#this is probably niche mixture of things

[thepaintedsable]

Uh oh, who let me into a fandom again? Who left the niche within a niche door open??? Y’all should know better.

@sm-baby’s Carnival AU for The Amazing Digital Circus grabbed me by the bootstraps with??? Inspiration??? Not only have I dodged most fandoms and the motivation to draw fanart (not that I don’t want to show support; just no ideas in the noggin), but I genuinely don’t think I’ve sat down and put a non-ironic, genuine OC for a media I like on paper since my Warrior Cats/Creepypasta era. This AU didn’t just get me to sit down and make an OC that fits with the original media, but one that fits with their derivative. I saw other people doing it and it looked like so much fuunnn.

First, have standard TADC version! Either that or a player.

This is Tuus! They’re mainly based on the beanie baby dragon to fit that sweet sweet 90s theme, but generally a mixture of beloved childhood toys I have sitting on my shelf. She’s scruffy, worn, and kinda dirty looking and that’s on purpose. She’s bottom heavy, and I wanted her wings to give off the texture of that basically-plastic shiny fabric you used to see on a lot of toys.

No mouth, but a randomly appearing lizard tongue. For fun.

Tuus deals with the circus by sleeping. A lot. Too much. If you don’t need to sleep, then you don’t need to be awake. If she’s doing to be trapped in a digital hell, she might as well be catching up on her naps. And she will sleep in the worst places. Time for a digital feast? She’s on the table. Caine wants to have an adventure in the lake? Girl is at the bottom. Sleeping with the fishes fr fr. And you need to find her one day? Nowhere to be seen, probably on the roof.

It’s playing on the whole big, lazy, sleeping dragon thing that used to be in a lot of children stories I remember. But also how well loved childhood toys seem to pop up and disappear, there when you aren’t looking but gone when you are. Her name also means “Your” or “Thy.” Your dragon.

BUT AT THE CARNIVAL?

What amusement park is complete without a gift shop? What game doesn’t have a place to buy goofy digital goods? Tuus is the big lady in charge of the gift place of the Carnival! Her room is what should have been a shop of sorts, to buy whatever products that darned company would have tried to push. Cosmetics, virtual toys, digital snacks, whatever. But, uh, I don’t think anyone told them dragons don’t like to…. share. Becoming sentient did wonders for the attitude. You should be just fine if you don’t make too much noise, though! She’s a lazy lizard, and often sleeps sprawled around the place. I imagine the level would be set up like a maze, or a labyrinth. Isles and isles of things, with peaks of a tail or smoke every now and again. Toys, clothing, and even random things that shouldn’t be in there just trash the path. It’s your job not to step on anything! It’s different each time, though (a speed runner’s nightmare). One level you might get lucky and have a straight shot with a sleeping dragon, the next there might be so many things it’s physically impossible to reach any exit at all. Potentially can get out of trouble with some digital coin™, but you’ll have to have found enough hidden in the room to forgive each “damaged item.”

Here she is much, MUCH larger and far cleaner. An oversized display never meant to be bought. A collectors item far too expensive for a child. Think “I used to be a beloved toy and now I’ve been forgotten, even forgetting myself, and this is how I cope” favor VS “I have never known the touch of a person and have been trapped on this shelf only to be abandoned and have the personality of an unsocialized dog” flavor.

She has no mouth, but she bites.

I want to draw more of her :) She’s a goof.

[ceo-of-sloppy-men]

I've this kinda weird kinda niche headcannon that Zevlor can actually sing pretty well. I mean, kinda makes sense with him being a Hellrider - between the worksongs used to help keep rythm during menial tasks (like, say, marching) and the prayer hymns to Helm, he'd probably pick up some experience in sining here and there. Thing is, it's all related to the heppier times when he was still a Hellrider - so when the tieflings are exiled he just stops engaging with that part of himself. After all he's not a paladin anymore, he doesn't have the right to sing all the songs he knows by heart anymore. Not after the descent.

But the thing is that he's been doing this for so long - idly humming some half-rememberd drinking song while sharpening his weapon, walking to the rythm of a dozen voices working in unison that at this point he does it subconciously. So despite how hard he may try it does slip out a bit, here and there.

So I'd love to hear your take on Tav (not neccessarily a bard but it would be cool!) and the other tief refugees (I'm a sucker for dad zevlor) reacting to the old man having a good singing voice!!!! <3

Tav!bard would try to get him to sing with them and Alfira constantly

eventually he does cave while they're all drinking and he's beaming the whole time, especially after when Tav wraps him in a hug and tells him his voice is heavenly (his tail may be swishing rapidly)

the youngsters always ask for traveling songs while on the road, because if Zevlor starts singing everyone joins in. It makes him feel like a paladin - a protector and guider of his people - more when he sings

he even smiles more

Bard!Tav definitely encourages him to sing more, getting him to laugh when he finishes singing, rather than sulking at the memory of happier times

with a gentle kiss to his cheek every time they encourage him to slowly come out of his shell

Tilses and any other former Hellriders would 100% be happy to hear him sing again, and may even join in, because they remember him belting out tunes in the halls and leading them in prayer hymns back in Elturel

there was an ongoing joke he should have been a bard instead of a paladin once upon a time

He also knows some old tiefling songs, including a very significant song that tieflings would sing to court one another. He's not sure Tav knows this song, but at the party it's worth a shot. he's just drunk enough to get Alfira to play it and to not comment on her knowing look

much to his amazement Tav knows it as well, joining him in song with a radiant smile on their face that makes his heart skip and him fumble through a few words

for a moment, nothing else matters but the two of them, as a few other tieflings join in, encouraging the pair on with a mixture of relief and joy

[heretichromia]

Unit Evaluation - Gladiia

(And also the Abyssal Hunters as a whole.)

Gladiia became available once again today, this time permanently (through Record Restoration). There's a lot of buzz happening around her right now, so I feel like I should throw my hat in the ring.

Mostly because...I disagree with most of the takes I'm seeing.

Gladiia is a very good unit, if used in the right scenarios. I'm certainly biased, but I would encourage anyone who's interested in using her to build her. However, I need to stress that the hype surrounding her is overblown.

Compared to the premier units in this game, she is not by any stretch of the imagination broken. This is not a Młynar or Texas the Omertosa-level unit who'll instantly warp the way you play the game with her awesome might. Don't build her thinking you'll get an obscene powerhouse, especially if you don't have her best partner, Specter the Unchained.

Beneath the cut, I'll break down her strengths and weaknesses, and give you some tips on how to play with her. It gets a little long-winded, so I'll give you a TL;DR:

As a standalone unit, Gladiia's module elevated her from "incredibly mediocre outside of niche use cases" to "decent, but inferior to other 6* options for most players." As the lynchpin of the Abyssal Hunter squad, Gladiia offers you the opportunity to play with some reasonably powerful generalist units whose power largely lies in their mixture of solid damage and self-sufficient durability (with one noteworthy exception). Their power, however, is often overstated; they don't excel in either category, and in many cases are sidegrades or downgrades to other options.

I've also included small TL;DRs for each subsection, if you're just interested in my conclusions.

I don't have a ludicrous Risk 27 Abyssal Hunter CC clear to show to prove that I know what I'm talking about, but mid-risk CC (18-24ish, unsure with the new CC system since I wasn't a fan of Pinch Out and so didn't bother doing above 600) is generally the area of difficulty I like playing around with. Keep that in mind when I'm talking about these operators, so you can take my words with a grain of salt if your personal goals for using them are different!

—

Solo, Without Module

TL;DR: Gladiia has shift power that can't be replicated by any other unit, but without her module is a fragile, low-damage pseudo-Guard that isn't worth using for general content unless you're as stubborn as I am.

Before we talk about her ludicrously-hyped module, it's probably helpful to recall what Gladiia was like before her module came out.

