kaiju in training

someday I'll stomp on cities and terrorize civilians like the great kaijus of the past. But for now I write, whittle and occasionally draw

[zekekaiju]

Office Elf | WEBTOON

An elf girl gets a job at a corporate office. Antics ensue.

Office Elf

An elf girl gets a job at a corporate office. Antics ensue.

[zekekaiju]

Stop everything!

I've just discovered an entirely untapped gold mine of story potential. Person moves into X situation and fails to realize the people around him were ghost.

Person moves into a new apartment, fails to realize everyone around him is a ghost. This can be as big or as small as you want. Guy fails to realize his next door neighbor is a ghost or even he moves back home and fails to realize everyone including himself is a ghost.

Things like this have been done before but I think it's fairly new and I think it's funny.

[zekekaiju]

DND magic item idea

A wrist band of time telling.

This magical chronometer is fashioned to look like a lizard holding its own tail and automatically resizes itself to fit on your wrist. At any point in time you may ask the chronometer the time and it will respond out loud in common. It provides no other benefits.

The item doesn't require attunement and can be removed at anytime.

The item is not actually a chronometer. It is a small lizard enchanted to speak common. When asked for the time it will respond with its best guess. It is not terribly accurate. When someone asks for the time roll 1d20. If the number is greater than 1 but less than 10 the lizard is off by a few hours in either direction somewhere between 1-4 hours off depending on how good the roll is. If greater than 9 but less than 15 the lizard is off by no more than an hour. Fifteen to 19 the lizard is within the half hour. Natural 20 the lizard is spot on, natural 1 the lizard is wildly off target says it's midnight at high noon.

In order to determine the chronometers true nature the player must make an insight or perception check on the lizard DC 14 (he's been at it a while). The lizard does show up as a magically enchanted object.

[zekekaiju]

DND ideas

So when a player character is downed they start rolling something called a death saving throw. The character is unconscious but still alive and the player rolls a d20 and enough successes they stabilize enough failures they die. A nat 20 you wake up with one health. This is a really good system except the character is out of the fight entirely. It prevents a character from sacrificing himself and ruins some cool roleplay opportunities so I want to present an alternative. I call it the last gasp rule and I've seen variations on it before. The way it works is when a player starts to roll his death saving throws they have the option to instead keep fighting but their character will die. Instead of being knocked unconscious the character receives a mortal wound that they can fight through for four rounds. They have all the abilities and spell slots they had when they fell to 0 hit points and they cannot be knocked down again. At the end of 4 rounds regardless of whether the fight is over they will die. The other characters cannot reverse this except through spells that bring the dead back to life. It gives your players a little additional agency, allows them to really make a difference if they are down to the wire and is really good for roleplay.

[zekekaiju]

Movie reviews: Double Feature

I recently saw the Mario movie. I also recently saw the DND movie. I liked both of them. I liked the DND movie better then the Mario movie but that might just be due to a greater fondness for DND. I'm going to go through the movies and talk about what I liked and didn't like, but it's going to be a little less in depth because it's two movies.

I liked the Mario movie, it was fun, enjoyable and had a lot of clever references. The story, while relatively simple, was cohesive and there weren't really any unnecessary stops along the way. The only real complaint I have with it story wise is we spent a little too much time on Mario's motivation in my opinion.

Overall the character designs were good and most of the actors were definitely trying to play the role as given. While I would have chosen someone else, Jack Black really did embrace his role as bowser and was a convincing villain and I didn't hear Jack Black. Chris Pratt was doing a Mario voice but a few times throughout the movie his Mario voice went away and he sounded like Chris Pratt which was jaring. I didn't like Seth Rogan as donkey Kong. He wasn't a good choice and there was a lot of him in the character, but he was minimally annoying and didn't ruin the movie for me. As stated before the character designs were good overall. Occasionally, Bowser looked a little more like a dog then a lizard, and short stubby Mario was a bit of an eyesore. Personally, I think there were better choices that could have been made in both the character design and voice actor department with one exception: Luigi. Everything about Luigi worked, his character design was on point, his voice matched his design and it was consistent, and even his overall characterization was recognizably Luigi.

