#I love my fantastic asshole of a pc

[embras-grace]

It's time to rant about my human in Palia: Ori Tian

He is awful and I love him. You can learn more about my human under the cut! This information is not spoiler free as his character changes over time as we learn more about the world.

Ori Tian || He/Him They/Them || 29-30 || The Watcher

Ori's history makes more sense with a few key points (some of which are spoilers you learn when talking to folks/exploring the world):

Kilima was built on the ruins of an ancient human school (I think of it as a university)

The ruins were where humans were forced to go by the human king (the Fire Temple lore) where it seems they were getting more and more ridiculous orders. I consider this to be when humanity's downfall was fast approaching.

The disaster that killed the humans was not just Flow (which I see as a global warming metaphor) but also an attack from Shadow Creatures (the Library you unlock with Jina).

The human downfall took hundreds if not thousands of years until they finally died out. They didn't go out with a bang, but with a painful whimper.

All humans have innate magical abilities. Some humans spend their whole lives learning how to tap into them, others are born with a close connection.

--

Human Life

Ori was a professor at the university and the dean of the humanities department which happened to be part of the school's administration. Their specialty was ethics and mortality, especially when it came to magic and Flow. They helped students organize various clubs and organizations inside the school, as well as supporting them during walk-outs or demonstrations against the king for trying to force people into "safety areas" to "wait out the danger" instead of facing the problem head on and cleaning up the mess humans had made that was destroying their world.

To students, Ori was known as the laid-back professor who was easy to talk to, but who wasn't afraid to talk back and be firm when needed. His tests were hell on earth but his classes were fun to those interested in a good-natured debate of philosophical principles and theories. He took it easy, but he took it.

To fellow professors and adults, Ori was a belligerent and sometimes down-right rude person. He had no problem calling people out for acting immature or acting ridiculous given certain circumstance (despite being hypocritical at times as a very hyper person themselves). The amount of fist-fights Ori has gotten into in university board meetings was too many too count.

He was outspoken against the king and didn't bother to hide his politics, which put them in a lot of danger. But Ori had one special thing that kept them safe from a great majority of threats: magic.

Ori was born with a natural affinity for fire magic and his anger could become explosive (literally). His flames were hot enough to melt iron and--when incredibly agitated--he could make anything he touched spontaneously combust. Yet this natural affinity came with a strict control he tried to keep tamped down... except when he couldn't in arguments. Fire brimming at the edges of his clothes (they never really caught on fire--clothes are expensive!) and his hair becoming bright flames. It's no wonder he was considered one of Embra's chosen.

On top of being a professor, a dean, and an activist Ori also managed the Phoenix Shrine. He was the primary caretaker, although he was as close to secular as someone could get in Palia. Is Embra real? Yes. Is she a goddess? Sure, why not. Does that mean you can't argue with her and have to accept everything she says or does? No fucking way!!! Ori is whatever the equivalent of a Jew is in Palia and he is very proud of his heritage, traditions, and beliefs.

His best friend was a kitsuu who followed him around the university and joined him on a lot of his routines for the temple. They could never be separated, his friend bringing him gifts from the natural world and Ori returning the favor with food and shiny things. His other close friend was Einar--who remembers Ori and what Ori did when he died.

Ori's death happened when the Shadow Creatures attacked the school. Many had already been moved to the temples, but Ori had stayed outside to protect the students that didn't want to go yet. When the evacuation order came to get everyone to safety, Ori was left at what is now known as the Mirror Pond Ruins.

When the last students were fleeing into the library--unable to get to the Water Ruins, Ori stood as the last guard to buy them time to lock the door. His magic was always explosive and he gave the Shadow Creatures the best show he could: he immolated himself in a massive explosion to protect the students he swore to protect. Taking out any Shadow Creatures in the nearby vicinity.

The only thing left behind was a pendant.

--

Kilima Life

Ori doesn't remember anything after being reincarnated. At first when he woke up Jina had to walk him through a lot of things, but slowly some stuff started coming back to him. His traditions, his knowledge of what he once studied, his love of researching, his hatred of authoritarian governments and anyone that bans or burns books, and intolerance for adults acting like immature brats.

He's slowly remembering some recipes he used to cook (thanks to Reth's help), other human languages he learned, more about life for humans, but a lot of it is very fuzzy and comes back slowly.

Still, though, he doesn't recognize the kitsuu who had great fun trying to get his attention with the help of Tau and can't comprehend why they keep little him little presents every day... and he doesn't remember his old friend Einar. Maybe it'll come back eventually, but there is one thing he is starting to remember...

Magic.

And he won't let the Order take it from him.

[saph-y]

Just wanted to thank you for all the art you share with us, for all the fantastic work you do. With how hostile things are towards artists, just wanted to show my support 🧡💕

That is very, very much appreciated, thank you for taking a small part of your time today for saying so♥ Now is the time to say artists you love them more than ever.

Things seem to get worst by the day for artists online. The current climate + the last blow from tumblr is extremely disheartening to say the least. This hellsite has been my home for... I don't even want to know how long, and having to quit would be awful...

But quitting to go where ? It's everywhere the same.

I honestly been thinking a lot about these issues - i even of course tried glaze only to discover my PC was not compatible with it so no protection for me, yay. There seems to be no solution, no escape from this.

So I thought, what, the only thing left to do is to vanish from the internet ? Maybe.

But you know what ? No. I don't want to right now. Actually even if I end up doing so and deleting everything, I won't stop drawing. Greed is killing the world right know, I won't let it kill my creative drive. Whether I one day delete my work from the internet, or I stay here to rot with the rest of you (♥)... right now I simply refuse to let my place be filled by greedy bastards. I'm not big, I'm not much, but my stories are my own even if they get fed at machines. And I think the same for everyone's work. So... fuck this ?

Sorry for the rambling, but I thought I might as well take your ask as an opportunity to say something xD In short : thank you for supporting artists now, we need it, a lot, and don't let assholes kill what makes you be creative.

[rosebud-8]

pt 3

And last but certainly not least is the absolute firecracker, Dyme Pepperbox.

Dyme grew up in a bunker underground, having to deal with the boredom of subterranean living and a group of survivalist fundamentalists. She only saw the surface for the first time when the being she was hiding from, The Animator, was slain by the original party and her home was brought into the Material Plane. Everything should be great, right? I mean she’s alive, her oppressor is dead, and her people don’t have to hide anymore. Everything’s great, r-right?

Nope! Things are so not fine that its kinda funny to even pretend like they are! When her community was brought back to the Material Plane, they were brought back a couple hundred years too early. This temporal anomaly caused a massive rift to open in the sky above Spring Valley (her home). Quickly, this rift began to cause havoc in Spring Valley, including allowing a WW2 American fighter pilot to attack the city (yes, really).

But most importantly to Dyme’s story, waves of temporal energy would cascade down onto the city, causing people to rapidly age until death. Why is this important to Dyme’s story? Well, one day in Spring Valley she was working on her various inventions, and when she returned to where her family was they were all rapidly dying of old age in front of her. There was nothing she or anyone could have done.

The death of her family DESTROYED Dyme mentally, but instead of coping with it she threw herself into the work her and her father had started. If only she could finish these inventions, certainly everything would work out. Just one more cup of coffee (likely laced with cocaine). Just one more screw. She just needed more time.

Time.

Dyme’s story, in my eyes, is defined by her struggle against time. Time is what stole her family away from her, time is what was taken away from her family, and time is what she now tries to harness. She starves herself of sleep, forsakes times with her loved ones, and shirks her responsibilities to her surviving family and community all so that she can claw back just a bit of the time she lost. The time that was used against her.

Surely running this hard from your issues won’t cause any issues, r-right?

Again. A hysterical thing to say. Of course it has! Dyme’s repressed sadness over the death of her family has manifested in POWERFUL anger issues. This culminated in the most recent sessions as her yelling at Kiriko’s father figure who was trying to flee, and being arrest by the police for blowing at a truly ridiculous tabaxi man while trying to save her cousin’s life. That event in particular, seeing her ability to save one of her only remaining family members slip away from her because some asshole wanted to extort her for more money, really seemed to draw this anger out.