Without her module, Gladiia is a fairly unimpressive unit outside of a very narrow set of use cases. Her power is largely concentrated in her pulling strength, and in those cases, she's completely invaluable:

Her S2's wide range and good shifting power (strength 2, the same as other shifters' S1 at M3) makes it a very flexible skill for things like shifter stalls. Her S3, as well, has some good niche shifting utility that can't be replicated by other operators (though note that the actual max risk clear used S2). Her S1 is also worth using in some situations, as it can store multiple charges, but it's by far the most niche skill in her arsenal.

The issue is that, if you're the average player, you'll almost never be taking advantage of that power. She's like Weedy: Queen in Contingency Contract, but most players will never be doing hard enough content to need to take advantage of the power she has at her disposal.

In terms of general use, she's...not very good by the standards of 6* lane-holders or crowd control units. She'll be a valuable roster addition for new players, acting as a pseudo-Guard. As she's cheap (13 DP), she might be good to shore up holes in struggling rosters.

She doesn't do a whole lot of damage. She's not particularly durable—in fact, she's only slightly less squishy than Pioneer Vanguards, and less durable than Bagpipe. Her cooldowns are relatively short, but her power on-skill isn't very impressive.

She's not useless. I, stubbornly, brought her to almost every map anyways. Her regen passive means she'll be able to handle waves of weak enemies by herself without the need to babysit her with a Medic. Her S3 provides some decent crowd control in terms of a single-target Bind and an AoE pull, though you'll need to get used to how it works to make good use of it. The issue is that she doesn't really do a lot compared to other 6* units, which is...what you'd generally expect from a welfare unit, unfortunately. If you lack lane-holders or cannot use more powerful sources of crowd control (e.g. Gnosis' Freeze), you'll still likely get good use out of her.

—

Solo, With Module

TL;DR: Gladiia's module fixes her fragility and helps her low damage output, but is not itself a magic bullet that'll make her a unit on-par with the stronger 6*s. She becomes a reasonably defensive crowd control-focused unit that can help hold weaker lanes.

Gladiia experienced the single most phenomenal upgrade a unit's ever gotten from a module. That much is undeniably true. Her module gave her pretty much everything she needed to become a solid generalist, and...she is!

The damage reduction and enhanced regen makes her reasonably bulky, but keep in mind that without it she's squishier than off-skill Bagpipe. Putting 30% damage reduction onto that fairly fragile frame isn't going to make her a tank, but while she won't be replacing your Defenders anytime soon, you don't need to worry much about her dying. Her damage increase is nice, too. If you don't have or want to use the other Abyssal Hunters, Gladiia with her module is perfectly fine on her own. She's still not a unit that I'd recommend over a dedicated 6* lane-holder for that role, but can be used to very good effect in conjunction with other units.

I personally prefer using her S3 for general content. It's a solid mixture of crowd control and pretty considerable arts damage on a short cooldown. Others tend to favor her S2 for lane-holding, and I've seen a few recommend putting Mastery points into that first. I've personally...never really been impressed with her S2's performance in these general cases, and only switch to it if I'm using her for pulling, or in specific scenarios where it'd be good in a particular map.

—

With Specter the Unchained

TL;DR: Gladiia is a great unit to support the already quite good Specter the Unchained, and both make each other a good deal more effective. There's a cute synergy between the timings of Gladiia's S3 and Specter's S2, as well.

Here's where I should talk about the unit I effectively always pair her with in some capacity. These two are a match made in heaven, and complement each other very well. If you don't have Specter Alter, then Gladiia is still a perfectly fine unit, but if you do, you'll notice a significant boost to their performance when you use them together.

First, Specter's own Abyssal Hunter faction buff helps considerably with Gladiia's survivability. At max level, even without Specter's Mod-Y, it'll get her to slightly over 3,000 HP. Coupled with her damage reduction and regen, this means she can withstand a good amount of punishment. The only thing holding her bulkiness back is her relatively low DEF, which does sometimes mean she melts faster than you'd think.

Second, Gladiia's module makes Specter Mod-Y (S3)...legitimately decent. She turns from an S2 machine into a more than competent lane-holder capable of tanking and dealing respectable damage to elites and bosses. Nearly 4,000 HP off-skill translates to over 10,000 on-skill, and her middling DEF is offset pretty heavily by Gladiia's staggering 30% damage reduction and over 350/s HP (on-skill) regen. As a bonus, with Specter's Mod-Y, Gladiia's skills have even shorter cooldowns, letting you spam whirlpools.

Third, Gladiia has very nice synergy with Specter's other skill—her most powerful and specialized one, which can't be replicated by Gavial Alter. There's the obvious synergy: Gladiia's damage reduction and regen means that Specter can survive more punishment between her skill cycles, keeping her cycling between periods of invulnerable onslaughts and AoE burn. The less obvious one comes in how well their skills are synced. Specter's skill timings are 20/20/20 at max investment. Twenty seconds off-skill, on-skill, and in her substitute. Gladiia's S3 lasts for 8 seconds, and then has a 35-second cooldown. This means that you can use Gladiia with Specter to consistently lock enemies in overlapping arts damage AoEs between cycles of Specter's blender. I like placing Gladiia 1-2 spaces behind Specter for these purposes.

—

Full Squad

TL;DR: The Abyssal Hunters as a full squad are fun, but do not necessarily or even often represent the strongest thing you can be doing with a selection of 4-5 units in your already limited squad.

...I don't think the Abyssal Hunters are that strong.

I feel a little crazy saying that, since the ubiquitous opinion that I always hear is that they're overpowered. It's everywhere on Twitter, on Tumblr, on Reddit. Even fucking Yii made a video calling them broken.

I really don't agree with that assessment. They're good. They're definitely very good. But in my playtime being stubborn about using the Abyssal Hunters as often as I can in the hardest content I can tackle, I've never really felt like they were the strongest thing I could be doing. When I'm stuck on a stage, I switch off of the Hunters so I can take it seriously. That's not the most objective analysis I can give, though, so...here goes.

The Abyssal Hunters kind of suck.

Individually. They kind of suck individually.

I don't think I need to convince anyone that Guard Skadi is a joke of a 6* by herself, and while Specter is great by 5* standards, she doesn't exactly hold a candle to the 6* lane-holder options when you're not abusing her invincibility. Andreana...

Andreana isn't real. I'm sorry. I wish she was. She's not.

The only one of them that's powerful—not just decent, but actually strong—as a standalone unit is Specter the Unchained.

It's not relevant to this analysis, but it is relevant to the general point of this post to point out that Specter the Unchained is a limited unit from a year ago that a majority of the people just newly picking up Gladiia won't ever have.

Gladiia, Specter the Unchained, and Specter can all be very specialized units who offer very strong roles in specific scenarios. But most of the time, if you're taking the full squad, they're not going to be used in those windows of power. At best, you usually just have Specter the Unchained using her blender optimally. They're just...Guards.

They all do the same thing. They're Guards. You place them in lanes, and they hit things. And none of them besides Specter the Unchained are even particularly good at that. Specter (5*) is great when you're using her to tank unsurvivable damage. She's not so great when you're just using her as a nun-flavored Mountain whose skill options are a reasonable DPS boost that stuns her for 10 seconds and fucking ATK Up γ.

And...yes. I get that stacking enough buffs onto a vanilla stick will eventually make the stick strong enough to break anything. The issue here is that the teamwide buffs are largely defensively-focused. There are some offensive parts of those buffs, but they're the ones with the strongest opportunity cost. They're—likely intentionally—found on the most individually mediocre members, Skadi and Andreana. Skadi feels great to bring when you're using her to 1v1 incredibly strong enemies, but when that's not a great option for the map you're bringing, she feels useless. The worst part is that if you're bringing her for the team buff, you have to choose between her modules, because the one that provides the strongest buff is her worse module by a considerable margin. Skadi Mod-X almost makes her feel like a worthwhile unit, by reducing her redeployment time to 40 seconds, making her (with S2) a decently tanky medium-redeploy unit who can square up against units that would make other helidrops falter.

