hellooo, welcome to my blog! this is just a little space to share my thoughts, ramble about the fins i love and hate, give updates on what i'm up to, and to show off nice pictures. i try to post these weekly, but no promises oki. i love you!!
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the past week has seen me getting personally victimised by javascript. i figured it out in the end, but at what cost? it definitely took several years off my life, for one. anyway, the gist of it is i got way too ambitious and now this new update is taking forever. oops >_<
i recently watched jesus christ superstar (1973) and fight club (1999), not knowing that these are the two gayest and horniest films to ever not feature any gay sex. it's very impressive! they are both *fantastic* films which i highly recommend to anyone who wants to have a really strange experience. now i kind of regret not choosing to study fight club (← the book) over american psycho, because one of them is five hundred pages long and the other one. isn't
i've also been replaying portal 2, trying to get all the singleplayer achievements. i've almost finished; it is a genuine crime how short this game is! needless to say i love it to hell and back. my formative dyke experience, right next to the stanley parable, my formative fag experience (which i also need to replay...)
alastor ^_^
oh it’s been a hot minute hasn’t it?!! apologies for the impromptu hiatus! i moved, my internet was out for like a week, and then my computer broke—basically, the worst possible situation for keeping a website updated. i return to you with a very strong lord of the rings hyperfixation and a new puter.
i went to blackpool pleasure beach recently! it was a magnificent experience.
i went with the sole intention of conquering my fear of loop-de-loops and
that was fulfilled to the *highest* extent, i went on infusion, which the
internet tells me has five inversions, and i fucking love loop-de-loops now.
i feel so prepared for the world of theme parks now! 
the only other roller coaster i went on was avalanche and, unfortunately, i cannot give it my stamp of approval. shrimply, the ride cars are so painful it ruined the whole experience. i don't think my intestines will ever recover from the inhuman force with which i was strapped in, being in the front seat. maybe it's nicer if you're alone in the cart, but i'm not gonna check.
as for rides that aren't roller coasters. alice in wonderland continues to be the world's most frightening dark ride—perfectly placed right by the ghost train, which i must admit did get some squeals and squeaks outta me! wallace in gromit was splendid and perfect, i hope it outlives humanity. i hope in the wreckage of the world, in one billion billion years, all that remains in wallace and gromit: thrill-o-matic in the nuclear ashes of blackpool pleasure beach, perfectly functional. wallace will still wave over the wastes when all the stars have burnt out. his smile will still be lit up, when all other lights have died.
anyway, i'd like to give special mention to Sir Hiram Maxim's Flying Machines, because it's called Sir Hiram Maxim's Flying Machines and was built in like 1904. literally you can just jump out if you want, there is *nothing* keeping you in. Sir Hiram Maxim's Flying Machines.
one day blackpool pleasure beach will show up in a defunctland video. until then i cannot rest. please, i need people to know about the north west. its and old old park, it's gotta have something cool that's gone now!
alastor ^_^
wowzers trousers it is almost june. what! and, how! it was january like last week what is going on, i refuse to accept this.
i've been really into hit dnd/call of cthulhu podcast dungeons and daddies this painfully long yet uneventful spring break. i listened to season 1 and a bit of season 2 a few months ago and absolutely fell in love with it, but i've never been good at keeping up with podcasts so it just kinda fizzled out of my attention. but season 3's just started, so i decided to get caught up! and. well. i binged the last half of season 2 in three days (which is why i've been drawing so much this month btw, i need something to do while i listen.) highly, highly recommend the show. it is hilarious and heart-wrenching, and normal oak would get along with jake english. i do also love call of cthulhu so i'm very happy that they're doing a whole season in it.
i went on a walk in the freezing rain the other day. here's some pictures from that.
one last thing. jan misali's new video how many super mario games are there now? gave me a heart attack today, because my response was used as one of the examples for the responses being used as "updates on [the survey respondants'] emotional states."
that was me! yknow how terrifying it was getting ready to watch a fun, 2 hour long video about the mario series and being confronted by my own voice in a silly comment i'd completely forgotten about from a survey i took many many many months ago?? this one comment will almost certainly be the thing i've created which gets seen by the most people. in a way, is this my legacy? will i ever really escape that survey, or is part of me trapped there forever, the part which wrote that tiny paragraph. truly, the sisiphean torment does not end.
