Kiki's Inner Catalogue

Kiki here, she/her. Talk to me about (in no particular order): physics, classical music, writing, books, the Cosmere, Celeste, LEGO Elves, the Room games, Matilda, Warrior Cats, DARK, She-Ra, Hollow Knight, Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, Chicory: A Colorful Tale, His Dark Materials, or Ted Sanders' The Keepers. Here for the latter. I drift in and out and back into fandoms quite a bit; I don’t usually lose interest, I just get distracted :) My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@inolienkiki So far I do book reviews, but I plan to do a variety of media analysis in the future! I just like talking, really. I post mostly about fandoms (above), personal projects, vague life events, my aroace and ADHD experiences, and youthlib. Please interact.

[inolienkiki]

My friend and I were inspired by the cosmere questionnaire I asked her last week, and since she's been watching me grind out p5 bindings for a while now, a similar exercise in Hollow Knight felt only fitting...

Q: What is the name of the kingdom where the game takes place?

"Oh, I know this! It's Hollownest." [Final answer?] "...Hallownest?" [That's it.] "Something like that."

Q: What are your five favorite bosses?

"Hmm. The Magnificent Moss Charger. Uhhh.... I know I got the first part wrong."

"Hornet, cause she's cool, and she makes cool noises, and she has a red dress."

"The... NKG, the, what does NKG stand for? I forgot... *laughing* The first thing that came into my head was Nightmare King Game, that's not his name!"

"The evil Markoth. The one everybody hates." [He's your favorite?] "It's one I can remember."

"And, Absolute Radiance, which is cool cause she's... what's the word I'm looking for... I'm tired... and it feels late... I know the word... dramatic!"

Q: Do you know any of the tribes that inhabit this kingdom?

"I mean, I could take a good guess. You told me some of them, but it was a long time ago. There are the people who live in the sewers, and I saw one of them recently and it was like a pink oozy thing kind of like a leech, but I don't think that's the people who live down there." [Yeah, you got one, that's the Flukes.]

"I mean, I can take a fair stab and say that there are probably some flying creatures around." [Some of them are just regular types of bugs.] "Yeah. I'm probably thinking way too hard about it. For some reason I was like, you know what makes the most sense? Is I should try to figure out the types of bugs from the four genres from Avatar: The Last Airbender. There are air bugs, that fly, and there are water bugs, probably like the little mosquito that's in here that I want to kill. And fire bugs, although I don't actually know what would go into that category. And then, like, I don't know what an earth bug would be."

"Oh, I know what an earth bug would be! The Dung Beetles. But that's what made sense in my head, cause I'm kind of tired."

"I don't know, like, bees?" [Yes, there are bees.] "Oh, cool, okay!"

"I bet there's like, do you know the insects that there are like a billion of them and they're everywhere all the time? I bet there's some kind of insect like that." [What bugs are you talking about?] "I don't know. There are just some bugs that are everywhere all the time." [...What?]

Q: What's a higher being? Can you name any?

"Absolute Radiance! Oh, I actually don't know the difference between Absolute Radiance and regular Radiance, so conceivably possibly both of them. I don't know, Godseeker kind of seems like a higher being, but I bet she's the kind of higher being who wants to believe she's a higher being and actually isn't." [You have her vibe down.] "Hey, let's go!"

"Uhh, I don't know. The main character's parents are probably higher beings? Oh, his mom is one, I think. I don't remember any... you told me the story of the main character's parents, but unfortunately I don't remember it quite well. All I remember is that the main character's dad is dead and his mother is some kind of living tree that's in one of the rest stops in the background of a pantheon challenge. [The next question was going to be, What do you know about the player character's backstory? So do you want to tie this into that?] Oh! Well, I've heard it before but I don't remember much of it right now. So, we're going to go with: People wanted to create beings that didn't have souls, but were still alive, so, an ethereal-looking white tree and a dude who seems pretty dead created-- had sex with each other and other people, and got a weird race of hollow knight creatures, one of which was Hornet, one of which was the Hollow Knight, presumably some failures because those are the people you're fighting, yeah.