Andreana gives 20 ASPD to the entire team, which is great—but you can only bring 12 Operators to your mission.

Is that really worth a slot in your team? What are you giving up by bringing someone who's weak enough that she's not even worth deploying?

Yes, with all of the buffs combined, Specter the Unchained does become a monster. But with all of the obscenely powerful units we have in the game, is it ever actually worth it to bring two to three dead weights to use her more effectively? Especially when the most potent buffs, the defensive buffs, will usually only be effective on her for a third of the time when she's equipped with her strongest skill?

Is that worth not bringing Texas? Yato? Surtr? Ines? Bagpipe? A real Defender? A secondary DPS? A plan B, in case something goes wrong?

...Maybe? Maybe that's been the experience for you, and these units actually have felt overpowered in your hands. But that hasn't been my experience. These units are clearly powerful. If this review has seemed largely negative, it's only because it exists in the face of endless praise or even complaints about how strong the Abyssal Hunters are.

The Hunters are tanky. They're really, really tanky. Not quite Hoshiguma or Nian tanky, but...well, nothing is. But we're in a metagame where people are (incorrectly, in my opinion) calling Hoshiguma a bad unit because she doesn't provide much utility other than her tankiness. Which is...almost exactly the same as what the Abyssal Hunters as a full squad bring to the table. They're big meatballs that are largely unimpressive in terms of damage or utility.

What content are the Abyssal Hunters optimal in, exactly? They're not meta in Contingency Contract; while Gladiia and Specter the Unchained are CC mainstays, the full squad is never brought, and Gladiia's "gamebreaking" module isn't utilized at all. They're not meta in Integrated Strategies. They're not even the strongest units in SSS, and that's a game mode that has a dedicated buff for them.

At best, they're optimal units for middling difficulty content—and I'd contest that, but we don't have leaderboards to look to for what units are best for clearing story stages. But even if that were true, to get them to that state, you need to invest large amounts of resources into getting full level 3 modules for each of them—and you inarguably need a year-old limited unit!

Stacking teamwide buffs is a great way to bring mediocre units up to playability, but you really need a critical mass of them in order to make them a serious metagame contender. And I...just don't think we're there. I don't think we're that close, honestly.

...

—

Conclusions?

In summary, build Gladiia!

...Look, she's neat. She's one of my favorite units and I use her all the time. And she is good, just...don't expect her to revolutionize the game for you.

And build the other Abyssal Hunters, too. Just...do it because they're a neat thematic squad that's decently powerful as a whole. They work fine without Specter the Unchained, too. They'll be weaker, of course, but they're still perfectly usable. All you're really missing on the other units is her HP buff, and they're still pretty strong without it.

Build them because you like them, and so Gladiia is surrounded by her family. Not because you think they'll crack the game in half, or something.

[itstimetodrew]

Deep dive into a very minor, very niche Spider-Man topic time!

The subject…WHO IS THAT WOMAN??? 🤨

It’s not crucial to the plot, and it’s not a mind-blowing theory, I just like gathering up little background details and connecting them. :)

DISCLAIMER: While obviously the Spider-Man movies are inspired by and based on the comics, I treat the movies as their own thing because tbh...I am not reading all that. It’s Movie Universe Time!

So indeed the 2002 Spider-Man movie does have a lot of cool tidbits that give extra information on characters. Sometimes it’s very subtle, sometimes it’s more overt! So we begin our journey to discover the Mystery Woman here:

95% of the words are actual Character Lore(!), with only the last paragraph copy-pasted, but Today's Focus is one particular section at the bottom of the 2nd column:

"His personal life has not been nearly as successful as his business life. Married only once, to the artist Caroline Mulder, he was divorced after ten years of what was said to have been a singularly strained and unhappy [...]"

3 whole pieces of Mystery Woman information! Her name is Caroline Mulder, an artist ("the artist" implies she's well-known at least in NYC), and they were married for 10 years before divorcing. That gives the portraits in the mansion more context, very likely that Caroline painted them.

Caroline’s impact on the story is also stated by an executive producer in a behind the scenes book when discussing how characters are developed:

"Here's a man raising his son alone—there must be a tragic story with his wife. She must have left him! Does Harry remind him of her? Does he love his boy or hate him?"

Harry does have an interest in art like his mom. In Spider-Man 3 we see him painting a still life in his spare time, after post-traumatic amnesia ironically leaves him happier than ever before. He's forgotten many details of the negative things in his life and instead enjoys reliving childhood activities and memories. It's possible painting was a passion of his when he was younger, similar to how he discusses writing a play for MJ and playing basketball with Peter during high school, but gradually became disconnected from or was pressured to drop.

Knowing the marriage lasted for 10 years helps narrow down a few things, like that the divorce probably wasn't recent. But that’s assuming he was born during the time they were married, meaning Harry could have been 10 at most. Whether Caroline is still alive also isn't clear-cut...in the movie, at least. In the novelization for the 3rd movie, Peter confirms Harry is an orphan after Norman dies. The novelizations and movie details don't always line up 1:1, so it's left open imo. I feel like the paper would have mentioned her passing if she had died but...choose your own route of angst! (And wow would that add a whole new layer of awful to Norman’s misogynistic “advice” about women to Harry if he’s shit-talking his dead ex-wife.)

If Caroline is alive that opens a new batch of questions about where she went. Do they have any sort of shared custody situation? Doubtful, as Caroline seems to be totally cut out of the picture and only exists in the story via possessions. But if the marriage ended bitterly, and some years ago, why is her art and her collections present at all? Her portrait makes sense to keep, as it's revealed in the sequel to be the cover for a hidden safe.

(That's another fun symbol, hiding treasures behind a loved one's image. A place for safety and precious things, hidden from public view.) Other pieces of art seen around the house raise more questions about sentimentality. If Norman hated any reminder of his ex-wife, why keep her work? Why keep it for so long and have it displayed prominently?

I will not let this derail into A Norman Post (it would not end I could not stop) SO my personal take is that it’s probably a mixture of some longing for the past, but mostly spite. Keeping the art is a reminder that while he lost her, he also won. What was hers is now his (son included). Which may factor into why we don’t see Caroline involved with the family at all. Either she didn’t want to be, or she was prevented from doing so. Honestly it would not be surprising to cut all ties, as I do not think many would want to test their luck in a legal battle against a vindictive person who holds a massive amount of money and potential life-ruining influence.

I could also talk about Harry forever but in short I think these details make him more interesting. It's another angle as to why he seems so conflicted and avoidant about family issues, to the point he physically distances himself from them whenever possible. He might have had a strong connection with his mother, but it likely wasn't something he could talk about without Norman taking it as a personal betrayal. Still, he's surrounded by memories of her and keeps his own mementos nearby.

^ There's a photo of her in the apartment he and Peter share, the same image as the portrait (on the middle shelf to the left 🔍). Interestingly, like the portraits, the photos of his parents are kept apart. But here his mom is given more focus on a higher shelf.

Despite the work that went into backstory creation, multiple photographs, and a painted portrait, I haven’t been able to find who "played" the role of Caroline. It would be neat! But it’s also just cool to see how background details offer glimpses of a larger story if you want to look for them. :)

[white-weasel]

Ideal Hypothetical Saw Film Reroll episode(s)

(This is something I’ve been thinking about as I’ve watched through the movies and @afoxnamedmulder also formally asked about it so I took that as full permission from him to just start spewing my every thought about these two things together. This post is hyper niche and for literally like 3 people but idec lets gooooo)

So the first thought is if the Film Reroll crew were to ever reroll Saw it would obviously be the first one. It’s the most culturally relevant one and the one that most fits with what I can see the show doing. In the case of rerolling Saw I, ideally the players would not have seen the movie. Like I said, since this is the most culturally significant one this might be hard but I’m gonna go off of both vibes and play style for this one and just hope that it works

For the GM it’s gonna be Paulo. I just feel he could do the cramped space of the bathroom justice and bring in new “challenges”/obstacles to keep things moving.

