#this is only a portion of the art I’ve made about this game

[mochiwei]

Happy 1 Year Anniversary, Tears of the Kingdom!!

[auckie]

I think the things that offend me most nowadays in like, smaller interpersonal interactions rather than grand, sweeping trends in culture, are when people chose to not partake in a wide set of things. Like musical close mindedness, or refusal to try different foods from different cultures. Not watching an entire subset of films bc they’re ‘french’. Avoiding reading bc you say you have adhd and it’s too hard. Like dude I get it, I’m busy. I can be picky. Everyone can. But the willful ignorance of closing yourself off to those VAST portions of the human experience, and not having curiosity and a lust to learn and explore art that was made by someone worlds apart from you either in terms of their culture, era, whatever. I dunno man it just pisses me off so bad. I think it’s arrogant. Like oh you’re comfortable in your safe little bubble huh? And you’re enforcing its barriers with the excuse that you’re autistic and have sensory issues. With music made by black people?? lol okay. It is pretty presumptuous for me to assume malicious intent but I think those prejudices are borne from either the comfort of being someone who’s wealthy and probably white not feeling the need to learn past what they think is enough, or it’s a reflection of a society that’s taught you to prioritize what it shills— popular, current (white, depending where you live ig) artists who are making streamlined, easy to digest content. Often when I meet people with these issues they’ll have one particular ‘niche’, and it tends to be like. 70s music. Victorian literature. Anime and Japanese games. But they’re still not really investing beyond the media presented. Like there’s so much more to Japanese culture than liking some cartoons put out between 2010-2020. You don’t gotta become some sorta Einstein who learns the background of every little freak in FGO yeah. But don’t you wanna aim higher? Aren’t you interested in any of the historical figures? And nothings wrong with hopping onto a trend. You read Dracula bc of that Dracula daily thing. Cool! Read more. Some people will say they’re chronically ill or disabled and can’t get outside. That’s okay. The internet is full of things you can read other than fanfiction, YouTube has a shit ton of free music. There’s Wikipedia and free articles online if you have questions about things. Yeah nobody is spending four hours a day looking at the national archives website and studying art history but it’s imbued in the things around you, and youll absorb it ambiently as you go along. you dont have to be a jack of all trades and cover every major genre of every major medium, but it never hurts to try! I really love seeing ppl ask too. Bc it can be kind of humiliating to admit to what seems like some jackass hipster that you’ve never delved into, idk, Serbian films (lol not that one). And hopefully if whoever you’re asking will give you honest good recommendations and not berate you. I’m kind of berate a straw man rn I guess. The hostile tone def doesn’t lend to an atmosphere of sharing but I cannot tell you how many times I’ve rbed anything involving specifically jazz only to see someone rb and add the stupidest comment on the post, or in the tags, or go into my inbox to be like waaah I don’t like jazz bc it’s boring and old and for pretentious hypocrites who hate neurodivergent people! Like what are you TALKING about. Fine if you don’t like it but don’t try and rationalize that as a moral standing you shit lark. And just as they’re allowed to dislike jazz I’m allowed to not really enjoy people who don’t like jazz. Or country. Nautical knots. Knit wear. Watching urbex YouTubers get their shit rocked by squatters. Korean food. Pachuco fashion and stupid ugly low riders. Bollywood films. and they don’t want to try any of those things either yknow? The next thing I’m getting into is circuit bending.

[saltymongoose]

hai salty ^-^!!!! i’ve been thinking about your mw2 hcs recently and decided to draw something for you :3 i did most of 141 + roach and könig, which got me thinking. some of the people who played mw2 did NOT play it for the plot. they played it for the men. what if the player was one of them? cause i’ll be the first to admit these men do not deserve to be as fine as they are. you don’t have to respond to my question if you don’t want to. more art is probably on the way. ty for being who you are <3!!!!!!!

Omg, I hadn't even considered factoring König and Roach into this, these are just fantastic. :D I really love how you characterized everyone in this, the jealousy that the boys show is almost palpable lmao. It seems the only one who isn't a new target of theirs is Roach, at least before he steals your attention from them too.

As for the men of MW2 themselves, yes, I completely agree; I'd say a good portion of us only gained interest in the game because of them. (I mean it's COD, it's not like the plot is very relevant most of the time anyway, right?)

Although, if the Player also had this same attitude, they'd probably be very flustered just by being around the 141 (+ König), which already kickstarts their other vessels' jealousy. It also doesn't help that the 141's group can fulfill the same "roles" that the grunts can; if you want a highly dangerous killer to protect you, Ghost can do it just as well as Hank. If you like funny guys, Soap has that covered, or if you prefer the more commanding, analytical leader types, Price fits into that niche, and so on. Just from their positions and reputations alone, they're threats to the grunts, but this is made a hundred times worse if you're actually attracted to them as well.

(You never seem to blush or swoon around the four mercs nearly as much. None of them were particularly jealous people, but that seemed to be thrown away the moment they saw just how close you were getting to these new vessels, and far, far too quickly than they ever anticipated.)

The four grunts already have huge issues with having each other to compete with, so having an additional group of individuals to deal with is just adding to that. The fact that you obviously like them so much is actually even more difficult for them to process because of the one thing the MW2 guys have an edge over them with: they're human. How can grunts, arguable beasts compared to your kind, compete with one of your species for your affection, let alone an entire task force of them?

[ghostradiodylan]

Brainrot about the tiny details with me, Hacketteers.

Things I’m currently puzzling over:

How many kids go to this camp?

There are 10 cabins and we only see inside one, with Abi, if she and Emma break in to get their bags. It looks like there are four double bunks in there so each cabin would only sleep eight, subtract one for the supervising counselor and you get up to 70 campers.

But they act like they can all leave in one school bus. The maximum capacity of a school bus is 72 but that’s three small children (2nd grade or younger) to a seat, and I don’t think the kids are THAT young, given Abi’s comment about them having filthy minds.

Also, even if Laura and Max made it to camp, there would still only be 9 counselors for 10 cabins. When I went to summer camp, we definitely had one counselor supervising overnight per cabin. Do we think one cabin wasn’t used? That would be seem wasteful given that the camp is hurting for money.

Maybe they gave Nurse Kelly a cabin—it would make sense for her to stay onsite in case she was needed in the night, especially since it seems to be in a pretty remote location.

Where do they all shower and go to the bathroom?

There are showers and bathrooms in the pool house, and one bathroom in the public portion of the lodge, plus the “rustic” outhouses Emma shows us on the Island (no way those empty into the lake, btw. They almost certainly have like a septic tank type thing buried under them). That doesn’t seem like enough for that many people! My summer camp growing up had a whole building for bathrooms and showers but that is conspicuously absent unless it’s somehow in the same building as the Camp Store, which seems inconvenient.

