#this is so long i didnt even know until i posted it

[mbat]

i literally read the book of bill days ago but its only now kinda hitting me how fucked ford and bills whole thing was though cause ford literally talks about being so unable to sleep (to try to keep bill away), and when sleep inevitably caught up to him, he would wake up to his body abused and things messed with and he just couldnt seem to find an escape (and he literally didnt get to truly escape until 30 years later)

(also keeping people awake for unhealthily long periods of time is another tactic used to mess with and control people because of how it impairs brain function)

listing off the things we see in those few pages in the book of bill:

i mean, punching and scratching at a steel door for hours would be so damaging to your hands and probably hurt like hell for at least 2 days after. then bill says he was hitting fords head against a wall, though its said in a post-it as if its a joke, but he also isnt exactly above doing that, and honestly he says most things like its a joke.

i also dont need to say 'bill really doesnt know how to take no for an answer' because he makes that very clear in literally any interaction we see with him.

bill literally puts a venomous snake near ford while fords asleep, which could have killed him if he wasnt lucky+skilled enough to deal with it.

he nearly gives ford hypothermia, and in the same action actively threatens ford with the idea of making him jump off of a high spot, and like ford says, doesnt do it just so he can send a message to ford about how hes the one in control.

he gets ford in trouble with not only the law, but also with other people that are probably not very happy with him after. he mutilates fords body in several ways, and i dont think i need to go into detail on them because theyre... so ew. and he even exposes part of fords body to the world. like, its just taking his shirt off, but thats still showing off his body in a way that he didnt agree to or want

and then he attempts to (or purposefully fails to) call stan, using fords voice to threaten suicide and tell stan that ford never loved him.

and he punctuates it with a final power move, in a hallucination that he creates, hes messing with stans memories and making him feel like his body was basically about to implode

and like. okay, we all joke about toxic old man yaoi, and its a good joke and toxic old man yaoi is great and its an interesting ship, but holy fuck.

like. to say the absolute least, that had to be so, so deeply violating. its no wonder that when we see ford in the past, when he finally contacts stan, he looks like hes on the verge of shattering into a million pieces. he just went through, and still wasnt yet out of, some deeply abusive shit.

like... everything coming out lately both in this book and what ive heard is on the website, mixed with what we already knew from the show itself... the stans are both so, so fucking tragic dude. their whole lives were thrown away over things that really didnt even need to be the way they were, and then they both get into situations that are pretty damn screwed, and those situations follow them for the rest of their lives. its basically a miracle that things worked out in the end for them.

i dont really have a point, i just had to talk about all that. i read almost all of the book of bill in one sitting, and while i was really enjoying it, i was also getting kind of tired of sitting in one spot only doing this one thing for several hours straight. i still felt a lot of the emotional bits of it of course, but man this part specifically just really didnt hit me until now.

i mean, to say the absolute least, i know what its like to feel violated in a similar way, though not anywhere near to the extent of what he went through at all. someone get that man some therapy got damn

[haunted-xander]

You raised a child together Thancred what did you expect

+ a bonus I came up with while drawing this lol

[hanzajesthanza]

return of the king

bonus:

[volfoss]

it is beyond infuriating how anne rice seems to insist on marius being a positive force in anyone's life ever. like she can't fully commit to exploring the fact he groomed armand and has repeatedly taken away his consent for what marius thinks is best (take the end of TVA as an example) and just kind of flatly puts it in the narrative. there's not really much interest in how these horrific events make marius come across as the worst because EVERYONE loves him. for gods sake, lestat learns from armand exactly what marius did to him in TVL and then proceeds to go find marius and be super friendly to him in the same fucking book. even armand and pandora, two of the people who have MORE than enough right to hate him, do not. it doesnt feel like shes trying to explore the toxicity of the abusive dynamic he traps them in, it just is there. and like yeah ofc the toxic vampire romance series but i think that this should be handled with more care. and it is not ever really framed in a way that she is interested in exploring how marius should easily be one of the most horrific characters in this series because it kind of feels like sa/rape/grooming/other things of that sort are just put there to further plot and not to really get the respect that they deserve in a medium.

