chris balser 🖤

@doomfunk.bsky.social

2024 Followers 2427 Following

systems designer. artist. writer. doer of silly voices. salmiakki advocate. worked on ESO, Starfield, Diablo 4, Cyberpunk 2. having one very, very long blonde moment.

a drawing of jimothy raccoon, a delightful scamp with short spine syndrome giving it a suspicious yet playful cast to its stout round body and making its limbs appear unusually long. the drawing is in washable Crayola markers on printer paper, favouring crisp black lines and hatched grey fills to suggest jimothy's coat pattern. "JiMOTHY" is written against his left rear flank.

a lime green motorola q9c featuring its excellent keyboard layout and navigation buttons. the perfect phone. we must go back.

a snip of my name (which is chris balser) and a black heart emoji, followed by my current follower count (which is 2000)

Jake Armitage, from SNES Shadowrun, wearing cool cyberpunk sunglasses, saying "that is my commute snack. you can't have it. i need to eat it on the train."

generated by Alice Averlong's death generator. https://deathgenerator.com/#sr

a snip of imdb showing jennifer garner erroneously using the portrait of david keith, the actor who played jack murdock, who is matt murdock's father by the way. i bet you didn't know that. Colin Farrell stands next to him as the image is cut off, glancing past him. at you. ben affleck is also present, as in the movie.

Marcie Fleach, also known as Hot Dog Water, a skinny awkward kid who has a lot in common with Velma Dinkley. Her hair is messier, her yellow glasses sit lower and more awkwardly on her face, and she is generally disheveled. She is also big time gay for Velma (not portrayed in this image).

the female undead merchant in her place at the back of a dark tunnel in dark souls 1.

Claire from Star Gladiators, a fencer in scarlet and silver futuristic platemail with an extremely short blonde pageboy bob. Her epee is a laser blade. She is, for some reason, not wearing any pants.

one of the covers of national lampoon's DOON, a dune parody where melange is replaced by beer and instead of sandworms there are giant pretzels. i haven't read it. i don't know if it's actually funny or good. i don't have a good relationship with national lampoon.

a screenshot of final fantasy tactics: the ivalice chronicles, showcasing ramza in the very first battle of act 1 casting ultima on a couple of squires from the corpse legion. also pictured are meliadoul tengille at the bottom of the screenshot, and you can also barely see reis dular's feet. none of the enemy squires had the chance to act.

A strawberry pop tarts box where the best if used by date has become misaligned and misprinted into whimsical whirly swooshes and loops.

TJ from GTA3, strolling along. "Ah shit, here we go again."

Cloud Strife
90
RESONANCE SCORE
Top 3%
「If not me, then who」
You are someone who keeps standing even while broken.
Your memories have lied to you—they always have—
yet the hand that grips the sword never wavers.
You learned long ago to carry pain alone,
to build walls so high that even you forgot what's behind them.
But something moves in you before thought can stop it:
when someone falls, you are already there.
That contradiction—the distance you keep, the fights you take—
is not emptiness. It is the shape of someone
who refuses to stop caring, no matter the cost.
The real battle was never against Sephiroth.
It was against the voice that said you were no one.
You are not no one.
You never were.

Your Hidden Inner Self
FINAL FANTASY VII
Sephiroth
Deep inside you carry a "rightness" that no one else understands. You go along outwardly, yet there are moments when you quietly believe you're the one who's right.

4. I WANT TO TELL YOU WHAT I THINK ABOUT THIS MANIFESTO, BUT I DIDN'T WANT TO READ IT SO MY THOUGHTS ARE MOSTLY BASED ON A VAGUE IDEA OF WHAT I THINK YOU MEANT OR SAID

it's important to have dreams, and I support you in this.

botanical illustration of ranunuculus acris, the meadow buttercup common in europe. it is a tall, slender plant with pronged leaves and a cup shaped yellow flower.

quill, on left, and peabody, on right, staring at me from across the house. they're sitting behind the arm of a sofa in front of a mountain of pillows, staring at me, looking as though they're experiencing a deep spiritual anguish. the manner of which you can perhaps capture in your heart if you are a dog who has definitely never been fed before in your life, ever, and your owner is eating a modest portion of pollo con arroz y frijoles.

two bluesky users interpret the turn of Miga; one remarks "Gonna be a good day!", the other says "Give me a break, Miga." Both posts are from six seconds apart.

a snip of my header, which is a photo of a television with a skull-like mii with big sparkling blue eyes leering out at you from it.

