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epic
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06/10/2022 @580.beats

oughh

writing got hands at least im at the last page

26/09/2022 @733 .beats - stuff

hullo again ehhee

its been a bit of a while (only a few weeks but eh). ive been writing psatcwot c3 veeerry slowly, mostly bc i have a lot going on. im in uni so ofc i have that, but theres also the current ttrpg campaign i dm irl (which will be c4 btw) and all that stuff.

and still im thinking of starting a new project (dumb !), whichs a tarot card thing. a while ago (like 6months ? maybe more) i made a whole tarot deck, but now that i know more about that stuff i know that that deck is wrong, like no arcana ever follows the symbols and stuff, and overall i think i could do it a lot better. so soon-ish maybe im going to not only redo an entire deck (digital this time), but i think im also going to maake another site that explains tarot card meanings and stuff. there are lots of these sites on the regular internet, but theyre all super capitalist with 735746546 ads and stuff, whichs why i want to make my own (i did search on neocities some time ago but didn't find any

thats whats been going on. oh also !! ive been rewatching utena and its just as good if not bettet than i remember.

07/09/2022 @576 .beats - dream (i know !!!!)

heeeyy,,, remember who said i won't use this as a dream log........

well no i said i wouldn't use this to log EVERY dream i have (there are too many, trust me)

anyway tonights dream is significant enough (though not as much as the prev one). it was the 2nd dream that night. i forgot the first and will tell the 3rd later.

so i was in a convenience store i thinK. there was some stuff leftover from the previous dream, like stuff in russian, and an airport, but it doesn't matter, and is forgotten fore evuhr. the convenience store was like really clean, the floor was tiled with large kinda glassy white tiles, and stuff. i was next to the cash register, but not behind it, that was a russian lady. then a homeless man comes in, and he starts buying the stuff thats behind the counter. like you know sometimes theres alcohol and liquor and cigarettes on the wall behind the cash register and you have to ask for it to the cashier.

so he gets stuff behind the counter, or rather asks for it and the russian lady (who wasn't speaking russian) puts it next to the cash register to scan it. i think he asked for electronics or something ? idk, and i never will (i don't think i ever did). so then after she gets the stuff she scans it, and the total is like, unbelievably expensive. this all happens next to me and i was a customer. so i start to speak up, and then the cashier invokes like, a, uh, a favor ? that she did to the homeless man. like a debt to be repayed, and it was her way of repaying it, because immediatly she shrinks the price down to a few bucks. (the og price was close to 2k). the homeless man is fine with it so he pays and he goes. i start to go as well. i have a lighter in my hand, its one of those where the gas tank is colorful transparent plastic. the rest of the convenience store is starting to look like an airport again. i look at the wall in front of me and there are magazines, each of them relating to one of mine or my friends hyperspecific interests. DREAM END

3rd dream i remember it was nighttime and i was outside in a foresty kind of place, and i start to wander in the darkness. i can't see shit but thats fine, and it doesn't really feel like im in the dark, more like my field of vision itself is always going to be dark. like ive never seen anything and never will. so i wander a bit like that, and i stumble into a wooden house. the house looks rather modern but yeah. and like, as soon as i 'see' it, i know what this house is, and i know the inside, and i know everything about it. so i wander around it, then get close to the entrance (theres no door, just a door shaped hole) and i go in and im all sneaky, like i know im doing something illegal and no one must see me. i also know i have a partner in crime whos doing the same in another part of the house, but i cant remember who they were (i can't now, could in the dream).

