Oh dear, you've found the secret slime cave lair of Enforcer @ Draggian Universe where they put their awful little thoughts. Get out while you can. Established June 2024 as somewhere to put my angsty thoughts about how Falling In Reverse sucks other than the void and annoying my friends.
Enter at your own risk; this is where I put spur of the moment random nonsense, angst, and opinions to get them out of my brain. When I say slime, I mean slime. And possibly full on possession.
The 50 most recent thoughts are being shown. A curated selection of old thoughts I thought were useful, funny, and/or interesting can be found here.
it's raining
I'm eating for two, if you know what I mean (I am possessed by a demon)
groupchats are a sin. email only bro
notes on virtu.pet games (none of them are original vs. being ported from Neo, but because the lineup of games is different, the ones I play on Virtu are not my faves from OG Neo.)
Not convinced there is any reason to not be holding the spacebar down the entire time one is playing volcano run, since you get points for survival, not distance. moving slower gives you more points for the same parts of the level, and makes obstacles easier to dodge.
I'm pretty sure the hitbox in Ice Cream Machine is larger than on OG Neo; I've gotten hit on tight turns and squeezes I know I could make on the original.
In Faerie Cloud Racers, just move in a tight hairpin space filling pattern from your starting position; most of the time the AI opponents will run themselves into their own smoke trail while you're doing that and it's safer than actually going after them.
I don't generally use modern animal meme terminology, but I like the words "blep" and "mlem" because they're essentially onomatopeic, and they serve to be words for things that there was no previous word for.
baby ronnie and max are leaning against the front of a couch slash each other playing halo or something. at some point in a heated battle ronnie bleps with concentration
"dude are you trying to flirt with me?"
"huh? ...uh no i just do that. we can still make out if you want though"
ronnie has some guitar experience but is very much predominantly vocal so I don't know if his stage bleps would actually be correlated with this. He does also clearly have some number of mouth-related stims, see the chewing, so I could also see it just being a thing he does when he gets excited.
the idea that it is a thing he naturally does for brain reasons, but everyone assumed it was a taunt or flirt so it got thrown into his stagecraft as such, is fantastic
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01639/full
ok good there actually are cognitive development studies and reasons for this. adjacent brain areas. neat.
now since ronnie is left handed I'm not sure if that would quite apply to him in the same way re: motor control being on the same hemisphere. i suspect that even in the 90s / early 00s he probably at least in school learned to write / draw / use a computer mouse / etc with his right hand though
and it might still be adjacent areas in terms of fine motor frontal control even if it's different side of body, and if it's general "fine motor / concentration also hits language areas therefore mouth movements" I'd think that would hold up regardless of handedness
shit now i need to know if they did this with left handed kids
I want to say that I might have done that as a kid. Not sure if there's a cognitive reason for that, but I know it's widespread enough to make it into parenting-focused comics, usually with kids around age 5-6
he bleps in between songs when he's doing stage stuff because you know there's a lot going on, but the audience assumed that it was a taunt or flirt so okay guess it is now
Useless Ronnie Headcanon #N+1: As well as being a part of his stagecraft he intentionally exaggerates (perhaps this is the reason why), Ronnie does that thing some small children do where he sticks out his tongue whenever he's trying to concentrate on something. As is typical for that sort of thing, he does not consciously notice that he's doing it and gets embarrassed when pointed out.
this might be good enough to be worth adding to Cute Ronnie.
also, despite his motif predominantly being fish and amphibians, I still can't shake the idea that in his true form / once the slime finally reaches his face, OTL's tongue will also be forked.
and how being a Darigan Hissi and that apparently being canon, Layton's tongue is far too long while also not being forked. I don't think it would look quite so unnerving were it actually forked, but without the fork, that's not clearly a snake doing snaky things; like Ronald, he just thinks that's cute apparently.
All cartoon snakes tend to have their forked tongues blepping about just so it's clear that they're snakes, but some combination of the tongue constantly being out, his facial expressions, and the Darigan Hissi's facial outlines with the chin spikes just combine to produce Ronnie Vibes.