Q: Which boss is described as the "kindly god of bravery and honor"? [All the bosses are called gods.]

"I bet it's Sly. Sly's seems pretty cool."

Q: How do you feel about the Pale King?

"Dude's probably bad. Boo. Booooo. What's that line from the Princess Bride? Booooooo." [I think she just says Boo.] "I think there are more words to it, though. Filth. Slime." [That's your Pale King take?] "Yeah."

Q: Can you name any charms? What do they do?

"Where's that one that you were doing the other day, that you kept mentioning? It was like, Peaceful Harmony or something, and you were trying, it was granting the enemy the ability to avoid hitting you sometimes. There was also the one with the spiders, the one with the creepy little babies which I never saw, but I presume they are creepy, ... and then there are the ones that improve your nail, but, when you always look through them you go, -These all are useless! So, I presume that most of them are useless, except in extremely specific situations." [Calling me out!]

Q: What is the point of rancid eggs? [I just wanted your take.]

"Well, I guess it would have to be just to... what's the word I'm looking for? ...to like, smell out your enemies. Right? because, then they couldn't stand the smell. So, you know, they'd leave you alone. That or they hatch some sort of evil being. Or somebody gets rejected by society." [?]

Q: Do you have any least favorite bosses?

"Well, Markoth, of course, because he seems like a dick, and his shield is, just, his shield is cool, but in practice it doesn't work." [Yeah, cause I killed him!] "Yeah."

[Any bosses that you think are boring?] "Oh, the egg sac one. That one's kind of boring. But you did say that in specific situations it is actually hard."

"Whatever one... the one you fight first is. He seems pretty easy and I also don't really like his design, but that's just my personal opinion. He kinda looks like a flying anteater, but less cute." [... ... what?] "Anteaters are really cute, I'm pretty sure... I think that bug is supposed to be modeled after a mosquito, but, to me for some reason he's always looked like an anteater." [Sure.]

Q: How many areas of the game can you name apart from Godhome?

"Hallownest is the whole thing, and there's the sewers... I bet they all have really cool fancy names, but I don't know the cool fancy names..."

"There's the one you were going to the other day, like, The White City, not Lord of the Rings... and it was really cool."

"I'm sure there's some sort of anthill type thing?"

"Maybe, like, a world of grubs somewhere? Who are probably being feasted on by the flying insects from the Air Nation?" [...It's not even called the Air Nation in Avatar!] "The Air Nomads from Avatar... I'm tired."

Q: Would you like to take a guess at a Precept of Zote you have not seen?

"They're sort of a weird cross between Lorenzo aphorisms and things that actually make sense. I bet one of them is, like, I don't know, Keep Your Feet Clean, like, your feet specifically, for no reason, or a really stupid reason. Because then your head will be clean. I don't know, and you can think better. Kinda feels like a thing that Zote would say.

Precept Fifty-Eight: Keep Your Feet Clean, and Your Mind Cleaner. Like that. Or maybe something like...

Precept Fifty-Nine: Make Sure You Eat All Of Your Cheese. Otherwise, Demons Will Come And Find You. I don't know."

[Beautiful.] "Quotes to live by."

[inolienkiki]

I've just realized that nobody has made a list on a public platform of all the silly things Renzo says when you "ask for advice" in Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, so I'm gonna do it myself. Hopefully this is helpful for someone's reference.

"Never plow sideways, Signorina."

"Let your heart be filled by the mystic."

"Art is like blood that flows through the veins."

"Keep your antenna up, Signorina."

"Even a bad letter will end up somewhere."

"Lending an umbrella to a salmon is a fool’s errand."

"To the goose all ducks are swans, Signorina."

"Sometimes, the truffle hog finds an unexpected rose."

"Even the greatest artists can make a bad omelette."

"Remember, the chef never counts the mice."

"Sometimes too much milk is too little milk for one canary."

"Keep your hat on and boots off, Signorina."

"The hammer has no directions for the anvil."

"A happy bishop does not sadden the saint."

"Never trade your nails for sausage, Signorina."

"Even a delicious soup can stain the shirt."