[reel-fear]

Honestly, every single time the whole 'poppy playtime is a bendy rip-off' stuff ever shows up I find it all extremely unconvincing and silly.

For one thing, rip-off usually is meant to imply that it's a cheap lazy copy of a better more polished thing, and uh. Sorry but even from chapter 1? Poppy Playtime is a better game than Bendy, it has a simple but understandable story, the game manages to be thrilling, creepy, and very intense at times... I mean that Huggy chase in the vents ALONE puts it way above Batim for me.

I mean BATDR had the most slow stupid chase I've ever seen [and every other encounter with the ink demon is text telling u he's there and then a timer goes down and u get jumpscared] and batim's chases were either silly or just not nearly as theatric or terrifying as that.

When making the vent sequence I mean not only is it absolutely horrifying to realize how fast Huggy is in there but also it's so theatric and cool? The fact that you round a corner after thinking you escaped only to see a terrifying animation of that thing crawling toward you is awesome! I wish Bendy had stuff like that!

And all the stuff it shares with Bendy are generic things Bendy ripped from other horror games/media anyways. I'm not saying Poppy Playtime isn't inspired by Bendy I for sure think it is but Bendy is such a generic story that somehow fails to do tropes 100 other horror games have done any comparison only makes Poppy Playtime look better.

"It has employees being sacrificed for their company" That is not a concept Bendy invented, literally look at any of the sci-fi horror series Bendy is very inspired by. This is literally a twist in the original Alien.

"It has a scary woman forcing you to do tasks for her" Once again, not a concept Bendy invented, a scary mysterious person forcing you to do fetch-quests is a concept found in tons of horror media. And at least Poppy Playtime gave you a chase with her and let you defeat her, look at poor malice. She's barely on screen for more than 10 minutes before she gets stabbed.

"It has a cult worshipping the monster" This is something tons of horror games and media have done too. I mean In The Tall Grass has a guy who worships a giant magical rock in the middle of a grass maze, Bioshock [which Bendy has only been taking more and more direct inspiration from while failing to grab any of the compelling parts] also had a lot of themes of religion and cult-ish behavior, almost every horror media franchise has at one point done a cult thing.

Bendy couldn't even come up with a reason Sammy worships the ink demon, the best motivation we've ever gotten is just that 'he's crazzyyyy the ink made him insaneeee'. Who is the cheap rip-off here?

At least Poppy Playtime gave their cultist a motive for worshipping the monster + a proper boss fight that feels intense and looks awesome! Bendy didn't even let you kill Malice [she got stabbed in front of you and then just collapsed on the floor how thrilling] meanwhile you get to kill three of the villains in Poppy Playtime and the gameplay and action in those scenes have only gotten better as the game went on.

I mean Sammy walks into a room and goes "AAA SCARY I'M BEING MURDERED" then later shows up and for NO REASON sees a normal human man and assumes it's the ink demon before once again someone else kills him for you. In Poppy Playtime you defeat Catnap as he floods the world with this horrible nightmare-inducing gas that intensifies the color palette and his design. Fight off versions of him that are illusions that you need your flare gun for, then watch in a wonderful animation as he mistakes the monster for his savior before getting killed by it, in a brutal way I might add, which game are we accusing of being cheap, lazy garbage again?

I just find this argument to be people who Really Really need to find a reason to hate Poppy Playtime which I think is silly. The devs being weird, shady people is already enough reason to dislike the game, you don't need to invent reasons why secretly every part of the game is malicious or bad. But esp when I see Bendy fans saying they don't support Poppy Playtime or dislike it bc of its devs or even saying its cringe ummmm.

I have bad news about the fact Bendy's devs are worse and it took not one, but TWO over an hour long videos to cover it all. Plus the Bendy games are just the worse games in every aspect, if I could sell my batim copy for a copy of Poppy Playtime I wouldn't hesitate at all.

