth and taught the early stages of humanity all they know. Now, these guys kinda got attached to our idiot race and have noticed a lack in production quality lately. Humanity is on a path to self destruction so they undertook a project to save us and decided this would best be done by cloning genetically perfect super humans... oh that sounds totally not suspect.

And apparently Daemond thinks so too because he’s allied against these dudes. Remember how Morb pretty much has a history of agreeing with ANYTHING so long as someone dangles Martine in front of him like a carrot?

Yeahhhhh... So off he goes with Daemond’s address to kill him. Daemond just happens to be doing some cult magic right now with a conveniently unID’d woman helping him. They summon a furry. I wish I was making that up.

Battle! A battle that Morb loses. I mean understandable as the catman is freaking huge! And to add insult to injury Daemond calls over his lovely assistant who is indeed, Martine! And cliffhanger ending!

God he gets called ugly a lot. Ouch. So this issue is just absolute lunacy and it’s going to get weirder from here but we have some awesome fights and some gorgeous art. Gil Kane excels at scifi craziness. 8/10 and worth reading through this entire plot. See you next time in the land of the furries! AKA I hope you like catboys!