Them: NOOOOOO!!! YOU CAN’T JUST MARRY SHANE STARDEW VALLEY!!!! HE’S GROSS AND MESSY!!!!!! HE STILL DRINKS SOMETIMES!!!!!!! HE’S NOT A PERFECT HUSBANDERINO NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!
Me: ha ha man bounce chicken
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda

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@hellhoundmaggie
Them: NOOOOOO!!! YOU CAN’T JUST MARRY SHANE STARDEW VALLEY!!!! HE’S GROSS AND MESSY!!!!!! HE STILL DRINKS SOMETIMES!!!!!!! HE’S NOT A PERFECT HUSBANDERINO NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!
Me: ha ha man bounce chicken
🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈HAPPY PRIDE MONTH 2026🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
Remade this minicomic from two years ago!
this is becoming a yearly occurrence now hahahaha
Old version HERE!
mental illness so bad im blushing over an eldritch entity possessing the decaying body of a murder victim
I think we should treat bisexual people with more kindness this pride month.
Pride Month at the Scarlet Mines
I read the devlog, more or less. Did anyone get the impression they were purposefully avoiding to talk about Wayne? There's something about him kidnapping you and what it shows about his character, and a very ominous "We are happy Wayne keeps getting more popular" that sounds like a threat, but that's it
Thinking about your tags Maggie and how what the devs said recalled my first impression of Wayne.
Specifically, Dustin's comment about "always watching, eyes hateful"
Before I connected the dots on Wayne being who Dustin was talking about, I fully bought into the idea of Wayne being this cool, collected, patient, and reliable "guy".
Our first moment of seeing him/it loose control of its emotions is when we sacrifice our years to the spirit.
As we progress through the story, we begin to see more and more of Wayne's worst personality traits. Especially when things don't go its way.
You could be forgiven for buying into the "guardian angel" shtick if you're doing a more isolated playthrough, but have Stella or Reese around? He will openly show his ass by attacking Stella and threatening Reese.
More than being callous or patient, Wayne gives off the vibe of a hateful, controlling, manipulator who is desperately trying to hide that he's about to snap.
When I bring this up, people usually point to Sybil's comment about Wayne not being two faced. I don't think Wayne is intentionally two faced, as much as its subconsciously trying to win us over and feels it knows best.
When we like someone, we tend to put our best qualities on display in hopes of impressing them but that doesn't mean we're being two faced in the way people associate with that phrase. We also tend to be more positive or pleasant around our crushes, regardless of any other traits. This is especially true if you're attention starved and don't have many/no connections.
I believe that no matter what it tells you, the Entity's worst traits are being a hateful, manipulative, jealous, judgemental, egotistical, and exceedingly lonely individual who feels entitled to some form of a relationship (platonic or romantic) with the MC.
From its perspective, its a being of immense and unfathomable power that was tricked, broken apart, and enslaved by lesser beings to do their bidding. Decades of isolation and being given hosts who didn't want it; why wouldn't it be hateful? Why wouldn't it feel like it was owed a relationship? Why wouldn't it think it always knows best and manipulate you to think it does to?
Why wouldn't it see your other relationships as a threat and be hateful towards them?
When you've been as alone as the Entity has, you get obsessive and possessive of whatever connection you have. Because its had everything stolen from it, the Entity worries that the mc is going to be "stolen" from it too.
It's first priority, perhaps even above the mc's well being, is NEVER going back to that state of being locked alone in a cage and used by others for their own benefit.
awww the like button turns into a rainbow when you press it! that's so cute...hey staff what's with all the trans women you keep nuking?
i think we should be ridiculing them more for this. you don't get to try and go all "queer website" when your staff likes to go on nuking sprees targeting the trans fem users
would be remiss not to mention that the rainbow notably straight up just removed the trans flag colors from it. like they’re gone. it’s the progress flag minus the trans flag colors.
that’s not the whole flag, now is it
hey staff what the fuck
hey staff don't you think you're being too on-the-nose
HEY STAFF DONT YOU THINK YOU'RE BEING TOO ON-THE-NOSE
I hope Wayne tossed in some slippers for MC to wear after he kidnapped them, because I gotta imagine the Forbidden Wing is the worst place to walk around barefoot/socks only in.
Folklore in Mandrake
After nearly sixteen years working in the Victorian milieu for Fallen London, Mandrake is giving us an opportunity to draw on a whole new swathe of historical and folkloric sources, and we’ve been making the most of it.
Mandrake is set in a village called Chandley, whose people have to get along with all sorts of neighbours, some of which are far from human. There are regal woods-gods; dangerous, rootless spirits roving the wilds; and gentler, more domestic sprites that nevertheless abide by their own, sometimes obtuse, rules.
Here we present a selection of the folklore that has inspired us while inventing the world of Mandrake, in case any of them catch your interest as they did ours.