The actual characters were very well done. Luigi was perfectly Luigi end of discussion. Toad was a very good comedy relief character, perfectly blending confidence with just the right mixture of competence and incompetence. Mario's stubbornness and perseverance in the face of opposition were well done and made him a very classic hero type. Peach was strong, capable, confident without ever being mean. Peach was what a strong character should be. Anytime a stronger character relies on putting other people down or showing off how much stronger they aren't actually strong they're insecure. Peach doesn't come across as mean or insecure which is good. Donkey Kong did disguise his insecurities as blistering arrogance and mean spirited comments. It allowed him personal growth as a character but also made him super annoying. Bowser was an excellent villain, he was large, imposing, unnecessarily cruel, and willing to use any means necessary to achieve his goal. He was also amusing and fun to watch but not in a way that made him seem less threatening or evil. Most importantly for me, was he was in no way more likeable than Mario. I never found myself even a little sympathetic to his cause, nor did he have a good quality that Mario didn't also possess.

All together this made for a very enjoyable family movie, that I wouldn't mind seeing again.

The dungeons and dragons movie was fun. It was a lot of fun and I had a great time seeing. I've now seen it twice and enjoyed it both times. It's basically a heist movie in a fantasy setting. A good summation of the overall plot is GOTG doing the heist from Ocean's eleven, set in Narnia. The action is very crisp and well done, the characters are great and the humor is generally amusing and is not reliant on crude humor. It was a great family movie. Now this is the second time I have called a movie a family movie and by that I mean that it's a movie you could feel reasonably confident taking the entire family. It's a movie that you think anyone in your family will enjoy without being offended by it. As such it keeps it's primary points simple: you can't give up on important things and family is one of those important things. These are ideas most people can agree with. Now it does sometimes allow it's emotional moments to be immediately undercut by a joke but it was never annoying for me.

The movie has a lot of action which is always fairly fast-paced, but it's very well choreographed, I never lost track of what someone was doing and it didn't really have a lot of shaky camera footage. The movie also did a really good job showing how the different characters abilities synergized and utilizing their strengths and weaknesses.

The movie really shines in its characters and in particular the interaction between the different characters. It's a combination of lighthearted banter and snark that helps illustrate these people characters and endears the audience to them. It helps make these characters real and keeps them all fun.

The movie doesn't require you know anything about DND to enjoy it although some jokes are funnier if you've played the game and there are some nerdy references but no foreknowledge of the game is required.

[zekekaiju]

So I have read on the internet and heard people say that a memory image or something else lives rent free in their head and I have some questions. You see since some memories live rent free this implies other memories pay rent.

How does that work? How much do you charge, does it change based on memory size or content? What is the conversion rate between brain rate and US dollars? Is this a viable second income stream? Can I rent headspace to other people's memories? How do I evict the ones I don't want?

[zekekaiju]

Godzilla: a character study

The western media struggles with Godzilla. They don't seem to quite know what to make of him. Honestly, Godzilla vs Kong is the first Hollywood movie that might have gotten him right. I think this stems from a lack of understanding regarding what the heck Godzilla is because he's not just a monster. You see in the TOHO films, Godzilla has both a philosophical role and a physical role. He is a metaphor and also the literal personification of that metaphor. He is both literally and metaphorically the personification of nuclear power, a manmade force of nature. Which is why he has varying and somewhat contradictory roles. He can be both the hero and the villain, the same way nuclear energy in nuclear power plants is helpful but nuclear energy from weapons is harmful. He is cannot be controlled by humans because he is a force of nature, but, because he is a manmade force of nature, humanity always tries to control him. Because he is the personification of nuclear power, he cannot be permanently destroyed as long as nuclear power exists or unless something else makes it obsolete. Nearly everytime someone creates a weapon to destroy Godzilla it births a monster that is worse then Godzilla, because the only thing that is capable of making atomic weapons obsolete would be a doomsday device something that ends all of humanity. I think this is also why Godzilla movies frequently begin with Godzilla sleeping in the ocean. He is an ever present threat but he is also largely dormant. Many times he is attacked first by humanity or another monster and rampages in response to this attack. An underlying theme throughout the Godzilla movies is that Godzilla and by extension nuclear power is shaped by how we approach it.

[thesassycat]

You can only reblog this today.