"Don’t trust a hiker who asks for a bigger forest."

"A milk cow does not line up to be shot, Signorina."

"Sometimes the thumb is in the way of the hand."

"If the flute blows smoke there will be no dance."

"Always walk in a straight circle, Signorina."

Maybe I'll update this later with more of the things he says in the cutscenes throughout the game.

[inolienkiki]

Can someone tell me how exactly THE FUCK I just came back to Hollow Knight after not playing it for months, and beat p5, for the first time EVER, on my first try????

Edit: AND OF COURSE I STILL HAD THE MUSHROOM ENDING ON THAT FILE DFUSOSJSH

[inolienkiki]

And that’s nail binding!!!!

[inolienkiki]

AND SHELL BINDING!!!

[inolienkiki]

I'm going to rb this with a few more details (and shameless bragging), because I went back, tried at the charm binding, and did some radiant bossfights, including Markoth. I figured it was worth sharing my stupid, stupid radiant Markoth strategy just on the off chance it helps anyone in any way.

Charm build: Strength, Longnail, Spell Twister, Grubsong, Weaversong, Grubberfly's Elegy. (Cursed, I know.)

The key to my strategy was that the projectiles from Grubberfly's Elegy are not blocked by Markoth's shield, which meant I barely ever had to get close to him in the fight. This was good, as most of my deaths were from his shield and not his nails.

Because the nails get so much harder to dodge in the second phase, I stored up as much soul as I could and used Shade Soul to blast him down to fairly low health (Spell Twister helped with this). The last little bit I had no strategy for, but somehow survived, so, whatever.

The trouble with using both these plans at once is that Grubberfly's Elegy does not give you soul. This is where the other harebrained plan came in: Weaversong with Grubsong, which does a pretty negligible amount of passive damage (I cannot tell you how much those spiders loved jumping into that pit) but accumulates soul at a very slow rate. I originally was turning this soul into damage with Glowing Womb (yes, I know) but discovered that Spell Twister and Shade Soul were marginally more efficient and had a potential for double hits. To make Weaversong actually work, try to spend at least some time standing on a platform above Markoth and drop spiders on his head.

This was, as I have said before, extremely stupid, but I honestly could not come up with another charm build that let me stay this far away from that awful shield.

Charm binding sucks. It's not fun. I'm so desperately slow. (My normal build is strength + quick slash + mark of pride + sharp shadow.) I know it's going to continue to be the worst challenge. But I can fight Collector competently and I made it past Markoth on my first try (died to GPZ) so I call that promising.

I'm not good at absrad. So we'll see how that goes.

Only a few challenges remain. (Kind of taking inventory for myself here too.) Need to do the Trial of the Fool on my steel heart file just because I want that nice number. Charm and Soul (easy) binding p5. Five final radiant bossfights. Godseeker Flower Quest. Final ending. Surely I've forgotten something?

The things Hollow Knight players will do to avoid opening a game which has been available to them for months and which is apparently good when they're not finished with Hollow Knight yet

[mageglassess]

you either die kiki, or live long enough to see yourself become bouba

[shreekofjoy]

@inolienkiki in shambles

[inolienkiki]

what doesn’t kiki makes me bouba

[inolienkiki]

Can someone tell me how exactly THE FUCK I just came back to Hollow Knight after not playing it for months, and beat p5, for the first time EVER, on my first try????

Edit: AND OF COURSE I STILL HAD THE MUSHROOM ENDING ON THAT FILE DFUSOSJSH

[inolienkiki]

And that’s nail binding!!!!

[inolienkiki]

AND SHELL BINDING!!!

[inolienkiki]

Can someone tell me how exactly THE FUCK I just came back to Hollow Knight after not playing it for months, and beat p5, for the first time EVER, on my first try????

Edit: AND OF COURSE I STILL HAD THE MUSHROOM ENDING ON THAT FILE DFUSOSJSH

[inolienkiki]

And that’s nail binding!!!!

[inolienkiki]

I am very normal about this game.