I've realized that in designing Black way back in 2017 as my ideal guy, I basically ended up making him my ideal gender presentation. Complete with the "king" bit.
layton vickles has a jock strap over his hemipenes. and that is indeed accurately placed for a snake (save that it should be on the underside but otherwise)
well at least his original fullbody picture does; it is not consistent
those things usually show up in yooyuballers as bracers or something but there is nothing else worth protecting in that area
Now that I think of it, he bears a certain resemblance to Ronnie, given his incredibly punchable face and how his tongue is always waggling like that. (did he get, like, a tongue un-forking piercing thing?)
I respect him aesthetically, but I still hate him personally.
this is what ronnie would look like if he happened to be a snake (as you know, he does regularly have his tongue out because he thinks it's funny and it's awful)
yes i am aware that "ronnie but snake" is my ideal gender presentation, hence this at once making perfect sense and being mildly troubling
he's infinitely cuter of course but it's the expression. regular darigan hissies are edgy; this is punchable
and the matter that his tongue is not forked even though it should be is concerning, although I think canon darigan hissies might also be like that. it's dumb so I'm ignoring it
look at it just waggling about
he also has too many teeth for his mouth. hissies do not look like that. they have fangs and that is it
and in this one it is forked so it's not even consistent
still, I get that all cartoon snakes do that, but he just wiggles it around with such zeal. which is a thing that ronnie does which was cute when he was in his 20s but just deeply disturbing now
like i can't explain it but it's just a certain vibe. the things he is doing with his face are giving ronnie vibes. he's the same sort of punchable except that he's infinitely better and cuter because he is a snake. (and for all his faults he does actually play fair -- he is insufferable and mean about his being good at sports, but he does not cheat)
ronnie but if he was a jock and also a snake
I personally know and dislike this Neopets NPC, and have since 2013. The reason why is not important.
okay the unforked tongue is also just general darigan Hissi canon, I guess to make them look more menacing or something? but it's stupid and dumb so I'm ignoring it because come on this is a tongue flick and LITERALLY THE REASON SNAKES HAVE FORKED TONGUES IS THIS
hissies canonically tongue flick; the forking is necessary for snakes so they can smell directionally
monitor lizards are snakes' closest relatives but the forked tongue seems to have developed in both separately for ecological reasons. all lizards technically have functional jacobson's organs but the ones without forked tongues kinda suck at it
OK that really hurt. Knew the underside of the arm would hurt more; did not realize just how much. (and I've heard in terms of soft parts that the armpit is much worse. I think even the slimeball has that bare, hence the weird tank top and opera gloves effect)
definitely reminds one that they are an animal, the matter that I do not verbalize in words in response to pain vs. hissing and grunting aside. frankly it's frustrating -- I am doing this voluntarily. This is probably the single most expensive recreational thing I will ever do, since the sum of both sessions will most likely be four digits. I expected this and am okay with it. Stop squirming!
good news is that with the base lineart done, I can do (and was sent home with) topical anesthetic I can apply so I'm numb going in and they can do bactine and such throughout. just couldn't do any anesthetic today because it messes up reference lines
I'm very satisfied with the results, though, it's a great balance between the neopets style and the more classical edgy tattoo. Think it's going to look absolutely amazing in color when I get that done in 2 weeks
I wonder how much business the (more expensive than I usually go to) Mexican place next door gets from folks who just "donated blood" if you get my drift. can speak that I have just been absolutely starving upon getting out of every appointment so I got myself both a dip sampler and a Chile relleno
wish pokencyclopedia.info hadn't gone down; now it is much harder to find animated image versions of 3d pokemon sprites
other games need kingdom of loathing's "zapping" -- if you have one item from a set, zap it to randomly turn it into something else from that set. inspired by virtu.pet stocking every lime jelly thing except the usul which i need for a quest
since as everyone knows, Ronald has cloven hooves when he has feet at all (hence why we never see them), does that make Ronnie slime kosher
does he chew the cud is the question. I guess he could if he wanted
i hate batteries i hate realchem i hate this class i hate everything I want to be Done none of this makes sense and I still have several sets of slides to do and arrrggghh
no senioritis only ronnie slime and breaking out in hives in response to sunlight
Was on my way to CVS when I saw, from across the street, a cyclist getting hit by a car so I ran over to make sure they were okay. (She thinks she was, but under strong urging from, uh, the driver of the car that hit her who seems the most concerned of anyone, she's going to go get checked out at the ER.)
