fundamentally, over the garden wall is best watched for the first time illegally on youtube because questioning as you're watching each episode whether you're actually watching it in order adds to the liminality of the whole show
I swear, even if you haven't seen FMA, I think you might appreciate the fucking talent! 🤩
The hotdogs taped together with what looks like scotch tape really makes this for me
mouse artist who doesnt feel the need to explain the meaning behind their art: I think it squeaks for itself
It most certainly does, you talented artist you!
I've collected my thoughts on TAZ Amnesty and how I think it's got the best foundational concept. I think it's because of just how real everything feels. The other TAZ's are incredible too, but they're all VERY fantasy. Balance, Dust, Graduation, Ethersea, and Steeplechase are neck deep in alien settings, all while Amnesty is set in a small town during the present. But theres also the smallness of it, being kept in this one town really lets the McElroys flesh it out. Kepler becomes fully realized, and through that we get an image of wooden homes and dilapidated tourist traps in the middle of nowhere, isolated from the outside world by the appalachian forest and radio silence, but with a clear view of the starry sky.
The Celestial half of the story is what completes the image. In Kepler's isolation and darkness, it opens up to that night sky, and thats where it gets completed. Theres nothing to do in Kepler but look upwards, up at the stars, up at the void, up at the Deliberate Operational Mind, and up at Sylvain. All of Amnesty's promotional art either features the Archway, a literal connection to a larger world, or the satellite dish, a symbol of the town crying out to be heard. The empty sky is quiet, but not completely silent.
TAZ Amnesty's foundational idea is community despite isolation, and it gets that across by first setting up a fully realized Kepler, forgotten by modernity, isolated, and in the dark. And then it turns that towns dark sky into the potential for community. That somewhere out there is a whole world of people that can be relied on and trusted.
cant stop thinking about this comment
just learned that humans might have evolved smaller pupils and irises/more whites of our eyes so that it's easier for other humans to tell where we're looking as a way of communicating sudden threats. and now i'm thinking of every time i have been frantically giving my friend a Look to get out of an uncomfortable situation (or been on the receiving end). still using it to communicate sudden threats only this time his name is kyle
plenty of "girl who looks cute wearing her boyfriend's clothes" content out there but not enough "guy who looks cute wearing his girlfriend's clothes" in my opinion. where's your commitment. where's your bisexuality.
my 10 yr high school reunion is coming up in november. does anyone wanna be my fake gf for it. i was super bullied in high school but i'm hot now so i obviously am only going to do lying, crime, and theft.
pros: - you can design your own character. i love improv games and will go along with whatever bit you desire - there's an open bar - you don't know any of these people and i don't care about any of these people, which is the closest either of us will ever get to diplomatic immunity. all bets are off. go hog wild
cons: - im devastatingly pretty & funny & charming and you will fall in love with me - some of the adults present will be business majors. i cannot do anything about that im sorry. - it is a high school reunion, which is the closest either of us will ever get to a nuclear waste site
UPDATES nobody asked for:
I 100% did very much do this with @cryptidfucky. i hang out w/exclusively ne'er-do-wells, nerds, and freaks & all my friends were also EXTREMELY on board with this plan. their help ended up being crucial tbh i love them
Here are the results:
highlights include people who texted me about them:
and this one. i need to stress - i did not actually speak directly to the person who "knew" alex. we did not find that person in the crowd. my friends were just working overtime for me. god bless them.
other results include:
summary of data:
Literally such a funny concept
This is better than all Black mirrors combined.
Happy martin birthday
Regardless of what you think of this tree… this comment was my favourite out of the collection of people who didn’t know deer shed their antlers every spring
This is one of those facts that a lot of people may not encounter. It completely depends on your area and what people there find important to share.
The biggest thing here is the familiarity an individual may have with horned animals.
As a general rule:
Pronghorns are apparently the weirdest exception to the rule, having horns that shed the sheath annually.
I’ve seen multiple people genuinely asking whats wrong with playing their music on a speaker/their phone in public rather than through headphones. While it baffles me that you can’t reason it out I’m taking it in good faith that you genuinely don’t know - so here’s a list of reasons you shouldn’t:
- It sounds bad. It doesnt matter if people like the song, you might be close enough to your phone speaker for it to sound largely as intended, but everyone else is getting a distorted mess.
- Unwanted noise is extra stimulation in the already overpowering public space. Yes this is particularly bad for neurodivergent people but I actually want to acknowledge that this effects Everyone. Everyone has a stimulation threshold and unwanted music easily pushes people closer to it.
- Its distracting/disruptive. People want to focus on their own conversations, listen to their own music through their earbuds, or just be alone with their thoughts. Your music is intruding.
- Differing taste. This one is less significant but people around you just dont always like the same music you do. In extreme cases they might actively hate a song you’re playing.