[inolienkiki]

You: “BioChromatic Breath”

Me, an intellectual: Huffing Paint

[inolienkiki]

You: “street slang”

Me, an intellectual: High Imperial

[inolienkiki]

You: windrunner

Me, an intellectual: flighteyes

[inolienkiki]

not rotating blorbo in my mind, but I am tumble drying her inside my head. Sometimes I think too hard and she hits the back of my eyes like a bug on a windshield and everything gets filtered through her terrible perspective for a minute. When I’m normalizing a wavefunction on my homework she fuzzes into a red mist for a few minutes and then I sneeze a bit of her out and draw something silly just to remind her that not even death will grant her freedom (can she stop being dead already please). She’s transcended two realities to get herself in there and I’m TRYING to help her climb beyond this one too but there’s only so much I can do when I have no time to draw my imaginary amvs and even then she’s not doing numblrs because she’s a little too dated, and too fictional, and too dead. It would be great if she could help me with the aforementioned homework but she thinks the copenhagen interpretation is a romantic perspective technique or some shit. She’s been teaching me how to whisper ominously tho which has been great and yet has very little practical application, like most of the humanities. Maybe I should fiddle with the settings and spin her into the next cycle

[inolienkiki]

[inolienkiki]

This is a PSA for anyone watching my descent into madness

Renate’s name is pronounced re-NAH-tuh

And NOT “re-nayt”

Every time I hear someone mess it up I die a little. I keep watching these letsplays anyway. Once I reach 100% annoyance death I can be a ghost just like her!

[inolienkiki]

"Instead, she had become art." hghhrhhrhghrhgh

"She had turned into red paint" mhm mhm tragedy on a dark canvas

"from an old rusty bucket." do NOT talk about my girl that way

[cosmerelists]

Interviewing My Wife About The Cosmere: Part 3

My wife has still not read any Cosmere books. She listens to me talk, and she sometimes reads this blog, and that is where all her knowledge derives from.

So anyway, here are her Top 10 Favorite and Least Favorite Characters and why! In no particular order because she said ordering them seemed hard.

[Previous Interviews With My Wife: Part 1, Part 2]

Who are your top 10 favorite characters?

1. Steris

"She's autism girl and she plans things and that's cool."

2. Adolin's sword girl [Maya]

"Because she's cute. And she screams. :)"

3. Tress

"Because she's adorable. She likes teacups and she explodes things. That's pretty much awesome."

4. Kaladin's rival lady [Leshwi]

"Is she a crab? I mean the rival crab lady. Because she's bad-ass."

5. Dalinar

"He's a smoofy, grumpy boy, even though he burned his wife--but that's okay! :)"

6. Navani

"Because she has a grumpy husband and a toxic yuri wife. And that's pretty epic."

7. Yumi

"Because she is fun and she can balance things. And we can stan a cool Asian boss lady." [author's note: my wife is Asian]

8. The girl who cannot aim [Ann]

"Because it's funny! But I do not know her name."

9. Vin

"Because she's really bad-ass. I know nothing about her except that she's bad-ass. And I think she kills everything? That's pretty cool. I like that in a woman." [author's note: I have never killed anyone. I promise]

10. Boob girl [Design]

"Because she's got big boobs. And she decided she wanted big boobs and so she gave herself big boobs. Nice. And she has a fun name." [author's note: my wife did not remember the name]

11. Bonus: Elhokar Susebron

"Elhokar! [Me: ...Elhokar?] "You know the guy who seemed evil and then was smoofy? Like, he seemed scary and then they got married and he was really cuddly?" [Me: You mean...Susebron?] "Um, yes? That's my favorite trope! When the big evil guy turns out to be smoofy!"

Who are your top 10 least favorite characters?

1. The guy is either a genius or stupid [Taravangian]

"Because he's a prick."

2. The douche who made Kaladin's team almost die because he was a prick? [Sadeas]

Me: That could be many people, actually. My wife: The one with the bridge crew! Me: Got it.

3. The god person who takes over you when you wear metal [I still don't know whether she means Ruin or Sazed]

My wife: Because that's cheating! And i don't like it. Me: Which one? My wife: There's more than one?!