I was very much not alone. Within 5 minutes, we had multiple people waiting at the site including a city employee calling 911 and offers of a first aid kit, water bottle (this was mine, I would have offered a first aid kit if I'd brought my bag), chocolate, and transportation home for the cyclist and her bike. She called her husband to pick her up, city employees came over to make sure everyone was okay, and things were resolved shockingly quickly.
What really surprised me was the magnitude and immediacy of response. (Also, the offer of the first aid kit was quite visibly trans / GNC -- mostly femme facial outlines + build and a full stubble beard, which they rocked, which was nice to see.)
Along with the city employee and driver of the vehicle, I waited with the cyclist until her husband came over to pick her up. I think things are going to turn out okay, since she didn't get hit in the head or anything.
I'm not sure what the point of this story is and don't expect to get patted on the back. I'm just surprised, I guess. At the response, and at myself. I don't think of myself as the kind of person who'd do that.
I would have normally had a first aid kit, but I don't usually bring my bag if I'm just going to CVS and have grocery bags, because the combo is a mite difficult to carry.
I guess one could say something about how community support is, well, that, practically, and not Neocities Leftist crap. Police / fire were of course called, but I don't think it would have played out any differently and think everyone still would have been okay if they hadn't.
GHOST SHARK
(was zapping situations' petpet for something sufficiently edgy. I think this counts.)
the dudesverse 4/20 special is not happening; I do not presently have the MP to write things with dialogue and narrative happenings.
I can, however, do descriptive and nonfiction writing on much lower MP, so unified descriptions of all of my lore concepts for my upcoming unified OC page. This is my first time writing full codified descriptions and introductions to every part of my lore, which was an interesting exercise. Made me think about some things I hadn't done so quite concretely before.
my mom mailed me this for Easter. look at it. (And how it's apparently pregnant? Concerning.)
marketing hive mind finally caught on to what I've known for years, which is that dragons go with everything and the mascot of Easter should be something that actually lays eggs
realchem is still the worst fucking educational software I have ever witnessed by the way. they have the gall to sell this unfinished beta piece of shit to be "piloted" to students all over for i wanna say 35 dollars per. all the actual content is free from libretexts and the problem sets don't fucking work
oh and i'm about 99% sure my math on the second question was in fact right; both common sense and wolframalpha agreed, but that's the least of its problems
well, i graduate in may and i'm unlikely to be doing chem problems during a teaching postbac so
okay that's it I'm done I've finished one out of two of the chem homework modules and will do the other one tomorrow
pretty sure I don't have the flu seeing as I'm still, like, capable of doing homework and such, but this cold or whatever is carrying some seriously annoying fatigue and headaches with it.
the 4/20 / easter dudesverse special, unless I get really inspired, is probably getting written either late for the holiday or not at all and is staying as a "haha wouldn't that be cute" text / thoughts.page rambling set
okay I might be writing a dudesverse fanfic about the easter / 4/20 stoner egg hunt concept, because it seems like the kind of thing that the Sleepless Bakery would do. It's a fun little vignette that allows me to introduce some Pokemon world religion worldbuilding in a natural way. Comedic serial escalation with wholesome results.
The cultural implications of both Easter and 4/20 existing will be left as an exercise for the reader. At least re: Easter, I see no reason that it wouldn't exist since Pokemon aren't incompatible with religions focused on supernatural humans, and most of the world still does have normal animals. Plus even though all of my main cast swear polytheistically which leaves what their cultural religion is supposed to be unknown, I see no reason they wouldn't celebrate Easter or Christmas as secular festivals.
For the vast majority of human history, even in what are now league regions, Pokemon were a rare and downright scary encounter. And as discussed, "Pokemon related" religions are just folks using Pokemon as symbols for spiritual deities; nobody literally worships literal animals anthropologically speaking. And spring fertility festivals are pretty universal. I hold that especially in League regions, monotheistic religions aren't as ubiquitous as in our world and the cultural religion for most Pokemon league regions is a vaguely-Shinto polytheism with symbolic legendaries courtesy of the Kanto landmass' cultural dominance, but in practice, that's not most folks' lived religion unless it's actually indigenous to them. Polytheistic swearing is about where it stops.