Its interesting to have two characters who are both running from their problems, but in such different ways. Kiriko *has* to run, if he doesn’t everything he’s worked for will be taken from him. But Dyme, Dyme could confront her issues. She could go back to Spring Valley right now and apologize for missing her family’s funeral, apologize to her longtime friend for closing herself off entirely. But instead, she chooses to flee. I think the key difference between these two pcs is that while Kiriko does confront the things he’s running from, Dyme doesn’t. She avoids them as hard as she can possibly avoid them. And all those bottled-up emotions are starting to spew out.

But can we blame her? Time literally stole her family’s lives. It only makes sense that she would try to beat the clock

God what fantastic characters you’ve all built, I could explore them all from so many different angles and I’ve already written a 2000 word paper about them.

[crescent-dreams]

Creator's Corner - Uissuteffu

How did you become a fan of the Inuyasha fandom?

Inuyasha wasn’t the first, but it was definitely the gateway to my love of anime. When the show was put on hiatus to wait for RT to finish the manga, I craved more! I started reading fanfic to fill the gap while I patiently awaited The Final Act.

What are your favourite fanfic tropes as a writer?

All the tropes! To me, fanfiction is about embracing fantasy. I avoid it in original writing, but tropes are fun to share with countless others in the community. I don’t know if I’ve met a (non-morally questionable) trope that I haven’t embraced.

And as a reader?

Haha! Same answer as above. I’m partial to pack dynamics and pining, though.

Which of your work is your personal favourite? The one you are most proud of?

Ikigai. I think it was probably my most unique premise, and I’ve spent a lot of time world-building. I have roughly three books worth of content prepared for it. Plus, it explores issues with mental health through various characters, and I think I’ve handled them with care. When readers leave comments affirming that, it makes me feel extremely proud.

Which SessKag fanfiction by another author is your go-to choice for a great read?

This is an impossible question! First of all, Gilded Sapphire contains many authors that I could list as my favorites. Anyone whose interview pops up in these spotlights likely has a story I’ve revisited several times. I’ll choose someone new to the server whose stories I often revisit. It’s still a hard choice, but I’ll go with Transgressions by Wonderbug (please heed the tags if you read it).

What do you think makes a good story?

A good story has one of two things: creativity or a strong grasp of language, and the ability to use it to invoke imagery. A great story has both!

Is there anything you need while writing? Snacks? Music? A comfy blanket?

Nope. My dynamic when it comes to writing is basically “If I fits, I sits”. I write in bed, in the shower, outside, inside, at the desk, on the couch, on my phone, on my tablet, on the pc. There’s no ritual to it at all.

How do you get your ideas? In your dreams? In the shower?

I don’t know, really. They just kind of hit, and I jot them down in Google Docs.

If you could meet an Inuyasha character, what would you tell them?

I’d like to meet Tōga so I could tell him he’s kind of an asshole for putting Sesshōmaru through that shit in the name of teaching compassion. THERE ARE BETTER WAYS, MY DUDE!

As a writer, which animal (real or otherwise) best describes you?

Can we consider yōkai animals so that I can say “Shirime”? They’re harmless, terrifying little creatures that thrive on scaring people. As a writer of primarily angst and horror, I’d say that’s fairly fitting. P.S. Don’t Google it. Just don’t.

What is your kryptonite as a writer?

I definitely struggle most with trimming dialogue. I’m selectively mute in real life, so conversation isn’t natural or instinctive for me, and I think that often shows in my writing.

What advice would you give someone who wants to start writing?

My answer to this is always a Stephen King quote from his (fantastic) book “On Writing”: “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.”

You can find @uissuteffu on Ao3, Tumblr, Twitter, and Carrd! And please check out our Creator's Corner Masterlist for all our past creators!

[kilannad]

First thoughts on Campaign three

I LOVE them, your honor. That's all you need to know.

Okay but seriously;

Let's start with Ashton and FCG (and no, I cannot believe we have a he/they robit that goes by Fresh Cut Grass. Sam and Liam--what the actual fuck?)

I really enjoy the thought that FCG met Ashton and was like "yes, I like your gender, I'll do the same." These people also have such a cool dynamic. Ashton will be the Beau of this campaign--constantly saying fuck, absolutely zero shits, vague morality that will one day show a marshmallow center. Pairing this with a legit therapy robot that seems to have been created for the purpose of helping people is fantastic. Big asshole enjoys tiny friendly BFF. I love them.

The fact that FCG seems to have given us his sad backstory in the first episode just convinces me that Sam has something incredible in the works. Also, whatever subclass--clearly homebrewed from what i can tell--apparently has the ability to take half pain from others which is wild and has such angst potential, I'm ready to cry already. (Also, from a mechanical standpoint its WILD. The half damage is first moved to temp hit points and then, from what I can guess, whatever of those t.h.p don't get used after a certain length of time--maybe a minute?--give FCG damage from their actual hp. So weird, I love it)

Ashton...I'm not sure where they're going. Something wild, considering Tal. Tho, honestly, how has this eldritch horror given us a literal Punk Rock that is a Gender??? Apparently they have a dunamantic subclass, also clearly homebrewed. Or maybe just wild magic barbarian. Something like that, which is also WILD. Makes me wonder where they learned their abilities.

Alright, let's hit the next two: lesbian queens Imogen and Laudna. First, I feel like I should say I would absolutely offer my heart to either of them and have never been so horny at a creepy undead in my entire life.

Let's hit southern bell, Imogen, first since we know the least here: young, polite, southern girl just wants to figure out where her powers came from. Honestly, loving the callbacks to Fjord and it's a really sweet first layer of what I'm sure will turn out to be a more complicated backstory. And, oh yeah, she can READ MINDS. I don't know anything about the psionic subclass, but I'm excited to see where Laura goes with it. Seems like a lot of opportunity for shenanigans, though this might turn out to be a 'discover your roots' kind of story, which I support.

Now: Laudna.

I've gotta say, my first instinct was De Rollo, and I'm sticking to it. That, or a Briarwood. Maybe one of Percy's sisters got killed/turned. I've seen a lot of dhampir/undead floating around. I saw one post that said one of the Briarwoods is her warlock patron which would be SO COOL. Maybe Marisha is just fucking with us, which is a possibility. Thus far, we haven't really seen any of the PCs with close ties to PCs from another campaign except Orym, and even that seems to just be a simple working relationship. It would be really cool to see what can be done with this connection if it does exist.

As for Laudna herself--she's so freaking cool. I love how she's naturally so creepy and off-putting but just doesn't seem to notice. Carries a dead rat on her belt, asks FCG if they kept the bodies of their fallen comrades, and is surprised when children run. It's amazing and I have no idea where she's going or how she possibly met Imogen. I expect fantastic dynamics from these two.

Next, let's talk about everyone's favorite silver fox; Bertrand Bell

I should prefix by saying I haven't seen either of the one-shots he appears in. He is also an easy way to address all of the negative comments which seem to derive from the cast reusing old characters--I have no idea who this fucker is. Didn't even know he'd shown up before until I saw a post about it. That being said; within that first episode I got a really good look into his character and I was instantly caught by his personality and how well Travis plays him. I don't know shit about the one-shots but I know Bertrand Bell and I think if Travis wants to explore him more then he should be able to.

That being said:

I agree with a lot of people that he doesn't seem like a permanent character. The fact that he's two levels above the rest of the group, plus that he's apparently gone back in levels in the last thirty years doesn't show great things. The fact that he's also apparently the first quest giver instead of an NPC is also really strange and doesn't seem to indicate he'll be a recurring character for long. Maybe Travis is just going to appear as a series of new characters instead of sticking with just one. Maybe his real character will show up later. Either way, I'm all for it. I think this is a really cool new way to start a campaign.

Now, probably the most controversial part of the party: Dorian, Orym, and Fern.

Now, I LOVE the Crownkeepers. Adore them. And I'm also super excited for them to show up here for a few reasons. Liam and Ashley both expressed desires to further explore these characters and I'm vibrating to do the same. We got such hints of little pieces of them in EXU and I want more. Of the Crownkeepers, they are also the most likely to split off from the group--Orym because he only went to Emon for Keyleth in the first place, and Fern because she always said she "had things to do". So, no, I don't think Fern and Orym are temp characters like some people are suggesting. Especially not since, as Matt said on twitter, they had the opportunity to re-roll their stats, tho Orym didn't take the option.