Sunken Lands
Atlantis might be the most famous sunken land, but it’s far from the only one. For Mandrake, we’ve taken inspiration from folkloric examples closer to home: lost Lyonesse that lay beyond Land’s End in Cornwall, and became associated with Arthurian legend. The lost Brittany city of Ys (or Kaer-Ys), drowned by mortal folly, which features in the collection of Breton folk-songs known as the Barzaz-Breiz. Cantre'r Gwaelod, a land said to lie off the coast of Cardigan, in Gwynedd.
In Mandrake, our drowned isle is poor Oleas, which lay just off the coast near Chandley, and was home to the Rose dynasty – the historic rivals to the Mandrakes, our protagonist’s family house. The locals say that on quiet evenings, you can still hear the bells of Oleas ringing under the waves…
Seal-Folk
Haunting the sunken streets of Oleas are the korrigan, who swim through the sea in the shape of seals, but can take human form on the shore. They are attuned to the tides of fate, dangerous to cross, and have magics of their own. The local sea-fisherman, Ruan, knows to treat seals with the utmost courtesy.
These seal-folk are of course primarily inspired by the Scottish legends of selkies, with their seal-skins, and their troubled relations with mortals. A favourite modern version of the archetypal selkie story can be found in Kevin Crossley-Holland’s short collection Outsiders, which retells a half-dozen folktales from the point of view of those who don’t fit in. But their name and their sorcerous inclinations were inspired by the korrigan, another bit of Breton folklore: deadly, capricious fey beings whose demands were dangerous to defy.
Tolkien wrote a great, grim, possibly unpronounceable poem about a ‘corrigan’ called The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun, which has been released in a recent edition along with drafts of a couple of earlier poems he wrote about the corrigan. They obviously made an impression on him!
Chimney-gods
You might have seen our friendly-faced character Hob Halfling, who lives in the hearth of your recovered family lodge.
As a helpful domestic spirit, Hob is largely inspired by brownies: shy fairy creatures who lived in a home and came out at night to keep the house in order and do chores… as long as they were well-treated, and you didn’t offend them with an inappropriate gift. There are countless brownie stories, but one of my favourites is one from Sunderland: the Cauld Lad o’ Hilton. According to Robert Surtees in 1820, the Cauld Lad would cause chaos if Hylton Castle, where he lived, was left in good order – or tidy it immaculately if it was left in a mess. He played largely harmless pranks on the inhabitants, but was eventually banished by the traditional method of leaving out a set of clothes for him. As soon as he found them he put them on, admired himself in a mirror, and left the house never to return. ‘Here’s a cloke, and here’s a hood; the cauld lad o’ hilton will do no more good.’
Surtees’ version seems to consider the Lad a brownie, but says that it had become identified with the ghost of a murdered servant whose bones were later found in a pond on the grounds. Folklore is rarely neat – stories tangle with each other, or spin off new threads.
There’s no murder in Hob’s origin, anyway. He’s less mischievous than the Cauld Lad, too, but it’s still best to keep him friendly with the occasional gift of food.
Ancient Medics and Scholarship
One of our characters, Malory Rosevere, is currently a pigkeeper, but is descended from a long line of doctors who were famous in the region. This concept was a later addition to their character, inspired by the Meddygon Myddfai, or Physicians of Myddfai. The physicians were a famous lineage of doctors in Wales, practiced medicine in an unbroken line from the 13th century to the 18th! Famous throughout Wales, their services were often called upon, and as time passed, so great was their reputation that they became associated with magical remedies and practices, too. Claiming a remedy was one used by the Meddygon Myddfai was a way to grant it a high pedigree.
Malory is also something of a scholar, and proudly owns a small collection of books. Perhaps they’ll lend you one – we’re working on a scholarship system for Mandrake, allowing you to study in the evening to discover more about the setting’s history and myths. Some of the books you’ll be able to read draw inspiration from historical texts, like the medieval Welsh Triads.
Restless Spirits
The lands around Chandley are plagued by an unusual number of roving, restless spirits, which without a place to make their own, grow increasingly eccentric and perilous. Josselin, the local witch, calls them the peregrini, and implies there’s a reason they’re so common hereabouts.
Each of the peregrini is inspired by different folklore. Anyone familiar with kelpie mythology will recognise the Salt Mare, who only runs on water, and who carries anyone foolish enough to mount it to the bottom of the sea. And wizened old Granny Jakes might seem friendly, but why is she so keen to hide her feet from you? And for you to try a cup of her delicious, homemade, apple-y avalack? Beware: one of her inspirations is the Russian story of Misery. In the version of the tale I read, Misery is a pitiful creature found in a hole who – if you help him – will scramble up onto your back and make himself comfortable. Once he’s there only you can see and hear him, and every time you take a drink, Misery demands another. Before long, he drives you to ruin, all the time claiming he’s your only friend…
Other Sources
There are many more inspirations we could talk about, like the fact that the many gods of the sea in Mandrake are partly inspired by the Irish Voyage of Máel Dúin, with its magnificent list of completely bizarre islands (tag yourself: I’m “The island of the horse-like beast who pelts the crew with the beach”).