Playing Lawrence Gordon, and this is gonna sound crazy please bear with me, I think we get Carolyn Faye Kramer. My reasoning for this is that the Lawrence of Saw I is someone who, despite his task being to kill Adam and cut off his foot, does not actually have the ability to do it until the very end when his family is threatened. If we put Jon or Scott here, Gordon is shooting Adam within the first 15 minutes of the movie. Carolyn I feel can play someone very conflicted about the choice and also won’t immediately jump to trusting whatever Jigsaw is saying on the tape. She’s willing to cooperate with her fellow player and only if she’s pushed to take things into her own hands will she start trying to make moves, which I feel is fitting. (Also she’s the only cast member I feel like we can say 100% has never seen these movies lmao lest we forget the infamous Friday the 13th “I know who the killer is” fiasco” happening because she doesn’t like scary movies)

My first choice playing Adam Faulkner-Stanheight would be none other than Joz Vammer themself! I think they could really get the tone of the character down full stop. The mixture of outbursts and jokes, but then also throwing things at the wall to see what sticks in getting them out of there. I feel like Joz also would not accept the zero sum game presented by Jigsaw and would work to find a way for both Adam and Lawrence to get out together, which is really what you need for this movie. In my heart I feel like Joz has seen the movie, but for this scenario I would hope not because…

The twist in this reroll would be there has been a 3rd PC the whole time: Zep Hindle. I would LOVE for Tim to play Zep. He could 100% play this quiet, envious guy given instructions to carry out his part of the game. My imagining for this would be he and Paulo had a session before the main game that was all about how Zep handled the set up stuff with Alison and Diana.

And then I’m envisioning the bathroom game sessions are happening on a Zoom call or the like, and Tim is sitting with Paulo in his apartment, letting him know what Zep is doing if/when phone calls to the outside world are happening and stuff. Also Paulo could totally call for “breaks” in recording where he’s actually conferring and rolling with Tim on what Zep is doing. The knowledge Zep gets is basically the equivalent of him getting to know stuff because of the camera set up in the movie. This would probably be a logistical nightmare to actually record, but I like to think that the payoff would be awesome. Like it gets revealed there was a secret third player in the episode, Joz and Carolyn are shocked, and then the edit goes back in time to show key tidbits of Tim’s turns and such. They could even release the full audio of it then on Patreon lol

The reveal at Zep being a PC rather than an NPC also kinda parallels/coincides with him not actually being Jigsaw from the original movie too. He’s not the one actually making things happen, he’s all a pawn in the game as well

HOWEVER I also had the thought - if the crew does Saw they don’t HAVE to do the first one. They didn’t do the first Friday the 13th and hell, their first episode is literally Back to the Future 2, not the first movie. If the crew just wanted to do a Saw episode to focus on the trap aspect when they’re playing, I think they could play as the Fatal 5 from Saw V (blatant Saw V bias showing here, don’t look at me, but also I genuinely think this is the group game most conducive to being rerolled). It’s also very likely that none of them have seen Saw V, so the “twist” with the traps being all survivable wouldn’t be known to them

It was between Saw V and Saw II because those are the two group games where all of the participants are free to work together and it’s not reliant on one person. I like Saw V better because I feel it can be self contained more than II. With II you have to deal with the fact Amanda is in on all of it and idk I feel like that just doesn’t work as well for a ttrpg setting. Casting for this one is a lot more vibes based and I have less concrete answers, so I’m open to suggestions

GM - Paulo once again. King of making this all work

Ashley Kazon - Carolyn (don’t know too much about Ashley but I want Carolyn in this movie and feel she could work this)

Charles Salomon - Scott (he could do it. He could bring the smarmy vibes and even though he wouldn’t know the line “I’m an Investigative Journalist for 👆The Herald👆” he would know it in spirit)

Luba Gibbs - Jon (first of all, we don’t get Jon to play women enough on this show. I love him playing Annabelle in Jumanji. Secondly, I think he can play Luba’s cut throat nature well. However I also wouldn’t mind Lisa in this role. I think she could play it well also)

Mallick Scott - Andy (he might be a bit too sedate for this, but also he’s the one I trust the most to play into the inevitable guilt complex that would be put on his sheet so)

Brit Stevenson - Kara (she could 100% do corporate woman who cares only for her own survival until she realizes that she doesn’t HAVE to care only for her own survival. I believe in her)

No twist in how the gameplay happens here, the only fun thing would be to see if the cast would be able to figure out Jigsaw’s message in that they can all actually work together to get through the traps.

FINALLY the most self indulgent thing and the thing they would never actually do because it technically wouldn’t be the movie itself is they would give us an apprentice campaign with the mainline apprentices working together before the start of Saw III/Saw IV, each of them with their own specific, secret objectives they’re hoping to achieve:

GM/John Kramer would be Paulo

Amanda would be Joz (Fairly self explanatory I feel. They have the range to play her. They would GET her)

Lawrence would be Andy (I feel Andy could pull off apprentice Lawrence. Lawrence strikes me as someone in the shadows during his apprentice work, biding his time, and I can see Andy bringing that sort of thing to Lawrence. At the same time there’s some room to develop apprentice Lawrence’s motivations and character so I would be interested in seeing what he’d do for him)

Hoffman would be Scott (Hoffman was the hardest for me to pin down in this line up but I think I like Scott as my pick for now. Open to more thoughts about this one though.)

In every scenario there would be will rolls up the wazoo. I feel like will stats in this would be fairly normal, it would just be the penalties that would make the rolls hard. So I like to imagine that cutting your own foot off is probably a -5 penalty or something, but if you’re in immediate, imminent danger or you have credible reason to think your family is in danger you’d get some bonuses back to make it a less tricky roll. Also numerous fright checks would also be on the table I’m sure, as well as senses of duty or different traits people will have to resist. I think building the character sheets for this would be fun, though it would be interesting to see how it would get balanced out by Paulo when actually playing

[emmalalairalie]

Quotev Replacements for anyone struggling to adjust after Q's downfall

i have taken it upon myself over the last few months to try and search for a suitable Q replacement that has similar features to what Q lost, and also would be easy for my friends to migrate to. I didn't find a completely perfect option that would suit all my friends but I did find a few sites that are really cool. i thought it might be helpful if i shared them! this is just a quick overview of each site, talking about why they are good Q alternatives, and i'll probably accidentally leave out a few details, so sorry in advance.

Dreamwidth

Dreamwidth is based off of LiveJournal, but as someone who has tried both, I can confidently say that I think Dreamwidth is better. So basically, you set up your page (its highly customisable btw, lots of cool themes), and you can post blogs. There's direct messaging, though it is a bit clunky.

There are two things that I really like about this site, and they're why I think its a good alternative for people looking for something like Q.

Privacy options. Each post can be set to your desired privacy setting. When someone follows you, you can choose whether to grant them access to your more private posts.

There's this really cool feature called communities. Basically, it means that multiple accounts can post to the same blog/journal page. This, along with the privacy options and the fact that you can have up to 15 icons (more if you pay), could really be fun for a Q style roleplay community.

I'd also like to add that while dreamwidth doesn't have an option to post stories in a book format, i have found a cool way to post chaptered stories to dreamwidth. its a bit clunky but works pretty well. see my writing account for how i've done that. (my stories are usually on access list only but I changed one to public so you guys could see how i've done it)

angel-town

angel-town is a super niche site, created by someone called Cinni, using oxwall software. its got a very small userbase, and an even smaller active userbase.

this site is mainly built around its feed, which is similar to Q's. there's also options to make forums or blog posts, or to upload images or videos, but mainly the feed is how people communicate. there's also a good direct messaging system and everyone on the site seems pretty nice.

with a few more users, this site could have a feed similar to how active Q's used to be.

unfortunately though, there isn't really any way to private your feed. sure, you can only follow your friends and you won't pop up on anyone else's feed, but your posts will still be seen on the main page.