Especially in the broadly non-Pokemon-league and less Kanto influenced PokeAmerica landmass, Christianity probably has the cultural majority and as such holidays even if it's not as much of a complete crushing force as in real life. And, well, Lane isn't a trainer in any sense and Candela is not from a league region. Statistically, since Candela is ethnically and culturally Pokemon!Mexican, she was probably raised some sort of Catholic.
Christianity kind of has to exist for much of Arlo's music taste to exist recognizably, so. And 06 very much does swear monotheistically. Even in No Escape where the Draggian Universe Conceptual Pantheon demonstrably exist, Ronnie uses masculine pronouns for EE and interprets xem as the Christian Satan because that's what he thought he sold his soul to. And there is a church in the games in Sinnoh. For no reason. Nothing plot relevant happens there, and it decidedly isn't to any of the legendaries.
So it seems to suggest that even in canon Pokemon league regions, Christianity's spread happened and it can coexist with Vaguely Shinto Polytheism slash Colonial Sinnoh Empire Arceus-ism. Which I think is pretty accurate to how Christianity was received in Japan IRL.
My plans for the serial escalation include it basically turning into Sanctum City's hottest 4/20 event and music festival via complete accident. And also, Dead Rabbitts is involved because one of Candela's Abuela's church ladies knows Craig's mom and well, they have those cute little bunny masks...it's a testament to the powers of the civically minded book club ladies and also Candela's Abuela, who we know just enough about to make it clear that she's fucking terrifying.
This would be WAAAAYYY too expensive, but there's so much potential from Easter being on 4/20. strictly ID checked 21+ egg hunt with the other kind of gummies (and an egg limit would be a good idea). I think the stoners would quite enjoy that. And "Easter grass" just writes itself.
anyway happy 4/20 Easter grass
Posting this no context bit of my dream journal because zoho writer won't let me save updates and this is easier to c and p from than my phone's notes app
hadn't been updated since 2022. I contemplated asking Ronnie and/or Craig if they still had it.
my old friend Susanna wanted me to petsit her turtle, so I did, but the turtle got sick so I called both her and a vet. She blamed me for it, and me and the vet of accusing her of being a bad pet owner, so she decided she wanted to kill both the turtle and my pets, and possibly also me. So after a complicated chase scene, I drove her out to abandon her in the woods while listening to Black Mamba (in a seafoam green pickup truck that decidedly wasn't my mom's car), the turtle was restored to health, and I founded some sort of reptile rescue.
I'm doing a wildlife demonstration at Neshoba, which is a lot bigger and has a full array of herp, fish, and bird tanks and a fantasy themed library, and Rene and Chris are also there. I bring out a blue macaw (like Daisy) to the playground, but there's a big thunderstorm going on. The teacher still insists it's safe, though. Once Rene, Chris, and I see a large and ornate building in sight range erupt in massive flames, we decide to get the hell out of Dodge. It turns out that the fire was actually a light show, which Chris steals my Southwest ID and tries to swim across the pool separating Not Neshoba from the Hyatt whatever conference center to go see, but gets caught and called out by his mom. And by me over how if he's trying to sneak into something that needs him to be over 21, my Southwest ID won't work because it doesn't have my birthday on it.
(this would not work with transformed fangpyre. there is only a certain degree of snakiness that an initially human body can produce, and the extra head is not part of that. also that might also be a magical buffing thing I can't decide)
okay yeah the snake staffs and fangblades are both canonically connected to the great devourer, with the latter being made out of her teeth, so I'm going with the magic-y enhancements of Regular Snaky Qualities that the Serpentine tribes had in canon being literal magic enhancements. Under normal circumstances with the Great Devourer being dead and fangblades + serpentine staffs being lost, Fangpyre venom can't transform anything that isn't already a tetrapod.
with being able to turn people into snakes using uhh prions or retroviruses or something like that being a Regular Snaky Quality, of course.