Where is the Art Cabin?

Abi says the art cabin is out of the way when Nick talks about the kids paying attention to her painting lessons, but there are no cabins away from the main ones on the map, that I’ve noticed. Is one of the sleeping cabins actually used for art? Why doesn’t she just use the classroom in the lodge that we see strewn with craft paper?

Is there no adult staff at this camp other than Mr. H and Nurse Kelly?

Not asking for more characters in this already large cast, god knows, but it seems like there should be some kind of custodian/groundskeeper and kitchen staff, at least. Even if Mr. H does all the groundskeeping, there’s no way Nick can cook for all those people single-handedly and still have time to stalk his crush during her art lessons. But if there are actual adults on the cooking staff, why would they make an 18-20 year old guy their supervisor? Do you think the other counselors have to take turns cooking with him?

Who sleeps in the bunks in the lodge?

When Kaitlyn and Dylan are hiding from Caleb, they enter a room with bunk beds in the lodge. What’s that for? Just overflow? Seems like a good place for the additional staff that we never hear about to sleep. I imagine the counselors all sleeping there during their training/orientation before the kids arrive, though that’s never actually confirmed to happen in the game.

What do y’all think? What are your lingering questions about the locations or how the camp is run?

[writebackatya]

Sorry you have to receive another message about this situation again but

Was there any proof of Shelly grooming anyone?screenshots or anything like that? I feel it’s not very good to accuse someone of that if there is lack of proof that they did so in the first place

Personally, I will no longer be interacting with Shelly due to their interaction with problematic and gross creators but still I felt this needed to be said

Thank you for discussing this; I do feel this is important and thank you for your time

There is no reason to apologize. We all need to be smart about this and make sure our facts are all straight

As for the grooming, in the time I’ve spent searching through Shelly’s art, Twitter and Tumblr accounts, and their art mutual’s Twitter profile; I found no evidence of grooming

I don’t think in any of my posts I accused Shelly of being a groomer, I did however put the tw tags of grooming just because there were mentions of it. And I think in my first post I wrote that anonymous’ accusations were accurate without specifying that it was about their Pokémon art and the people they associate themselves with. So I’ll be sure to go back to my original post and clarify that

I will say that when I got the original message I was working 2nd shift at my job, but it was not a super busy day and I had access to my phone and wanted to get to the bottom of it right away. I did get some interruptions and I did not feel all too comfortable looking through NSFW content of any kind while at work so my research was not the most thorough but I stand by that it was enough for me to let anonymous’ concerns be seen

I will reiterate my findings here. When I was searching through Shelly’s DuckTales artwork I didn’t find anything that made me raise an eyebrow. Any artwork that featured the young characters or characters when they were younger were in no way sexual. The only NSFW artwork I found was with the adult characters. I know everyone has their standards but I personally don’t see anything wrong with NSFW stuff when the character is an established adult

While I was on Shelly’s Twitter I decided to look into their art mutual’s Twitter page that anonymous mentioned and there I immediately found (thankfully) blurred out images of NSFW featuring the kid characters of DuckTales as well as links to the full art. Besides that I found that that artist made various edits to some of Shelly’s NSFW DuckTales artwork. And before you ask, yes I can confirm the two were mutuals following one another and this person wasn’t just a fan of Shelly’s art

After I came across that I just wanted to be sure if Shelly themselves has ever drawn anything that would raise any red flags. I went onto a furry website that I knew reposted art from the sites anonymous mentioned that I did not have access to. I went ahead and searched under Shelly’s name

Again, the DuckTales artwork did not raise any red flags in my book since all the NSFW stuff was with characters like Gyro or Mark Beaks, two characters that we know are adults. It was when I got to the Pokémon art work that the red flags were raised for me

There were a lot of sexual artwork featuring the Pokémon creatures and a good portion of them featured ones I considered cutesy such as Eevee and other little Pokémon that can easily be interpreted as young

The one artwork that made me end up my research and just respond to anonymous’ message was one that featured a Pokémon (I don’t remember which one) and a human character. After clicking on the picture I went down to the tags and saw that the human character was Silver who is a trainer and as far as I know, all the main trainers in any Pokémon games are children

Now past artwork might not be enough for some and that’s fair. Stuff we post in the past may no longer reflect who we are now and Shelly’s current artwork (or at least the stuff I have seen) did not raise any red flags for me but their association with that one DuckTales artist did. And I felt that was enough to warn the younger fans in this fandom about Shelly

Before all this happened, I will say I didn’t personally know Shelly. My interactions with them consisted of me liking and reblogging their artwork as well as a recent WIP preview they wrote

The only time I think they spoke directly to me was on a poll I ran on Tumblr. It was my “How did Della “greet” Gyro when she got back from the moon”. The poll’s options consisted of different acts of violence and pettiness from Della that she would do to Gyro that I felt were just cartoony and in no way mean spirited

I remember I did that poll because I always saw posts from the fandom like “Oh Della deserves to punch Gyro at least once” so I thought it’d be fun to do a poll on what Della did to get her revenge on Gyro for his black licorice gum. I didn’t want it to be too extreme or mean spirited so I tried my best to come up with violent and petty actions that I could see Della doing that were just cartoony. I even threw in a “the two just sat down and had a nice conversation with one another” as an option cause I wanted to be clear “I don’t hate Gyro”

Well Shelly saw the poll. She responded to it on her personal account and thought the poll was mean spirited towards Gyro. I don’t recall everything what their comment said but I do remember that what they wrote sounded very angry and seemed to take the poll really personally

Now to be fair, Shelly doesn’t know me and I can see how one can interpret that even if it wasn’t my intention. To show that the poll was in all good fun and that I don’t hate Gyro I replied to their comment with “but black licorice” because yeah, that’s a lame excuse and it’s the only reason Della is mad at Gyro. They didn’t respond.

A week went by and the results came in, the winner of the poll was “All the above”. After the results came in Shelly once again commented on the post in a rather condescending way, along the lines of “I don’t see why people voted for what they did when Della was to blame but whatever!” I didn’t respond

After that I wanted to show there was no hard feelings from me, so whenever I reblogged their stuff I tried my best to remember to add comments in the tags

Yes I could’ve reached out to them, but I’m bad at doing that to people I don’t really know. And looking back on everything, I’m glad I didn’t

[somethin-human]

Sorry that I haven’t been posting art lately, anyway, my late night headcanons

Babe and Ash collectively have an unholy amount of stuffed animals.

Freelancer seems like the type of person to need to do something with their hands when they’re stressed so they either deep clean a portion of the apartment, or get into an arts and crafts mood.