overall, i have done, and will continue to do, absolutely nothing. thank you and goodnight.
alastor ^_^
hey, decently big site update! big for me at least. i really tried to hold this off til i'd finished my current fic, but it's been giving me no end of hell, so i decided to post this now and finish the fic at my own pace. i'm disappointed but, hey, it's not actually that big a deal. less stressful this way, too.
other than that hiccup, i'm so happy with the new writing page! the js was a nightmare for me, who is absolutely terrified of even the simplest js, but it works! the little myszek was a last minute doodle (which i actually drew to avoid writing :p) and i think it was the perfect addition. and an excuse to use css animation, which i haven't used anywhere else on the site i don't think!
on a non-coding front, it forced me to reread my old work. the thing about me is that, when i've finished something, i will never look at it again. nothing brings me more pain than acknowledging my old work exists—and this sucks! old work is very tangible proof how much you've improved, which can be hard to gauge on your own. especially if you examine what exactly it is you don't like about it now. this is even worse for writing, where i'm too terrified of having to read an old draft—because eek what if it's bad!—to ever finish it. but now i've made peace with my old writing. it's not even that bad to be honest.
the writing page also encourages me to finish writing essays—which, you may note, currently number zero. this is because i never used to have anywhere to share them, so i didn't have much motivation to finish after i'd started! so, hey.
anyhoo, my hair's different now! a good ol' purple mullet, as a silent warning to my mother to never dare compliment my hair again or it will get dyke-ier. where's that one alison bechdel comic when you need it. (at least i think it was alison bechdel? i can't actually find it now.)
my exams went mostly swimmingly. nothing much interesting to say on that front, we won't get our results back til after break anyway. part of me wishes they'd just end the year after finals, but that is foolish considering i literally die the second break starts. i Cannot function if i'm free for more that three consecutive days.
in other academic news, i hate 17th century english philosopher john locke so fucking much. i could not even begin to describe how much i loathe that man. learning about him in philosophy? okay, that makes sense, he was a philosopher. learning about him in politics? fine, sure, he was a classical liberal. he was a politics guy, even if those politics were 'woah isn't the british empire awesome'. and then my literature teacher pulls out the fucking tabula rasa and i want to scream. i long for a life of peace, free from toil and misery, and yet the ghost of john locke haunts my every step in his centuries-long campaign to spread suffering to the masses. rot in hell, old man.
that is where we end this. farewell.
alastor ^_^
one exam down, two to go! it was actually easy and fine, i don't know why i was worried, it's literature. the one awful thing was that i wore a shirt that says "future roadkill" on the back specifically to amuse whoever was sitting behind me, but then i ended up being sat on the back row. i have politics tomorrow which is a lot of remembering dates and figures, which i am soundly very bad at, but i have all of today to revise. that means it'll be fresh in my head tomorrow! and then philosophy on monday, which might as well be years away. overall: everything is beautiful and fine forever, college is childsplay.
a strange effect disco elysium has had on me is sudden motivation to write. i don't write many fics, and when i do they're very short and plotless, but here i am 5k words into my second de fic! i think it is because i want to see jean vicquemare and harry du bois suffer even more. i'm not quite certain what pairings i'm going for in this one, i'll guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
and to satiate my overpowering need to share wips, here's a little bit from the fic i'm working on now!
"Dei only knows... he called me at 2AM last night! He's so insistent on the amnesia shit until he needs me for something, then he suddenly remembers my number—!"
"And how did he seem?" Kim tries to steer the conversation back before Vicquemare starts on his next tirade.
"Like shit! That's why he's the shitkid! He was drunk out of his mind, and he fucking—he was just begging me to come back and save him, same shit I've been hearing for years. How he was totally gonna do it this time, just you wait, Vic. It'll be art. I told him where he could stick it. If he just quit the drinking, I'd—"
"You aren't worried for his safety?"
"Of course I'm fucking worried! God! He's so—" Kim suddenly gets the impression he has stepped right into the middle of an argument while missing approximately three years of context, "He's a violent drunk, lieutenant! I— how can I not be worried. All I've ever done is worry about him and, and, y'know what, maybe I'd like to stop worrying for—"
"Apologies, let me rephrase. Do you believe the detective to actively be in danger?"
