#zabblepie

[starrmagician]

[relaxxattack]

panel redraw because i think i might be obsessed with them

[gunkmusher]

proud to be one of the 4 people who read psycholonials

[lousyglitch]

I could be making a zabblepie animatic set to regina spektor's two birds on a wire, but here I am, having to work for a living

[ghost-opal]

parallels

[protohay]

hyperfixation moment 😯😯😯 i really like that emoji wtf anyway hi

[necrowyrm]

It's true, Zabblepie /is/ a superior ship name

[m39]

My review of Psycholonials

Okay, jumping from puddle to puddle doesn’t sound like a good idea. I’m going full in into deep waters. It will do better for you too.

So, what’s Psycholonials, you may ask? Let me remind you:

Psycholonials is the newest work of Andrew Hussie, a visual novel released episodically in Chapters, starting on February 4th and ending April 20th (hurr durr) of this year. This game is split into nine Chapters, each basically having a timeskip to month at tops.

I’ll try to explain what the story is about without going into spoilers. There will be some non-contextual stuff though so… a little warning.

It’s the 4/20 day, Anno Domini 2020. Our main character is Z, a failure of a human being, living in a garbage cottage on an island. After the latest, weird dream involving some clown god (who may or may not be real), Z decides to start life from the scratch, by going with the way of personally-written years ago, so-called, Jubilite Manifesto… with help from gullible, rich parents of her best friend to some degree.

And that’s how far I’m gonna talk about the plot. If I could summarize it, I would say – it’s better than I thought. It may not be really some kind of s-tier shit, but after hearing some stuff about the story being bad, I was surprised that it was far from being shitty. There are shit elements though.

The biggest con of Psycholonials’ story is how irritatingly political it gets most of the time. Let me clarify, that talking about politics in video games is not a problem. Discussing political ideology or two, and/or showing followers of a particular ideology as enemies is fine in video games. The problem starts when you mention political stuff that isn’t even a year old. Unless you are South Park or a funny-based internet show, you end up looking like a cringy-ass Boomer trying to be preachy about it (and desperate to be hip with kids).

Psycholonials are guilty of this. Sure, it talks about political stuff that can be considered timeless like Imperialism or Colonialism, but on the other hand, it mentions Corona, the Presidential election of 2020, and June 2020’s protests against police brutality just to name a few. People don’t want this shit in video games. They don’t want to be reminded about stuff that happened on Earth moments ago. It all comes down looking like Hussie stopping the story and starting rambling about this shit that I just mentioned from his personal view.

Thankfully, the golden nugget in this pile of shit is that Hussie takes shots at basically everyone to some degree; right-wingers, left-wingers, cultists, capitalists, the Internet, clowns, etc. It makes me more respectful for him. That and not pretending that Cancel Culture doesn’t exist.

Okay, enough about politics. There are other things to talk about. For instance, after each odd-numbered chapter, you get to pick the next action for Z, and each time it basically comes down to choosing either Continue going downward spiral or Start acting reasonably you daft cow. It’s all a trick. Everytime you try to choose what to do, you get locked from both choices, with some entity telling you that you are not ready yet. Even the last chapter adds a twist to it.

I think I’m leaning more into liking that idea rather than hating it, and it’s probably due to how it influences the main character. Speaking of which…

As much as I don’t want to compare this comic to Homestuck (because it would be a complete disservice), in this case, I have to compare Z to Vaska from Hamsteak. Both characters are written to be as divisive as possible, acting like complete pieces of shit while having just enough positive traits to not end up completely unlikable. But truth to be told, Z ends up basically as human Vriska 2.0. She is basically a better-written character than that blue-blooded twat. Yes, she does such heinous actions that you want her to be put down for good. But on the other hand, she’s more complex and likable (to some degree) than Huge B8tch because:

1. Her backstory makes you feel sorry for her more than Huge B8tch,

2. Her Sanity Slippage throughout the story gives some justification to her action,

and 3. Unlike Huge B8tch, when Zhen changes for the better, she actually stays as a better person!

