uri9158: a digital drawing of uriel, a character from omniscient reader's viewpoint. she is holding a can of coke zero (Default)
The changes Interview with the Vampire (2022) made to Louis's character are so so wonderful.

I do mourn how book Louis tries to find God everywhere all the time, but I the biggest takeaway I got from book Louis is that he feels guilty and ashamed about his existence and the show nails that. It's tragic in a way the book never was.The show does something so fucking incredible by making their Louis an explicitly gay black man, so not only does he feel shame about being a vampire, but he's generally ashamed of being queer and has internalized all the antiblack racism he's faced. And all of this is established in the first episode (one of the best first episodes ever honestly. That confession booth scene is ingrained in my mind forever). The alienation Louis feels as a vampire is further exacerbated by his identity. Show Louis also appears a lot more connected to his family, so it's heartbreaking to see him slowly become estranged from them after he becomes a vampire (and becomes partners with another man. interracial relationship too).
 
I was not convinced by Loustat in the Interview with the Vampire book. Just not at all. For example, book Lestat only wanted to change Louis for the plantation* versus show Lestat who wanted Louis to live a life free from shame. Yes, Lestat was definitely taking advantage of Louis at his worst because he wanted him as his partner, BUT I do also think Lestat believed everything he said to Louis. He obviously cared for him deeply at that point. And that's beautifully tragic. The only way for a gay black man in the 1910s to live a life free of shame is to die and be reborn as a vampire.

Lestat's dark gift fix doesn't work though, which is a tragedy in and of itself: Louis still faces racism. Even with his vampiric power the antiblack racism he faces is systemic and not something an individual can overcome.Louis loses contact with his family. Louis is ashamed of his vampiric nature. The true goft Lestat gave him was endless time. Which is what Louis basically thanks him for at the end of season 2.

And that's why the season 2 finale hit me so hard. IF YOU IGNORE THE FACT WE TECHNICALLY DON'T KNOW WHY TF LESTAT CAME TO PARIS OR IF HE WAS BEING CONTROLLED, but that's what season 3 is for. Lestat has some answering to do. I still don't like his emotionally and physically abusive ass ngl.

*from what Louis says. I haven't read any of the other books
uri9158: a digital drawing of uriel, a character from omniscient reader's viewpoint. she is holding a can of coke zero (Default)
I'm 100% fine with Jaheira being impossible to romance in BG3. as much as I enjoyed putting her in a low cut leather getup, her romance would've been on the same level as Halsin's and Minthara's (rushed and more fanservice-y than even bg2 romances) and I like having the focus on the new main cast. Jaheira has been in all three games already AND she was a romance option in the 2nd.

It would at least be interesting from a character perspective though to see how she's grown and changed throughout the years since losing Khalid and becoming a parent. But they already gave Jaheira so much in that regard. You pretty much learn everything about her when you go through her house with her.

You also just can't beat the insanity that is romancing your recently widowed godmother while her husband's body is rotting in a mad wizard's lair. God BG2 is so fucking insane I love it.

On the subject of BG2, what happened to Viconia.

Viccy what are you doing. Did the evil Shar mirror give you dementia? How the hell did you end up back in baldurs gate. You're supposed to be dead. Or in waterdeep. Can you come home our son misses you.

Talk about a character who got no love compared to Jaheira and Minsc. Like most people who like BG2, yeah it pisses me off. Having her as a villain I can understand. They could've very easily spun her story into a tragedy where, after losing contact with Gorion's Ward, Shar manipulates her into having her memories altered because she has little else. After losing everything, rejecting Lolth because she did not want to sacrifice a child, Shar makes her do the same thing. It's such a Shar thing to do, too. Shar in BG3 loves psychologically tormenting people (see: Shadowheart). I've combed over the cloister twice and there's no indication Viconia used the mirror on herself. There's no way the people who wrote this part assumed players would come to that conclusion on their own. 20 years after the second game came out nobody is going to know who Viconia is!

Oh and another small thing, because of the way BG3 handles drow (Lolth-sworn=red eyes, evil, Seldarine= light eyes, good), Viconia is classified as a Lolth-sworn drow. Because she's evil. I cannot think of another reason why she would be. They could've just identified her as drow, just plain drow. Whatever.