Damian isn’t allowed in the pool during the summer because he will just turn it into a hot tub. Him and Huxley take advantage of that when it’s around autumn because it’s not too hot, but it’s also not as cold.

Darlin’ favorite weather is rain because they have an excuse to either stay inside, or piss off Sam by getting wet and muddy.

After hearing about Aaron’s past, Smartass would take him on little dates out to heal his inner child. Like they took him to Build A Bear for the first time and he felt so intimidated by all the options. He ended up settling on a really basic looking bear.

Sam, David, and Aaron probably have god tier singing voices, but no one has heard it before.

Guy has applied to work at several game stores and arcades during the end of his senior year of high school but for some reason, none of them hired him. He tried his damn hardest to stay out of food service but here he is lol.

(Based off the fact that I’ve recently made a giant whale shark plushie) Baby has walked into Ollie’s little office area in the apartment and he’s just on the floor, making a massive stuffed animal of some sort. They just give him a thumbs up and let him have his floor time.

Caelum will rift in randomly and just give Freelancer and Gavin a hug every so often and then rift out of the apartment like nothing happened.

Angel and David’s house I envision to be very spacious and minimalistic, like black and white, but Angel has an office in the upstairs and it’s all chaotic and artsy. That’s the only room that David won’t go cleaning because that’s their space to do whatever.

Babe is the autism to Ash’s ADHD

Angel and Sweetheart are the parent friends of the mates. Angel is chaotic and goofy, but they make sure everyone eats properly and gets enough rest. Sweetheart makes sure no one gets into trouble or does anything dumb.

Babe makes stickers for their online shop and sometimes they’ll randomly stick them onto Ash’s face when he’s doing something. Ash will sometimes also find stickers on his controllers and gaming consoles and he finds it absolutely adorable.

[hummingbird-games]

this review/gameplay account contains spoilers for An Everyday Love (Ezra’s route) so here’s your first and last chance to run along *shoos you*

SO!

Umm.

Words?? Maybe??

Heart reactions (ramblings): I knew I was going to love this game. I KNEW I Was Going To Fall In Love With Ezra (again). I knew that in the deepest and darkest spaces inside me, this story would resonate. The cozy and cute art style. The grounded, though tough struggles of our main character. The humor and witty parts that made me crack up. Our deep and loving friendship with Amara. The moments that made me look into my imaginary camera in my dining room alone at dark-thirty, eyes wide and incredulous, trying not to disturb my sleeping family, sometimes crying but mostly smiling and so, so, so happy to have made it to play this game.

This game was made with love and care, and you can tell. You can feel it. And all the side characters that appear on Ezra's route were either a joy or a pain lol but welcomed in my gaming experience just the same. (GRACE AND STEPH I LOVE Y'ALL!!!) 

Oh gosh oh gosh oh gosh, and yeah this game was sweet as hell, but I am an adult and I do like to partake in adult things from time to time and what I'm trying to communicate here is that I was there for the sexy scenes....lemme repeat that...I was there for the sex!!! (Love this for all of y'all reading this oh my God 😭😂) Nah but really, the heat + the sweet were present and accounted for and I’m a happy camper LOL!

And the fairytale portion of the story? Cue the sound of my heart breaking because it was so well done. Probably where I shed the most tears, and I was doing so well keeping it together so I could read the words on my screen without obstruction!!

Brain tings (aka the 'review' portion): In recent memory, and by that I mean in the three-ish years I've been actively playing visual novels, I can't name another game that delves into chronic illness and disability centering the main character that’s also in the slice of life romance genre. It's not an experience I can claim, but it is one I have empathy for and believe that reading/seeking out representation of others' experiences is the only way we're gonna get through this life in one piece doing the least amount of harm. 

Seriously.

 And as someone who deals with from mental illness and will have to deal with it for the rest of her life, it's comforting to be reminded that stories don't have to show this borderline (sometimes over the fence) toxic positivity of dealing with those struggles. Sometimes you feel like shit. Sometimes you push people away. Sometimes you take chances on people and they burn you with the intention to hurt. But sometimes you take chances and they pay off. But you gotta keep going, and if I take anything away from this game, it's that message: Keep. Going.

Retrospective thoughts: I wrote this category out thinking I'd have another concise paragraph in me, but that was a lie. The main thing I wanted to get out was that as someone who discovered she falls on the demisexual/demiromantic spectrum, I've made it my annoying second job to sniff it out in the media I consume. (Spare crumbs?????)  And I have a Hunch about a Mr. Ezra Hale. (I related to him more than was healthy is all I want to admit zkfjdhjdhgfjg)

ALSO OH MY GOD HE'S SUCH A CUTE DRUNK I CAAAAAANNNNNNN'TTTTTTTTT

AND WE HAVE A (SOFT) GAMER BOYFRIEND!?!?!!

...ahem, lemme just *places another hashtag* 

#SoftBlackMen 😏✌🏽💞

I don't care, I win. I win at life. Otome men have ruined me again for the real thing and I don't care. Am I a little crushed Ezra isn't real? ... NEXT QUESTION!

Another thing, I usually avoid bad endings like the plague (I've got enough bad endings in real life, like wayament 😭✋🏽) so I was lowkey hoping I'd get Ezra's bad ending on accident so I wouldn't have to do it on purpose (#noguidegang) but then I would have made it everyone's problem. 

So. Someone was looking out for y'all LOL. But this is a game I will actively replay, so I will be obtaining all the endings and living my best life.

(also part 3, because game dev lives her best life on Twitter as does the rest of the VN community, I will go make some noise on there sometime because she deserves it and I'm nothing if not obnoxious as hell when I want something known)

[thetantiger]

So I’m typing this on my phone while I take a break from my computer (I realize how ridiculous that sounds) while I lay down in bed before I inevitably drag myself into a voice chat with my friends because I know if I go to sleep now I won’t wake up until like 4 am but anyway, some backstory.

So my start as a person on the internet was Animal Jam. If you don’t remember what that game is it was like Club Penguin but on crack. Anyway I tried to be an AJ YouTuber when I was like 11 but eventually got involved in the rp scene and, while it started as an AJ thing, eventually evolved into its own universe. I wrote this with my partner at the time and I forget what we called the universe but eventually we split up and I took my OCs and put them into their own thing now known as the Eldorian Liberation Front, but previously (and most well known) as The Mercenaries. I’m just gonna refer to it as The Mercenaries from now on.

So the Mercenaries was a universe of anthro animals of all species (the main characters were two tigers, a lynx, an ocelot and an arctic wolf) involving angels, demons, anti-angels and anti-demons, and so on and so forth. I wrote all this on Wattpad and kinda made it up as I went along and I have a very fond memory of The Mercenaries in its entirety. However as I’ve gotten older and inevitably better at writing I’ve since abandoned the Wattpad story and redesigned and reimagined a good portion of the characters, however I haven’t done much with them sense.