The fact that, if Bertrand indeed is only temporary, it means Orym at 13 has the highest INT is hilarious. He thought the Crownkeepers were the exception, but Nah, they were the rule.

Dorian...is different. We just learned that he's apparently from Marquet in the first place, which is really interesting and explains why he didn't seem to know anything about Tal'Dorei. It does make me wonder how long he'll stick around for--will he just go back to Tal'Dorei? Will some crazy part of his backstory show up and take him away and thus be the next EXU plotline? I'm not sure, but it'll be interesting.

What's even more interesting is how, exactly, this new campaign fits with the EXU storyline. It's been a year since the events of EXU and Matt said Orym was contacted while the Crownkeepers were in Byroaden. Now, last we saw them they were about to go south into Betrayer cult territory, tho they discussed going to Byroaden after for Opal to look into her family some more. My guess is that we WILL get a season two of EXU to finish the Tetrarchs stuff and that campaign three takes place after that season two. Maybe. It does beg the question of if the Crownkeepers ever went back to Emon to speak with Gilmore which was the original goal that they never finished.

The reason I see so many people complaining, I think, is partly because one: EXU was pretty controversial on it's own because of it's guided style which is different then the freeform of the main campaigns. I disagree, but that's a different post. The second reason is that people wanted to be able to start this with no needed knowledge about past campaigns. I still think this holds true. I mean, heck, not watching EXU might make it more interesting to see these three interact. I mean, we don't know how Imogen or Laudna met, or Ashton and FCG. We aren't complaining about that, so simply watch Orym, Fearn, and Dorian and enjoy the mysteries of their pasts.

The fact that this group started at level three and the WILD twists we've already seen within the first episode alone really tells me that CR is going all in here. The set, the characters, whatever wild story they're about to tell--it's going to be amazing. I trust in the CR team and cannot wait to watch them go on this adventure together, wherever it may lead.

[thedeadhandofseldon]

The Anti-Mercer Effect

On the Accessibility of D&D, Why Unprepared Casters is so Fun, and Why Haley Whipjack is possibly the greatest DM of our generation.

(Apologies to my mutuals who aren’t in this fandom for the length of this, but as you all know I have never in my life shut up about anything so… we’ll call it even for the number of posts about Destiel I see every day.

To fellow UC fans - I haven’t listened to arc 4 yet, I started drafting this in early August, and I promise I will write a nice post about how great Gus the Bard is once I get the chance to listen to more of his DMing).

Structure - Or, “This is not the finale, there will be more podding cast”

So, first of all, let’s just talk about how Unprepared Casters works. Because it’s kind of unusual! Most of the other big-name D&D podcasts favor this long, grand arcs; UC has about 10 hours of podcast per each arc. And that’s a major strength in a lot of ways: it makes it really accessible to new listeners, because you can just start with the current arc and understand what’s going on!

And by starting new arcs every six or seven episodes, they can explore lots of ways to play D&D! Classic dungeon delve arc! Heist arc! Epic heroes save the world arc! Sportsball arc! They can touch on all sorts of things!

And while I’m talking about that: Dragons in Dungeons, the first arc, makes it incredibly accessible as a show - because it lets the unfamiliar listener get a sense of what D&D actually is. (It’s about telling stories and making your friends feel heroic and laugh and cry, for the record). If I had to pick a way to introduce someone to the game without actually playing it with them, that arc would definitely be it.

And I’d be remise not to note one very important thing: Haley Whipjack and Gus the Bard are just very funny, very charismatic people. Look. Episode 0s tend to be about 50%(?) those two just talking to each other about their own podcast. It shouldn’t work. And yet it DOES, its one of my favorite parts, because Haley and Gus are just cool.

And a side note that doesn’t fit anywhere else: I throw my soul at him! I throw a scone at him - that’s it, that’s the vibe. The whole podcast alternates between laughing with your friends and brooding alone in a dark tavern corner - but the laughs never forced and the dark corner is never too dark for too long.

Whipjack the Great - Or, the DM is Also a Player!

I think Haley Whipjack is one of the greatest Dungeon Masters alive. The plots and characters! The mechanical shenanigans! The descriptions!

Actually, let’s start there: with the descriptions. (Both Haley and Gus do this really fucking well). As we know, Episode 0 of each arc sees the DM reading a description - of a small town, or the Up North, or the recent history of a great party. And Haley always strikes this tricky balance - one I think a lot of us who DM struggle with - between giving too much description and  worldbuilding, and not telling us anything at all. She describes people and events in just enough detail to imagine them, but never so much they seem static and unreal - just clear enough to envision, but with enough vagueness left to let your imagination begin to run wild.

While I’m thinking about arc 3’s party, let’s talk about a really bold move she made in that arc: letting the players have ongoing control of their history. Loser Lars! She didn’t try to spell out every detail of this high-level party’s history, or restrict their past to only what she decided to allow - she gave them the broad outlines, and let them embellish it. And that made for a much more alive story than any attempt to create it by herself would have - but I think it takes a lot of courage to let your players have that agency. Most Dungeon Masters (myself included) tend to struggle with being control freaks.

And the plots! Yeah, arc one is built of classic tropes - but she actually uses them, she doesn’t get caught up in subverting everything or laughing at the cliches. And it’s fun! In arc 3, there really isn’t a straight line for the players to follow, either - which makes the game much more interesting and much trickier to run. And her NPCs are fantastic and I will talk about them in the next section.

Above all, though, I think what is really impressive is how Haley balances mechanics, and rules as written, with the narrative and rule of cool - and puts both rules and story in the service of playing a fun game. And the secret to that? She’s the DM, but the DM is a player, and the DM is clearly having fun. Hope Lovejoy mechanically shouldn’t get that spellslot back, but she does, and it’s fun. The changeling merchant in Thymore doesn’t really make some Grand Artistic Narrative better, but wow is it fun. And she never tries to force it one way or the other - the story might be more dramatic if Annie didn’t manage to banish the demon from the vault, but it’s a lot cooler and a lot more fun for the players if Annie gets to be a badass instead - and the rules and the dice say that Annie managed it.

Settings feel like places, NPCs feel like people, and the narrative plot feels like a real villainous plot.

Anyway. I could go on about the various ways in which Whipjack is awesome for quite a while - she’s right, first place in D&D is when your friends laugh and super first place is when they cry - but I’m going to stop here and just. Make another post about it some other time. For now, for the record I hold her opinions about the game in higher esteem than I do several official sourcebooks; that is all.

Characters - Or, Bombyx Mori Is Not an Asshole, And That Matters

Okay, I said I would talk about characters! And I will!

Just a general place to start: the party! All of the first three parties are interesting to me, because they all care about each other. Not even necessarily in a Found Family Trope sort of way, though often that too. But they generally aren’t assholes to each other. The players create characters that actually work together, that are interesting; even when there’s internal divisions like SK-73 v. Sir Mr. Person, they aren’t just unpleasant and antagonistic all the time. Listening to the podcast, we’re “with” these people for a couple hours - and it isn’t unpleasant. That matters a lot. (To take a counter-example: I love Critical Role, but the episode when Vox Machina pranked Scanlan after he died and was resurrected wasn’t fun to listen to, it was just uncomfortable and angering and vaguely cruel).

All of the PCs are amazing, and the players in each arc did a great job. If you disagree with me about that, well, you have the right to be incorrect and I am sorry for your loss. Annie Wintersummer, for one example: tragic and sad and I want to give her a hug, but also Fuck Yeah Wintersummer, and also her familiar Charles the Owl is the cutest and funniest and I love him. And we understand what’s going on with Annie, she isn’t some infinite pool of hidden depths because this arc is 7 episodes and we don���t have time for that, but she also has enough complexity to be interesting. Same with Fey Moss: yeah, a lot of her is a silly pun about fame that carries into how she behaves, but a lot of how she behaves is also down to some good classic half-elven angst about parenthood and wanting to be known and seen and important. (Side note: if your half-elf character doesn’t have angst, well, that’s impressive and also I don’t think I believe you).

There are multiple lesbian cat-people in a 4-person party and they both have requited romantic interests who aren’t each other. This is the future liberals want and I am glad for it.

Sir Mister Person, the human fighter! Thavius, the edge lord! Even when a character is “simple,” they’re interesting, because of how they’re played as people and not action-figures. And that matters a lot.