the other 3, if you're curious, can hypnotize people, choke people even without having to physically constrict them, and make people hallucinate by spitting acid in their eyes. Pretty standard fantasy exaggerations of things snakes can do + the "cobras hypnotize their prey" cultural myth
oh also fun fact -- if a fangpyre bites another fangpyre, or themself, they grow a second head. fantastic. why doesn't this happen more. where does it stop
but, like, it's established that the great devourer was like that because she was corrupted by dark magic which made her a giant overpowered kaiju snake, and that she's probably got some dark magic juice coming off of her. since the serpentine and their artifacts carry some kind of connection to the great devourer it wouldn't be that unreasonable for some of that dark magic juice to have carried over in canon, thus buffing their abilities and making transforming cars into snars even though cars don't have genetics possible. which it isn't anymore
this is pure fanfic on my part since there's no evidence of the great devourer having any connection to the serpentine save them wanting to wake her up and her being a big snek, but especially with the later reveal that she was corrupted and Pythor was to some extent manipulated by a greater force of evil, the notion that while she was alive, she buffed the Serpentine's abilities beyond their biological baselines would make sense? Inasmuch as any of this makes sense?
And yes, the snake vehicles exist because they existed in canon. I don't have a good answer for how. Who knows. (plus, there was actual dark magic involved via the Great Devourer and stuff; it's entirely possible that during the Serpentine Wars, Fangpyre could transform machines magically but they can't anymore with the Great Devourer dead and no longer buffing them. So now it just does biological stuff to biological lifeforms.)
of course I'm not sure how that would work seeing as cars don't have genetics. frankly, I have no idea why the transforming machines even works via anything but magic. my handwavey explanation is that venom that can accelerate the development of reptilian characteristics is useful to the Serpentine because it means that they can bite each other to make each other stronger or help heal wounds. The fact that it makes reptilian characteristics develop in other animals is just a happy accident.
plot hole I just thought of (accreditable to the Fangpyre literally only showing up in two episodes): are canon transformed Fangpyre contagious? If bitten by a hypothetical transformed canon Serpentine, or a snake vehicle, or the Fangpyre-fly that serves as ominous foreshadowing in 1 / 2 episodes focused on that and just flies off to do who know what, is that sufficient to transform?
With informed-consent, biologically-based HRT That Makes You A Snake, no. Not only do bite-based transformations not stick long-term unless readministered because snakebites don't work that way, venom is really fucking complicated -- growing scales is just extra keratin. Tails are not unheard of within the tetrapod body plan. Tongue forking and fangs? Similarly relatively easy since that's just reshaping pre-existing hardware -- humans have the vestigial remnants of a Jacobson's organ. Venom proteins, even that don't turn people into snakes, are hyper-specific and really complicated; a genetics-altering transformation making someone capable of producing functional venom I'd think would be extraordinarily implausible even by sci-fi standards. Also, trans Serpentine may well still have human partners and probably don't want to risk accidentally turning them while making out and not keeping track of where their fangs are, or if they enjoy biting for kinky reasons. And it being contagious wouldn't make it a very safe informed-consent dysphoria treatment.
But, like, canon Fangpyre are magic and are clearly taking as much influence from vampires as snakes. One of the main points of standard horror vampires is that they are contagious, and turned vampires are usually just as capable of transforming others as their original turners. So given their canon basis, they should be contagious, but we never see anyone fully transform so it doesn't come up.
Now, of the canon transformations we see, they're not allowed to progress fully in humans -- maybe they'd be snakier with time, but the results are pretty clearly human / vehicle / fly-Serpentine hybrids, not full Serpentine. So if contagious, perhaps it would dilute over time thus preventing a full on Fangpyre Apocalypse.
you get canon-bitten (which presumably actually sticks even though i don't think it does unless readministered because snakebites don't work that way) -> you turn into a half person half snake -> you bite someone -> they turn into a 25% snake?
Now, the logic with that is that something like the Fangpyre-fly or snake vehicles if it bit someone might mix in some of whatever it originally was along with snake if it were to bite someone, so you'd get 25% car, 25% snake, 50% whatever they were originally, and that could get quite funky quite fast even with the percentages diluting such to become basically homeopathic over time.