The Mercenaries were an introduction to animation, art and writing for me. I grew up with those beloved characters and I still hold them near and dear to my heart.

…however.

I’ve since moved my focus to my WoW rp group. My dearest friends in the world are on that game and I met my husband through WoW rp, and all my passion is put out into that. I make art of it all the time, talk about my characters here, etc. It’s what’s been sparking me as a creator for the past year. It’s been pretty much my only focus and, slowly over time, The Mercenaries fell to the wayside.

I’d never fully give up those characters but I’m starting to wonder if it’s time to retire them. I’ve tried to make a PMV revolving around Detective, Ellie and Blank but just haven’t been able to. I’ve only wanted to fuck around with my WoW toons and maybe even make more animations of them instead but have since felt like I’m obligated to make a Mercenaries thing almost.

So.. I’m not sure what my conclusion is here. Just speaking into the void.

[evilliyes]

As promised, I have more from the beginning of the Evillious section of Project Sekai.  I’ve screencapped what I can and will do my best to explain what’s going on in each image

While each image was taken from my own phone, @micia-posts-stuff helpfully informed me of a YouTube video that shows the opening sequence.  The top picture is the only picture I actually took of the opening.

The video can be found here, and shows two things.  The beginning shows the start of the event when it was first launched.  Miku comes up and talks about a new kind of SEKAI that the player can visit.  In Project Sekai, “SEKAI” are worlds that are made from the feelings of one or more people, and finding one’s true feelings will create a song.  Miku notes that this SEKAI is different, since it speaks to someone’s long journey.

The second part of the video is the “gacha” portion of the event.  As shown in a previous post, there was an ability to pull cards for crystals.  In Project SEKAI’s gacha system, three star and four star cards get a line of dialogue explaining the situation that the card is depicting before giving it to the player.  Amongst many other cards, the lines for these cards during the gacha, as well as what it looks like when the cards are obtained, are shown.

Back to my own pictures, the two below Miku are the inside of the SEKAI.  It’s a long horizontal hallway with many, many pictures alluding to various events and places in The Evillious Chronicles, from Arte and Pollo to Evil’s Theater.  If there’s interest in a list of each individual picture, I will go through them.

The bottom-left picture shows various items related to Project Sekai, but the one of note is the last one on the very bottom row -- the “Brioche” item, which is shown as a piece of brioche along with a cup of tea.  In the game, this refills 10 units of bonus energy, which can be used to get extra rewards when playing the rhythm game.

The last two pictures are how the SEKAI look.  In the game, there are two “hubs” -- the Real World and SEKAI.  Pictured is the hub for the various SEKAI that the player can visit.  For a limited time, the “Aku no Taizai SEKAI” was available amongst the other five usual SEKAI.  A character’s face above a SEKAI indicates that they can be found there.  In one of the pictures, it shows Miku, meaning that I can expect Margarita to be there.  In the other, I can expect Allen.

As shown by the first picture with Allen, conversations that the user has not yet experienced are marked with a “NEW!” tag.  Conversations that have already been seen have nothing.  This is how I could determine whether a new Evillious conversation was waiting for me whenever I opened up the SEKAI hub (which was very frequently throughout the event).

[totopopopo]

18 & 25 pretty please ! have a wonderful year ^^ !

18. A memorable meal this year

My group of friends had family dinner every week where one or two people would cook a meal for everyone and everyone would sit at a big table and eat and I’d have people go around and share their favorite and least favorite part of the week and I guess for this I’ll chose the first time me and my best friend cooked together for the family dinner, we made tacos and i smuggled in tequila (cause this was in the common room of our college dorm so no alcohol technically allowed) and one of my friends siblings made margaritas and it was just really nice :)

25. Did you create any characters (in games, art, or writing) this year? Describe one

Oof yeah so I mean the main creative endeavor I’ve been working on this year was my thesis and that actually took up many years, not just 2022, and so the character creation aspect of that took place between 2020 and 2021 so basically all of the writing I’ve done this year has been with characters I created before the beginning of the year. Especially because a large portion of my thesis involves pre-existing mytho-religious “characters” so like even if my version of, say, Papa Gede or Charon solidified and was technically created this year, I can’t claim to have created the characters themselves, and of course they’re only “characters” within the context of the creative work that is my thesis, but to call them characters in a greater sense within the context of their religions is inaccurate, reductive, and borderline insulting, and also wow this is a rant that nobody asked for and that even fewer people can understand because none of you EVEN HAVE THE CONTEXT OF MY THESIS LMAO… anyways.

I guess the character of Louie really didn’t solidify until early 2022 so maybe I can count him (even though his conception was earlier.) Louie is a character in my thesis project that I did for my BA in religion and that will, one day, god willing be a published work. He is a second generation Haitian American. He is about 24, and he works in a warehouse of a large grocery store in a failing city on the verge of physical collapse. He works in this warehouse with Lupe, the main character. He laughs often and easily, and though he’s soft-spoken, his laugh is bright and loud. He loves his mother. He loves to cook, and he’s not bad at it, though he’s not as good as his mother. Life is difficult, but he approaches it with a sense of humor and cheer that borders on defiance. Lupe, who is less sure of herself, and less sure of her ability to be happy, loves being around him, loves the person he is and tries to be, loves his laugh, and loves his company. When an earthquake hits the warehouse and he dies, Louie finds himself in a limbo space within the land of the dead along with the countless other souls who are either traveling to or do not know/cannot find/might not have a final destination among the many underworlds and afterlives. Lupe is looking for him. This is the crux of the story.

…that’s almost definitely ten thousand times longer than you were prepared for or than was necessary for the question, sorry. Woooooooo happy new year!! Good luck in your own creative endeavors! May this be a year of creativity in all forms :)))

[vagabond-sol]

Power Set Notes kinda…

This is more for me to have this written down somewhere but it’s just a very rough summation of every power set I’ve made not including direct upgrades and a small tidbit on what timeline it’s from because the choices that led to these powers are dependent on the surroundings so Caz is not a static entity across all timelines…and this lets me make multiple power sets without shoving all of them into one WoL because then he’d be too strong for my tastes and would make conflicts in game feel too strange to think about.

Mystic/Primal Fist:

The hybrid I talk the most about and arguably put the most work into. It is the power set associated with the main timeline where Caz is WoL and Xavier is his partner through all of the MSQ. Combines Monk physical prowess with Summoner’s cool magic but trade the book for an associated boss weapon or accessory and trade the Egi for a personalized Stand that shows up like DMC4 Nero’s Devil Trigger. Brief but powerful. Main three are “burned out” during ShB due to the Light sickness. Briefly uses Phoenix as his surprise against Zenos in their final duel. Can be regained but needs to refresh his Primal Essences/get irradiated fighting a Primal.