[askjennaflorida]

I missed my chance last year. Not gonna let it happen again

[zekekaiju]

One time I had a dream were I found out that the Loch Ness monster was actually a nuclear submarine being tested by the Scottish government. They wanted my help finding it because I was really good at swimming and might have been able to breathe underwater I'm not sure. I said "no way" but they said that my girlfriend was on board when it went missing and I said " gosh darn it Christy" and agreed to help find it. So I swim down and find a secret cave in Loch Ness with the submarine and my girlfriend. Plot twist there is also a plesiosaur in Loch Ness but it has been mutated by the radiation and now has tentacles that it can shoot laser beams out of and telepathic abilities. It wants my help using the nuclear submarine to take over the world ( I am in very high demand in this dream). Christy is already helping it but she might have been mind controlled I don't fully remember, but obviously I refuse. So the Loch Ness monster shoots some tentacle beams at me. I managed to dodge them but they are super radioactive so they'll kill me anyways. At this point Christy disappears so I assume she got away, don't really know. Since I'm dying anyways I figure I better make sure the Loch Ness monster also dies. So I taunt the Loch Ness monster with the fact that it's nickname is Nessie but it is a boy monster and that's a girl's name. This drives the Loch Ness monster into a rage and it starts blasting at me. At the last second I jump out of the way and the laser hits the nuclear submarine and causes it to explode killing the Loch Ness monster and giving me super powers. I was super strong and super tough and could make energy tentacles and stuff. The dream pretty much ended there. Below is my artistic rendition of what the Loch Ness monster looked like in my dream

[zekekaiju]

Memo 78: Regarding human psyche

Recorded by Galactic representative pharoadosh of the echelonions

As some of you are doubtless aware, many species feel very uncomfortable around cosmic defender 349728, particularly members of the intergalactic community who utilize telepathic communication or sub telepathic scanning. All of you report bursts of emotion from seemingly no source that do not match the situation and/or body language presented by cosmic defender 349728. This is normal and not any cause for alarm. Humans have at least 3 psyches, emotional, logical and the subconscious. The subconscious runs information through simple thought processes and cross references those against similar situations and then will present a subset of that information to the conscious mind whenever it feels like it. It may only pick out this relevant data point weeks later in an entirely different situation. The emotional mind may react very oddly to the situation picking out something particularly amusing or sad or some other emotional response but the logical mind suppresses the outward reaction. Hence the inappropriate burst of emotion coming from nowhere.

Some of you have noted a sustained period of emotion that doesn't match cosmic defender 349728's outward reaction. Humans frequently have to adapt to situations that they find unpleasant but must pretend that they enjoy. They learn at a young age to modify their body language to present different social cues while internally they feel differently. Please ignore these situations as acknowledging them will only make the problem worse.

A few of you have noted long periods of time when cosmic defender 349728 just stops thinking. These periods can even occur during prolonged activity that should require some level of consciousness. We don't know how or why he does this. He might legitimately be dead during those periods, I simply don't know and neither does he. Yes I am aware that this is a completely terrifying fact and no I don't know of anyway to make it less scary.

Sometimes the human, while fully conscious, will engage in elaborate mental scenarios. He generally only does this if there is nothing else to occupy his attention. Sometimes those scenarios are unusually violent. This isn't any cause for alarm these are merely mental exercises. Cosmic defender 349728 grew up on a super-toxic death world and his species has a natural inclination towards violence as part of their predatory biology. He is a hyper aware predatory species, with extremely developed visualisation and mapping skills designed to help him track his prey. In absence of of external stimulus his predatory brain will self stimulate. Presumably this is done to prevent his violent tendencies from making him attack his packmates.

A final word of caution, there are aspects of the human mind that humans themselves maybe unaware of so venture in at your own peril.

[pukicho]

If i could replace all porn on the internet with scary ghost pictures i would

[zekekaiju]

As you may or may not know Ash is finally getting out of the Pokemon tv series. This presents a problem, not because of Ash I like Ash well enough but he is terribly generic. That's kinda the whole point of him and his vague dream of "being the very best". You could swap him out with minimal difficulties and his companions are even more basic we literally do swap them out every few seasons. No, the issue is Pikachu. Pikachu is the mascot of the series and the franchise overall. In some cases he was the main draw to the show. Literally the only reason my brother watched the show after a certain point was because of Pikachu. So how do you replace Pikachu? Or rather how do you recreate what made Pikachu special? Well you can't at least not without dealing with everyone comparing your new mascot Pokemon to Pikachu. Those comparisons are pretty much universally going to be unfavorable. If you try to do Pikachu again it is going to fall short of people's expectations. So the solution is don't try. Let me pitch to you my idea for a new Pokemon tv series.

