Selfsurprise

You know I never understood why one of The Delightful Children from Down the Lane was wearing that football helmet.

^^^ Capganger, Diminutive CN Fey Capgangers are an increasing menace in both larger metropolitan cities and more modest townships bordering on sylvan woodlands. Distantly related to the far more bloodthirsty Redcaps and bearing a mild resemble to gnomes, Capgangers organize themselves into semi-nomadic squadrons that engage in all manner of petty crimes and public disorder. Although their social hierarchy is rather loosely defined and egalitarian, any Capganger that loses his or her cap is bereft of their magical powers and regarded as a pariah by other members of their race. Worse still, if any being manages to steal or otherwise acquire an individual Capganger's hat, that Capganger is effectively rendered an indentured servant of that person. Next monster...

I guess it depends on the context, but I'm leaning towards exile as an option that might pan out better in the long-term. Should I try to come up with a new thread for the gaming subforum or, should I try to come up with a new thread for the free-for-all subforum?

A Terrestrial Cuckoo What a hot day it is! for Jane and me above the scorch of sun on jungle waters to be paddling up and down the Essequibo i our canoe of war-surplus gondola parts. We enjoy it, though: the bats squeak in our wrestling hair, parakeets bungle lightly into gorges of blossom, the water's full of gunk and what you might call waterlilies if you're silly as we. Our intuitive craft our striped T shirts and shorts cry out to vines that are feasting on flies to make straight the way of tropical art. "I'd give a lempira or two to have it all slapped onto a canvas" says Jane. "How like lazy flamingos look the floating weeds! and the infundibuliform corolla on our right's a harmless Charybdis! or am I seduced by its ambient mauve?" The nose of our vessel sneezes into a bundle of amaryllis, quite artificially tied with ribbon. Are there people nearby? and postcards? We, essentially travellers, frown and backwater, What will the savages think if our friends turn up? with sunglasses and cuneiform decoders! probably. Oh Jane, is there no more frontier? We strip off our pretty blazers of tapa and dive like salamanders into the vernal stream. Alas! they have left the jungle aflame, and in friendly chatter of Kotzebue and Salonika our friends swiftly retreat downstream on a flowery float. We strike through the tongues and tigers hotly, towards orange mountains, black taboos, dada! and clouds. To return with absolute treasure! our only penchant, that. And a red- billed toucan, pointing t'aurora highlands and caravanserais of junk, cries out "New York is everywhere like Paris! go back when you're rich, behung with lice!" - Frank O'Hara, Selected Poems (Carcanet Press)

Useful way of announcing news, if nothing else. I'm not especially keen on Twitter myself but anybody who uses that website regularly will surely appreciate another feed for Accursed Farms.