so i sneak around and stuff. then its another day i think ? and now there are people, and i must not be seen. i think the house was a rental house bc it was never the same people. so these are eating inside and theres candle light, and also i can see like normal now. i sneak around, but i make too much noise and a guy comes and points me out and i retreat. i try again a few more times then its another day. in retrospect i feel like the fact i could see is related to the fact that i made noise, idk how. another thing is that when i was sneaking around the first time it was a great feeling, like when you fly in a dream or something, but the 2nd time i knew it was to replicate that feeling and it didnt feel as good and stuff. the third time is during the day. thers mist and so the forest is all white. i go around sneaking in the house, but this time i can kinda glide over the ground. as i get a bit further from the house to a small shed, theres a gauy in the shed and i grab a stick (the stick is from another dream from another night btw) and the guy grabs sticks and throws them at me. i jump and dodge them and grab one, then rush to the guy but theres no one.

instead i just go to the shed and go inside, and when im inside people come outside. the people outside are holding some other guys who are feral and rabid or something, and it looks like theyre about to put them in the shed to hurt me. then my alarm activated and i woke up.

think of these what you will, bc i sure as hell don't know what to.

28/08/2022 @614 .beats - i lied

yeah actually i just finished the css and stuff

the title page is up

28/08/2022 @566 .beats - update about psatcwot cycle 2

i finished writing the 2nd cycle a bit ago, and my players have checked it and are fine with it.

since its origin, psatcwot is based in roleplays. the 2nd cycle is the first campaign i ever gmed. that campaign, was, kind of a disaster. i also made it first, based only on a two word concept, then retroactively wrote all the lore, which is already published as the first cycle.

anyway, as i said earlier, cycle 2 is fully written, but i still have to make some assets, like css and a title page, so it will take a little bit more time until i publish it.

cycle 2 is about 5 to 6 times longer than cycle 1, and features actual characters with an arc and stuff. im pretty proud of it, but because of how... chaotic and anarchic the base material (ttrpg campaign) was, there isnt really any strong theme or message. of course, it still touches on some themes, but doen't necessarily say something about it.

i will also not publish the rule book of the original campaign, which were entirely homebrewed, because they kinda suck ass. that campaign was very boring and repetitive, and required heavy use of an excel spreadsheet for calculations. i mean, at the end, players could easily deal nearly one million damage every few turns, so yeah.

cope and seethe ig

22/08/2022 @574 .beats - some stuff about psatcwot

The first cycle of psatcwot, Red Fields, is almost over. There are two pages left, so 14 total. after that psatcwot will take a short pause until i finish writing the next cycle.

psatcwot will be updated daily within the current cycle, with hiatuses and pauses between cycles, as i start to publish a cycle when it has already been fully written.

another thing about psatcwot : i already have plans for the next 12 or 13 cycles. in a bit i will enhance the psatcwot main page, with some stuff about the next cycles. ill also update the header of psatcwot pages, with navigation menues to the next and previous cycle and the next and previous page.

thats all for now !

17/08/2022 : sowwy

im not doing very long updates bc my internet connection is really bad rn, im on holidays on the countryside. psatcwot will still update as usual, and i've already made all the pages for the current cycle so they just need to be put online, but this slow connection is still annoying.

16/08/2022 : choo choo

took the train today

first one was good but the second train i was one got dealyed by a whole ass hour and it was an intercity train.....

how does that even happen ?? they tried to append another car to it twice and failed the two times they tried. congratulation.

15/08/2022 - some dreams

i dream a lot, and i mean a lot. usually i have about 1 to 4 dreams a night, which i remember. i don't bother trying to completely recall or reflect on them though, but the one i had tonight i feel that i should.

it started like that : it was near the end or the middle end of an snes style jrpg, i think it was very similar to final fantasy 4. the 3 party members there were on my team were crono and marle from chrono trigger, plus a third one that i don't remember, but was maybe kefka or fawful, or a character in that style. that 3rd character was a dark mage with strong spells, and they had a mechanic called hero mode which would randomly activate when taking damage and would make them super strong.

anyway, the party was underground. they were fighting an army that had flying airships and that came from an underground nation. our goal was to go deeper and deeper undergound, to their capital. ill spare the details bc i remember quite a bit about the combat, like how battles went. (the battle were in the same style as chrono trigger but the overworld was like snes final fantasy games).