Gilded Path:

A more self indulgent hybrid is inspired by the game Absolver in that it combines the martial arts of a Monk with the magic of Time/Gravity manipulation. This also references one of the viable class combos in FF12 so it double fits for my Dalmascan punch man. The power set is tied to the AU where Caz is not the WoL but nonetheless finds himself in Eorzea…though main timeline may gain this depending on future Dalmasca rep. He still joins the Scions and works alongside Xavier but with far less weight on his shoulders so he delves into the magics of his distant homeland for support rather than tunneling the Primal problem. The origins of his Time/Gravity magic may change if they ever touch on Dalmasca…or I’ll be relishing the fact that I called this ahead of time.

God Hand:

This one is one of the few non-hybrids and is actually one of the potential “paths” Prime Timeline Caz can walk now that A.) Primal Fist is “dead” at the moment and B.) Fighting two of the three gods from The Twelve he has interest in is extremely inspiring for him. It essentially is Caz “perfecting” his own style of Monk after seeking a bit of extra tutelage from Byregot and Rhalgr, thus taking his chakra management to a new level and granting him the ability to infuse inanimate objects with his aether and manipulate their form. Haven’t decide if he will take this path but if he does there will be references to both Gene from God Hand the game and Dungeon Fighter Online’s Monk class cause that hammer totem stuff is sick.

Devil Hand:

Monk/Reaper hybrid and one of the few power sets that sits *mostly* disconnected from MSQ. He’d be around as a notable recurring background guy but not as involved as most others. It’s really just Monk with Enshroud and the Avatar to back it up. Would occasionally replace the scythe with a staff or polearm for the extra monk flavor. The timeline this takes place in is one where Caz was captured before joining the Resistance in Dalmasca and sent to a Garlean work camp for several years. After a successful riot he and several others escape though only he and a Garlean defector stick together. This defector leads them to Ul’Dah where both go into Drusilla’s service. Caz still goes down the pugilist path but is later trained in a portion of the Reaper techniques alongside his friend. Both are skilled but Drusilla does not trust them to survive fighting Orcus. He later seeks out the Monks to further his training on his other skills. Arguably one of his weakest iterations in Eorzea.

Way of the Dawnbringer:

A Monk/Dark Knight hybrid. I used to apply this one to Caz’s solo WoL timeline but have since adjusted it to be the powers of the Caz killed by Black Rose in the Crystal Exarch’s original timeline. Because of this the Exarch gifts him Tank gear upon his arrival.

Forged Fire Fist:

This one is barely touched but it is another Monk subclass of sorts rather than a hybrid. It focuses on absorbing ambient aether and the aether of one’s opponent to channel into the extremities making them seething indestructible weapons capable of deflecting the strongest Colossus’s swings with ease and crumpling its armor with a single jab. It’s a technique meant for a Caz that focused his attention on fighting war machina be they from Garlemald or Ancient Allag. Similarly considered tying it to a Caz that was made to work in Garlean factories rather than fight in the Dalmascan Resistance but didn’t give this one so much attention as it was mainly for the style fitting well with a character that fights more as a boxer than a kung fu kick flip man…not that kicks and flips aren’t cool just boxing is cooler. Will likely attach to a Caz from a Scion Companion AU where Xavier is not there.

[kolbisneat]

MONTHLY MEDIA: November 2022

 I was travelling a bit for work and leisure this month so a lean Monthly Media post. With that said, here’s everything I watched, read, heard, and played this month.

……….FILM……….

Nick Kroll: Little Big Boy (2022) Does this count as a movie? I dunno. Either way, it was fun! I don’t think I’ve seen any of Kroll’s other specials but I always enjoy him on the Comedy Bang Bang podcast. I wasn’t expecting quite as many poop jokes in this one, but overall it was worth the watch. 

……….TELEVISION……….

Sandman (Episode 1.01 to 1.11) A really interesting adaptation that I...generally liked! There’s something about these stories (both in the series and the comics, particularly the portion in the diner) that I find deeply unsettling but perhaps that’s the point. I only wish they made Morpheus look a little more otherworldly. Platform boots so he’s 7 feet tall, slightly paler skin, I dunno. Anyway I still recommend it.

Guillermo Del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities (Episode 1.01) After ages of thinking I was too much of a scaredy cat to watch this, I dove in and watched the first episode. And you know what? Not into it. Not that it was too scary, but it just felt weirdly paced and poorly plotted. Checking Letterboxd reviews, it looks like this one was one of the middle-to-better ones of the season so I don’t think I’ll be continuing, which is a shame.

……….READING……….

The End of Policing by Alex S. Vitale (Page 100 of 288) Only just started and honestly, it’s been a tough read. I don’t imagine it getting any easier so I’m taking my time with it.

Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett (Complete) The last few in the series have seemed to follow a particular formula (abstract concept/object gains sentience and causes trouble) so this was a nice change of pace. The characters continue to be top-tier and the city of Ankh-Morpork is such a rich city I just want to spend all my time there.

Alice in Sunderland by Bryan Talbot (Abandoned) I really should’ve researched this one a bit more. I didn’t realize it was mostly a historical graphic novel blending the history of Sunderland with the history of Lewis Carroll and the creation of Wonderland. If this sounds interesting to you then awesome! But for me, dreadfully boring.

……….AUDIO……….

Los Ángeles by Rosalía (2017) So I was working in Spain and met a lot of really cool people. This is to preface the fact that I got a crash course in Rosalía’s career and current presence in the wider culture. I wish I understood more of the songs but for now I’ll settle for the beautiful musicality of her work.

……….GAMING……….

Neverland: A Fantasy Role-Playing Setting (Andrews McMeel Publishing) Both of my regular groups are in Neverland this month. My Tuesday crew is navigating some political trouble with a Fairy Queen, and the  Mof1 group just discovered a very intriguing dead body. We have fun. Oh and if you want to read the recaps of my weekly group, they’re over here on Reddit.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge (DotEmu, Gamera Game, Tribute Games) I’m late to the pizza party here cause I ordered the physical copy. Worth the wait. The art, the gameplay, the music, it’s all so much fun. Despite seeing lots of reviews and such I was still pleasantly surprised by a lot of character appearances and I hope this leads to more TMNT (or arcade-style) games in the future.

And that’s it! See you in December.

[madisonhunn]

May 18- Venice. Oh Venice.