I think it's about time this thread made a comeback. INTERNET NECROMANCY ACTIVATE. I I've been reading an excellent novel titled The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by the author Becky Chambers. She's extremely good at conjuring up a vastly intergalactic multispecies setting, but then drawing the plot and narrative focus onto the intimate relationships and cultural complexities of the various alien characters in a way that sates both my exobiological curiosity and imbues it with profoundly humane drama. I'd love to play some sort of story-intensive sci-fi game taking place on a mercenary/wormhole navigating/asteroid mining/medical/multipurpose spaceship where the the emphasis is less "save the universe from cataclysmic doom" and more "try to get by with your job and get along with everybody". Having played No Man's Sky and unlike many actually quite enjoyed it, despite it's tragic shallowness and overreaching ambition, I think a game with a much more inward-looking scope of a small multispecies crew onboard a ship could have a lot of potential. There could be tension, threats and overarching dangers along the way but your best means of survival has less to do with shooting everything ala-Doomguy and more to do with your ability to bring the best out of your crewmates with their many talents - and flaws. The game would be a lore addicts wet dream, with details aplenty about the numerous species, settlements, planets and organizations that exist out there to be visited. The real meat of the game would be more dialogue intensive though, with the entire crew of between five or twelve individuals being playable, your open-ended aim being the forming of friendships and dealing with the fallout of disagreements and personality clashes despite cultural and personal differences. II Speaking of INTERNET NECROMANCY, I sometimes enjoy perusing those so-called Geocities resarch Tumblr blogs that dredge those old bits of the internet you thought were dead. I like the idea of a horror game that mimics the visual and display aesthetics of those earlier website creators, but takes place is some horrific disembodied dystopia where the damned attempt to emerge and express themselves via internet aesthetics and somewhat outmoded digital imagery. III Some kind of open world grave-digging RPG, essentially Skyrim set in a planetwide necropolis, with a dungeon synth Burzum-esque soundtrack and with a heavier emphasis on avoiding a direct fight with enemies. I'm quite keen on the idea of fantasy settings where human beings are either in decline or otherwise a less dominant force in their world. Humans, like all "unentropic" life in this world, have a fraught and complicated relationship with the "ecology of atropal life" that high-form undead intellectualism utilizes to distinguish themselves from the diaspora of living sapients that share their environment. It's a relationship that has sometimes resulted in oppression and abandonment of the unentropics by the atropal (i.e. effectively undead by human standards) races that largely influence the cultural and geopolitical landscape of this necrocosm (Necrocosm or Vekqocosm [for the more etymologically arcane spelling] would make an excellent title for the game, come to think of it) but in the contemporary aspect of the game the relationship between the unetropics and atropals resembles a highly contentious and uneven "first and third world" spectrum, in which the majority of living races suffer major social problems, lack of organization and poverty whilst the high-form undead races have the overwhelming access to wealth, resources, equality and are thus tend to be more cosmopolitan than the unentropics. There is still more morally ambiguous and diverse contact between living races and the almost equally denigrated low-form atropals, who battle against the stubborn hierarchies of unliving order.

(There isn't much happening in the games subforum right now, is there? I hope nobody minds if I leave this small and inconsequential topic here for your worthy consideration.) I think it's safe to say that we've all come across the occasional character, minor or major, friend or foe, that has made us pause and wonder what manner of aberrant mindset would of conceived of such an individual. I always have a soft spot for obscure game characters with bizarre appearance, strange personalities and memorable voice acting. Would you kindly rack your brains and share some of the more peculiar people you have stumbled upon in computer games from any era or system you like. I'll share two examples of the kind of outré weirdness I'm fond of, but don't let my particular taste for monstrous and decidedly non-human characters deter you - anybody who just seems a little off and strangely articulated is welcome on this thread too. zQBA4NpFEPo The aptly titled Yellow Monkey from Ape Escape 2 is an acquired taste, but one I can't help loving in some perverse and utterly unspeakable way. There's something inherently appealing about a furiously mincing simian sumo wrestler with an almost offensively camp accent - the sort of accent that might've raised eyebrows even in the Carry On... films - who describes himself as "the sparkling gem of the freaky monkey five" to the game's protagonist. You're watching the European version of the game where the characters have noticeably British sounding voice actors. There is an equally fabulous American version of Yellow Monkey but to my English ears he sounds more Sean Hayes and less Kenneth Williams, so it might just be national bias on my part but I prefer the Yellow Monkey in the video provided. There's also something irresistibly repulsive about the way he seems to be constantly fondling himself. If I knew anything about modding PC games I would have made a Fallout 4 dialogue replacer for Super Mutants in order to give them YM's boss battle lines. hTY_VbmNG_s I'm not sure why I'm so forgiving of awkward overacting in games, maybe the medium is just more conducive of the sort of unreal personality quirks that you rarely see outside of the most autistically inspired fiction. When I was first beset by the unnervingly animatronic owl-headed character called Olcadan from the Soul Calibur games, I almost died of a chuckle induced cardiac event upon simply seeing him. Then he spoke, spoke with that unnaturally generic "man hero" voice that one could easily overlook if it were emitted from another more mundane character. Other than the more obvious fact that Olcadan was one of the series stock "character who has the other characters moves" option for players, I genuinely don't know what Namco were trying to achieve or express by creating him - though I'm ineffably and inexcusably pleased that they somehow felt the need to. I'm looking forward to the day he gets his own spinoff open-world RPG. P.S. Why isn't Olcadan a meme yet?