Vicquemare pauses.
"...no. He'd never actually do it. Just threatens it for attention. You stop giving him that, he stops trying. It's nothing, it's just a game," his tone changes completely, half-whispered and anxious. He's trying to reassure himself, more than anything else. Kim does not believe a word of it.
you can read the first fic, desire, dear destruction, here, if you so wish. i am going to create a writing page on this site to share anything, be it fanfic or normal fic, which seems a bit simpler than linking my ao3 and toyhouse every time. but that's for post-exams alastor to do. (edit 18/05/2024: the writing page is now live!)
and also! if you're a de fic writer or reader, you should join the writers of elysium discord server. it's really fun and stellar and awesome.
as a final note, i'd like to introduce you to my little fern! i've had him for a while but haven't shown him off yet. his name is hal, he is growing wonderfully.
that is all! farewell, until my exams are behind me.
alastor ^_^
happy may day everyone! remember to kill your boss on this most sainted holiday.
we're entering final exams week, so my brain has chosen to finally be productive – on everything except exam revision. oh joy. so, apologies for the inactivity this past month, but we're back in business again!
mostly, i've been doing a lot of early prep for artfight by making new oc refs, updating info, all that jazz so i'm not swamped with it when july comes around. i'm especially happy with how adder and pebblecoat's toyhouse pages have turned out, if you wanna check them out (iirc, adder is my oldest oc who i still use. neato!) this will be my fourth or fifth year, depending on how you count it. i just cannot wait to bury all my last-year's art behind new attacks – the only bad thing about artfight is being confronted by my old art every time i check my profile.
on a personal note, i've been on testosterone for over a month now! it has been rather terrifying – i don't have any trans friends in real life, so i've had to figure all this out and deal with The Horrors on my own – and it does feel a little silly to get so excited over such a small milestone, but i'm really happy! it feels like a good fuck-you to the cass review*. a small, secret, and insignificant fuck-you, but a fuck-you nonetheless. the only downside has been that my voice has dropped just enough so that i can no longer do my dnd character's voice properly – clear Divine Punishment for my Transsexual Wiles and Schemes.
*for my dear and lucky non-brits, the cass review was a review of the nhs's children's (defined in the review as anyone under 25) gender services. a pdf of the report can be downloaded here. it essentially recommends conversion therapy, and both major parties have endorsed it. if i keep talking about it i will start throwing things. julia serano has an excellent essay discussing it, i really suggest giving it a read (along with everything else julia serano has ever written.)
but enough about the nightmare that is britain's ever-dwindling trans rights. jhariah's new album trust ceremony is out, and i am thrilled! i love the more electronic feel of this album, it works really well with jhariah's usual high, high energy. each song is unique and memorable, while still having very cohesive style and themes. it hurts me to have to pick a favourite track, but i've been listening to both control baby and re: concerns on repeat a *lot* so it's gotta be between them.
that's your homework then: read the cass review, wpath files, and the perpetual debate over gender-affirming care by julia serano and listen to trust ceremony by jhariah. you got that all?
alastor ^_^
i created him with my own two hands. he is my everything. look into those shining eyes.... my darling boy. his name is ,snorple or something.
um. i watched cats the musical the other day. it was reel good! i was so surprised when i realised i actually liked the characters beyond how hot they are! it really does a fantastic job at making each cat a distinct person – even when they're just in the background not doing anything. it's kind of genius?? as a warrior cats kid, i love it when cats are gay and horny and shockingly actually very interesting what????
rum tum tugger is my favourite i think.. i just find the fact that he's munkustrap's annoying little brother incredibly funny.
welp that's this week's blog post. this is all. farewell.
alastor ^_^
i must say, this week absolutely flew by for me. i cannot fathom that it is already sunday! it was exam week for me, that's probably why. they weren't important exams (which is great for me considering i. did not do well teehee) but that didn't make them any less exhausting. it's also been strike week, so there wouldn't have been much to do anyhow – please, like you can exist in public without being expected to spend money!