In the same way: the NPCs. There really aren’t a lot of them! And some of them come from Patreon submissions, so uh good work gang, you’re part of the awesomeness and I’m proud of you! The point being, the NPCs work because enough of them are interesting to matter. It’s not just a servant who opens Count Michael’s door, it’s a character with a name (Oleandra!) and a personality and history. They’re interesting. Penny Lovejoy didn’t need to be interesting, the merchant outside the Laughing Mausoleum didn’t need to be interesting, but they ARE! And Haley and Gus EXCEL at making the NPCs matter, not just to the story but to us as viewers. I agree with Sir Mister Person, actually, I would die for the princesses of the kingdom. I actually care about Gem Lovejoy of all people - that wouldn’t happen in an ordinary campaign! That’s the thing that makes Unprepared Casters spectacular - and, frankly, it’s especially impressive because D&D does not tend to be good at making a lot of interesting compared to a lot of other sorts of stories.

And, just as an exemplar of all this: Bombyx Mori. Immortal, reincarnating(?), and described as the incarnation of the player’s ADHD. I expected to hate Bombyx, because as the mom friend both in and out of my friend-group’s campaigns, the chaos-causer is always exhausting to me. And yeah, Bombyx causes problems on purpose! But! She is not an asshole.

And that’s important. Bombyx goes and sits with the queen and comforts her. Bombyx gives Annie emotional support. Bombyx isn’t just a vehicle to jerk around the DM and other players; Bombyx really is a character we can care about. To compare with another case - in the first couple episodes of The Adventure Zone, the PCs are just dicks. Funny, but dicks. Bombyx holds out an arm “covered in larva” to shake with a count, and robs him of magical items, but she also cares about her friends and other people! She uses a powerful magical gem to save her fertilizer guy from death! Yeah, Bombyx is ridiculous, but she’s not just an asshole the party has to keep around for plot reasons; you can see why her party would keep her around. And one layer of meta up, she’s the perfect example of how to make a chaotic character like that while still being fun for everyone you’re playing with, which is often not the case. And I love her.

The Anti-Mercer Effect - Or, “I think we proved it can be fun, you can have a good time with your friends. And it doesn’t have to be scary, you can just work with what you know”

The Mercer Effect basically constitutes this: Matthew Mercer, Dungeon Master of Critical Role, is incredible (as are all of his players). They’re all professional story-tellers in a way, remember, and so Critical Role treats D&D like a narrative art-form, and it’s inspiring. Seeing that on Critical Role sets impossible standards - and people go into their own home games imagining that their campaigns will be like Critical Role, and the burden of that expectation tends to fall disproportionately on the DM. And the end result, I think, of the Mercer Effect is that we get discouraged or intimidated, because our game isn’t “as good as” theirs. (And I should note - Matt certainly doesn’t want that to be our reaction).

So the Anti-Mercer Effect is two things: it’s D&D treated like a game, and it’s inspiring but not intimidating. And Unprepared Casters manages both of those really freaking well. Because they play it like a game! A UC arc looks just like a good campaign in anyone’s home game. They have the vibes of 20-somethings and college students playing D&D for fun because that’s who they are (as a 20-something college student who plays a lot of D&D, watching it felt like watching my friends play an especially good campaign). They’re trying to tell a good story, sure, and they always do. But first and foremost, they’re trying to have fun, and it shows, and I love the UC cast for it.

And that’s the other half of it: it’s inspiring! It’s approachable; you can see that Haley and Gus put plenty of work into preparing the game but it also doesn’t make you feel like you need hundreds of pages of worldbuilding to run a game. Sometimes a cleric makes Haley cry and she gives them back a spell-slot from their deity! That’s fantastic! It’s just inspiring - listening to this over the summer, when my last campaign had fallen apart under the strain of graduation, is why I decided to plan and run my new one!

That quote from Haley Whipjack that I used as the title for this section? That’s the whole core of this idea, and really, I think, the core of the podcast.

The Mercer Effect is when you go “that’s really cool, I could never do that.” But Unprepared Casters makes you look at D&D and go “wow, that looks really fun. I bet I can do that!” And I love the show for it.

And I bet a lot of you do too.

[captainsspnanon]

C3E1 - reaction liveblog

I hate that I’m not going to be able to watch all of this tonight, BUT I AM READY!!!!!!!

What the funky ass mushrooms???? I LOVE IT, PLEASE BE A PLACE THEY GO TO

Pre-stream art is showing a lot of non-Marquet stuff though, so maybe not. :(  SAD I WANT TO SEE IT

Some of these locations though, omg

Wait, Gilmore with a dude.  Is that from ExU?  Dammit, I haven’t seen it because I assumed it wasn’t going to be campaign canon, bu I guess it is. *sigh*  I’ve seen the Narrative Telephone with the cast, I’m just worried it’s going to be TOO chaotic for me.  The NT episodes WERE, and the first hour or so of ExU that I saw didn’t seem like my speed.  WELL, we’ll see.

Several art with VM, but no M9 yet…

Downside of watching live?  Can’t skip through breaks and can’t watch art reel at faster speed (‘cause I love the art and don’t want to skip it, but at the same time don’t want to spend so many minutes on it)

And HOPEFULLY I’ll be watching live each time now!  Or at least during the day on Friday, if I can’t stay up late on Thursday.

More VM art…

I’mma try to make my C3 reactions spoiler free for C1 and C2, but I’ll tag as necessary if I think I say something too risky.  NONE OF Y’ALL PROBABLY CARE, but I’m doing it for the non-existent followers I’m pretending I have.

Desperately hoping my basically dead laptop doesn’t die, because I’m using it to type and I won’t be able to recapture these thoughts if I lose it. As long as I don’t try to use the internet, it SHOULD be fine, ‘cause that's what caused it to keep dying before…..

5

4

3

2

1

AAAAAAAA

Liam and Laura sitting together!!

Sam in a suit!  Not doing the shirt bit, I guess.

YES THEY KEPT “IT’S BEEN A WHILE”

Travis and Marisha together again too

OH GOD THE SET

I’m only starting to look at the set now, that’s incredible!

Eeh, cutaways for ads.  Not a huge fan, even though the ads are fantastic!

Fuuuuck, reminder that Sam is tall as shit.

Also, sorry, but bearded Sam is hot AF.

The thing that I am sad about the cut aways is I can’t see their reactions.

Marisha hot AF

Ashley looking hot AF

I want M9 dice!  PUT OUT M9 DICE PLEASE

new opening time!!!!!

...tf?  I’m hoping that means that we have one ready with the new characters in it, because that wasn’t an opening.

NEW PLACESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Ooooooo, awesome starting setting!!!! I LOVE IT!!!!

EXITING ALREADY??????

ACCEEEENNTTTTTT

Laura sorcerer!! Human?  Low strength again

WHAAAATTTTT Warlock/Sorcerer and what the fuck is she????? OMG  High charisma though!!!  Excited!!!!

Kinda sad that the rest of the cast isn’t there for the descriptions though….

So spellcasting for both, but limited spellcasting

This set is so fucking good, though I’m sad there’s not more behind Matt.  Maybe he’ll have more projections behind him?

This setting is so fucking awesome I need to see fanart and also keep learning it!!  Too complicated for me to learn on first watch.

GOD THIS SET  with everyone else gone I can’t help but stare!

Want the other cast to come in soon!!!  Not sure how I feel about it starting to separate and the beginning.

Oh god I need to learn the new names!!!!   That’s gonna take a bit!  Imogen and Laudna?  Think I got it.

FIRST ROLL

...why do I feel that Laudna’s gonna kill me this campaign?  Like, maybe it’s just ‘cause Marisha’s HOOOT right now that it’s adding to character appeal.

Subtitles have errors, but that’s okay

Mindreading feature??? Overwhelming minds?? OMG

Lots of new races being brought in, unexpected to me!

Sam put on the shirt omg

ASHONT!!!  Tal’s character! WHO WHAT GIVE ME ART

He/They Earth Genasi!!!  Barbarian!!!!   Oooooo.  Low charisma, that’ll be interesting.

Fuuuuuck this is a cool looking character.  Did he make the teenage asshole character that he played in the Critmas oneshot?