Zhen basically ends up having to live with what she’s done, which somewhat counts as karma for her, unlike Huge B8tch where personality-wise, she basically ends up back to square fucking one at the end of Homestuck.

As for the other characters, there isn’t really much to talk about. Everyone asides from Abby (who is my favorite character), and probably one of the clown characters from Chapters 6 and 7, basically end up more like a plot device to move Zhen forward rather than having an actual personality.

As for the visual stuff, it looks good. If you checked out Hussie’s previous work, you will feel like you are reading another MSPA comic made by him. Even after years of not drawing, he still got it and knows how to draw. The real-life backgrounds may feel off to some of you (I’m somewhere in between in this case).

The music is very good, but unfortunately, it has tendencies to be unfitting. The tone of the scene will be serious and yet you will hear the looping, happy, joyful music in the background. Complete musical dissonance.

But, let me tell you something folks. The last two music tracks that play at the end of Chapter 9, it’s something amazing. It makes you forget all of the cons this game has. It basically says All right lad, you survived to the end, have a reward.

And that’s basically it for Psycholonials. It wasn’t really that good but it turned to be surprisingly better than I thought. Would I recommend it? I mean, yeah, sure, if only for the two ending tracks. Most Chapters take around 30-45 minutes and all of it took me almost six hours to reach the end.

After finishing this VN, I am still wondering where would it go if it received a sequel, ‘cause I feel like there is more to tell about this universe. But on the other hand, maybe it will be for the better if it just stopped on only one game. Any more stuff and it would probably end up in the same spot as modern Homestuck (both the franchise and the fandom).

Phew…

Finally done with this game. Time to come back to regular stu-

…

Wait…

You suddenly notice a package with your name on it.

Was it always here?

You open the package.

What the fuck… Why is there a shitty Batman mask? Why would I-

…

Oh…

Oh yeah…

Now I know what’s coming next.

See you next time folks.

Bye!

[ignitingthesky]

am I going off the rails if I say Z's initial collection of simps are an accumulation of people who treat Z like a treasure, but in the superficial way rather than the cherishing way

thinking about how the official Chinese translation version of Zhen is 珍, as in cherished/treasured. thinking about her relationship with her parents. thinking about Zhen reclaiming their name after letting go of their resentment for their parents. thinking....

[ticholasnesla]

I don’t know if I should enjoy or be suspect of Hussie’s generous contributions to the gay community

[joeyclaire]

ooughfgh zabblepie. oh man.

[mmmmalo]

Zabblepie 🤝 Mizzlebip ??

[relaxxattack]

what would i even tag this as theres not even any psycholonials fans

[pierrettemakara]

So a couple of thoughts on chapter three of Psycholonials!

Honestly as an agender individual who strongly resonates with clowns, ya girl popping off with being clowngender tbh, secondly for an explanation of fictional xenogender from a dude who (I'm assuming, don't kill me if I'm wrong) is a cishet dude, it wasn't all that painful all things considered.

Secondly, fuckingggg Zabblepie, I ship it, I feel the angst and the emotional issues, this ship will fucking haunt me for the rest of my life and I'm so here for it.

This really just makes me like Z more, like, for real, she's just relatable as fuck and I know there's some self-inserting going on, but Z is a bop and a mood and she deserves happiness and clownery.

Also fuckiiiin percy just agreeing to catfish a billionaire because Z asked him to, epitome of a guy who's confused but happy to be there.

All the folks shitting on psycholonials because "Z is problematic" or even just like attacking the author themselves? Get a fucking life and actually go outside for once, nobody gives a fuck about what makes you uncomfortable on the internet, don't like it? Don't interact. Fuckers be too eager to "cancel" things that make them uncomfortable instead of looking inward and wondering if they're the one with the problem here, squick is a term, fucking learn it.

[t3rezi]

ok good chapter!!!!

zabblepie ship name

abbys clownsona

whatever tf clowngender is

that ending 🤪🤪🤪

also percy reads extremely straight to me and reminds me way too much of every guy that's ever liked me. not too much of a fan for that reason jdhdjdbjsks

[protohay]

“this isnt in character” youre cringe too  buddy!