Given that you're a big zombie fan, are there any archetypal or unorthodox types of zombie you like? Think the ubiquitous "exploding" or otherwise toxic variety, the so-called "running zombie" made famous by 28 Days Later, animal variants or other exotic iterations of the zombie model. In addition, are you a big fan of those terrifying Plaga parasites from Resident Evil 4 that occasionally erupt from zombies heads? And the Duvalia from Resident Evil 5 that look like normal zombies, until their entire upper bodies rips open to reveal a gigantic fanged maw?

Bad News: It becomes mandatory for all white people to have cornrows. Good news everyone! Platypuses are immune to radiation.

Shuddersome.

Isn't afraid to self-criticise his nationality.

Hi! I'm friendly and attractive! Don't worry about that fact that I'm part of a dangerous breakaway syndicate group! Would you sign my petition?

True Fact: In the country of England Land, there are special train police who disguise themselves as trains.

I'm about to complain about my sister's husband again, for what's probably about the seventy-ninth time I've done so on this forum. You've been forewarned... I've started babysitting my two cousins on tuesday afternoons due to their mothers (my aforementioned younger sister) return to work after a lengthy hiatus due to maternity leave. I'm more than happy to do so because, and until recently I was giving their dad credit for taking care of them in the morning. Because he is an independent filmmaker and editor it's only fair, in my mind, that he has some time set aside in the afternoon to work on his client's wedding videos or his own innumerable projects. If you've read some of my other posts about the fellow in question, you'll be aware that whilst I didn't exactly dislike my brother-in-law, we don't always see eye-to-eye on many issues. I suppose it's inevitable given that an annoyingly agnostic left-leaning twenty-going-on-thirty self-hating English man's personality wouldn't exactly gel with an middleaged-ly conservatively orthodox Greek man. Maybe it's just unfair bias on my part, and I've not said anything directly to him about the following problems - I didn't even bring any of it up with my sister until this afternoon, but I guess today's straw broke the this much beleaguered and obese camel's back. I've had to draw the very depressing conclusion that he can't be arsed to give his children the kind of basic care, attention and routine they need and deserve - not necessarily in a cruel or neglectful way, but more in a tediously "I'm male, I need go meditate in batcave, me no babysit own kids" manner. Individually my complaints and observations would be utterly trivial and academic, but his laissez-faire attitude towards childcare has slowly but surely assembled into a catalogue of extremely annoying and, in my humble opinion, unjustifiable bollocks. For about five weeks now he's dropped them off one or two hours prior to the time I agreed to look after them (I did politely bring this up, which to be fair he said he'd let me know in advance if that might happen in the future), but I enjoy looking after them so all was forgiven. However they often arrive in their pyjamas, bear in mind they come to my place at between three or four o'clock - their mother wouldn't dream of letting them scamper about in anything other than daytime clothes beyond breakfast time. On top of that the younger one of the two, a ten month old girl, often lands in my lap hungry, tired, thirsty and/or wearing a wet nappy because for whatever reason unlike most parents who aren't otherwise working at lunchtime, he can't seem