i finished disco elysium again, and i've started a third playthrough. all in all, i got a *lot* more done in my second but i know there's still a good amount of stuff i missed. one issue i'm finding is that i want to see what happens if you just. horribly fuck up certain things (cough cough, the tribunal) but i'm far too focussed on doing well (cough cough, getting a good grade in kim kitsuragi) to actually let myself fuck up. and i don't really want to save scum, that defeats the purpose of seeing the consequences! but either way, save scumming wouldn't work for things like the bad ending, since that's based on your actions throughout the whole game. sighhh, life is so difficult.
in the mood for more groundbreaking rpgs, i started playing the original deus ex a few days ago. though i haven't gotten very far, i can see why this game is so beloved. i keep finding myself going "okay, this is clearly how the devs intended me to do this. what's something way cooler i can do instead?" and then the game just lets me do it a completely different way because the devs love me personally. as has been made Very clear by my love of disco elysium, i highly value player freedom. so basically i'm in love with deus ex.
one thing that really surprised me with deus ex is how invested i am in the stealth. i very much prefer action over stealth and puzzles, so i expected this to be my least favourite aspect of the game. but i was shocked to discover how great it felt sneaking around liberty island, silently picking off nsf guys without causing a scene, then going right back to my sneaky little exploits. really living my dream of being a little mouse over here. thank you deus ex.
i really ought to get a hobby other than playing games and ranting about them here. maybe i'll learn to knit. i bought needles and wool ages ago, and they've just been sitting unloved on my shelf this whole time. ach i've tried, but i've had zero luck with it.
why would i do all that when i've yet to play the new apollo justice trilogy port! i've loved ace attorney for a good eight years now, and i always come up with excuses to not play dual destinies and spirit of justice – but now those excuses have run out. well, all but one: i'm waiting for it to go on sale. it's like forty quid, that is pure extortion! you're telling me this trilogy is better than the great ace attorney chronicles? you're telling me this is six times the gaming experience as undertale? because, for some unknown reason, i doubt that.
and that's that. seaya next week, for more nerding out about disco elysium probably.
alastor ^_^
y'know how, when you get really into a book or game or show or whatever, it changes you as a person? and when you're experiencing something truly incredible, you can almost feel new your personality traits forming? disco elysium has had the exact opposite effect on me. disco elysium did not change me, disco elysium made me realise who i am. what the fuck? i must say, i've never played a game which (somehow!) gave me a sense of self i didn't even know i was lacking. there is... *really* nothing else quite like disco elysium.
i finished the game on wednesday. the first thing i did (after staring at the ceiling for many hours in a daze, processing the fact that i will never be able to play disco elysium for the first time ever again) was start playing it again. my first playthrough was pretty good but i know i missed a lot. that's another thing i really love about disco elysium: it is impossible to see everything with just one playthrough. hell, you'll probably still be seeing new things on a tenth playthrough! there's just *so much stuff*, and that paired with the all the randomness of skill checks makes it an insanely replayable game. in just the first few hours of my replay, i have seen so many new things just because i've levelled different skills.
my first playthrough i put everything into empathy and esprit de corps because i wanted to be nice to people and i wanted kim kitsuragi to like me. it was for this same reason that i did no drugs, drank no alcohol, and smoked one singular cigarette throughout the whole game. y'know, like a boring loser? and though i did succeed in making kim kitsuragi like me, i failed in um. like every skill check jesus christ. i especially fucked up during the tribunal and the confrontation with ruby (though i've heard those two moments can go far worse than i managed, so that's something i suppose.) this time, however, i'm going to be interesting. i'm gonna be so smart, i'm gonna learn all about the pale, i'm gonna not have ruby kill herself, it's gonna be so good. even if it is terrifying and upsetting not being able to read kim's mind because i have like ten points in epirit de corps... i am so lost without him.
one thing i unfortunately cannot do yet is not be a communist. i'm sorry but i can't emotionally handle it. especially the fascist route, since then it's not just me hating myself: kim also hates me! dude, i can't handle kim kitsuragi's disapproval i will cry.
moving on from disco elysium (impossible, i know, but we will try), my half term break has just started. not to mention the days are getting longer, what a great time to exist! and i shall spend this free, sunny week doing the only logical thing: drawing dirkjake. teehee, it isn't just for my personal satisfaction, though. it's for this year's dirkjake big bang! that means this wip has a plot!