Also, multiple NPCs tied in to PCs now already��.does this mean West marches campaign might be an actual thing?  Hate that I’m kinda worried about this….I should trust CR, but I don’t want a campaign where they’re not all together.

WAIT WHAT

Fresh Cut Grass??? Letters???????  OH GOD HE DID GO WARFORGED.  Cleric!!  Damn, which means no Liam Cleric, sads.  BUT HOW TALL IS HEEEEEEE

Tal has no real accent, Sam is strong AF

Oooh, this is going to be interesting characterization for FCG

Kinda hope Sam doesn’t continue the shirt bit the entire time, but I feel like he will.  Ah well.

Another NPC.  Yeah, I’m worried and hate that I’m worried.

Lol Sam’s already falling out of the accent.

The other cast aren’t in another room, good.  Just heard Liam laugh.  Bleh, wish they could have been on camera then.  It’s one of the things where I feel like they’re playing to the camera versus playing for themselves, which makes me a bit sad.

Looooots of NPCs

Sam is quite small, apparently, continuing the trend!

Marisha and Sam, favorites so far!

Over an hour, still missing PCs, and no interactions with the group.

Robbie!  ...Fuck, I don’t want a west marches style campaign….

Wait is this literally the ExU cast

are you shitting me

I haven’t seen ExU

I have many many MANY mixed feelings right now

Yeah…...worried as shit now.  I don’t know how I feel, I really don’t

….I do love Fearne’s voice at least, though I didn’t get to know her because I haven’t seen ExU

Fuuuuuuck Orym’s voice is way too hot AF

Chaotic fucking Ashley, omg.  FEARNE.  I did like them from what I saw at the start of ExU!  It’s just that I didn’t continue after the first hour or so……

Interaction??? ARE WE FINALLY GETTING INTERACTION????  An hour and a half in.

Like, I’ll be fine with this if Robbie is a permanent if it’s still all the cast being together.  But if it’s splitting them up, I’m going to at least start off disappointed.

Also I hope Travis is actually going to be here?

SET GOING SUNSET AAAAAAAA and everyone freaking out I love it!

Oh god yes they’re getting together thank god.  Let this not be a west marches campaign and I’ll be happy.

But no Travis.

No TRAVIS

But Robbie is kinda shifted over?  So it seems like there’s room for him?

What the fuck is this amazing initiative??!?!?!?

..Oh man, Cap.  I’m gonna need your thoughts.

I want to see the minis up close

What the fuck Marisha this is amazing

Wild Magic Barb for Tal????

YES TRAVIS YES

WAIT WHAT OLD MAN, I WANT TO SEE THE ART AND STATS BUT THE BATTLEMAP IS OUT

...I hope they don’t to the HDYWTDT for every kill, but maybe because it’s the first battle?

Hmmm….almost Fjord voice.  I hope he starts differentiating it more later on.

WAIT BERTRAND BELL

SAM WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT A GAS CAN

So Travis is level 5, ExU cast is level 3, what are the others?  3 or 2??  So will this be exp or milestone?

Tal (Archon? Ashton?  I FORGET) already lying and pickpocketing.  Okay, we’ll see how I end up being about this.

So.  Two sorcerers, two fighters, bard, barb, cleric, druid, and warlock.  Alright, gonna be interesting

Break now.  Man, I already want a Talk so bad!!!  I have so many questions!  Why use the ExU characters?  Why bring back Bertrand Bell?  Why different levels???  I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS

I should be going to bed now, but I don’t want to.  Why do I think I’ll be staying up the entire time and FUCKING REGRETTING IT IN THE MORNING

OH GOD ASHLEY WHAT IS THIS DURING BREAK

You know I hadn’t thought of it, but I feel bad for people starting with C3, because they HAVE to know stuff!  They have to know ExU!  And the one shot for Bertrand Bell!  Which means VM!

Alright, Bertrand’s voice has aged a bit, so now it sounds more different from Fjord.

But Bertrand is really speaking like he wouldn’t be a part of this, which makes me nervous again for west marches style

FCG really spilling backstory here

Mmmm, don’t think I like the night effect, it really washes everybody out

WAIT THERE ARE STARS IN THE BACKGROUND AAAAAAAA

Yeah, I can’t see Travis playing this character long term, its’ way too much of a silly one shot character.

Interesting that Sam’s starting his character off as a tag-a-long again like Nott.

Rollies?

Okay good, they recognized we were all confused

I LOVE seeing Ashley making bold choices this campaign

Lots of rolling against each other so far

I’m much more quiet in the second half as now I’m just watching it play out

Okay, I cannot WAIT to see how Fresh Cut Grass is going to be halfway through the campaign and by the end

Why do I feel like the Lord dude is just Scanlan in disguise

Fireplace is cool, but it turns on the night sky.  They might need to fix that

…...weeeeird ending

Mixed feelings overall.  Wish I’d have a good idea of how the campaign is going to go, at least in terms of everyone playing at once, or broken up into teams

Interesting start! Looking forwards to seeing how it goes

@suicidallyreckless

[moviesrotbrains]

FREAKY slashes up a piece of that horror-comedy pie

Hey, let’s remake FREAKY FRIDAY, but this time it’s about a middle-aged serial killer who swaps places with a 17-year-old girl. That simple yet ridiculous premise is the main plot behind a surprisingly perfect, and fantastically gory, horror-comedy.

FREAKY is one of those movies that could have failed hard. It’s a brilliant idea that could have fallen apart in the wrong hands. Many films have tried to balance genres and get lost along the way. FREAKY is NOT one of those fails. It’s one of those films that had me rooting for it from the first 5 minutes and still had me pleasantly surprised throughout. In addition to being a great body-swap flick, it’s also an engaging horror flick. It’s like someone shoved your favourite FRIDAY THE 13TH scenes in a blender with MEAN GIRLS. It shouldn’t work… but it does. It’s an ode to 80s slashers, but it’s also an ode to high school-centred comedies? And it does all this while keeping hardcore horror fans pleased by giving it a hard R rating?!? And it’s actually really funny?!?

When they first announced this film, I was expecting a fun PG-13 flick in the vein of HAPPY DEATH DAY, and I was okay with that. I really liked HAPPY DEATH DAY (as with FREAKY, also directed by Christopher Landon). HAPPY DEATH DAY, was a smart spin on GROUNDHOG’S DAY that it did a lot of cool things while also being able to do so with a PG-13. It wasn’t trying to be MANIAC, nor did I ever expect it to. I’m an annoying purist, but I’m ok with light pop-corn horror if done right, and that film did it right. 

So with that in mind, I was utterly blown away by the very, very R-RATED kills in the opening 10 minutes. It was a brutal onslaught of gore. It was Landon’s way of saying, “Relax, horror bros, I got you.” It was like a Greatest Hits from decades ago but with a fresh spin on it. Slashers got a little lazy in the last few years, and this film just let it all hang out in that opening scene. It was ballsy as all hell, and I was totally on board. And luckily it didn’t just stop there.

This one has all the tropes of classic stabby fright flicks. Huge emotionless killer? Check. Ominous mask? Check. St upid teenagers getting in trouble? Check. Inventive kills that make you cackle “Holy Shit”? Check. Twists and turns? Check. A growing body count? Check. Final girl? Check. And let’s throw in an occult artifact in the mix that swaps that final girl with that emotionless killer and that’s where you get something new and different!

And if you’re coming into this one from a comedy perspective, this one has all the tropes of classic high school movie. Insecure lead going through an awkward time? Check. Supportive comic relief friends? Check. Parents that just don’t understand? Check. Villainous teachers? Check. Mean girls? Check. Huge awkward misunderstandings? Check. And let’s throw in an occult artifact in the mix that causes said misunderstandings and that’s where you get something new and different!  

That new and different wouldn’t be what it is without the standout performance from the two leads, Vince Vaughn & Kaythryn Newton. Vaughn is the aforementioned creepy masked killer. He’s wonderfully cast here as a towering, silent brute. Vaughn of course might be known for his comedic work, but he’s actually got an impressive range that’s very rarely utilized (see BRAWL AT CELLBLOCK 99 for more details). Here he excels as the Butcher. Effective, brutal, and cold. He’s been on a killing spree lately, which we see a bit of at the beginning, and he’s definitely looking to kill some more. And it looks like he found a spooky looking occult dagger

Newton, known to genre fans from her recurring role in SUPERNATURAL, is very likeable as the main lead, Millie. Having recently suffered from the loss of her father, Millie is currently dealing with the ongoing depression that the loss put on her mother, as well as her own struggles to return to normality. Can she survive a day at school from the usual trials, tribulations, bullies, and high school crushes, let alone a serial killer lurking nearby?