But if you’re looking for some good modern folklore to read, in addition to the books we’ve mentioned already, we can highly recommend Amy Jeff’s evocative and ingenious books Storyland, Wild and Saints, which retell medieval folk stories from overlooked perspectives. I’ve also been enjoying Kym Deyn’s unsettling, visually rich and occasionally lightly traumatic collection of poetry, Folkish, which often draws on folklore from the north of England, and includes poems about the Lambton Worm, St Hild, Old Mother Shipton and Janet o’ the Dales (who we’d never come across before).
We hope there’s something in this list that stirs your interest, and we’d love to hear about any folklore from where you live!
or to be a little less pithy, groundedness means a sense of internal consistency, the idea that events and traits of a story or world are grounded in a coherent set of logics.
while realism means--exactly that, adherence to the specific logics of actual reality and its physics, logistics, etc.
there is of course nothing wrong with wanting realism in a story, but 99% of the people who say they do really want groundedness. like the vast majority of dumb arguments about asoiaf/got are its fans saying "its realistic" when they mean "its grounded" and people ridiculing them because it is in fact not very realistic (and not just because of the overt fantasy elements)
In my experience, another big part of the problem with talking about "realism" in fictional milieux is the product of a specific Type of Guy employing the term as a sort of semantic bait and switch, sometimes without consciously realising that this is what they're doing.
There's a particular recurring discussion of "realism" in media that goes something like this: "okay, but realistically the heroes would always win because they'd just shoot the villain while they're monologuing" – while refusing to acknowledge the obvious follow-up question: "wait, but if monologuing reliably gets you shot, where do all the monologuing villains come from?"
i.e., what we're really discussing is not a milieu which has adhered to some notional model of "realism" ab initio, but one which was apparently governed by the conventional tropes of its genre right up until the moment the character the person framing the scenario wants to win walks into the room, whereupon "realism" asserts itself.
Heck, there were folks doing this song and dance in the notes of the post this one is following up on, trotting out hypotheticals like "in a realistic fantasy setting the twelve-year-old chosen one would always lose because experience trumps skill and the power of friendship isn't real", implicitly taking it as given that in a milieu where this is true, people would still be handing out magic swords to twelve-year-olds.
It's basically treating those silly "How [Media] Really Should Have Ended" YouTube videos as a legitimate critical lens, and in circles where this song and dance is common, it leads to a lot of people reflexively shutting down the moment they hear the word "realism" because they assume (often quite reasonably!) that oh great, it's That Guy again.
when you’re having a laugh with your dad but then you suddenly remember that he’s going to hell
Behold! Cool Game Fanart! Painted these ages ago (well, 2024), gouache in a black sketchbook. Love Wayne and Reese! :) (Though Kaneeka is admittedly the cutest design. .... Dustin doesn't count.) Only got Scarlet Hollow because I saw cute fanart of Reese.... Well, and read the Steam description with ever widening eyes. Little did I know I'd get obsessed with a possessed corpse... :) I have amazing taste in "men". Send help...?
the thing about media literacy is that understanding why the author chose to specify that the curtains are blue is the same skill set as understanding that the way the author characterizes all black characters as angry or all chinese characters as meek and silent is racist. it is the same skill set as being able to identify when a news source is biased or when someone is feeding you propaganda. the ability to ask "why did this person choose to present this premise in this specific way?" is a critical skill in a world full of misinformation. why are the curtains blue? maybe it's a characterization detail. maybe it's extraneous worldbuilding. why is this character written as being right all the time? maybe you're intended to disagree with them. maybe it doesn't matter. maybe you should still ask why.
whatever. go my kaneeka
got really high last night and drew this
@k20spock
My favorite Lucille picrews
These are all really old so I don't have any of the links on hand, sorry
i love when boomers complain about shit like this because as a fast food worker i would literally rather walk out into the lobby and shoot myself in the head than suggest more than one menu item to a customer
Yeah former 8 year Starbucks employ here. This never happens. I’ve have had what amounts to a flip on this happen more often. Something like
“Welcome in what can I get you”
“I want a plain black coffee”
“All rights wha-“
“No sugar or cream or flavor or anything else.”
“Okay, got it, wha-“
“I don’t want no caramachmocha flippy-do’s or frappachina-what-it’s. Just. A plain ol regular black coffee”
“That’s great sir, now please wha”
“Just a old fashioned stright up coff-“
“SIR WHAT SIZE DO YOU WANT YOU STUPID FUCKING COFFEE”