to get his kids feeding arrangements together in the three or four hours he has before I'm about to look after them for the latter part of day, long since post-12 AM. All of that being said I can sympathize with the sheer unrelenting difficulty of parenting. I've got them one or two days a week for an afternoon at most - I'm not saying it's easy looking after a very curious, very attention-hungry, very rambunctious three year old boy and his aforementioned baby sister by any means! I'm not expecting them to arrive straightlaced and perfectly groomed, I get it, he's having to get used to a new routine and my sister was the one who typically has the pairs needs down to a fine art. What really fucked me off this afternoon was the fact that the older one, the boy, wasn't wearing underpants today, and somehow his dad neglected to mention it to me - although he did manage inform me that his baby sister had a wee in her nappy just before they left the house, but he "ran of time to change her". Mildly cheesed off with the inconsiderate foisting of his daughters hygiene into my capable hands, you can probably imagine how utterly aghast I was when I discovered that her brother was "going-commando" (if you excuse the parlance) after helping him go to the toilet. Am I overreacting to all of this? When their mother came to pick them after work, I tried to casually mention that he was wearing some emergency pants from my upstairs "stuff for every possible baby cousin eventuality" box, to which she explained was a consequence of him having an accident before breakfast and their father promising to change him after she left for work. I feel awful because I didn't want to make it a huge issue, for her sake at least, but I could tell from her tone and expression that she was checking-off negative brownie points from her husband. I think one of the primary reasons why all of this accumulating laxness in his approach to parenting really rustled my jimmies is that he's more than capable of giving a toss about his kids well-being, at least in the most irrelevant and utterly stupid manifestation of paternal concern. He's more than willing to try to censor his children from the apparent heresies of imagination and multicultural exposure, he doesn't like his son playing with dinosaurs because he literally and without irony doesn't believe they existed, nor does he like him interacting with my numerous monster knick-knacks and books due to some sort of Abrahamic bias - this from a man whose home country boasts a long and proud tradition of legendary monsters and decidedly pagan chimerical beings! And if if that wasn't enough he's visibly and vocally uncomfortable with his son playing any role that might be misconstrued as feminine; something that's come up due to his occasional penchant pretending to be a hairdresser - he enthusiastically mimes the act of cutting my hair, sitting on my shoulders, then asks for three pounds and gives me an imaginary lollipop; five minutes later he has decided that he wants to be an astronaut with a "space motorbike gun" instead. His dad is conceited enough to get an absolute compensatory rager over this inconsequential nonsense "cuz god cud b watchin" or whatever, but apparently lacks the adult gumption to put some fucking pants on his own child? He can fuck right off. Urrrgghh! I'm sorry if this post got increasingly bilous and unyielding, but I suppose I'm just not in a very reasonable or conciliatory mood right now. ^ Artist's proposal for Selfsurprise's ascendent form circa 2017, after having eaten the entire UKIP party out of sheer directionless contempt for the human race.