4. Kaladin's dad [Lirin]

"Oh my god! Kaladin's dad!!!" [Me: That's gonna be controversial] "He's a jerk! He's one of those horrible helicopter parents who is like 'Oh you have to be a doctor even if you don't want to be!' Ooooh, I hate him. He's in my top 5 most hated."

5. Shallan's dad [Lin]

"isn't he bad? I don't remember what he did. He was really creepy and douchy, right? He deserved that death!"

6. Kelsier

My wife: Who is that guy who is sort of evil but not really evil? Me: Kelsier? My wife: He seems kinda meh. He's everywhere, right? Why is he everywhere?"

7. The Lord Ruler, I guess?

"You know that cowboy planet? The ones who moved the sun around and everything. That was stupid and bad planning."

8. Charlie's dad

"Was Tress's dad bad?" [Me: No!] "Who then? The boyfriend's dad?" [Me: Yes] "Him then! I hate bad dads!! Happy father's day."

9. Yumi's boyfriend

Me: You don't like Nikaro?? My wife: I think he's incel-coded. I mean, I think he got better, but still!

10. Hoid

My wife: I think he's kinda boring. Me: Going for controversary, huh? My wife: I liked him better as a coatrack.

[inolienkiki]

Inspired by this and earlier lists: I asked my uninitiated best friend some cosmere questions... some unabashedly stolen from cosmerelists... here is her perspective.

No, i don't know what's happening with the bullets in this post.

Q: What are five things you are sure are true about the cosmere?

(She's already laughing.)

"Jasnah is ace."

2. "They all-- Most of them, at least, take place on different planets."

3. "There's that sword that likes to kill everybody."

4. "There's going to be Fires of December, which is about the demon blood."

5. "Oh! I know-- the Doomslugs seem ... entertaining. And doom. The rainbow slugs are rare. I think they're called taynixes."

Q: What are a few of your favorite characters?

"Jasnah, cause she's ace."

"Oh, the parrot! There's the parrot-- or, no, the rat from Tress of the Emerald Sea."

"The little dude from the Victorian magic thing. Oh, no, it's medieval England." [Mervin?] "What? I don't even know what his name is. Sure, Mervin. That seems plausible."

[Is there anyone else you can think of?] "I know there's lots of dudes with fancy swords, and some really cool women. Isn't one of the women a wheelchair user? A magic wheelchair? I thought that was really cool, but I can't remember what her name was." [Rysn?] "That may have been it."

Q: Pick a cosmere setting and share what you know about it.

"The one I can think of right now is the one with all the parrots... I think it takes place in a sort of jungle thing I think? And there's... I remember... an illustration of a dude who, I think, could predict the future. Or he could see all the ways he was going to die. So there was an illustration of him in a bunch of vines, and the parrot was nearby. I can't remember what the parrot's powers were. But the birds were super important. And the art was really cool."

Q: What's a Shard? Do you know any of them?

"I think they might work a little bit like Infinity Stones? But not like... from elements of things, but from different worlds. Or are these the magic things that I should know the names of that are really obvious, where you leave it out in the middle of a storm and it collects stormlight and that's where the magic is from, those things?"

Q: Pick a cosmere magic system and share what you know about it.

"Oh god. Gonna go with Yumi and the Nightmare Painter because I think I know like two details about that and the other ones I know zero. I think that one comes from color... there was something about nightmares, I feel like. And just, color was the magic system, and you explained it to me once and I was like, 'that's really cool, I wanna read this book.' But yeah, that's all I remember now."

Q: Who is Hoid? What are some things he's done?

"I think in the beginning he's kind of an asshole, right? I think he's one of the people who acquires a magic sword. I'm not sure about this-- He could be the main character in The Way of Kings. I can take some guesses: He probably tried to overthrow a government? Maybe led a squad of freedom fighters? Came across a bunch of Stormlight? Used some questionable magic at some point? Became friends with a super cool woman? I don't know." [Lovely.] *laughing* "Do you like my guesses? Oh, also, probably wears some cool armor. Probably has, in fanart, like, that anime... style... of hair, where everything is like super wispy and so he's supposed to look, like, hot and menacing. I don't know anything about this person, I feel like I'm going to miss so bad when I actually read the book!"