We start off with our protagonist Jet several years after the end of the old series at least 10 probably more like 20 (why the time skip will become clear later just bear with me). The name is amenable but Jet is a nice sensible protagonist name short seems like a cool dude but with a bit of fire in him. Now Jet is sent out by his Mom to do a favor for the Pokemon professor. He needs to fill out the Pokedex for the professor so he has to at least see every pokemon he doesn't have to catch them all but he does need to encounter them. Why is he being sent out to do this? Irrelevant, doesn't matter, he just is. Obviously this is a very dangerous undertaking so his mom gives him her old partner an Arcanine. You see his mom is a retired officer Jenny and she sends her Arcanine along to protect him. Obviously Arcanine is far stronger then anything else starting out and also not exactly his pokemon. So Jet needs to catch his own pokemon to use in Pokemon battles, because it wouldn't be fair to use Arcanine against Jimmy the bug catcher and Arcanine doesn't want to fight unless Jet is in danger or it's an even challenge. So the protagonist's sense of honor and the Pokemon's own feelings keep the overpowered Arcanine from just wiping the floor with everyone. This allows our protagonist and his pokemon to grow while also giving us a cool new mascot that can compete above our current level as needed. Plus you can focus on the steadily growing relationship between his mom's Arcanine and him as the two of them learn to respect each other and work together.

Now another major issue that I haven't addressed is the absence of everyone's second favorite characters, Team Rocket. Jessie, James and Meowth are all leaving the tv series as well. This is a huge problem for pretty much everyone. We all love those dorks and hate to see them go, you could legitimately just keep them in the series but there might be another solution. I propose we have them retire get married and Jessie achieves her lifelong dream of being a nurse Joy. They have two kids who grow up hearing stories of the glory days from uncle Meowth and set off to restart the glorious legacy of team rocket. Armed with a blissey and a wobbufett, they set off and are immediately blasted away by Jet's Arcanine. You see they are completely incompetent when it comes to crime. Nothing else just crime, as the story progresses you see that they are really good at pokemon battles and other aspects of Pokemon life but they stink at being evil. They also serve the same purpose ash's companions serve. The sister acts as a love interest and rival/slash witty banter person to Jet, while the brother is comedy relief/genuinely useful information guy like Brock. He could also have a rotating list of companions but the main companion roles would be filled by the new team rocket. This sounds a little confusing I'm sure but I think it would work really well. Now I don't have names for the rocketeers so currently they are just boy and girl in my head.

This is how I'd do the next iteration of Pokemon. I think it is the best way to go forward with the series. I think it keeps key core elements while still being it's own thing.

[zekekaiju]

In the space between reality and imagination, there exists a world of wonder and mystery. Where confusion meets certainty there is a land of chaos, where anything and everything might be real. Where the impractical becomes commonplace and the impossible is the everyday. This place, where most can never go, is known by those who live there as Fantasy Land.

[zekekaiju]

So you ever have an impish little desire to just start a conspiracy. Not something you believe in really just a fun wacky little conspiracy but unfortunately you have no idea how to get one started. Brilliant conspiracy theory held back by a lack of knowledge. Oh and morals pesky little morals.

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

secret third thing (Victorian Mystery Condiment)

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

whaddya MEAN kids these days don't know about the Victoria Mystery Condiment? the Mystery of the Missing Condiment? The Unknown Third Condiment supposedly habitually used in victorian condiment sets which--crucially!!!!!!!!!--were purported to come with three! three! THREE!!! CONDIMENT! SHAKERS!!!!!! one for Salt and one for Pepper and one for WHAT?????????? any such knowledge has been lost to the ceaseless grinding waves of time you must comprehend how this haunts me

[zekekaiju]

Fun fact this was likely mustard powder at least at some point in time. In a Father Brown story by English author G.K Chesterton, a criminal steals the condiment set of the man he poisoned to prevent the mustard powder in the secret mystery condiment shaker from being used to induce vomiting. It is not remarked on as unusual that mustard powder would be in that thirds shaker it is in fact expected. I hope this helps settle one of your burning questions

[zekekaiju]

Okay so I'm scrolling through YouTube going down the old rabbit hole and I come upon a compilation of Wilkins coffee ads. These particular ads were done by Jim Henson of muppets fame and the upshot of most of them is if you don't drink Wilkins coffee a Kermit the frog looking fellow will do you grievous bodily harm and it's such a unique way of advertising and really not something you see anymore I had to share this with the world.

[zekekaiju]

Shades of The Grave

James Mathews was a fairly normal young man. For the most part he followed all written and unwritten rules. He lived a mostly quiet life where he mostly did what he was told and mostly followed the same routine. Every so often he would do something he considered bold and daring. Nothing too extreme, not something where he could actually get hurt or get in trouble, just something he could brag about to the cute barista when he got his coffee. Which is how he got here in a graveyard at night taking a selfie. Of course he didn't just decide to do this. Someone at the office bet him he wouldn't.