And thus their two paths meet in the most unexpected (or very expected) of ways. We soon witness a thrilling chase, very reminiscent of the best Michael Myers and Jason hunts-- in fact this whole chase actually takes place on the eve before Friday the 13th, a very knowing wink to the genre that birthed this film. And soon the Butcher, with Millie in his grips, claims his latest victim… only he doesn’t… darn those occult daggers!

And that’s when the two leads really showcase their acting chops. Vaughn is now a frazzled high school student, and Newton is the silent and sinister stalker. Both take on their new roles excellently and they both embody (heh) them flawlessly. Vaughn is awkward and fragile and Newton is menacingly fierce as fuck. Newton utterly transforms into someone else and her performance is a total triumph. Vaughn is adorable. 

Seeing them both re-interact/meet with their friends (and foes) in their new forms is endless fun. You see Vaughn run like a girl and Newton go on a homicidal spree. You see Vaughn give off his best flirty eye and Newton’s best glare of doom. They both seamlessly fill their new roles.

But it’s not quite the seamless exchange for Millie and the Butcher. Millie clumsily gets used to their bigger and stronger frame… and the Butcher realizes they are not as strong as they once were. A lot of what works about this ride is seeing how they both adapt to their new struggles and use it to their advantage. The Butcher has a new mask, and Millie soon finds confidence in herself in her new self. 

The supporting cast is used with great effect, too. They all get us to where we need to be. Everyone serves a purpose. From the mom, to older sister/cop, to the comic relief, to the love interest, and classmates of varying degrees of douchebagginess. Everyone is either likeable or unlikeable as they should be. There’s even a nice nod to previous academic farces with a cameo from FERRIS BUELLER’S Alan Ruck as an asshole shop teacher. 

Director Christopher Landon is really slicing out a nice niche of off-kilter spins in the horror genre, and it’s reassuring that he knows what he’s doing. It truly is a well-crafted film. Not just as a horror film, but also from a technical standpoint. The pacing is dead perfect, every joke hits, the story beats and setups are well orchestrated, and not a moment is wasted. It’s tense when it needs to be tense, gory when it needs to be gory, and legit laugh out loud moments when it needs to have those LOL moments.

It’s such a great spin to the body-swap comedy genre, a genre that feels like there’s an endless amount where they all sort of felt very “samey”; especially in the 80s, where at one point three different body-swaps came out within 2 years of each other! This one takes the better elements of those, relishes in them, carves new ground, and adds a bit of Tom Hanks’ BIG in for good measure.

 But homage to a decade old cinematic fad aside, at no point does it ever stop delivering on the humour and slasher content. It’s tight, daring, and keeps you enthralled throughout. Whether you’re a horror junkie, or into well-written oddball comedies, or even into clever thrillers, the end result has you covered.

There’s a great message in there too, as the film tackles school killings, social media, pc culture, and the general malaise many of us experience after the loss of a loved one. It’s about grief and acceptance and moving on… yet it’s very light-hearted. And you still get ample buckets of blood and splatter.

Yes, fans, there’s so many gruesome and cool looking on screen deaths your morbid heart’s desire. Amazing uses of wine bottles, tennis rackets, chainsaws, and industrial equipment. A creepy serial killer flophouse complete with creepy mannequins and various implements of torture. Possibly a severed head in a bloody toilet? Yeah, this film has that too.

You can currently rent this one on various VOD services. Hopefully this one hits the majority of streaming services soon, since it had the misfortune of opening late last year during the pandemic. It definitely needs a wider audience because it’s another one of those instant classics. It’s easily my favourite current horror-comedy, and I’m looking forward to more from Christopher Landon. A film that’s both goofy and gory with just enough twists to keep your attention and please jaded genre fans? That’s freaky.

[jamesbyerj]

Thymesia brings Bloodborne-style combat to a plagued world

I love Bloodborne. Among all the fantastic action-RPGs created by FromSoftware, it ranks among the best (because it is the best). The thought of it not running on my PC with all the bells and whistles breaks my heart. Sadly, thanks to multiple reasons (Sony being the publisher, for one), we will likely never see it leap off the PlayStation platform. However, publisher Team17 and developer OverBorder Studio may have the next best thing. Thymesia apes Bloodborne‘s dark, gritty tones and fast-paced melee combat, and it is heading to PC later this year. In Thymesia, disease is your weapon. No, that doesn’t mean you walk around hurling plague rats from a burlap sack. Nor do you cough on people at coffee shops because you’re an asshole. The world of Thymesia is riddled with disease, and as Corvus, you can take the deadly pathogens plaguing enemies to use against them as weapons. You can see it in action yourself in the gameplay trailer accompanying today’s announce... Published first at Thymesia brings Bloodborne-style combat to a plagued world

[thats-so-sportswear]

Some game recs to help you move on from LITG

To celebrate the end of the season, I’ve got some game recs for you. Finding games like this is hard, I know. If you’re like me, it’s frustrating to see a market flooded with games that are so close to what you want, but never quite reach the level of emotional engagement and immersiveness that you crave. So here’s a couple you may not have heard of that I can guarantee you’ll love:

1. Seven Kingdoms: The Princess Problem (PC, Free Demo)

7KPP is a delightful little indie VN by the gorgeous @azalynestudios​. A romance/political intrigue game where you play as a delegate of one of these nations at a political summit, where your goal is to improve relations between the kingdoms and secure yourself an advantageous marriage, as well as personal quests and some murder mystery elements. It boasts a large range of LIs, both male and female and all amazing (and very difficult to decide between), as well as a fully customizeable MC (background, personality, skills, everything), huge range of dialogue options and great feminist undertones. Currently the game is still in development but the demo is almost a full game in itself with hours of replay value (and I’ve also played the most recent alpha version of the full game and can confirm is is like 90% finished and amazing). If you liked LItG please play this game. You will not be disappointed. Also the demo is free so you’ve got nothing to lose except your faith in me. 

2. Regency Love (iOS, $8 AUD)

Regency Love, as the title suggests, is a romance game set in the Regency era. You play as a young lady going through her daily life as gentlewoman, trying to secure marriage prospects (or not, if you like). It’s like playing through an Austen novel, honestly. The art and sound design is gorgeous, it’s well written, feminist, has an MC who’s personality is fully customizable by the choices you make. The best thing about this game though is the little details that pull your MC into the world, like finding out gossip about you and your LI or overhearing them gush about you. The only this wrong with this game is that it doesn’t have any female love interests. Otherwise this game is perfect imo. Retails for around $8 AUD with an additional love interest for $5 (which i highly recommend. Mr Graham is the best and if you’re a Bobby stan he’s the one you’re gonna fall in love with). Only available on iOS.

3. The Dragon Age Series (PC, Console, Price Varies)

So, obviously these aren’t IF games, however as the only AAA RPG games in history to actually craft authentic, heartfelt romances, they deserve the spot. Not to mention the rest of the storytelling is fantastic. Play whichever game you like, they’re all great for different things, but I would recommend you start with Dragon Age: Origins. You play as typical RPG hero who is tasked with saving the world with a bunch of assholes you pick up along the way. Origins in particular is super immersive with a large dialouge tree and decisions that directly effect the game world and the events of the proceeding games. I’m sure most of you have at least heard of Dragon Age, but if you haven’t played it yet, go do yourself a favour 

That’s actually about it for games that I would hand-over-heart recommend to everyone. But it’s not a lot, so here’s some others I’ve found in my travels that might be worth checking out, depending on what you’re into (in rough order of how much I like them):

Endless Summer (Choices) - The only Choices game worth its salt, IMO. It’s come to my attention that not everyone has played it? Go do that.

Titanic (Storyscape) - Be prepared to ~cry~ 

Dream Daddy - It’s not my kind of game but you can’t deny its good.

Mystic Messenger - Classic otome, only the LIs are actually likable. 