GraffitiWall

GraffitiWall, like angel-town, is another good alternative to the Q feed. Its kind of a bit like a mixture of twitter and tumblr.

there's good privacy options! with each post, you decide who you want to share with. there's also an option to see the public feed, so if you want to see what people outside of your following group were doing, you can.

Direct messaging is weird though. Posts are called notes, and to send someone a private message, you have to set your note posting status to "direct". so you basically communicate with people through private posts, its a bit strange.

replying to posts is a bit weird too. basically all replies are like tumblr reblogs, instead of having a comment section on the post.

There's also options to upload images and create 'pages', so there's probably lots of roleplay and story writing opportunities waiting to happen.

this site really does remind me of the Q feed quite a bit and it makes me want to stick around even despite all the weird features.

so basically, TLDR;

dreamwidth is good for people who miss the fandom, roleplay side of Q, and it is also possible to do a bit of writing on there

angel-town and graffitiwall are good Q feed alternatives, with varying degrees of privacy and community size

[r3d-f0xs-blog]

OC Profile: Charlie Ever

Basic Info

Name: Eldarion Ever

Alias(es): Charlie Ever, El, Unicorn

Date of birth: May 01 2043

Zodiac sign: Taurus

Gender: Non-binary (they/them)

Place of Birth: Nomad camp

Sexuality: Pansexual

Appearance

Height: 6’/ 183 cm

Build: Slim/athletic

Hair: Blue and pink (was a natural brunette)

Eyes: Natural blue but now mixture of blues, pinks and purples like opal.

Cyberwear: BD recording implants, doll chip, Synthskin, Techhair, Kiroshi optics, Arasaka arms in Mox colours, elf ears with enhanced hearing. The cyberwear on their face is purely for aesthetics as is the panel on their stomach.

Background

Father: Alessio Ever (alive)

Mother: Neroli Ever (alive)

Languages: English, conversational level Spanish

Affiliations

Mox: member

Aldecaldos: known to them

Occupation: Sex worker

Role: Joytoy, doll, BD performer and scroller, dancer

Weapons: Baseball bat, fists

Personality type: ENFJ -A Protagonists (ENFJs) feel called to serve a greater purpose in life. Thoughtful and idealistic, these personality types strive to have a positive impact on other people and the world around them. They rarely shy away from an opportunity to do the right thing, even when doing so is far from easy.

Charlie, as they go by most of the time, was born on the road and in a Nomad clan that since vanished and their family settled into Santo Domingo when they were thirteen. Nothing tragic about their background; lived as well as they could in their family. Their Mum was a huge bookworm and had shards upon shards of old literature; she gave them an elven name from Tolkein and encouraged them to read, write, perform, be creative. Their Dad ended up in the NCPD somehow, probably had a Netrunner friend forge IDs for them.

Charlie had a reasonable education with the clan but education in Night City was mostly from their Mum.

Charlie in Lizzie's Bar

They wanted to be a writer or to direct BDs but as AI and those with better contacts got into that career path, they gave up. Charlie worked in a clothes shop for a while and on some nights worked as a joytoy. From there they found the Mox, met Judy and got into BDs which began as the smut kind but as they and Judy got to know each other, they found more creative sparks, even if that was to make more unique or interesting smut BDs or to talk about dream projects. Charlie eventually got into doll work as well, finding themselves in a niche and luxury dollhouse and befriended Ren there. Doll work is Charlie’s least favourite work but it pays well and is a fall-back when other work is going through a dry spell.

Charlie dancing at Empathy

You’ll find Charlie working in the dollhouse, Lizzie’s, dancing at Empathy or Dark Matter. These days Charlie keeps their joytoy clientele quite small; they’re expensive in the dollhouse for a reason and more expensive as a joytoy because of what they offer. Not all their work is sex related. Charlie has had clients who wanted to cook dinner for them just so they weren’t dining alone, clients who take them along to public events, people who want some physical closeness without sex.

Brain Dance and performance is an art form for Charlie, including smut BDs. It’s something they are passionate about and put a lot of thought into. Sex isn’t taboo for Charlie but with Judy they also love to discuss different ideas for their BDs that aren’t all sex related.

Ren and Judy are probably the only people who know them best. They’re known for being a bit of a grump at times, particularly when people are hassling them when they’re off the clock or giving others grief when they’re working. Charlie’s sleep schedule can be all over the place too which doesn’t help.

Charlie and Judy at Pride

That said they are very much an extroverted person. They thrive on meeting other people, enjoy parties and other social events. They’re warm, friendly and love to talk which goes with their work. While they are empathetic, which comes in handy with many aspects of their work, Charlie is no doormat either.

More at Lizzie’s

Charlie didn’t lose their arms, it was a choice for when they were a more active member of the Mox; Charlie has dealt with people who have harmed other Moxes and still does from time to time. Charlie doesn’t shy from confrontation when it comes to clients giving them or others problems. They’re friendly with Lightning for that reason as she often takes jobs dealing with troublesome clients or individuals who’ve been targeting sex workers in Night City, usually for free.

Charlie and Rita dealing with a handsy patron

Charlie’s interests have inspired a lot of their work. They styled themself after their favourite mythical beings; unicorns and elves. Their hair is cybernetic, can colour shift to silvery and their skin can colour shift from their usual skin tone to paler, it can also have a slight pearlescent shimmer if wanted. They won’t go all out on full exotic cyberwear as it’s not what they want. They’re known for their various series of smut BDs inspired by mythology, folklore, popular fantasy fictional characters and such. Coming up with costumes for their BDs, make-up, hair styling is part of the fun for Charlie. They have made some of their own costumes from scratch or altered pieces to suit.

Dressing room

Charlie is very much a nerd. Their love of reading is still strong and they enjoy RPG video games. Anything from the past about these is a huge interest to them. Tolkein was a love Charlie inherited from their Mum and friends of Charlie know the films are a big comfort for them. It’s almost a rite of passage to becoming friends with them to sit through the extended directors cut of the Lord of the Rings trilogy! Charlie took their stage name from an old surviving series of videos some Netrunner dredged up featuring a unicorn they took their stage name from.

Charlie is still in contact with their parents and have a great relationship with them. Alessio isn’t thrilled about his only child being in a gang but it’s not the worst one Charlie could be in. They’re aware of what Charlie does and don’t pass judgement on them for it.

Art by Fluffy of Charlie and her Valerian OC. Shared with her permission.

Charlie is friends with Judy, Lightning, Ren (Fluffy’s OC), Evelyn, and Valerian (another Fluffy OC.) They get along with a great number of other people but these are those closest to them.

When it comes to relationships, Charlie finds them difficult mainly because exes have said they were okay with their work but have found that actually they had a problem with it or had an expectation they didnt share with them that they would quit sex work. So they are a bit guarded about that! Charlie's relationship with Valerian is still developing. They’re friends, and it’s a little complicated by the fact that Valerian is a client of theirs. How that will develop is yet to be seen!

[bardockarts]

@whatthechickenfriedfuck

Certainly! Luthor's list was a collaboration with @darkwingsnark, so she can probably remember more of the specific reasons, but for Luthor we were looking for a good mixture of power, technology, and deviousness, as well as things that meshed well with his general being.

Gengar -- I think this was a snark pitch, but it's a three stage and has the right air of clever menace. Metagross is a powerful steel (tech) and psychic (intelligence) with the capacity to go beyond and mega-evolve. Gigalith, iirc, was for another powerful / intimidating three stage (and the shiny sort of looks like Kryptonite). Duraludon represents his buildings, Genesect for a man-made legendary, and a shiny Eevee for potential, wealth/prestige, the stereotypical cat-stroking bad guy, and the possibility of change (plus we couldn't give him a meowth for obvious reasons).

Clark has a Magikarp (raised from childhood, to represent Clark's patience and desire to nurture something weak) a Sivally (that he liberated from Luthor as a Type: Null, which Luthor is very pissed about) and a Deoxys, that sort of has been following him around since he was a kid (curious about his origin) even though he keeps trying to chase it off.