- People have the right to as close to silence as they can get. If they’re in a shop playing obnoxious music they can leave, they can change the radio in their car, they can skip the song on their playlist. They have no control over what you are putting on and in bus situations they can’t get away from you.
- Any other number of reasons; Maybe your music is offensive, maybe its uncensored and there are children about, maybe someone just got horrible news and your perky feelgood song feels like salt in the wound, maybe someone’s sick or hungover or in pain and your music feels like a drill to the skull. You might think your music is good, it might make you smile after a hard day. Nobody is saying dont listen at all, just put in earphones. To everyone around you its the equivilent of a drunk guy singing loudly and off key at the back of the bus. Maybe it makes some people smile to think he’s having a good time, maybe some people are scared his lack of boundaries will mean he could act out, maybe some people wish he would just shut up.
you are controlling an aspect of a public space which affects everyone in that space. That’s the jist of it. By playing music in public, you’re saying “my desired sound and its volume are all that matters, and nobody else’s”. That’s why quiet, beyond a reasonable speaking volume, should be the default in public. If quietness is unsettling to you, you can fix it by listening to something through earbuds without affecting anyone else, but if too much/the wrong kind of noise is unsettling to others, it’s much harder for them to block it out.
Shared spaces should be kept at conditions tolerable to everyone, where reasonable. That’s almost the definition of a shared space. If you dominate that space in some way, eg by playing music out loud, you are making it your space. You are making it unwelcoming for others. That is rude and anti-social behavior.
it’s the last one, really. just the last one.
This is just a reminder that when Sir Terry Pratchett was knighted, he dug up his own iron ore, learned to smelt, smelted it, added meteorite iron, learned to forge, and forged himself a starmetal sword. As you do.
And then he put it away somewhere safe so he wouldn’t violate any UK knife laws.
If I ever run a post-apocalyptic campaign, Sir Terry Pratchett’s Starmetal Sword will definitely be a legendary item for players to retrieve.
whoso pulleth this sword from this cardboard box in the attic is rightwise scribe born of all discworld
I love cats they're just like "I love you." *walks all over your entire body*
Undine rising from the waters, Marble statue by Chauncey Bradley Ives [1810-1894]
You show a cat something and they're like sniff sniff sniff sniff sniff sniff sniff ooooh I understand now. Don't care
Can we talk about how fucking amazing the music in The Adventure Zone is? It’s so good. Griffin literally taught himself how to compose for this show and was instantly good at it. The music took this show from good to great. I distinctly remember on my first listen through of the show, that scene at the very end of petals to the metal where Sloane and Hurley turned into a cherry blossom together was the exact moment I realized, ‘oh shit this show is actually amazing’ and upon further reflection it’s because of the music. Somehow Griffin was able to hit every single emotional beat exactly and cranked up those emotions to an 11. I felt 20 different types of melancholy and each of them were slightly different and it’s because of the music. The upbeat music is so hype you can literally dance to it by itself. It’s also amazing how distinct the music is for each campaign. Each has connecting threads running through it: Balance has a digital edge almost like a video game soundtrack, Amnesty has a country-esque feel, and Graduation is plucky cartoonish. But it goes beyond that. I can tell which arc of balance a song is just by listening to it, they’re all distinct. For instance there’s a lot of synth in Suffering game and a western twang in 11th hour. Yet they all have unifying elements that make them distinctly balance, despite their differences.
Anyways sorry for the rant. tldr: griffin is amazing and his music slaps.
Okay I’m aware that goodcastle being real is dope as shit but also?????? Why do they send letters that make them sound like scammers?? With “to whom it may concern”???? Like it’s very existence raises so many questions, why do they really keep goodcastle’s location a secret, why do they not just tell fitzroy where it is, who is running the fucking castle, did fitzroy maybe just accidentally spawn goodcastle into being with his magic, what the fuck Travis, is goodcastle a monarchy or like a democratic republic or a socialist haven, I need answers
I love that in TAZ Balance: the thrill seeking street racers, the arsonist, the unkillable specter, the ANTAGONIST, and the gambling grim reaper are calmer than the main three.
Then in Amnesty: that sweet vampire love interest? She committed treason. Character named Jake Coolice? Treason. FBI agent? You guessed it! Treason. The NPCs who didn’t commit treason? Hollis and Keith run a street gang, Pidgion well... you know, Juno- oh wait never mind also treason, Minerva violated the Geneva convention. But the guy who crawls around on walls and bites people? He’s obsessed with gorp and his favorite game is shuffle bored.
Then in Graduation: they’re all apeshit in the exact opposite way you’d expect them to be. Argo couldn’t care less about monetary gain, nope he just wants to murder the most beloved naval hero on Nua. Fitzroy isn’t some rich moron with a shaky moral code. He’s an anarchist who refuses to swear. The firbolg, canon communist, isn’t some angry radical (thank god) nope, he just randomly starts monologuing about economics and listens to the Bare Naked Ladies, apparently.