it also means i gotta get this done quick because my clip studio paint free trial runs out in 9 days :P sigh, i will buy it - it's so much better than firealpaca my god - but that brings me no joy. especially since there's multiple versions and argh it's just so confusing! why are there multiple!
back to the point, i implore you to check the fics out when the event starts (on march 11th.) these writers and artists are literally insane. they fucking invented dirkjake i swear to god, i feel unworthy to take part in an event with them!
oh also postcanon jake english and harry du bois are the same guy, thank you and goodnight.
alastor ^_^
it was my reading-homestuck anniversary yesterday. i had vague plans to do a cute little artpiece to honour the occasion but, when the day came around, i plain forgot all about it. so my february 3rd ame and went without any new homestuck art. it's alright though: my homestuck-finishing anniversary is on the seventh of march and i'll make sure not to miss it!
what i have been doing in this time is playing disco elysium. and i mean a *lot* of disco elysium. and, like every single other person to have ever played disco elysium, i am *madly* in love with mr. kim kitsuragi. but disregarding the most perfect and incredible man in gaming history, disco elysium is *incredible.* i've just finished day two and i am SO invested in the plot it is unreal. on top of that, the writing is brilliant and only made better by the stellar dialogue system. it perfectly toes the line between hilarious and heartbreaking. much like how harry du bois is the saddest buffoon on the planet!
i make it a goal to try 100% the achievements of any game i play. but, to be honest, i don't think i'll be able to do this for disco elysium purely because i cannot emotionally handle kim kitsuragi being mad at me. it brings me so much joy looking at how many more people have the achievement for making kim like you than for making kim hate you.
anyway, between playing disco elysium and listening to pin-eye by jhariah on repeat, i found some time to go on a little walk through the countryside. i have this uncanny ability to always find the quickest way out of any city i end up in and onto the nearest farm. truly, what's the purpose of life if not to trespass on farmers' private property! following apparently every instinct except common sense and dignity, i made it through the horrible nightmare maze of Suburbia and came across a delightful dirt path cutting through some farms. it led to a four-way junction so i arbitrarily picked one to keep following. i picked very well: i soon wound up by two benches overlooking the river. even though winter made everything look very dull and dead, this area was beautiful. lots of birds too. can't imagine how lovely it must be in spring!
i'll return at some point but, mainly, i want to see where the other paths lead.
thank you for reading. i must now go back to playing disco elysium!
alastor ^_^
hiya everypony, furst blub post and i must say i haven't a clue what to write for this momentous milestone. big update huh! i reely went above and beyond with this one eh. it is currently 3:39 AM (though you won't be reeding this til after my catnap) and working on all this has been my singular focus since i awoke my puter this morning.
i conchsidered giving the whole site a more thorough reformatting. make it a bit more normal: sidebars, navigation, all that junk. but, to be honest with you dear reader, that's so generic! in my opinion, the way i've just been adding extra boxes to the homepage for each new link has a lovely feel to it. it makes it seem very mismatched and thrown together - which it very much is! as a plus side, it is Far easier to make it responsive this way with my minimal skills.
as for my Real Life outside of the web, it was my birthday on friday! it was absolutely fintastic, i ate a delectable victoria sponge cake and i got a beautiful new candle - as well as a new plant! she's a tiny yellow rosebush and her name is dave (after dave bowman, but dave strider also works.) yellow roses are Supposed to symbolise some nasty stuff, jealousy and greed and whatnot, but, as a lover of both roses and the colour yellow, i shrimply don't buy it! she has the cutest little thorns and i love her to bits.
it's been a goal of mine this year to try get at least full artpiece done each month. whale, january is almost over and you may have noticed a suspicious lack of new art. this is troublesome! i've done doodles a-plenty, but just haven't had the heart to paint. however! i'm almost done with a delightful little dovejade piece (on my fancy shmancy new tablet.) this is my furst time doing a full painting in clip studio, and i must say i'm impressed. it's without a doubt the best program i've efur used!!
anyhoo, i have a politics essay tomorrow which i have not prepared for in the slightest. in the meantime, you should click on the hal on the new about me page! that's your reward for reading this i suppose.
-alastor ^_^