Toyman's are all single-stage and weak, most being playful toys, mischievious, and/or electric; Mime Jr, Shuppet, and Mimikyu all occupy the same niche (non-threatening little doll that actually is a little scary) a Joltik for a cute electric type (ditto that for Magnemite), and then one big unexpected powerhouse, Xurkitree. Xurkitree was a chance finding as Toyman was originally from Alola and made friends with it while getting trapped in a cave as a young child. It represents his love of circuitry and electricity well enough.

Optionally is also a Rockruff, for the childhood puppy / further connections to Alola.

Thanks for your inquiry! I haven't thought about this AU in like a year, lol.

[sad-eyed-lady-of-the-paperbacks]

For the Truth or Dare ask game: 🌵, 🔪, 🍦, 🎨

🌵 ⇢ share the link to a playlist you love

Sorry to disappoint but I do not have a link to share! I’m a puts-my-entire-music-library-on-shuffle-and-revel-in-the-chaotic-mixture girlie. When a song plays that reminds me of a particular book or pairing, I do add it to a playlist of that, however.

🔪 ⇢ what's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

Well, during the research for this fic, google was literally giving me crisis hotlines at the top of the search results because I was searching things like “what does it feel like to be stabbed in the chest” “how long does it take to die from a stab wound to the chest” “how long can a person remain conscious after a stab wound to the chest” etc. etc. etc. I was making google very concerned lol.

But I don’t even know if that’s the weirdest, because those are kind of the standard “I swear I’m a writer not a murderer!” search queries. The weirdest was probably something like the time I was desperately trying to find out how long the voyage from Germany to New Orleans would have been via steamship in the mid 1860s and having to resort to a free trial of ancestry.com just so I could get the dang passenger lists in order to compare the arrival and departure times, or combing through agricultural advertisements in American newspapers in the 1860s (if I ever finish that dang chapter you’ll know why) or the fact that I’m currently reading a 400 page academic text on moneylending in Imperial Russia…

There’s a lot of weird niche research that goes into writing fic lmao.

🍦 ⇢ name three good things about a character you hate

Noooo how could you do this to me when all the characters I hate are very deserving of my hatred? Gah. Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov came to mind immediately, so let’s see… um.

He has affection for Alyosha (but only because Alyosha is loving toward him, and he’s still an absolute jerk to Alyosha quite often)

He makes Pyotr Miusov miserable and it’s pretty hilarious.

He got extremely angry when Grushenka was referred to as a “brute creature” and defended her, so we do love to see that, even though he’s still a gross pathetic little creep when it comes to her.

🎨 ⇢ link your favourite piece of fanart and explain why you like it

Noooo there’s no way I can possibly pick a favourite when all of my fandoms are full of such incredibly talented artists!! But I guess the most impressive fanart project that comes immediately to mind for me is @gegengestalt’s Microsoft Paint—yeah, that’s right, you heard me correctly. Microsoft Paint—illustration of the entirety of tbk from start to finish. It’s amazing. https://www.tumblr.com/gegengestalt/717765289928015872/the-entirety-of-the-brothers-karamazov-in-mspaint?source=share

But yeah, gah, I am in absolute awe of all the fantastically talented artists in all of the fandoms I’m in. You guys are terrifyingly talented.

Thank you so much for the ask!!!

[analytic-daemons]

Introduction & Info

If you've stumbled on this blog at random, I suggest having a read of this!

Reason being, the topic of this blog is related to a very niche community and probably won't make any sense at all without context. :P

First thing's first, a quick introduction to me: I'm Rook, a queer agender adult. I use they/them pronouns, thanks!

I'm a daemian, and have been for over a decade. ^u^ I'm going to be crossposting modified versions of my analytic interpretations from TDF to here!

~~~~~

Right, before I get into explanations, some blog info!

I categorise analyses posted here with tags for different groups they belong to. So an ant analysis might be tagged with #invertebrate, #insect, #hymenoptera, and #ant.

Important note: posts here will likely contain images of animals, and that includes animals that may be triggers for those with phobias (such as spiders and snakes)! I will always tag these with the animal for categorisation purposes (e.g. spiders will be tagged with #spider) and I'll try and remember to tag them with trigger warnings too (e.g. #tw spider).

I don't prioritise writing analyses for well-known or iconic animals. You can expect a bit of a mixture!

Yes, you can request an analysis! Bear in mind these things take a big chunk of time to research and write, so please be patient with me. I'll edit this if my inbox gets too full. '^^

I'll be posting shortened versions of my analyses on this tumblr, but I'll also link to the full version on TDF (which has info on how I interpreted the traits I list) in the post!

~~~~~

Okay, Q&A time~

Wait, wait, you lost me. Daemian?

Right, context time! A daemian is a person who practices daemonism. Despite how it might sound, this isn't a spiritual practice or a religion -- more of a psychological thing for most of us!

Daemonism has its roots in the fan community for His Dark Materials (HDM), a book series by author Philip Pullman.

In HDM, every human has a sapient companion called a "dæmon" that represents their inner nature. Dæmons begin their lives as animal shapeshifters, but when their human reaches a certain age they settle into a permanent animal form which represents their human in some way.

Daemians took this idea and built a community and practice around it! Daemonism has two sides: one is to learn to communicate with your daemon, who is usually a psychological aspect of yourself or your mind; the other side is to find a fitting form. The latter is what this blog is concerned with!

The daemian community is a pretty old one by internet standards -- about two decades old now, if I'm remembering correctly! It's always been niche, but we're super welcoming to those wanting to learn more or give it a try. c:

So what's an "analytic interpretation"?

Within the daemian community, a few different ways have emerged to find what form your daemon might take to represent you.

Some of these align closely with the way daemon forms work in HDM -- they use cultural associations and animal symbolism. So, a lion might be proud, bold and lazy!

Analytic is a bit of a different beast. The analytic system was thought up by the daemian community, who wanted a system which more aligned with real animal behaviour rather than anthropomorphisation.

Analytic is a system that translates animal behaviour into human personality traits. There are conventions for how this is done, which give the system a bit of consistency -- but ultimately it's still more of an art than a science, and not everyone would interpret an animal in exactly the same way. That's okay, though! It's just part of the fun. :P

Analyses are write-ups which describe how the author interprets the animal's behaviour. That's mostly what I intend to post on this tumblr!

Analyses are written as resources for the daemian community, to help them find a form which they feel fits who they are. ^^

How does someone find what animal fits them?

Analytic form-finding is a big, big topic! There's a lot of depth to it, really.

Most people start their analytic journey by making a list of their personality traits. They can then compare this list against existing analyses, find animal behaviours that may align, or share the list with the daemian community so others can make suggestions!

If you're interested in getting involved, I highly recommend joining the daemian community!

There's two main, active centres for the daemian community online. The oldest is The Daemon Forum (TDF), which -- given it's a forum -- isn't the busiest place, but there's still folks around!

TDF also has a Discord server, which is a bit more lively! It's a good place to ask questions and interact with members of the daemian community.

Can I ask questions about daemonism / analytic forms / etc. here?

Yes! Absolutely feel free! Daemonism is my special interest of all time, I love talking about it. :D You can ask stuff about general daemonism too, not just forms or analytic stuff!

So... what's your analytic form? >:)

I'm an analytic European hornet and proud! 🐝🐝🐝

[the-likeable-wizard-mack]

Urban Fantasy Worldbuilding: /Theme Parks/ Indoor Play Places/

//The most niche thing that I thought of that probably sucks but, I have been consuming so much fnaf like analog horror games/ game that take place in some kind of childrens play place. *cough* *cough* Sunny Day Jack *cough* *cough* AAAnnnd old Ronald mcdonalds commercial//

-Indoor play places and theme parks are pretty interesting to say the least in an urban fantasy setting. They are more complex and in on honestly similar to the pizzaplex from fnaf security breach. A mixture between a mall, kids space and theme park all wrapped up in one. These places are technological and magical wonders with most of them carrying a sense of nostalgia for them. - Theme parks are the same way. Most theme parks hire a lot of species and have very healthy diversity within this field. Some theme parks rang from small to outstandingly large. Some of them are stand alone while others are massive conglomerates from other entertainment companies. Toys, Cartoons you name it there’s probably a park based on it.  