Is Viconia the most nuanced character ever written? No. The only way you can engage with any companion's stories in BG2 is by romancing them. Her tragic backstory was made for the romance. The bad girl to Aerie's good girl. But I love her and she deserves some respect. Her backstory is moving enough, fucked up in the way most drow are, and it ties in to Drizzt's backstory indirectly. It's cool. I like it. I like her. She deserved better.
uri9158: a digital drawing of uriel, a character from omniscient reader's viewpoint. she is holding a can of coke zero (Default)
I cried at the end of bg3 because i was so bummed for my poor poor dark urge guy wayne. I started the playthrough intending to be kinda evil but then i changed my mind and it accidentally made wayne get character development. Poor guy was able to be cured of his urge, just to then immediately sacrifice himself and become a mind flayer. Then he killed himself because the thought of losing the self he worked so hard for scared him. And i romanced karlach too so immediately after poor wayne died karlach blew up. And that line about how his death was just for him REALLY fucked me up. He was free... for like a day. No epilogue party because he died and then jergal has the fucking nerve to show up in the fugue plane to be like. Huh you're here thats weird guess ur different. And i was like. But i dont was to die. And jergal said oh but ur death life has just begun blah blah blah WHAT DOES THAT MEAN. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN JERGAL GTFO. seeing him diss the dead three was pretty funny though

durge turning into a mindflayer Coheres

"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster . . . when you gaze long into the abyss the abyss also gazes into you"
uri9158: a digital drawing of uriel, a character from omniscient reader's viewpoint. she is holding a can of coke zero (Default)
I loved you so much. I wanted to hold you in my hand forever. You were so small, so soft, so perfect.

When I brought you home, swaddled gently in blue cloth, I laid you on the floor. I went to grab scissors, paint, and paper. I only wanted a whisker. Just one, salt and pepper. My hand shook and I clipped them all.

I cried because you still needed those. I cried and my tears beaded off your perfect fur. I cried because you loved grooming your coat. It was so soft. The softest thing I'd ever touched. The vet said you were so soft.

I tried to clip your fur, but the hairs were so fine and light. I couldn't see them. And I didn't want to ruin you. A couple hairs wouldn't do you justice anyway.

I took a paintbrush, the smallest I owned. I covered your paws in black gouache and pressed them to the paper. The prints left behind were all smudgey. I cleaned your paws because I didn't want the paint to make you sick. And I didn't like how it made your pink skin all black. It never looked like that.

Weeks before you were even sick I thought about preserving you forever. I would buy chemicals that would freeze you in time. Your fur would never grow ragged. Your whiskers could stay long. I could look at your paws whenever I wanted.

But I realized that was unfair. You'd still be dead. You wouldn't be able to comb through your fur or twitch your whiskers. Or run on a great big wheel.

So I dug a hole in the front yard, big and wide enough so you'd have room to stretch your legs. You hated small spaces.

Your wooden house was the coffin. I lined the bottom with shredded tissue like how you did once. It all still smelled like you. I gave you cherries, lettuce, and a strawberry. I cried because I had never given you a cherry before.

I wrapped you in the blue cloth I brought you home in. You felt warm and limp, still. It felt wrong to cover you in dirt, but I did, gently and with my hands.

I cleaned your cage later today. I couldn't stop moving. You were gone, but I still needed to care for you. I found your sand bath. It still had dips and dunes from where you walked. I didn't dump it out.

I'm in bed now. I stopped moving and now all I can do is cry. I miss you. I want to dig you up and hold you so you never disappear. I want you to eat from my hand again. I want to hear the sound of your wheel again. I want to pick you up and hold you even though you don't like it and I want to kiss you on the forehead, right where the little white star is and I want you to make those little peeping noises you make and I want to cry and rub my tears into your fur knowing you'll clean them out. I want to wail at 2 am in the morning like I'm dying. I want to scream like its the end of the world.
uri9158: a digital drawing of uriel, a character from omniscient reader's viewpoint. she is holding a can of coke zero (Default)
I just remembered this bomb ass dream i had where basically it was a storybook being read by some kids and the kids make up their own happy ending for it but then a narrator voice began telling the true story. Basically it was about hepatitis aliens. And they killed this guys wife i think. Then they dismembered him (this parts very vivid). He had no arms nor legs. He looked more like a mannequin than a human. A patch of his throat was cut out, his edophagus exposed. No blood. It looked like plastic tubing. The aliens would moisten his mouth and throat with a eyedropper filled with water. They did unspeakable things to him I did not witness, but I know what they did.
uri9158: a digital drawing of uriel, a character from omniscient reader's viewpoint. she is holding a can of coke zero (Default)
The other day I saw someone who looked EXACTLY like a person I've drawn which a.) made me very happy because that means my goal of drawing believable people is getting closer and b.) gave me heart palpitations because holy shit she was sooo cute lol. I'll probably never see her again because the only reason why I saw her was because she was leaving the class I was going to. Anyways, I'm going to draw more people in hopes they will become real.
uri9158: a digital drawing of uriel, a character from omniscient reader's viewpoint. she is holding a can of coke zero (Default)
 So yesterday, after about a week of waiting for the store to ship him to me, I got my t. albopilosus sling in the mail. I knew I was getting a 3/8" to 1/2" sling but, he is just so frickin' tiny its unbelievable. I guess since this is my first tarantula I can't really visualize DLS (diagonal leg span) yet.