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery - All things considered, a good RP game

Aloners - Excellent for what it is. Great indie game.

Hakuouki - *sigh* Can’t not put the OG on here. Characters, story and theme are great. As a romance game? Not so much.

The Arcana (I never got into it but I know a lot of people love it)

Backstage Pass - Basic, but kind of cute. 

Monster Prom - Barely a romance game, but fun nonetheless

Nameless - Again, like all classic Otomes, not my favourite for romance, but a cool game notheless

Red Embrace: Hollywood - It’s...an experience. I can’t say I hate it though. Read trigger warnings. 

Dangerous Fellows - Great concept, wish it was better written.

[catzcasz]

Re-Watching Marineford

SO, today a reactor that I follow on Twitch watch the last part of Marineford for the first time. And, this was my first time re-watching a big part of Marineford in one day. 

Here are some of my interactions/comments:

First, the Ace thing. When the Ace scene came, you know... when Akainu started talking shit. I was screaming, for real, even though I knew what was going to happen, I was screaming, “Do not fucking fight back to Akainu you stupid, I love you but I hate you Ace, Why!” Do not get my wrong, I know why he did it, but I was so mad and sad XD. Even after 10 years.

I was literally a mess. And then, with the smile of Ace and the mention of Dadan and Sabo. I just want to hug Luffy. I literally tried to hug my PC.

When the Shirohige vs Akainu came, I scream SHIROHIGE GOOOO. I can admit that I screamed a couple times “I hate you Akainu” “Kill him! Shirohige” (Jesus I go violent there XD, I surprise myself.).

And then, Kurohige. OH GOD. I fucking hate him. When he appears, this happened:

The reactor: I know! He is going to take advantage, and kill Withbeard.

Me: Yeah! Because he is a fucking asshole.

STOP TALKING SHIT YOU BLACKBEARD. GOOO SHIROHIGE!. STOP SHOOTING, STOP! You horrible men. This is so mess up.

Shirohige I love you 

Amazing last words. HOW MANY FUCKING HOLS THIS MAN HAVE! He is a god, look him. I love you. I fucking love you.

Me seeing Coby, Luffy, and Marco's face, poor babies. I just want you to be happy. This war is horrible, everything was about destruction, You are fucking right COBY I am proud!.  

The reactor face, when Shanks appears, was fantastic XD

Honorable mentions: Jinbei, Oars, Iva, Inazuma, Croco, Law, Buggy, Mr.3, Boa. All allies and the commanders. All did a lot of things for Luffy. If I miss somebody I am sorry XD I am just a mess.

I LOVE YOU GARP, I do not care if a part of the fandom hate you for this arc.

I did not cry, but I mean I have watched it a lot of times, this is just the first time that I re-watched it in one day. And I still have a lot of emotions, making me scream, making me hit my table, oh gosh One Piece I love you.

[callsignbaphomet]

So I’m just gonna get right to the point. I love playing Skyrim, I love playing as my OCs in Skyrim. I especially love modding the living heck out of this game while playing as my OCs and pretty much living vicariously through them.

However, as much as I love this game IT IS SEVERELY LACKING IN LGBTQ+ CONTENT AND THE OPTION TO MARRY SOME CHARACTERS OF THE SAME GENDER AND ONE INSTANCE OF AN MLM COUPLE THROUGH A LETTER BECAUSE THEY’RE BOTH DEAD AF IN THE DRAGONBORN DLC IS NOT ENOUGH FOR MY QUEER ASS!

So what to do? Mods! It’s 2020 and a lot more people are openly accepting and open-minded, right? So finding LGBTQ+ mods should be a lot easier, right? Eh.........no. I’ve spent several days trying to find mods to make my Skyrim playthrough as queer as I possibly can make it, specifically for my High Elf OC who is trans (FtM), very effeminate, has a none muscular body and build and very gay. I think now, after several days of research, tutorials, testing and an endless amount of headaches I think I have the mods to make my play through true to how I imagine and have written this character as.

Bare with me for a few seconds, I promise I’ll get to the point and this is worth reading. I’m trying to get as much information in this as possible.

Disclaimer:

This mod list is only for the PC version of the game. Look, I’m super, super sorry but basically over 95% of all these mods are exclusively found online and even if they ARE on beth.net they aren’t used at full capacity from what I understand. Believe me, as a mainly console player, it breaks my heart that I can’t include the consoles for this list.

I won’t be linking to just Nexus. I’ve found a bunch of mods outside of the Nexus that are reliable.

I’ll only be working with the Special Edition version of the game. It’s the one I have and am playing on.

I will NOT be covering female body replacers. At freakin’ all. There are literal dozens of mods covering this. There will only be ONE and it is for very specific reasons only.

In my little venture into finding these mods I came across a lot of homophobic, transphobic and downright disgusting comments within the Nexus. I also found out a lot of queer mod authors were driven out of the Nexus because of said homophobic people. This is what happened to Vector and also why SavrenX refuses to upload anything other than weapon, item retextures to the Nexus. Nexus users and community overall is very homophobic and toxic so I’m very sorry if you see or read something upsetting. I advice you avoid the comments (known as posts on Nexus) tab as to avoid seeing some vile shit. Ignore them and don’t engage them ffs, they just want a reaction out of you. There’s no correcting these assholes much less educating them. They ain’t worth your time. Just report and move on.

The majority of the mods linked in this post have been tried by me, if I haven’t tried them out I’ll say so. Again, I’m learning as I go along and believe me this hasn’t been an easy task to find all of these working mods.

No, I won’t be searching or uploading any ports, texture, mesh or mod edits I myself have done. I ain’t confident in how well I may have or not have edited the mods and more importantly that’s as bad as uploading art that wasn’t done by you. Sadly, you’ll have to do these changes yourself. I’ll try my best to link tutorials. Also don’t go and harass the authors for a port or an update ffs.

I’ll most likely be editing this list as I learn more.

Yes, I will leave links from adult sites. A lot of these sites pretty much force you to sign up in order for you to download their content. It’s fine, just make some random account and you’ll instantly gain access to the mods. Just know there’ll be nsfw images, gifs and videos everywhere in these sites.

While I will be referring to male characters a lot of these if not all can also cater to non-binary characters too!

No, I will not be covering sex mods. I have no intention of adding them to any of my load orders and I really don’t care to. You’re on your own for that category. Try Lover’s Lab.

*Body Mods/Replacers/Races:

Schlongs of Skyrim (aka SOS). Not the only choice out there but the most current and fully working one. Pretty much mandatory for a bunch of mods so might as well have it, ya know?

Tempered Skins for Males. Was known as Better Males; pairs up beautifully with SOS. Super amazing work if you ask me.

Shape Atlas for Men (aka SAM). This is literally the god king of all male body replacers. Want a twunk? This mod will do it. Want a regular Joe? This can do it. Want a bear of a man running around in Skyrim? Yeah, girl, this can do it. Ever since I discovered it I have been obsessed with it! HOWEVER, the full working mod is only available for Old Skyrim, maybe for Legendary Edition but I’m not sure. Vector said he had plans to port the full working mod to Special Edition but confessed he was having issues with the scripts. Also afaik Vector’s last updates on working on the mod were back in late 2016 so I think it’s safe to say this beautiful mod will never be seen running on SSE. Sadly Vector just up and left the modding scene somewhere in 2018. It none of our business but from what I read he faced a lot of homophobic harassment from people not liking his body mod or giving him shit because he didn’t want to make a female body mod. He even faced harassment from our very own community.

Not all’s lost though. Some of the amazing modders in Vector’s site have made a working version for SSE.

SAM Light, SAM Morphs for RaceMenu, SAM SE Vanilla Armor Refit, SAM High Poly Conversion, SAM Light Texture Add-on, High Poly Head

The Ultra Femme. Title should be super self-explanatory. Super good if your character is really femme or non-binary or trans. I haven’t tried out this body myself and I’m not entirely sure whether this is compatible with SE or not. RefurbMadness has a lot of mods hosted in her site and still has some in Nexus that are being hosted by the site’s Care Taker. I’m actually gonna link a few later. I honestly suggest going through her site and reading up everything. She’s pretty clear when it comes to instructions, the only problem is she’s not exactly clear on whether her mods are compatible with SE or not. Maybe it’s written somewhere in there, I’m still new to modding and need very clear descriptions (you kinda gotta talk to me like I’m 5 when it comes to mods). I need to check more of her content and test a bunch of things. She also has armor and clothing mods.