Q: How do you feel about Moash?

"I mean, are we doing therapy, this poor man, he ruined my life! I don't even know who he is! I mean, I can take some guesses. Probably a dickhead. At one point fit some definition of evil dark lord. Maybe was a good character who turned kind of a dickhead. Oh, maybe had an animal companion, I know there are lots of animals and nonhuman creatures in cosmere. I dunno, maybe he once tried to overthrow a government too."

[Okay, just because you keep making that guess, I'm going to add an additional question here, which is:]

Q: Kelsier is a character who has done that. Do you know anything else about him?

"His name sounds more familiar. I bet he probably, like, bashed down some doors and talked down to the queen." [I mean, at some point, by some definition, yes.] "Hey, I'll take that!"

Q: Name as many cosmere books as you can. Feel free to guess.

"I know there are some that aren't actually cosmere, and I don't know the difference between the two different series, so this is gonna get bad. I'm gonna name a bunch of Brandon Sanderson books."

"Tress of the Emerald Sea."

"Frugal Wizard's Guide to Surviving Medieval England."

"The Way of Kings."

"Fires of December."

"Mistborn."

"Elantris."

"Shadowborn sounds kinda cool, but I don't think that's a book title."

[I'll give you the first words of some, and you can give me the end.]

[Yumi...] "Oh, Yumi and the Nightmare Painter."

[Isles...] "Oh, Isles of the Emberdark!" [You know some of them!] "I do know some of them, yeah.

[Wax...] "...Oh. Kings?" [Wax Kings.] "That's definitely a title."

[Sunlit...] "Oh, Sunlit Man, I do know that one. I forgot I knew that one.]

[War...] "And Peace... I don't know."

[The Emperor's...] "New Groove!"

[Era 3 of Mistborn is called, Ghost...] "I have no idea. Light?"

Q: Do you have any least favorite characters?

"Oh, who is that guy you were talking about earlier? The guy whose name starts with a V. I don't know anything about him, but he's a dick. He sounds like a dick. I know he's dead. And the fandom doesn't like him. I wanna say his name is Void, but I don't think that's right." [Zane?] "Zane! Yeah."

[Any others?] "Anyone who's a dick."

Q: Which cosmere book do you think you would be safest living in?

"Oh no. I feel like I'm playing roulette. Tress of the Emerald Sea?"

Q: What are five things you can guess about the cosmere, based on my taste?

"It's really good."

"Brandon Sanderson is a good dude. He has merch and stuff, and he cares about his fans."

"I don't know, there might be a little bit, like, psychological horror in there, you kinda like that." [Okay??]

"I should've mentioned the guy who's a coat rack in a noodle shop! Yeah, he's a jerk. I think."

"It has extensive worldbuilding?" [Okay, I'll take it!]

[inolienkiki]

the whispering voices of the evals proclaim me “GOAT” and “great resource” but I think my favorite has gotta be the one that just says

“Kiki’s great! Shes know so much”

[inolienkiki]

imagine the sorriest wettest rat of a man comes to your door and he tries to lie to you about healing the condition that is destroying your life and he's such an obvious fraud but you feel sorry for him so you let him in even though he has smelly feet and he's only at your house to look for buried treasure same as everyone else. but then it turns out when you let him pretend to cure you you're able to find the metaphysical maze built by your problematic gay dad and the treasure's there and actually it was for you, this was always how it was going to end, is he even real? because you will go to the theatre and there masks will fall and all will be revealed (but not to him somehow) and your ascension will loom, you have no time, places in five! but at least you get to wear some sick shades while those strings net you up. please, hold me. and in the end it turns out you're not even dead anyway because someone won't forget you and since she needs help with other things she won't forget you figure you might as well guide her to her own truth. why is someone watching? how is someone watching? she's passed and now your memory is on fucking tumblr? happened to my friend renate

[inolienkiki]

somebody made this edit of one of the latle streams... I'm being perceived again