When I got the box I thought they forgot to put the tarantula in it. The little deli cup was just wrapped in so much paper (a good thing! the box was also a nice temp). I was so ready to be super careful and take him out very sloooowly with tongs and everything, but what ended up happening was that I opened the deli cup thinking he was in the paper towel and he fell out because he was in clinging to the lid and I didn't see him. Luckily, he fell in the plastic shoebox I had out. Un-luckily now I had to nudge a scared baby spider into a cup. He kept covering his eyes with his legs as stress response which was very cute. I got him in his gelato cup after a few minutes and he promptly ran into the hole I made. He spent all of yesterday in his hole, pulling his legs over his face whenever I picked up his container. I crushed the crap out of a little dubia roach's head, which didn't kill it all the way for some reason and dropped it in last night.

He spent most of the day in his hole again, like yesterday, but today I realized he was slowly inching up his burrow. I left him completely alone, no picking up his container or shining a flashlight at him (which now that I think about it was probably stressing the crap out of him). I checked on his progress every few hours or so. He moved up a millimeter at a time. I left the dubia roach in there all day since I didn't want to stress him out and there was no way its mouth worked anymore. The last time I checked on him, he had dragged the roach into his burrow! I wasn't sure if he was actually eating it though? Like, the roach's legs were moving so SOMETHING was happening, but he was in this really strange vertical position. I'm gonna check back in actually after I finish this and see if anything else happened.

Update: lmao hes definitely eating it but the roach is still moving a bit. I guess I just assumed the tarantula's venom would kill it by now?

uri9158: a digital drawing of uriel, a character from omniscient reader's viewpoint. she is holding a can of coke zero (Default)
I have no idea how someone with media literacy could walk away from Disco Elysium and not connect "being a cop rots people's brains" to "Kim Kitsuragi is a cop." The dots are there even if they're delivered with humor, like in the scene where Harry and Kim talk to Acele on the ice.

  1. KIM KITSURAGI – "Yeah, man..." The lieutenant suddenly appears to your right with his collar popped *insanely* high.

    KIM KITSURAGI – "Got any dope? We need some dope bad." He scratches his nose, then his armpit through the jacket. "I got the *Boogie Street* shakes."

    DRAMA [Medium: Success] – He's really shaking and everything!

    YOU – "Um... Kim? What are you doing?"

    KIM KITSURAGI – "Tryin'a score some *dope*, man. Like we planned. Tryin'a score some smack -- you got any?" He hops from one foot to the other in anticipation.

Its incredibly obvious that Kim has used a tactic similar to this to get people arrested as a juvenile officer. Its a side of Kim the player and Harry haven't seen before. Or maybe even thought about. I think its an important side that fans seem to forget whenever they talk about Kim. I can understand why people forget. Some of the text used to introduce Kim is literally something along the lines of, "if the whole world descended upon you, this man man would hurl himself in death's way to save you, but why?" How can you not go insane over that? It is very hard not to like Kim, especially when we're playing from the viewpoint of Harry. Its important to remember that Kim is a flawed human being and not a deity. Don't be like Harry.
uri9158: a digital drawing of uriel, a character from omniscient reader's viewpoint. she is holding a can of coke zero (Default)
1.) This dream was a documentary style dream about the sesame street amusement park that I used to go to when I was 4-6. Which basically means I was viewing the dream from the third person, like I was watching a recording while also experiencing the recording(?) if that makes sense. I was somehow also the kid version of a fictional character (I don't remember who it was), for some reason. I went on this big ass swing ride that isn't actually in the real park. The ride consisted of grabbing onto a pole and being spun around, even though my dream told me it was a swing ride. My subconscious is a liar. Anyways, my glasses flew off. I closed my eyes because it was scary. Somehow it worked because I didn't feel any physical sensations. Its unusual I felt any sensations at all because normally my dreams are purely visual.