at some point we arrive in this great open cave. the rocks were gray and a grayish purple and in a deep chasm in the middle we could see bright red and orange magma. but there was no city, instead there was only a huge armada of airships. (i also remember that just before that i had revived chrono and marle, as the 3rd guy had been soloing all along). and the general of the enemy army had been waiting for us : this was an ambush. so we try to go back but the way is locked, and they chase us around with their airships but we fall down the chasm

this is were it really begins: the interesting part. we fall on a small ridge. there are a few people and a single house. below the ridge, there isn't a drak pit or boiling magma or anythins like that. in fact, there isn't... anything at all. only immobile static. the colors of everything on the ridge are very muted too. we speak to an npc, who tells us that this place is "the edge" and that if we want to know more we can go ask the old general inside, but that he will only listen if we bring someone to play music.

we speak to another npc, who can play music for us. we accept, the colors shift to be darker shades of blue and purple, all giving a very night-time look to the ridge. we then go inside the bar, and find the general. he's an old, tired man. he tells us that this place is the edge. before that, it was the old capital of the empire, but the void kept claiming more ground. as time went on, more and more places and buildings fell into the void, and everyone moved closer to the surface. the only people left are either those who can't or those who don't want to.

we understand that the reason the underground army was trying to invade the surface was to live there and escape the void. but the general says this : there's no escape from the void. it was there long before any city, and it will be there long after any city. one of the party members ask if we can fight it, like a generic super entity final boss threatening to eat reality in any jrpg, but the general only says this : "can you fight an earthquake ?". at this point, we didn't want to leave this place. i don't think we could anyway, but we didn't want to. it was a lot calmer than the war above, and if everything was going to fall into the void anyway, why try to fight back ?

dream over btw. i feel like i could probably make this in rpg maker easily enough.

as to how this dream could have come, snes jrpgs are something i like but i haven't touched any in a while, and the main theme of the dream kinda makes me think of penguindrum (which i finished yesterday), where learning when to stop fighting to prolong something that will inevitably end and not destroy everything to let it continue is very important. of course, i don't think the underground army was really at fault : they were under a threat that could have ended their world. and if they tried to simply come to the surface world to ask refuge, they would have been either manipulated to attack other nations, enslaved or other terrible things.

in a way, you could say that this world was already over. ever since the void started claiming ground, it was all over.

14/08/2022 - 1st post ! (and ikuhara talk (penguindrum related))

yuh this is a blog page now not an empty forever wip art page

anyway ill post here from time to time when i have something to say. and i made this page just now because i do !! i just finished mawaru penguindrum for the second time. and i am full of Thoughts™.

penguindrum or mawaru penguindrum is an anime released in 2015, directed by kunihiko ikuhara (more known for revolutionary girl utena). ikuhara's style is very known for its heavy symbolism and its surrealism. this of course can be seen very much in penguindrum. when i initially watched it, it was in the context of a binge marathon of all four of ikuhara's current anime (the other 3 being revolutionary girl utena, yurikuma arashi and sarazanmai), and after finishing the marathon, i ranked it as my least favourite. and honestly ? i don't know if i changed my mind

regardless of if ranking them is a good idea or not, my reason for that was that while the latter half is extremely well written, the first feels meandering and lost and overall pointless in the grand scheme of things. there was also the fact that, there is a lot of incestuous imagery and child nudity in the show, which i still think is disgusting, even if it pulls the good ol' "they were never brothers and sisters anyway !!!!".

but at the same time, the themes that that anime touches on, how it tells them, how it writes its characters' pathos and concludes it, all that is stellar, and on that front it's probably the one anime out of all of ikuhara's repertoire that does it the best (even if they all do it superbly).