-Tech mages who have a creative twist to them can create wonders in the world of entertainment. Though tech mages mostly deal with technology this doesn’t mean that they can be gifted in engineering and building magical creations. Tech mages and engineers work together to create not only theme park/indoor park rides but, automatons as well. With robotic parts and a bit of magic can create robots that rival human intelligence.  //TLDR; The PizzaPlex animatronics COULD exist in this universe.  -These play places are very colorful and bright. Most of reminiscent of 80′s and 90′s of indoor play places. 

[blackwoolncrown]

Niche rant but like...

If you're filipinx you probably already knew about jo koy and the thing about his golden globes flop that annoys me the most is that he's BEEN a shitty misogynist!!!!!! for years!!!

I wanted to like him so bad but it was really obvious what kind of asshole he was bc the vast majority of his bits are just him mocking his mom's accent

and the mixture of "Man pretending to be a woman as a mockery" and "making fun of your race/dialect for a largely white audience" is verrrry familiar to me as a black person I know what it means

so all these ppl being like wow I used to like him what happend..? is so..?? like? No you just thought crappy humor was funny and never actually thought about it until he said the quiet parts out loud

[gallierhouse]

Not to start shit but what’s everyone’s obsession with Kilian? I have such beef with this house but I’m honestly trying to understand?? Like it’s just smells so unsophisticated to me? Yes, even their most well liked and famous bangers. And I just can’t compute in my head the smell and the price. Can you please elaborate a little bit? Would really like to know what are your favorites from them and WHY. (And then I’ll probably go and try them again, for the 123th time). I really feel like I’m in some parallel universe lol.

Personally, I like Kilian because I like drinking. That’s really about it. Founded by a Hennessy heir? Advertised as making sexed-up gourmands with real alcoholic notes? Sign me up. That, I admit, is a major part of the appeal for me. I wear a lot of alcoholic fragrances, so obviously I’d like Kilian. Then there’s all that great, sexy marketing, which does work on me. Everything’s sexy and grown-up and it makes me feel sexy and grown-up, so naturally, I happily hand over my credit card. I’m very shallow. Couldn’t you tell?

Jokes aside, my favorites are Black to Black, Black Phantom, and Vodka on the Rocks. I also like Apple Brandy, Roses on Ice and L’Heure Verte, but less so, and I share your disdain for Angel’s Share and Good Girl Gone Bad. The main offerings of the house tend to be fruity and sweet, which is fine, but it’s really not my thing. I can’t detect the cognac in Angel’s Share at all, so it comes off as a cloying vanilla, which I don’t enjoy. Good Girl Gone Bad smells like a generic white floral to me, which is fine, but really not what I’d wear, so I do understand why you’re not enthused about the house in general.

I really like Back to Black because it smells terrible. It’s way too strong, way too sweet, incredibly overpowering mixture of honey, chocolate and tobacco, and it’s really good. But I understand why someone would hate it, which is exactly what I love about it. It’s a really sexy fragrance to me, in an intense, carnal way. Black Phantom is essentially a more wearable version of Back to Black, and I really enjoy the rum mixed with the vetiver. It’s alcoholic, sweet but not fruity, it has smoke and coffee. See, I like all these things outside of perfume, so it’s really hard for me to say no to it. All I do is drink, then I drink coffee, then I smoke (I’m quitting. I’m down to once a week, a la Gwyneth Paltrow). It’s like it was made for me. Vodka on the Rocks is really fresh with aldehydes on top, then it has this very realistic vodka note (on me, at least) that cuts through and makes the whole scent feel like a chilled glass, and I find it really pleasant. But I admit it’s a simple scent and not really worth the price tag the house demands. Roses on Ice is similar, pleasant, but admittedly not worth that much. But then again, no perfume is “worth that much,” because it’s all about the value an individual finds in it. Finally, I enjoy L’Heure Verte because it’s a very photorealistic absinthe to me. Does it smell good? That depends on the wearer. But does it do what it says it does, that is, smell like absinthe? Yes. So that’s a 10 to me, especially because there isn’t really another perfume that does that.

Honestly, a big part of Kilian’s success and recent popularity is the marketing. It’s this niche house that’s cool to wear because not everyone knows about it, and then it’s got nice packaging and all of the perfumes are named very well. There’s a certain crowd with dispensable income that’s going to flock to spending $300 on something called “Smoking Hot” or “Love, Don’t Be Shy” or “Good Girl Gone Bad” that’s got a glass bottle with gold cursive on it. I really like Kilian, and I think their value as a house comes primarily from the fact that they excel at making genuinely alcoholic fragrances, which isn’t something any other house (as far as I know) specializes in. Then there’s the fact that they have a good selection of gourmands that aren’t pure candy or fruit, which is how a lot of gourmands end up going, which also appeals to me. I’ve also found that their scents have decent longevity and projection, at least on me. Except for Vodka on the Rocks; that disappears, but I still love it. I hope that helps!

[spectralstitions]

OK I FIGURED OUT THE NAMING SITUATION (For the species, anyways. Parthesa rename pending). My slowass only just realized that whatever I call the species, or whatever they're called in the """english translation""", does not have to be what they would hypothetically call themselves in their language. Why do I do these things to myself.

Anyway, like I said in my last blog entry I wanted to keep the names as simple and understandable as possible, nothing extravagant. So here's my current solution:

Fasa = critterkin

Raswa = hoofkin

Partha = birdkin

Collectively = kinfolk? Something like that?

Fae = Fae or faefolk

My thinking with the use of "kin" instead of "folk" for the more human-leaning species is that typically, when I think of a character who is, for example, birdfolk, I'm picturing a fully animal character who almost completely maintains their feral anatomy, the only difference being their upright posture and clothes. They're like, 90% animal and 10% anthro. And the results I got from searching for [creature]folk on Google reflected that. And there wouldn't be anything wrong with using folk regardless, it's a great word and I love it, but honestly as someone who is annoyed that there is literally no term in existence to describe the ratio of human to animal features reflected in my design niche except for "satyr" or "faun" which are ungulate-specific I kinda just wanted to come up with an alternative that I could hypothetically use outside of this project if I wanted. Kin is the only other common, one-syllable word that means pretty much the same thing as folk, so even though it's a little less cute I just went with it. Since Faefolk are in fact animals, allbeit mixtures of animals, I'm keeping folk in their name because it gets the image of what they are across just fine.

Birdkin is self explanatory but since I couldn't think of a catchall, one-syllable term for rodents, I went with vibes and called them critterkin. Hoofkin is the name really stumping me right now. While 90% of hoofkin are deer, there are also goat and sheep hoofkin, namely, uhhhh, one of the most important main characters. However, it's been really, really tricky trying to find a one-syllable trait that every member of the species shares without being weirdly specific. I've tentatively selected Hoofkin but not gonna lie guys I can't explain it but to me it sounds like a drug or a slur or something. I don't know. Please tell me I'm insane and nobody else thinks this because I just want to be done trying to find something haha. I couldn't think of a "vibes" word in its place, either. Wildkin is the best I could come up with, but it felt too vague. The ratio of deer to nondeer is such that it might be okay just to name them "deerkin" but the specificity doesn't feel quite right. I'm gonna keep my eye out for better words, and if anyone's got suggestions please lemme know.

Either way, LORD I am so sick of my ancient made up fantasy words haha, I'll replace them with anything at this point. Once I figure out a new name for Parthesa, I'll probably make some edits to my map/world lore post. If I do change any of the suffixes again I probably Will Not Be Making a public service announcement about it like this one, or if I do it will be either really really short or part of a different update. But I did want to make this post just to get it off my chest haha. Until next time :3

[leam1983]

Speed Limiter

Last night was an odd one, let's say.