(For the family)

Hot take: I disliked Venice. Don’t get me wrong, guys. I’m glad I went just to say I went but you couldn’t drag me back there. Gorgeous, but it smells bad. Trash everywhere. People even more everywhere. Pushing, shoving, sweating, etc.

And people were grumpy grouchy! PEOPLE I CAME WITH!!!! I kept my lips shut and stuck to the back and let them all duke it out.

However, only three of us planned our day so we had a much more enjoyable experience. Two museums for a much cheaper price than even ONE, and also a very tiny little surprisingly themed cathedral/gallery that we walked into in the morning before making our way up to our planned excursions.

Well. The first thing we did was walk into a private school. On accident. Saw a bench and beelined. This kid took one look at us and locked the gate. We quite literally got locked inside. A nicer kid let us out and it was so awkward!

We then made our way up to the basilica and honestly… so busy up there. We went into Museo Correr and walked through fairly quickly because the other five people were going to meet us up there. We then learned you can’t sit, you can’t eat and stand in the same place for too long, and honestly?! WHAT?! Maybe I’m crazy but I think it’s wild to make such odd rules? It makes sense but let me rest my feeble girl feet. I am tired!

Finding lunch was when everyone got snappy and mean. I was fine with wherever we went. And it was yummy but the waiter hated us because we couldn’t eat every single scrap of our giant portioned food. Sorry I’m literally bursting at the seams, dude.

We split up in groups of four and took a gondola ride. Never again because the water scares me, but it was definitely the most peaceful (and pricey) part of this day trip. Gorgeous ride but the guy was on the phone the whole time so we got to listen to his little Italian conversation the entire time.

After that, Doge’s palace. It was nice but not the best museum I’ve been to (so hard to compare to the Uffizi…). Super pretty courtyard though, and truthfully some very interesting things in their collection! and prison too. Sad to think people were once in those dingy cells… but that’s history for you.

And the view from the top of the bell tower was so clear and beautiful!

In order:

1. Work in the gallery connected to the chapel

2. What the art is about! Honestly very cool…

3. Eros and Psyche! The subject of the text-based adventure game I made last semester

4. Glass chandelier

5. Photos from an exhibit that had a lot to do with harvesting raw material. Really cool and I would’ve liked to spend more time reading about it

6. Cabinet with some very… acceptable figures.

7. View from the boat

8. Doge’s palace courtyard view

9. View from the bell tower

10. Porcelain cat family! <3

[thelensofyashunews]

Mach-Hommy Czn Approaches... #RICHAXXHAITIAN

Defying convention and transcending interpretation as he blazes his own path through the rap game, Mach-Hommy is a true hip-hop original. The prolific rapper can be hard to track, physically and metaphysically: his face and birth name remain a mystery, and his Machography spans more than 50 albums, some only available in limited-edition physical formats, some gone forever as limited-edition digital releases. When they’re out in the world, Mach exhibits them like high art, selling them at prices that reflect their true value, not the artificially deflated value imposed upon music by the streaming age.

A man like Mach has a brain that doesn't stop working–it’s a creativity that results in tremendous productivity without sacrificing quality: his incisive lyrics probe the frailty of the human condition, arranged into alchemical verses that draw instant rap hands from even the most-seasoned hip-hop head ("...every bar is rap chemistry" - Rolling Stone; “Over the past five years, Mach has made some of the strangest, most incisive, most tantalizingly intertextual rap music in the world” - GQ). Usually, his restless creativity results in several works per year, plus a helping of designer merch drops and collabs with high fashion houses. But recently, the Newark-born and Port-au-Prince-raised artist has slowed down, narrowing his focus to shape and fine-tune an album that promises to be one of his best yet: #RICHAXXHAITIAN, coming very soon.

Arriving just in time for Haitian Flag Day, #RICHAXXHAITIAN is Mach's first solo album since 2021, when he released his massively-acclaimed albums Balens Cho and Pray For Haiti, the latter a critics' list mainstay of which a hefty portion of the proceeds benefited Mach's fund to promote social, economic, and technological growth in the titular country. The upcoming album continues to examine the strife and turmoil that has historically engulfed the small Caribbean nation–including the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021, shortly after the release of Pray For Haiti–while seeking a new way forward for the country and its diaspora.

Attempting to transform our modern dystopia into a utopia using only his rhymes and force of will, Mach-Hommy invites us all, from his most loyal investors to his freshest fans, to imagine a brand new world. With #RICHAXXHAITIAN, that seemingly impossible dream creeps ever closer.

“I’ve always wanted to rep for Haiti and the cultural and intellectual richness we’ve provided the world,” he says. “From our musical styles like kontradans  that have influenced world music, our natural resources which provide so much raw  material for so many important advancements in technology, our thinkers that  pioneered philosophical movements and Black pride, and our spiritual leaders who  kept the religious traditions of Guinea alive and in tact, the religious traditions of  Ayiti….” 

Stay tuned for much more about #RICHAXXHAITIAN in the coming days.

Purchase Mach-Hommy releases at his official site or his webstore Zotanica

[smallbusinessesbiglegacies]

Small Town, Big Memories

For the past 19 years, I’ve had the privilege of growing up in the small suburban town of East Bridgewater, Massachusetts, with a population of about 14,000 people, located about 26 miles south of Boston. It was only this past August when I left my home on Christina Drive to attend Endicott College that I realized just how much this tiny corner of the world provided me with. EB may not have any giant shopping malls, thrilling adventure parks, or five star steakhouses, but it’s home to a few memorable small businesses that make sticking around worth it.

602 Oak Street in East Bridgewater is yet another address I grew up at, home of Michelle's Studio of Dance. At age three, my parents signed me up for classes; I walked in those doors completely unaware of what the next 15 years held for me. I instantly fell in love with that place: the teachers, the students, the art of dance, I loved it all. From my first ballet recital to my last competition winning ‘The Sparkle Award’ I’ve dreamed of for years, I’ve grown an abundant amount since my days as a toddler. Although I’ve matured a lot as a dancer, Michelle’s Studio of Dance has taught me even more about being a good human.

Michelle Lessard, owner of Michelle’s Studio of Dance, has acted as a second mother to me throughout my whole life. She’s coached me four days a week since I was a baby, offered me one of my first jobs, wiped my tears away on my hardest days, encouraged me to pursue dance after graduation, and traveled hours to attend my first college performance. Lessard was my fairy godmother, always there when I needed her with words of wisdom beyond her years. I can honestly say that not every dancer I know was as lucky as me to grow up in such a loving and nurturing environment, and that’s all thanks to Lessard. For the last 35 years Lessard has ensured her students have gained a proper education in dance, but most importantly, gained the confidence and kindness necessary for a life after exiting the studio’s doors. Even after moving out of my small town, Michelle’s Studio of Dance will always be a second home to me.