A god of war laufey title edit reading "Dungeons and Dragons Honor Among Thieves II: Cube Harder"

a pale dark-eyed person with mid-length hair slicked back, wearing a leather harness over a printed shirt and ribbed trousers, with fingerless gloves and heavy boots. they've got tattooed forearms and only one sleeve, and a chain bracelet.

Noel Household's isekai court mage asking "doth my king think me psychic?". note, i would personally never confuse collective soul for candlebox, but i do make other reasonable misattributions from time to time.

zapp's voodoo heat kettle chips. voodoo is a kind of all dressed flavour, and the heat gives it some zing.

the ditto from detective pikachu, disguised as a pink-haired woman in a suit. she has tiny ditto eyes. they always do

the cover for squarepusher's budakhan mindphone, just a great album.

tuna flavored hard candies

a bag of Japanese lays potato chips, cucumber flavor. the bag is green and prominently features cucumber. the text is mostly in japanese. i can't read that character set yet so I'm just guessing here but i think they might be describing these as lays potato chips, cucumber flavor, and talking about how good they are on the red stripe to the right. because they are. they are good.

Katinka Ingaborgovinana with her jacketed goons at the daiye spa for Derek's conditioning leaning in with an aggressive flemen expression. Portrayed by Milla Jovovich, she is, of course, stunning with a harsh fringe bob, silver eyeshadow, heavy lashes, carmine lipstick and a glossy plastic blazer and vest.

the UCC, as indicated in Cat's post, was my result

Avery Brooks as Sisko, smiling in uniform. His smile is pretty genuine, but there's - as usual with Brooks - a gravity and sense of something beyond the current moment for the character. Reminiscent, in a way, of Harrier Du Bois' paroxysmal Expression.

a view of deep space nine from below featuring the title card
"ODO GETS LAID
AND WE MUST ALL SUFFER"

a riot of colour with a glowing woman in a glowing cyberpunk bodysuit and running shoes and glowing neon asymmetrical poncho, wearing enormous goggles and headphones. she has a messy platinum blonde pixie haircut and blue skin.

A colourful text marquee in imitation of a Gameboy... colour? advance? i forget! startup screen, reading "Let Me Guess" in pink, before a bright, rainbowed "SOMEONE STOLE YOUR SWEETROLL" bounces into the field above it. Once the text is in place a shine rolls across both statements.

three pugs in a single small kennel. quill, in the back, occupied a full third of the kennel space because he's big. he's a somewhat bulldogish pug with a powerful build, massive body, and incredibly gentle sentiment. he's looking into the other kennels, possibly making sure we aren't hiding any other dogs he could convince to pile in there. Peabody is positioned next to him, facing and looking at me, beautifully. he's got a bit of a warboy look to him. unlike his litter mate - his whole forehead was black when they were little, and though it's going grey it's still very prominently entirely dark. meatloaf is huddled up next to him at the fore next to the gate, looking down, chilling. they're all packed in like a clown car. they sleep in a pile like this on the couch all the time but doggone it you kids, you need room to stretch out when i put murder she wrote on to keep you company while i take the kids to school. it's also harder to give you treats when you pack in like this. dogs!!!