"Find a grave, take a picture, go home, find a grave, take a picture, go home" James repeated this over and over. He did not want to be here. Finding a grave with a traditional tombstone look about it he quickly snapped a selfie. He considered leaving right then and there but he decided to check the photo first. It would stink to have to go back through the graveyard cause they couldn't see his face.

"Ahhh" James whirled around eyes wide. There was nothing, he could have sworn he saw something out of the corner of his eye in the light of his phone. He looked around quickly but there was no one around.

"Must have been a shadow." He muttered as he checked his phone. "Photo is there everything looks good time to go."

As he left the graveyard and hurried home he kept looking over his shoulder. Every Time he'd whip his head around there was nothing. Despite this, he couldn't shake the feeling of something following him home.

The next morning he awoke refreshed, well rested and feeling a little foolish. He wasn't a child anymore, he shouldn't be jumping at shadows. But he got the picture so he could rub it in Dan’s face and maybe brag a little to the cute barista. As he went about his morning, he completely forgot about the feeling of something following him home. His drive to work was uneventful, the barista wasn't at work so that was disappointing but otherwise his morning was fine. However once he got into the office he couldn’t shake the feeling of unease. It wasn’t till after lunch that he realized what the problem was, someone kept looking over his shoulder while he was working. He would be working on emails and other work for a while when suddenly he had the unmistakable feeling of being watched. It was probably Dan trying to prank him after last night but everytime he turned around the person would duck out of the office. He did catch a few of his coworkers but most insisted they weren’t watching him. After lunch, he decided he was just gonna ignore it and let Dan stare at him all he wanted. He let the feeling wash over him and heighten. It grew and grew, never really settling into the background, only getting worse until suddenly a hand touched his shoulder.

“ ahhh” he shouted, spinning around to stare at a somewhat concerned looking Rebbecca.

“Sorry you startled me, what do you want?” He asked.

“It’s 5 o’clock, time to go home James”.

“oh thanks must have gotten caught up in my work.” he apologized sheepishly.

"Well hurry up you don't want to be the last one here"

James suddenly realized that he indeed did not want to be the last one here. In fact that sounded absolutely terrible. Working quickly he shut down his devices, packed up his papers and dashed out the door in record time.

He rushed out to his car slamming the door and panting in the front seat. As he calmed down he tried to figure out why he was so freaked out. It was just a late night at the office, he wasn't a child who was being left alone in a dark room, he was a grown man. Sighing to himself he started his car and started driving out of the parking garage. As he drove home he chastised himself. This irrational fear. There was nothing following him home from the graveyard, no one was staring at him while he worked and there was nothing to be afraid of at the office. Getting home without incident, he ate dinner and decided to turn in early.

On his way back from using the restroom in the middle of the night he froze. There was someone else in his apartment. A tall thin man shrouded in shadows was standing in the hallway. He appeared to have his back to James and was just staring into his bedroom. James stood there frozen for several minutes, he cursed himself for leaving his phone in his bedroom. Finally, he decided to switch on the light and make a break for it in the confusion. Bracing himself he flicked on the light switch and started sprinting forward only to stop short. The intruder was gone but how he was . . . It was his shadow, not an intruder, just his shadow. He really needed sleep.

Sleep didn't help, he woke up nervous and uncomfortable feeling like there was someone always staring at him. He was late for work because he felt the need to check his house over for intruders.

Everytime he sat down to work the feeling of being watched would build and build until he could practically feel the hands of the tall man on his back, but he never turned around; it was just his shadow. On the way home he nearly got into an accident twice as he would see the man in his back seat, or in the passenger seat, and on occasion running next to the car. It was stupid to be concerned; it was just his shadow. Anytime he got out of bed he braced himself when entering his hallway. The tall man wasn't waiting for him, it was just his shadow. Gradually he stopped going to work and stopped leaving the house altogether. It didn't help. A tall man didn't follow him home from the graveyard and haunt every aspect of his life; it was just his shadow.

Epilogue:

Three months after Halloween, James Mathews was found in his home half-starved and barricaded in a closet. He was admitted to a psychiatric hospital following a full investigation. He claimed that he was hiding from the tall thin man who only he could see. Every attempt by the man to point out his stalker revealed no one. Dan felt bad, James was an alright guy if a little annoying but how was he supposed to know that little dare would set him off. Plus now he had to fill his position. As he entered the interview room he looked at the potential candidate. Black hair, brown eyes, dressed in a respectable dark business suit he made a decent first impression. Rising from his chair he extended a slightly thin hand towards Dan which he accepted. "You play basketball in college?" Dan asked.