They're such a cool and legitimately creepy concept and deserved more attention. As it stands, they get two episodes and are basically just set dressing.
in tangentially related news, since I reminded myself that lego ninjago exists, I made fandragon scries for all of the serpentine generals...2 out of 4 of the color combos do not exist at all. the other 2 do and I've asked producers of said if they're willing to sell, but unfortunately these are characters for whom eye color matters so I'm still gonna need pairs, argh
mateo's color combo also doesn't exist
considering making a fandragon for Mateo just so I have all the Pokemon Go NPCs, even though I find him uninteresting lore-wise and don't plan to integrate him into my fanfic, nor do I like routes that much...should I make him a Guardian because beard or an Obelisk because beefy and digs holes? he needs to be a modern so he can wear clothes
Okay, whoever on New TNT's wearable design staff is an MCR fan perhaps needs to settle down. Following up on Helena and The Black Parade, I'm Not Okay I Promise is now very obviously Neopets canon.
https://items.jellyneo.net/item/78544/
https://items.jellyneo.net/item/78541/
https://items.jellyneo.net/item/78542/
https://items.jellyneo.net/item/78543/
I really want to know if the guys from MCR are aware of this. I'm aware that they don't use social media often, but I feel like there's a certain degree of having Made It re: getting into Neopets of all places, since modern Neo tends to be less referential than a lot of its pet game peers.
full outfit DTI preview with thematically appropriate, but unrelated background. return of snerard (snake gerard, what my meatspace friend with an MCR special interest referred to my sona pet's outfit with the Black Parade pieces as)
Now, I do wish that they'd stop doing single-piece shoe and pant combination wearables, since they don't work well on Hissi or anything with fins, but the rendering and overall versatility is good. I'm all in favor of there being more NP alternative / masculine / just some guy wearables, and these are some nice, versatile elements. I'd just prefer if the shoes had been separate.
and, like, duh, of course this one along with the snake man were the Skylanders characters I got attached to. She's the lightning and dark magic edgelord dragon who's angsty and covered in spikes and is comically overpowered and used to work for the evil overlord and is also PURPLE.
because this is just edgy as fuck, along with the rest of the "undead" element.
I still have the top, but not bottom, half of the exclusive shiny Rattle Shake variant from a Frito-Lay's promotion in like 2013. Every time I look at it, I consider how much of an arm and a leg it would cost me to finally get him completed by purchasing the bottom half on eBay. I want to say I found the disembodied half unpriced at Bargain Hunt once and went looking for and could not find the bottom half.
ah mr. sneky I see you are wearing your fance top.
also basically the same visual anthro-snake build as my ideal form, and as Hissies and the Serpentine generals. i just love his snake-gun. he scream.
now that I think of it he's literally got the exact head shape of a Hissi, since they're both stylized vipers
his snake-gun looks even more "there is just elevator music on loop in there" in toy form.
I remember thinking that Cynder and Rattle Shake being sorted into Undead was distinctly unfair, seeing as Rattle Shake has absolutely no death / darkness-related aspects and is a good boy so he's clearly only in the Edgy Evil Element because he's a snake, and Cynder's whole thing is that despite being trained in dark magic she's trying to use it for good. I think I recorded a little video short (long since lost) on the first iPod touch about them trying to repair their rep
this is the same version of me who did not comprehend Neoquest II being a video game and strongly objected to the killing of rattlecobralls because those are just animals. And I still think they should be Petpets. While I've been disappointed in Santae's updates (namely, that they just keep adding new shinies even though we are in beta and really need QOL updates, and that shinies are happening too fast to be able to meaningfully grind or savor anything), one of the things I appreciate most about them is that [a] they had a snake pet at launch and [b] it's a rattlecobra. This is what peak performance looks like. (this being the color I have on my sona-pet, with them along with Kasandaria being one of the first entities I port on any site that has a snake pet.)
Kasandaria's Santae counterpart has the Kickstarter regal color because it's what she deserves.
she's also probably an influence, along with Cyndi Lauper and I think one of the pets I applied for being named "Cyndjara", on "Cynd" being the name for my original Darigan Hissi concept. Who got adopted out / retired sometime around 2020, since much like XP, she had no actual personality beyond my rave music hyperfixation.
Cynder, being a purple and canonically female and badass edgelord dragon, I remember liking enough that she got a guest feature on one of my internal-HTML-files-fansite-for-myself "editorials", featuring questions about proto-Draggian Universe lore written by myself, to myself and/or my "staff". Because I thought Jellyneo was the coolest thing ever, and they had editorials with both JN and Neo questions. I got a couple questions featured in those back when they still existed.