Saying this as a bendy fan, we have no right to be super judgy towards Poppy Playtime. If Poppy Playtime is embarrassing cringe, Bendy is too and is way more embarrassing of an interest. We shouldn't spread misinformation just because we all want to hate Poppy Playtime, you can dislike Poppy Playtime without making up a bunch of nonsense to justify it.

Honestly seeing people just blatantly be unfairly mean to Poppy Playtime only makes its critics look worse and makes it hard to take any backlash to the games seriously. Because surprise surprise if you spread misinformation to make a point people will quickly stop listening to Anything you have to say bc they won't trust you're telling the truth anymore.

[ra-vio]

2b and 9s I've been working on for far too long

mask-less under the cut

using them as guinea pigs cause I wanted to draw faces. these kinda match

[hollowisthyname]

ok ok this is probably dumb but i gotta get it out there because i have lots of thoughts and if i don't say them my brain will bother me about it forever so :

earlier today i saw a post about how much darker ride the cyclone could've been- the kids still having their injuries from the fall , having to do the songs and choreography because karnak makes them but having it hurt them and eventually they all just collapse from pain and exaustion- and while that's an amazing concept for a much sadder version and i can tell it would be absolutely DEVASTATING to see performed it also got me thinking about how different that would be from the actual show and the reason they're all there in the first place .

karnak brought them there because , in his own words , he wanted to let them express not who they were perceived to be , but who they dreamt they were . this was his gift to them- "a eulogy" , he says , to these kids unfairly torn from the world before they got a chance to fulfill those dreams . and as he assures ocean after her "catchphrase" , their will is still entirely their own . they choose the songs they sing , not one of them is forced to . he was ready and willing to let ocean concede without singing at all (although i suppose that could've been because he knew she would never go through with it at that point) , and apart from her initial catchphrase , none of the kids object to having some of their moves choreographed . as another post points out , he even lets them do some of their own , unchoreographed , dancing during sugar cube . and all in all , they're happy to have had the chance !! they all get to know each other so much better over the course of the show , and ricky even gets his abilities to walk and speak back so he can better communicate to the others what he wants to say . and of course , penny gets her memory back and is able to live out the rest of her life . it's amazing that even one of them was able to come back like that , and everything that lead to that point helps them all realize things about each other , and life , and death , that they otherwise would never have known .

....i got kinda off topic there . i guess my point is , the "competition" for reincarnation was a gift to the kids , not a curse . it was a way to let them say the things they had always wanted to , and learn lessons they never had the chance to learn in life . to change it to something they were being forced to do , something that was hurting them- that would change the point of the entire show .

ride the cyclone can seem very dark at first- and it is , of course , that is a part of it . but at its core , it's a very optimistic show , and i think that's a big part of what defines it . and karnak , while he can be very sarcastic and mess with the kids (especially ocean , though to be fair she usually deserves it) , is ultimately just .... a lonely guy who knows more than is good for him . and instead of using his power over life and death to manipulate and control the kids for his own entertainment , he gives one of them the chance at life and all of them the chance to express themselves the way they wanted to be seen .

it's optimistic because it says that even though these kids died in a tragic accident , they still have another chance to learn and grow . that's what makes this show what it is , and i love it so damn much . it's hopeful , it what it is , and it's really impressive how they managed to make a story about kids who died in an accident have so much hope ingrained into it . it's contradictory in the most beautiful way , and i wouldn't change it for anything .

[exopelagic]

WHY DID NOBODY TELL ME BURROWS END WASNT FREE

[rainingincale]

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[halloweendeity]

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[suddenrundown]

considering faking my death to get out of this project. would still like to get a passing grade for it.

[silverislander]

rereading a book i loved in high school to annotate a copy. remembering why it connected w me so much

[4giorno]

okay im enjoying getting these dialogues i previously missed so much. literally astarion when you ask what? will you miss me: "HA!

why not!!!"

[atsu-i]

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[atticcreationz]

We've reached the point in the season where I don't want to watch the Adventuring Party episodes until AFTER the ending, but good lord the physical restraint I will have to exhibit if any of the last few APs have even a whiff zoom energy...

[cosmic-cd]

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