What language do you prefer for written materials?
Northern Sami

a can of monster energy ultra zero. it had goddamn well better be cold

a two page magazine ad for midway's revolution x, the aerosmith arcade game rail shooter, in which you shoot CDs at all your problems

an engraving from "Carmilla", the 1879 novel by J. Sheridan le Fanu, depicting Carmilla and Geraldine in their nightclothes, Carmilla halfway rising on her elbow to regard Geraldine

a snip of a google search query for "m4". google returns a bunch of car information and a picture of the battle rifle i was actually looking for.

a christly rendition of the dril tweet "blocked. blocked. blocked. youre all blocked. none of you are free of sin"

a millennial fair screenshot asking if Marle will sell her pendant, edited to read "avocado toast"

Caspar David Friedrich's Wanderer Above A Sea Of Fog, a painting depicting a dark-clad young traveler perched on some rocks overlooking a turbulent and misty environment. The scenery feels majestic yet impossible.

Peabody, a sable point pug with features like somebody grabbed an adorable chihuahua and squished until the result was seal shaped, sleeping.

a pug sitting on the arm of my chair, resting her chin on the chair, staring up at me, sleepy. she's tawny with black ears and snout and a sooty forehead, though her snout is going grey these days.

footnote number 33 from the wikipedia page on photons showing a 2008 study determining a more specific upper bound of possible photonic mass.

the cover of INXS' album KICK, featuring the band being cool eighties dudes in a featureless white void. the singer, michael hutchense, is in the right being generally dashing in a leather jacket, his mid length wavy reddish hair somewhat wild.

an image of grampa's weeder, an iron tool made of two crowbill pieces and a kick plate. it doesn't work like you'd expect from looking at it, actually. rips the roots out real good.

lanselot tartaros, a dark-haired older man with an eye patch over his right eye, wearing heavy black plate mail and brandishing a longsword. a crimson kilt and dull blue... uhhh european jinbaori.

the old dude from the Simpsons wearing the cage of mensis saying, "i was saying 'kosm'"

a screenshot in town of castle of the winds, a roguelike dungeon crawler roughly comparable to diablo. the protagonist is a single icon of a buff dude, standing on a dirt thoroughfare in a town with several merchant buildings, a bank, a temple, and a number of peasant cottages nearby. the menus are extremely Windows. good game.

your indie band name is:
your favourite fruit + the last reason you took painkillers

a pen doodle of a shouting skull over crossed femur and dagger in a cemetery, with goofy little flame auras around all three. above the skull hovers a crown resting upon six Xs. no idea what I was trying to capture here but it'd probably make a good shirt design or something.

a snip from a google search showing "can the president" being immediately suggested "fire the vice president" as the very first autocomplete suggestion

Brendon's mother, at a kitchen fire, looking suspiciously at him asking,
"Brendon, how do you know where my wallet and checkbook are?"

an ai overview responding to me asking "is hard boba a thing" in the sense of hard lemonade with an answer in the sense of undercooked or stale pearls.

a woman with pallid skin and pale hair, eyes shining white, wearing a naval Captain's hat casting her eyes in deep shadow, as well as a heavy black overcoat with its collars turned up and black-palmed kid gloves. her buttons are shiny and brassy, as is the bladed spider pin and honest butcher's tool she's holding against her arm. she's also got moon pearl earrings and a white ascot on. the background is an intense, searing, cold red.

okay, look. listen. smell what I'm saying: i can tell even with the limited playtime i have as of this review that demonschool has the UTMOST juice. if you're a trpg sicko like me, or if you really like combat puzzles in general, feast on this game like a delightful gourmet spread.

gameplay feats: combining movement with action and providing all the information you need on enemies and allies as part of the same screen is the kind of brilliant design i love to see in this genre. managing action points through sidestepping and leveraging action-refunding or discounted attacks is the kind of optimization candy that makes an already great system even tastier, and being able to rewind and reset during planning lets you explore a strat before committing. it's good. you can feel like a genius even if it takes you five or ten tries to lock in your turn.

the expressive, energetic, stark art and... manic singleminded protagonist energy faye has are really fun, gameplay aside. this game is a delight for the senses and the mind so far and i am given no reason to question its persistence in both.

if you'll excuse me i am going to go kick some demons all over campus now, thanks love you bye