I don't plan to write about it because it's far less compelling, but I think this is also basically what I did with Skylanders -- I think I briefly played some of the Flash and mobile games, and we had the USB portal, but I can't say I had any particular desire to play the console games or concern for Skylanders / Spyro lore, vs. Rattle Shake and Cynder's Excellent Adventure and hehe cute dragons.
Reading the NInjago wiki, perhaps this series might have been bad actually, seeing as it's literally toy commercials built on rule of cool. I have no plans of rewatching it, seeing as the takeaway I got (that the Serpentine are just little guys who deserve better and Fangpyre venom is the coolest thing ever) has basically nothing to do with the actual lore, and also, while having them be Legos softens the blow a bit, the crusty 2012 TV-animation CGI is real obvious even in screenshots. Especially on anything meant to be organic. What matters is the concepts, and how the whole notion of Serpentine and Fangpyre venom rewired my brain back in the day and provided the "ah, that explains it" re: my whole lifelong thing with reptiles.
Of course, I've heard that Lego's newer attempt at being anime-esque, the loosely Journey To The West-inspired Monkee Kid, is better than it has any right to be. I don't know if it's over yet. Perhaps I'll watch it when it is.
...okay the fact that they have not done some sort of 2025 year of the snake either new serpentine tribe or revival is just a waste of marketing
the original snake season and when I stopped watching was 2012. after that, the weird extra serpentine I don't deem to be canon are as follows:
Anacondrai cultists, which technically makes humans consensually transforming themselves into Serpentine, but with magic and draining of life force, canon -- 2015
Vermillion, apparently children of the Great Devourer who are masses of snakes that take humanoid forms -- 2017
Pyro Vipers, ancient Hypnobrai with stolen fire powers -- 2019
also technically the snakes were locked away again after the death of the Great Devourer and didn't fully live on the surface until the death of the "Golden Master" whoever that is in 2014 during the first cyborg season, but who cares. once Pythor is out of the way, the Serpentine are living in urban settings amongst humans, some number of humans are having species euphoria awakenings, and things are mostly sunshine and rainbows. as in, this is a derivation of my vaguely remembered playing house with the Serpentine and totally ignoring the ninja and plot baby lore
https://draggianuniverse.neocities.org/misc_ocs/snek_hrt
What to expect and patient information guide for HRT That Makes You A Snake / AU Fangpyre venom. I intended to write up the timeline just so I had a guide for what the visual timeline / ref of the character will be (the idea being that they can be drawn at any point in their transition, because the transformation is kind of the point) and things got out of hand.
I'm quite proud of this, similar to the research report on the horrifying bio-medical-animum effects of Ronnie Slime. I think it's about as biomedically plausible as anything about turning folks into snake people can be. Fictional nonfiction writing is just fun. (once I get my misc. OCs hub, perhaps I can also get the modern dragon-cladistic scientific species concept for Draggies up on the site, since they got a ref during NeOCities-tober last year.)
Also, I do actually periodically get sensations from the tail I don't have, and you'd better believe it was wiggling and I could sort of feel the envisioned effects the entire time I was gleefully describing this.
honestly, the part I'm most proud of is the limitations section on what it can't do and how turning a mammal into a reptile is going to have some physiological side effects / can't function all the way. as sci-fi and fantasy go, as long as how your stuff works is consistent and you've thought of the consequences, the mechanics don't matter that much. which is good because the biological mechanics of how this works are the weakest and least IRL plausible part.
Where my sona's genitals are, what configuration they are, and whether they're closer to human or snake is none of your business and not something I care to think about, since their standard form has both legs and the snake tail. I know that Monster Musume handles its nagas and mermaids by having the tail start below the crotch, so they still basically have human-like genitals.
I also don't think there are snakes known to change sex, although there are lizards that can, but since there are reptiles that do and we're dealing with a major physiological transformation, the trans wish fulfillment element that sometimes for mysterious reasons you end up with snake genitals that aren't the same sex configuration as your human ones were seems plausible enough when dealing with a strictly fictional reptilian species.
http://georges.biomatix.org/storage/app/uploads/public/5ce/5de/7f6/5ce5de7f61ab5394779748.pdf
the one review on this I could find while writing ^
I also technically genderbent two of the canonical Serpentine back in my playing-house-with-minifigs and totally ignoring the ninja days because they're all canonically male, but I was strongly insistent that Slithraa and Lasha were female based on name. (also, Skales and Slithraa quite resemble the dynamic in Chima between Cragger and Cruller, and Cruller is specifically female. And way meaner than Cragger.)