Another town spot that I spent countless hours at throughout my childhood is Skinner’s Sugar House, a business as delightfully sweet as it sounds. A beautiful building full of ice cream, penny candy, home roasted nuts, and scrumptious fudge. I’ve been an avid customer of Skinner’s since I was a kid, and have made some of the best memories of my childhood there. Every Friday afternoon, the entire middle school would saunter half a mile down Central Street to Skinner’s and congregate with our ice cream cones on the front lawn for hours upon end. God bless owner Paul Daley for putting up with the slew of us kids taking over his shop at the end of every week, cause if he hadn’t, a portion of my childhood would be entirely less sweet.

After my little league team won the championship softball game, our coaches drove all of us girls to Skinner’s for celebratory sundaes. We were covered in dirt, grinning from ear to ear, tirelessly shoving sprinkles into our mouths. My very first date was a brisk January walk to Skinner’s. (The cold New England weather never stopped us.) Cameron and I strolled the familiar path to Skinner’s Sugar House after the school bell rang as our friends tried to force our hands to meet, both of us too embarrassed to get close to one another. Flash forward seven years, my best friends and I went our separate ways after graduating high school. Our first stop when we reconvened over winter break was none other than the Skinner’s parking lot, enjoying their delicious ice cream and familiar atmosphere we know all too well.

I’m extremely lucky to have Viking Pizza only a short distance from my house on Bedford Street, as my family is likely one of their most frequent customers. Tony Mamouzellos, our neighbor, is the proud owner of Viking Pizza, and ensures that all customers and East Bridgewater residents leave his restaurant happier than when they came in. When I come home from school after suffering through the dining hall cuisine, the first meal I want is always a Greek salad from Viking with extra pita bread. Of course, Mamouzellos knows my family’s order by heart, and rarely lets us leave without giving us free slices of pizza and calzones. Most of the time when my dad calls in our order, the employee on the other line shouts out “Chris Cyr! Is that you?” It’s become a tradition that our calls to Viking exist on speaker phones so we can all revel in these hilarious conversations. Even the delivery drivers walk into the entryway of our home to pet our dog, Mabel. Viking Pizza is like family to us, and I’m grateful that so many of my favorite meals start with a quick drive to Viking Pizza and end with a gathering around the couch with my parents to devour our favorite comfort foods.

Just five minutes down the road on Washington Street lies McGuiggan’s Pub, a true delicacy to me and my people. At age 16, I walked into the pub hoping for a summer job, and ended up gaining a sense of community full of unbreakable bonds. I’ve been working at McGuiggan’s on and off for years now, and love nothing more than spending my school breaks and weekends laughing at the host stand with the servers and bussers. Although work isn’t necessarily supposed to be fun, working at the pub absolutely is. Even when the customers are rude, I can’t help but cackle when complaining to my workers who always take my side and make endless jokes about them.

Before I had the opportunity to experience McGuiggan’s Pub from an employee’s point of view, I was a frequent patron. After my dance recitals, my extended family and I would pile into one of the big mahogany tables and stuff our faces with their famous bar pizza. I used to love coming in on the weekends to hear the live music, obsessed with the bands and singers who would walk through the doors. Little did I know just years later that I’d be the one helping to set up for these artists, and seating little girls just like myself after their showcases and tournaments. With McGuiggan’s Pub, my childhood has come full circle, and I’m grateful to have obtained all of those memories on either side of the host stand. 

Growing up in East Bridgewater may not have been as glamorous or luxurious as living in The Big Apple or Los Angeles, but it was perfect to me. Certain establishments allowed this town to grow differently than our neighbors, and having so many fond memories of these businesses is something I value greatly. My home was a central location in between all of the businesses that played a part in raising me, and I am so grateful to look back on my town with these nostalgic memories.

[dankusner]

Jeff Hiller Is Living His Best Gay Christian Life

Jeff Hiller knows why people come to see his one-man show, Middle Aged Ingenue.

“People like you more when you’re on TV,” the San Antonio native told the audience at New York City’s Public Theater the first time he performed it in August 2023, referring to his two seasons as the unexpected leading man opposite Bridget Everett on HBO’s Somebody Somewhere.

“It’s literally the only reason you’re here tonight, so thank you.”

When the show makes its Texas debut on April 13 at Austin’s State Theater as part of the Moontower Comedy Festival, Hiller—whose newfound fame also stems from a stint playing a serial killer on American Horror Story—may not say it quite the same.

“I’ve tried to pull that back a little bit because my husband said, ‘I think that’s kind of insulting,’ ” he says during a video chat with Texas Monthly. “And I’m like, ‘BUT IT’S TRUE!’ ”

Even on a laptop screen, the six-foot-five Hiller is a big presence: an always-on comedian of oversized expressions in both face and voice, his (Hiller is open to any and all pronouns) conversation regularly punctuated with emphatic beats, mock-whispered asides, and effervescent laughs.

Today, he’s in a Minneapolis hotel room—which he hurriedly attempts to tidy as the camera light comes on—preparing for that night’s performance.

We quickly realize it’s also Good Friday, which, given that a major portion of the show traces his journey from closeted aspiring pastor and Texas Lutheran University theology major to actor, seems fitting, inappropriate, or both. “Isn’t that weird?” Hiller says. “I did really badly at scheduling my show about church!”

To be fair, “church” is not the buzzword Hiller uses in his thumbnail description of the show: “a night of stand-up about life, love, and three stories about assholes. Not rude people. Literal anatomical human buttholes. Three of them.”

One of the three is from his time as a social worker in Denver, working with homeless youth and in HIV prevention (no spoilers for the other two).

But church is what made Hiller he who is, and church is also very much at the heart of his character, Joel, on Somebody Somewhere.

Executive produced by former Texans Mark and Jay Duplass, it’s a comedy, albeit one that is also bittersweet and dark, created by Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen as a vehicle for Everett, a New York singer, actress, and comedian who is originally from Manhattan, Kansas.

It’s a show full of people you don’t often see on TV: so-called “real Americans” in so-called “flyover country” who farm and go to church and watch college football and buy “live laugh love”–type throw pillows and raise children and experience loss and love, in both biological and found families.

And some of those Americans who go to church or dress head-to-toe in Kansas State Wildcats swag are people of color.

Or gay.

Or trans.

Just like Hiller and the show’s third star, drag performer Murray Hill.

“Some people have said, like, ‘Oh, this fantasy. This fantasy of openly gay people in middle America,’ ” Hiller says. “And the weird thing is, it’s not a fantasy.”