It all begins with Sarah receiving a package from the local chapter of the SQDC, our local legal cannabis dispensary. Opening it revealed a few packs of pre-rolled Spinach joints and two boxes of individually-wrapped edibles. Legally, Quebec prohibits the sale of "fun-looking" edibles, so we spent a minute or two thinking she'd sprung on some pricey artisanal cookies with a mixture of chocolate chip, blueberries and roasted chia seeds. Giving the box a bit more of a look made it clear for us that someone had plans.

Then followed the post-dogpile decision from Walt that we were going for the greasiest, least-filling and least-appreciable delivery pizza on the block - Domino's. Pair that with the joints, and I know from experience that when a high takes me, I don't, in fact, want the local high-end pie with quality ingredients. Far from it. I instead end up having a massive jones for the kind of pie you'd think gets made with reconstituted cardboard.

I go for an edible, Walt tries a joint, and Sarah has one of each. The end result is we ate each other under the table, we ended up having the most intense and loving sex in months, and we finally found the one substance that's enough for Walt to abandon his sartorial leanings, albeit for just a few hours. Seeing him with jeans that no longer really fit and a moth-eaten tee-shirt that barely covered his belly button was a bit of a trip in and of itself.

What was especially strange was the fact that, well, Sarah and I are used to the stuff. I go with sedate puffs and edibles last me for hours even if the bit of food proper is about the length of my index finger. Walt, though... isn't really used to edibles.

He ate two, thinking the THC content was low enough to allow for more casual use, as if they were cookies. The end result was a bit of an emotional rollercoaster, seeing as he alternated between clocking out and snoring like his life depended on it and waking up bleary-eyed like he'd just gone on a vision quest. He thought he had genius insights on the market, but had trouble couching his thoughts down coherently. By the first hour, he was convinced we'd make a killing if we started a dealership of our own, and that a dealership operated by a polyamorous throuple would fill up a market niche that wasn't currently exploited.

"No, you don't get it! We know all the twinks, all the trans folk, all the bears, all the butch dykes - and they don't get market representation!"

I shrugged. "We're talking cars, Walt. There's no such thing as an automaker that specifically caters to the LGBTQA."

He nodded in the negative. "No, I'm serious! We need Ford F-150s with red flannel interiors! It's for the lumber dykes in the Eastern Townships!"

By that point, Sarah and I were in stitches on the floor. At the same time, if we do have people who plaster their flag of choice in their rear window (here referring to the base Pride flag or the Enby, Trans, Aroace, etc variants) then wouldn't these same people want car interiors that refer to those colors?

Food for thought. Probably. Or it could be that I'm feeling the aftershocks of the edibles and joints.

[button-mash]

What I played last week #7

Wild Hearts [PC]

Monster Hunter was always one of those series where I liked the idea of them and always thought they looked great when I watched other people's gameplay, but playing them myself always just felt a bit clunky and overwhelming. I don't think there is anything wrong necessarily with games aiming themselves at people who are already fans of a series, but trying to play Monster Hunter always felt like some videogame version of gym impostor syndrome, where you convince yourself everybody there already seems to know exactly what to do and it just adds to the feeling of the game feeling a little impenetrable. It always contributed to feeling like I was never playing the games 'properly', and always held back the experience for me.

Enter Wild Hearts, which I'd never really heard anything about until the week it launched, which seems to be a go at making as close to a Monster Hunter game as possible without infringing any copyright - that said, I am sure to the layman they're wildly different games, but at its core you're hunting down huge oversized fantasy monsters and looting their bodies to feed into the loop of building better/different gear to fight better monsters. Something about this game just felt immediately more accessible to me - the game has a Feudal Japan/Samurai theme running alongside the monster one which feels a little incongruous, but I am such a sucker for giant katanas and I famously live by the Bushido code myself, so it immediately appealed to me. The combat is actually very cool and felt immediately more visually interesting and mechanically accessible to me, and whilst it still had a bunch of complex systems that probably aren't too dissimilar from Monster Hunter, it somehow just felt a lot easier to understand. However, any enjoyment I might have gotten from this was totally marred by horrible performance - despite having a powerful PC, the game suffered from all kinds of crashes, freezes and performance hitches which combined to really undermine the experience, so this one never got too far off the ground for me. It's a testament to the game's potential to be fun because I still battled through a bunch of restarts and performance issues despite it being an unfamiliar genre I had no attachment too, where as normally Id have just sacked it off completely - unfortunately, an imminent performance patch didn't really improve things, and I feel like by the time this one becomes more playable, I'll have already long moved on. Cool game with interesting combat, but too many flaws to take on and properly enjoy at the moment

Wanted: Dead [PC] This one is a real enigma - on paper it looked like one of those ultra niche games trying to recreate an ultra specific experience warts and all, and you were either going to like it or hate it. Specifically it was trying to evoke the style and feeling of that mental 00's era of PS2/Xbox bonkers action games like God Hand, Blood Will Tell and Samurai Western, which I was completely down for. Then I started to play it and at first it felt like they unfortunately hadn't even managed that - even going in and having the exact right expectations, it just wasn't landing for me...

Then I played on and I'm glad I did because I ended up having an absolutely amazing, dumb time with this. It really was EXACTLY what I expected

On the surface, the game wants to be a mixture of melee and shooting combat, but what threw me at first is that the shooting is absolutely dreadful, literally almost unplayably bad outside of specific sections, and other than your pistol (which is really to be used as a combo starter/parry rather than a real weapon), the shooting just feels mechanically horrible. However, once I just started to play the game as a melee game with situational shooting parts, the whole thing just starts to make way more sense, and there are a few key unlocks on the skill tree that really make the parry and dodge mechanics a lot more enjoyable and viable. I quickly got the sense that the shooting is really only there as a mechanic to make sure you don't stand still, and you actually get hit very little and take very little damage as long as you're constantly moving around. This is reinforced even more as the levels go on, as firearm based enemies tend to dwindle and a lot of the toughest enemies are actually all melee based, and progressing becomes all about timing counters and parries. The whole game and it's aesthetic is so odd and funny, they've just totally nailed that early '00s insane character design you'd see in games like Time Crisis, this is the final boss for example

Nonsense.

The thing that truly saves the game is the finishers mechanic - for such a janky game they've come up with this execution system with something stupid like 150 different situational finishers that so seamlessly blend together, they genuinely never stop being cool. Like the whole game is New Jank City and then out of nowhere they have these best in class finishing moves with unprecedented variation - I was still seeing new ones right up until the very end, and chaning them together ends up making the game feel like some sort of John Wick moments simulator.

Among it all it just undeniably evokes the feeling of playing a very specific type of game from a very specific time - good and bad. Its strange because the framework for a much much better game is there, but if they'd actually turned it into that, I think it would suddenly be something completely different and lose a lot of makes it so...itself, and as crazy as it sounds, I am not sure if a better version of this game would have hooked me quite as much.

Look, this is an almost objectively bad game that I really loved playing. Its a mechanically janky, artificially difficult experience that has huge camera issues and so many of your deaths in the punishing gauntlets it throws at you are down to shitty game design or jank getting in your way rather than you genuinely failng. There are obtuse difficulty spikes and constant moments of a punishing lack of checkpointing where it has you fighting waves enemies that can essentially one hit kill you if you mess up. It's shooting is terrible to the point of being worth actively avoiding as much as you can, and the upgrades and stuff for the guns are almost pointless. The bosses are weirdly the easiest bit of the whole game, and the game itself doesnt even really become all that playable or enjoyable until you unlock half of the melee skill tree midway through the game. It mostly looks like shit outside of it's excellent finishing animations, and it has some of the worst minigames ever.  I have had an absolutely fucking amazing time with it and have completed it 5 times in the past week or so. 12/10