and as for the first half... upon reflexion it seems like it's not as unnecessary as i thought. it serves to introduce some of the main characters and plants the seeds of their relationship. it's an arc that introduces ringo really well, as well as her personality and her goals and all that, which is very important. and while yuri and tabuki are not as important as they seem, they still serve a very important purpose in the show, and are instrumental in the message it tells. they are, after all, the primary exemples of the show's message. that said, does that first part drags on for too long ? yeah kinda.

another thing that makes this show so interesting and so good, is the sheer number of topics it touches. it's about fate, destiny, about generational trauma, about capitalism and its repercussions, about love, about found family, about letting go of someone wether romantically or in a grieving way, about self sacrifice, about fascism can make even good intentioned people commit heinous acts...

and you'd think that with this many topics, it would treat some of them less than others, right ? well no, each of these (and i didn't list them all) is talked about with great depth and respect and seriousness. and unlike utena, which also touches many topics, it's not just vague enough that you can put anything in it. utena is amazing, but the reason it connects with many people is that it sill correspond to many experiences no matter what. ikuhara wrote utena to be about growing up, but for me it was more about queer identity, about finding who you were and how others accepted you, about womanhood and the controlling patriarchy.

i don't think this is a flaw of utena, but penguindrum doesn't do it like that. while you could probably find some topics it touches on that weren't necessarily intended by ikuhara, it is specifically about all the topics i listed above and more.

another thing i loved about penguindrum, is how shameless it is. it will show us these extravagant setpieces, like the lingerie shop, the takakura's house, the giant statue/tower in the middle of tokyo, and not remark on it. it's one thing that ikuhara has always been good at, and one thing that is lacking in most mainstream anime. a lot of the time, i see ikuhara's work be referred as fantastical realism, as a normal world where magical or fantastical elements get introduced little by little. but i don't think this description is generally correct, as it implies that that world is like ours to begin with.

out of all of ikuhara's works, only one would fit that definition, being sarazanmai. the world in penguindrum is no exception : it is inherently magical, even if we do not see it. fate altering diaries, cursed ghost rabbits, the destination of fate, the fucking child broiler, the penguins and the penguin hat, all of it is inherent to this world. the characters weren't transported from a normal world to a magical one, nor did magical elements come to invade a normal world, all of it isinherent to this world and has been here since the start.

finally i will talk about the ending. at multiple points during this rewatch, i felt my heart scrunch up a bit and tears come to my eyes, but at no point did they flow out. in this anime, everything is sad. ever since the very first episode, when something happy happened to the characters, when they started to lick their wounds, to feel a kinship again, something devastating would happen. a terminal illness would start once more, a terrible secret would be revealed, anything to stop this warmth. this is probably due to the so called punishment dealt to the takakura family : they are not allowed to be happy. their parents have sinned greatly, and they are the punishment. they are the three lambs.

so of course, after all that, the thing in that anime that would get me to cry, would be to see them be happy. but i still cried tears of sadness. why ? because after seeing this found family come together despite everything and brave all odds to be happy, the only moment when they are happy is when they are separated. it's when we see them not know each other, in the now normal looking takakura house. this house is very symbolic : at the beggining, and throughout the show, it's painted in bright colors, and the interior is richly decorated like a doll's house. we know after a bit that shouma and kanba, himari's brothers, painted it and decorated it to make himari happy. they took this foreign house full of sad memories, and made it their own, turning the house itself into a happy memory.

but when we see the house at the end, it's exterior is a normal wood panneling. the inside is decorated like a normal home. the flowery and ornate crockpot is now replaced with a functional steel one. the height mark of the three siblings replaced with the ones of a single person, the family photos now all replaced by a single one. and in that normal everyday house, there's himari. himari healthy, yes, but himari alone. she is friends with ringo, and they do see each other, but the found family is now more. all she has left is the stuffed bear that siblings she never knew broke and sewed back together for her, with a note, "goodbye, your brothers". and this, this lonely happiness, the end of the family curse, this is what made me cry more thatn anything else.