The son of mechanical engineer Raymond and housewife turned CPA Mary, Hiller grew up in San Antonio (“outside of 410, inside 1604”) and went to Churchill High, where he was in the choir (which meant he went to one football game a year, when they sang the National Anthem), but not the theater-kid clique. “They were cooler kids,” he says. “I’m much better at theater than at choir. But choir was a safe space.”

So was San Antonio’s Shepherd King Lutheran Church, where even the kids who bullied him at school had to be nice.

He was there for something—worship, choir, youth group—six days a week, and would have gone on Fridays too if there was an event to join.

He went to Texas Lutheran (“which everyone says is the Harvard of Seguin, Texas”) intending to become a pastor, while still getting a classic liberal arts education.

In Middle Aged Ingenue, he tells how he first came out, during a semester abroad, to a total stranger in Cape Town.

Nobody, including his own parents, has ever been surprised. “Oh, that’s niiiiiiiiice!,” Hiller recalls/imitates in Middle Aged Ingenue, with the sort of squealing voice people use to talk to puppies. “Thank you for telling me.”

But at that time, being himself also meant he couldn’t be a pastor (the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Hiller’s denomination, began allowing gay clergy in 2009).

He graduated from TLU in 1998 with a degree in theater, and eventually made his way to New York, after a short time in Denver.

He dreamed of working full time as an actor, but was afraid that no one else would see it. “I felt like people would look at me and be like, you?”

He wound up doing comedy and improv at New York’s Upright Citizens Brigade, and immediately saw other students and performers landing commercials and small movie parts.

Then he saw one of his teachers, Paul Scheer, get a TV show (Human Giant).

One of his improv teammates, Bobby Moynihan, got on Saturday Night Live.

By then Hiller was himself a teacher, and soon his students, including Broad City’s Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer, and The Good Place’s D’arcy Carden, were getting their own shows or major parts.

“And I was still teaching,” he says. “It became very much a come-to-Jesus moment. Like, uh-oh, this might not happen. But I just kept plugging away. Like an idiot,” he adds with a laugh.

Prior to Somebody Somewhere, Hiller ran the gauntlet from unknown to obscure to “hey, it’s that guy!”

He racked up commercials and sitcom supporting parts (including on Broad City, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and two different spots on 30 Rock), starred in one Off-Broadway/Public Theater hit that was not at all a Broadway hit (Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, which walked so Hamilton could run).

But he was also tiring of only ever playing parts like “snippy gay waiter” or “bitchy customer service representative.”

And then he finally landed the role of, well . . . “gay best friend.”

But Joel is so much more than that.

The show’s second season was billed as a “totally platonic love story,” as the relationship between his character and Everett’s Sam became the heart of the show.

The character jumped off the page and right into Hiller’s heart when it was first suggested he audition for the role (he was acquainted with Everett and Murray Hill in New York, and they are all performers at the Public).

“I loved him,” Hiller says. “I loved him. I really was like, ‘Oh, they wrote this for me!’ ” They did not, in fact. “But he’s so much like me. I know exactly how to play him. It felt very meant to be.”

The similarities went beyond both Joel (who has no last name) and Hiller being churchy gay men from red states. Even some of the details in Joel’s backstory overlapped with Hiller’s life: having a stress rash in high school; driving a Buick LeSabre; not only having a vision board, but having a Vitamix blender on his vision board. The fact that Joel loves to take and count his “steps” was something the writers did add to the character based on Hiller, who is also a late-in-life runner, now that he no longer associates physical activity with the Lord of the Flies–like atmosphere of high school gym class.

And of course, they are both former seminary students who both love church (though Hiller, whose husband, Neil Goldberg, is Jewish, is no longer a regular).

Not only are there tons of other people like that, Hiller points out, but not every church is a place of intolerance and fundamentalism.

“I know so many openly gay men and women who are still part of mainline Protestant churches,” Hiller says. “That’s where their community is. Where they find friends and connections. And a lot of times church is also the base of social justice for these places. Food banks, rent assistance, even [helping] asylum-seekers. And so I think that the church often gets a bad rap.”

He then switches to a conspiratorial mock-whisper.

“Now, there are some really bad churches too, don’t get me wrong,” he finishes with a giggle.

People talk about Somebody Somewhere as a low-key, almost short-story-like TV show; “a show made up almost entirely of small, unassuming moments,” as Vulture’s Jen Chaney put it.

Which it is.

As Hiller observes, it’s a TV show about “humans who are bound by the rules of our planet,” as opposed to dealing with dragons or zombies.

But it is also not without its over-the-top drama and broader-than-broad comedy: diarrhea, cheap-motel affairs, physical and emotional fights, weddings, deaths.

It’s a show about not giving up on yourself and your life, even if you’re over forty (“significantly,” Hiller mock-mutters), which resonates for its actors as much as their characters.

That Somebody Somewhere also brought him to American Horror Story: NYC was kismet.

Ryan Murphy’s production company reached out to him after Somebody Somewhere’s first season aired and asked if he’d be willing to take a Zoom with the creator, who is also behind such shows as 9-1-1: Lone Star, Feud, and Glee.

“Which is hiiiiiilllllarious,” Hiller says, drawing out the word, as if he was going to say no. “I would have played one of the the dead bodies!”

Hiller’s character is horrifying and creepy but also just a little sympathetic, in a season that was both a Grand Guignol evocation of New York culture and gay culture in the 1980s, when the actual horror was the tragedy of AIDS.

And because AHS has far more viewers than Somebody Somewhere, he gets recognized as the terrifying Mr. Whitely far more than as lovable Joel.

“It’s funny because for so long, I really felt like my gayness was a detriment,” Hiller says. “I always felt like I could probably be on a sitcom if I weren’t so obviously gay. So it’s nice that my two biggest projects are celebrating that I’m gay. Well, not necessarily ‘celebrating’ on American Horror Story,” he walks back with another laugh. “But it’s an important part of his character!”

In Middle Aged Ingenue, Hiller jokes about the little gift he bought himself from having more rewarding and consistent work—health insurance, which of course is not a joke.

And neither was the vision board: Hiller’s got himself that Vitamix, just like Joel did.

With “not that much commitment”—no kids, he points out, but a husband, a cat, and a dog, he wants to work as much as he can while the work is there to be gotten, including writing and producing his own stuff.

“I’m not very easily castable,” he says. “So I’m aware of that and I’m trying to create my own work.” Middle Aged Ingenue, which he’s performing intermittently, is his third one-man show. He’s about finished a memoir (which will likely bear the same title) and he’s writing and developing pilots.

Even when he reached the peak of his time with UCB, performing in their flagship show, Hiller couldn’t help but think “I have more to give,” he says. “I have more to give than this. And I’m glad I get to give it. I’d like to give more of it.”Film & TV