2.) In this dream I was wandering around the nondescript, massive grocery store that sometimes appears. I entered some famous media analysis lady's archival room (I don't know either). She gifted me a souvenir polyester throw pillow because I was "supposed to be there."
uri9158: a digital drawing of uriel, a character from omniscient reader's viewpoint. she is holding a can of coke zero (Default)
:| <--- my leopard geckos face after I watch a video about a neglected gecko and go over to pick him up and stare at him*

"Oh my god does he have stuck shed? [no] Are his toes missing? [no] Is his sickly thin? [no] This is all my fault I've hurt him. He is dying and I've been abusing him. Holy shit I'm a terrible human being. The nightmares about him getting killed are true!" are all real an actual thought I have had.

One time at like 11:00 am (I saved the time because it was ridiculous) I hear a distressed squeaking sound coming from tiptoe's tank. Crap. I turn on my desk light and quietly walk over. I nervously peek over into his tank and. He's taking a massive shit. Its a little big and wet, but healthy. It was only that way because I fed him roaches (something he hadn't had in a while).

*leopard geckos' faces are literally always like that but tiptoe was less impressed than usual.

uri9158: a digital drawing of uriel, a character from omniscient reader's viewpoint. she is holding a can of coke zero (Default)
I've been recently taking melatonin to help fix my sleep schedule. It works like a dream, but I get crazy surreal nightmares whenever I take it. I tried googling it and apparently melatonin increases the amount of time you spend in REM sleep, the stage of sleep where you dream.

I'm not complaining. If anything I want to eventually draw all my dreams and compile them. I once found a book with a similar premise. I can't remember the title, but I know its Japanese. I found it while searching for LSD Dream Emulator. Though, I cannot for the life of me remember if it was directly related or not. It definitely had a similar vibe. The dreams were very abstract and surreal.

I was excited when I started having these melatonin dream sessions because they were so vivid. At the same time, I was bummed over the content in these obvious nightmares. I've had so many dreams where I'm incompetent or a kleptomaniac. I have no clue why I'm so scared of the concept of me stealing things.

And the fear of incompetence is... well complex I guess? Its not exactly incompetence, but it has a lot to do with self esteem. I don't what to get all Freud on my ass, but its obvious my subconscious is pretty direct when it comes to translating things from my conscious. I had a nightmare last night about not being able to press a button and close the garage door. My dad was pulling out of the garage and had asked me to open and close the garage door for him (the big one that cars go in and out of). He had a button in his car to operate the door, but he wanted to test me. So I push the button, it doesn't work. I push it again, nothing happens. I start spamming the button. This seems to work. He backs out, but then as he is about halfway out the garage door starts closing on the car. A couple seconds late the sensor realizes, "oops that's a car I'm crushing," but the damage had been done. The car had a big horizontal dip on the roof like it had gotten caught in a mouse trap. My dad, exasperated, tells me to try again. I do. The same thing happens. This series of events repeats itself several times until my dad opens the door with his car. He gets out to talk to me. I deflect blame immediately, "the garage automatically started closing on the car! The button wasn't working" I say. My dad says something I don't remember. I then remember how garages work and realize both the door and the button had been working, but it took the door a couple half-seconds to respond. I feel guilty and awful. The dream ends.

I miss being 5 and having my nightmares revolve around having the breath tickled out of me by a duck mascot costume.
uri9158: a digital drawing of uriel, a character from omniscient reader's viewpoint. she is holding a can of coke zero (Default)
The entire dream took place in a classroom. It looked a lot like the classroom I took middle school spanish in, except all empty. I was the same age I am currently. There was a teacher there that I've never met or ever had before. I was a part of some kind of boarding school?

I was a really bad student and the teacher was equally as terrible. I was physically fighting her a lot and I got pretty banged up.

Then a nurse came in to check up on me I guess. The teacher lied about us fighting and I was just kinda sulky and didn't say anything.

I took my shirt off and lay down on a stretched bed thing. The nurse was very nice and tended to some injuries on my arm I guess. After it was wrapped she started putting needles inside me to draw blood. They were really big. Not needle size wise but volume size wise. And they hurt. Realistically. When she put a needle at the bottom of my sternum my chest felt like it was collapsing. Everything felt like it was getting sucked out. The blood she drew was weird too. It wasnt just blood, it was pink and chunky with white bits in it. The blood from my arms was normal red. They didnt hurt as much, like a normal vaccine prick.