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Merry still-november everyone!

Well I've finished reading this book. Still haven't found a way to take this crazy blue mask off my face.

Sadly no. You can probably chalk it down to derby racing not being particularly English (at least when I was a kid) and the fact that I nor my family are especially sporty or "handy" in regards to D.I.Y. - My parents and siblings are very crafty though, if it were possible to crochet a derby car I might of become a racing legend in an alternative universe. Do you on average prefer more scientifically realistic "hard" sci-fi fiction, or do lean towards more fantastical space-opera fare?

To my shame, I've never played Team Fortress 2. But the Heavy fellow is kind of an internet hero of mine, so I imagine i'd play as him. I also imagine that due to my typical playing style in the majority of games, I would die a lot.

Some of them do that thing where it blacks-out and shows the area of sight within the scope, and it often does the same thing you've described whilst peering through iron-sights. I don't really have a preference one way or the other. Do you think it makes aiming easier?

The Mermaid Trade by Croatian Amor

Want to swap places? ;p We can make an arrangement where I annually take over your role in life during Thanksgiving week. I'm sort of the same way about England. I'm not exactly a self-loathing anglophobe and I still feel that a person is, on balance, fortunate to have been born English. But I'm kind of ambivalent about my nationality, and about nationalist sentiment in general. So many of the symbols of Englishness have been hijacked by unpleasantly right-wing aspects of the country anyway. Whenever I see St. Georges flag I can't help picturing it tattooed onto the fatty folds at the back of some EDL supporters head. I'm far more of a regionalist anyway. My sentiments and sense-of-selfhood lie within the West Midlands far more than my Englishness could trump. It's partly an inferiority complex due to a lifetime of mildly anti-midlander propaganda that writes us off as stereotypically stupid and irrelevant. England has a noticeable cultural North/South "divide" in which both the East and West Midlands is largely seen by either extreme of the country as either belonging to the other, or else simply being some nameless no-man's-land betwixt both - devoid of any distinction aside from some amusingly affable accents. All I'll say to those people is this; Shakespeare was from here and we invented heavy metal. That means some of the best bands and bards ever conceived by human mothers were minkies, yam-yams, brummies, etc. WHAT WERE THE REST YOU RUBBISH PARTS OF THE COUNTRY DOING WHILST WE WERE BUSY BEING RAD AS FUCK?. p.s. Did I mention that Black Sabbath, Godflesh and Napalm Death come from Birmingham? I think my work is done here... p.p.s. I hope none of fellow Englanders take this post of mine too seriously. I actually have a strong fondness for so many parts of the country. Cornwall, Devonshire, Yorkshire, being just a few.

We don't have Thanksgiving over this side of the pond, but if we did I feel as though I'd prepare for it everyday of the year. Eating bollocks-loads is an age old tradition (nay, primal instinct) for me in winter.

^ I think Alyxx just neglected to respond to your last pet peeve and didn't provide a new one. For future reference to everyone, feel free to return to a previous pet peeve - just make it evident that you are doing, to avoid confusion... :3 I'll answer both your peeves Ninja. On PP#19: It's been over a decade since I went to school, but I remember just half-arsing my way through homework. Unless it was something I really cared about, like the time we were assigned to write a minimum of four paragraphs about our favourite music during half-term - and I delivered a forty-page extravaganza about all the weird noise and electronic music I was discovering at the time, with crayon-doodlings luridly inspired from various mp3.com profile pages. But under normal and not-creepily-obsessive standards I'm inclined to share your vexation with homework. I can barely remember what it was like to be honest with you! On PP#20: It's annoying, and a certain amount of "pejorative fashion" dictates precisely what subculture/fandom faces disapproval. It's difficult to maintain a balance between identifying with a particular aspect of culture despite others lack of understanding, whilst avoiding retreating into your own particular fields conservative brinkmanship. It's a sad trope of human exchange that demographics are characterised by the most negative proponents of a given group. This ranges from the insistent and mostly unimportant observations that fans of certain games or TV series are "the worst" for numerous reputed reasons, right through to far more dangerous narratives against whole races and creeds of people. I'm fairly convinced that no-one can avoid coming up against this kind of resistance in their lives, some far more than others. I even doubt that most individuals can't honestly refute the assertion that they themselves haven't judged some unit of society over something that might seem trivial to others - if you know what a chav is then you might grasp how, as an Englishman, my prejudice towards them is deep-seated and nigh-on irrepressible at this point in my life. I'd argue that I'm self-aware to give an individual nominally-"Chavvy" person the benefit of the doubt and acknowledge that my distaste for their particular subculture isn't without bias or flawed reasoning on my part. But rigorous self-criticism and basic ingrained feeling can be wildly disparate. Some people have taken me to be an actual neo-nazi/NS loser/BNP supporter at some points in my life - the irony being I'm about as leftist and multicultural as a working class man from the West Midlands can be. Something tells me that being a fat white guy with a shaven head, in the habit of wearing a black trench coat, knackered-old black boots, and t-shirts emblazoned with black metal/power electronics/neo-folk imagery isn't universally regarded as "a good look". ~ Next pet peeve - PP#21 - Dreaming about work. As if working five eleven hour shifts a week somehow wasn't enough for my subconcious mind, I have to have to have a bunch of habitual/anxiety dreams whilst asleep. I don't even know what the repressed parts of my inner-being are so worked up about. I'VE JUST SPENT THE DAY DOING STOCK PICK, FILLING SHELVES AND TIDYING UP THE DEPARTMENT. WE DON'T NEED TO DO IT AGAIN BRAIN. WE GET PAID ACTUAL HUMAN MONEY IN REAL LIFE.