Female Serpentine were introduced later with the Pyro Vipers and other later addition retconned Serpentine tribes, and I think there might be some female Serpentine characters in the newer series just as background, but all the canon named Serpentine in the original season were male. Creator interviews did establish that female Serpentine exist because of course they do, but they didn't appear because they "weren't relevant to the story". Which is a rather weak excuse; it's not like snakes are sexually dimorphic so it would not be that hard to give some of the Generic Serpentine Soldiers female voice actors.
there have been exactly two canon female Serpentine, Selma and Aspheera. (Selma being Skales' wife, who's pink. Aspheera is the badass and terrifying leader of the Pyro Vipers, a tribe of totally came out of nowhere ancient revived fire-breathing Serpentine introduced in 2019, so long after I stopped caring.)
honestly as hypothetically hyped as I am over Get Scared maybe reforming this summer, I'm nervous, because, uh, I want to like them and know that they were quite close friends with EtF / FIR back in the day. And being broken up since 2019 means that they've missed most of the Ronnie Nonsense, so if they remember their good buddy from the TDIMIY days...
get scared is pretty much my #1 Falling In Reverse Substitute re: having the same vibes -- they're the single closest band to the parts of FIR / DIYLF I like in terms of both style and vibes, so I would rather they not poison themselves for me by getting slimed. And I don't trust them not to, seeing as they had an established professional relationship with him before ceasing to exist.
doing shows with FIR is acceptable, I guess, provided that you do not suck stylistically and you don't, like, hang out with or express support for them / Ronnie. Escape the Fate is fine because frankly I don't think they have a choice.
the best way for a band to avoid getting worse is for it to not exist, because then it died before you could know it so remains pure. and, like, unless they go to Montreal at a time I can take the overnight train, it's not like them reforming is helpful to me.
given how much I like Get Scared in general, their returning to existence is nerve-wracking because it could be good or it could VERY MUCH NOT BE, especially given their being documented Friends of Ronnie back before he was completely slimed. (one of the 2008 FIR demos features guest vocals, in the 20 seconds we have -- it was never finished because somebody WENT TO FEDERAL PRISON -- from one of the guys from Get Scared. also, as you know, they were playing both sides because their most iconic song Sarcasm features Craig of all people, which is damned obvious once you're looking for it.)
although I watched a lyric video of that song which had pictures to distinguish who was doing what vocals, and the only reason I could tell them apart was that there are relatively few canon pictures of This War Is Ours era Craig and I recognize them. other than that, uh, that's the same man twice
i like mabbitt. mabbitt is nice. go play with dead rabbitts / escape the fate, because your good buddy ronnie from back in 2012 is practically speaking dead. that way only lies pestilence and misfortune
basically at this point the slime band can do whatever the fuck it wants as long as it doesn't poison anything i care about it; so stay the fuck away from dying is your latest fashion and if get scared reforms, hopefully they realize that this is not the ronnie they remember and associating with him would be detrimental to them. (which it would be. like, his favorite little guy andy from black veil brides has been getting some degree of justifiable heat over how he's been in love with Ronnie [and maybe vice versa?] since at least 2014 and probably since he first laid eyes on him ca. 2007)
(I assume that it's a slasher dressed as Jesus rather than the anointed one himself, just because that wouldn't make much of any sense. Although they could do some really fun "I came not to bring peace, but a sword" book of revelation stuff with that...if you're not one of the chosen, revelation is a straight up horror scenario, so you combine that with overly strict views for chosen. basically left behind but from the perspective of anyone who's not that specific brand of evangelical)
Based on their website, it seems that it's a slasher movie in which the killer is Jesus. So probably unlikely to end up being viewed by church groups in 20 years.
It seems the new Ice Nine Kills video might in fact be previewing an actual film with Spencer having written the screenplay. Good for him and probably what he's been leading up to, but uh, I come here for music...
Theme is 90% by Enforcer; the rest is thoughts.page default. Part of the Thoughts Webring. Kick ass, take names, fuck Ronnie Radke (not literally).