Milkdrinker Male Texture and Slim Male Body for SoS (<3<3<3). Both by the same mod author. Sadly only available for Old Skyrim but the only reason why I linked it is because both mods are super easy to convert to use for SSE. Sweetie, if I managed to do it, you can do it too. Watch this, or this or this or try to Google it and see what comes up. Personally I tried the Slim Male Body and it was pretty good. Unfortunately you’d have to refit all the armors to fit either body yourself.

Transgender Race and NPCS SSE. Like I said before I wasn’t going to link or talk about any female body replacers except for one. This one! Look, there are a few out there but they’re extremely transmisogynistic and fetishistic and use a lot of outdated and transphobic language plus they’re mostly sex mods so I will abso-freaking-lutely NOT be linking them. Anyway, the people behind this port are back to working on this mod and have plans for adding transgender men. As of now the mod only has transgender women. They can’t add more genders due to the engine limitations and FYI they used “race” in the title because this isn’t a body mod, it’s actually a race. This is one of the few mods that won’t play well with SoS.

There IS one more body or better said, race, I tried but I really didn’t like it. Mod worked as it was advertised but--well, whatever, it’s for personal reasons that I didn’t like it and it depended way too much on a lot of more mods and it bloated up my LO something fierce so for that reason I ain’t gonna link it. Mod’s called Femboy if you wanna give it a try yourself.

*Extras (edits, armors, clothes and more):

Enhanced Character Edit SE. Tl;dr this is like RaceMenu but on steroids. It offers way more sliders and because of this it has fantastic potential to mold your character’s body to your personal liking. I used this instead of RM for my High Elf I mentioned earlier. He has a more “delicate” frame and is much thinner than my other OCs and this mod did exactly what I’ve been trying to achieve for a very long time now. Works like a charm.

SSE Luscious Locks for All - Unisex KS Hair. Makes it so that male characters can use all the hair options that comes with KS Hairdos SSE. Guys with long hair! Yummy! <3

Oooooooorrrrrrr you can just install ApachiiSkyHair SSE which has a bunch of long hair options for men to look fabulously yummy! This is the one I’m using.

Femfeet Redesigned SSE Port For Everyone. Look, it’s a foot texture mod, that’s it. Works with Better Males aka Tempered Skins and SoS, so yes, your guys will have pretty feet. Load this AFTER you body mod of choice.

Apachii Divine Elegance Store. This store has so much to offer. Really beautiful clothes and armors, exceptional jewelry, wonderful accessories aaaaaand your male character can also use the nails that are offered by the mod. So if you want your male character to have some stunning and colorful manicures done this mod offers it. They also offer actual claws that also comes in different colors so you can have both styles. Look, imo this is a must for femme male and enby characters. Your guys are going to look beautiful!

Immersive Jewelry - Earring for Male Characters. This enables Immersive Jewelry earrings to be wearable and visible on male characters.

Light Elven Armor for Men, Light Glass Armor for Men, Light Daedric Armor for Men. Tired of women being the only ones to get skimpy outfits? Ja, me too! Here’s some of the armor mods RefurbMadness ported to SSE before she left Nexus. There’s more available for Old Skyrim but you’ll need to convert them over to SSE yourself.

Slof’s Lair. Slof has a collection of skimpy armors, some accessories and even modern clothes (if that’s your thing). They have a link to their Nexus profile on their page but instead of adding all the links I just figured to leave the link to their site so you can check everything they have to offer. I haven’t tried any of Slof’s mods myself though I’m super interested in the Just For Men collection of mods and the Goth Shop (chill, it’s mostly Tera armors without the need to download that massive Tera mod).

Tera Armors Collection - Special Edition. And here’s that massive mod I previously mentioned but it’s actually a really good one. I’ve tested this out on both pc and Xbox One and it looks gorgeous on both!

The Well Dressed Mage. Not exactly skimpy but kind of revealing. Idk, these look lovely af and I wanna try them on my Altmer. Maybe someone else will want to try these too.

Modular Bandoliers and Pauldrons for Males. Pretty simple and to the point. Haven’t tried it since it wouldn’t go with my elf’s more refined bitchy tastes.

Bad Dog’s Skimpy Clothes SE. Some skimpy outfits for guys that were converted over to SE apparently not too long ago.

Bodyslide and Outfit Studio. So none of the stuff listed above is to your liking. That’s where this comes in. Thing is you actually CAN convert female armors and clothes for male use. So download the armors and clothes you wanna use and throw them and the body meshes you use into Outfit Studio. I myself am still learning how to go about doing this and the tutorials out there are kinda hard to come by. Try this video. I followed it and managed to convert a female outfit to fit on a male body I was using. Still need a lot of practice though but am working on it.

As far as makeup goes you can edit the colors of your character’s eyeshadow, eyeliner, cheeks and lips but with ECE or RaceMenu you can edit the colors further. May need to do some extra hard tweaking some choices though, not gonna lie. If I find a much better option I’ll post it.

I’m currently trying to find how the heck to get male characters to wear heels or if there’s a mod that has it. Like, that’s the last thing I need to make clothes complete. I’ll get back to this when I find it.

*Animations:

FNIS PCEA2 - Player Exclusive Animations (Dynamic) SE. So you got your character, you’ve dressed them and done up their hair and all that and to this point it’s all come together perfectly...until your femme male/enby character or your butch female/enby character starts walking and standing idly by and the poses and animations are completely and utterly wrong. Why is he walking like an angry gorilla? Why is she walking like a Victoria’s Secret model down the walkway? Can you switch their animations?

YES!!!

PCEA2--and yes, you will need FNIS to get this working--allows you to make animation changes to only your character. You can even add and/or remove which animation packs you want your character to use! I’ve just barely begun testing this mod as well as adding some specific packs for my Altmer and the pretty female idles works like a charm for him. I downloaded FNIS Sexy Move SE to try this out on him and see if it works but according to Fore it should work as long as you installed everything correctly and ticked the appropriate box to activate the animation pack you want. I’m not entirely sure if you can customize the choices given by each animation pack, probably something as simple as deleting the animations you don’t want and leaving the one you do want. I’ll have to test this further.

*Gameplay and Voices:

Simply Gay Letters. Simple and sweet little mod that adds some letters in certain places all over Skyrim tying certain NPCs to other NPCs. The hinted at couples are all the mod author’s headcanons so if that bothers you I suggest moving on.

Queering Skyrim - Blueflower Necklace. Basically it stops female NPCs from showing interest in your male character when wearing an amulet of Mara. Queering Skyrim - Lavender Menace Necklace does the exact same thing but for female characters.

Same Sex Perks - A Lover’s Insight - Agent of Dibella - Allure. Y’all remember Confirmed Bachelor from New Vegas? Remember how no Beth game has put it in their games again but are totally adding some lazy attempts to include us LGBTQ+ folks? The author has a pretty clear and easy to understand description of the mod in the page. There’s also Gay Insight - A Lover’s Insight Tweak which does the same as the other one but much simpler. I guess it’s up to you and your tastes when it comes to which one to use. I myself am using Same Sex Perks since it adds other perks.

Player Voicesets for SSE - Custom Voice Version. I downloaded this but I haven’t installed it yet. If I understood correctly this lets you change your character’s voice to any of the in game voices. My advice? Go into the page and read everything.

PC Head Tracking and Voice Type SE. The reason I haven’t installed the previous mod is because I have THIS one installed because of the head tracking but it also comes with an added voice feature so this might clash with the other one. I still need to test whether they do the same thing or not.

Skyrim - Player Re-Voiced Series. CaseyTheVA was kind enough to make a bunch of voices for your character. Just your character. I’ve tested these on Xbox and they are legit really freakin’ good! They seem to have added a lot more since the last time I checked. Unfortunately these are only available on beth.net or for Old Skyrim on the Nexus. You could just download them from the game’s mod page and remove the files and upload them back into the game using whatever mod manager you use. I did this with Cheat Room. Or you can port them yourself from Nexus. Honestly the quality alone is worth all the trouble.

[thanagariansnarebeast]

Top 15 favorite video games: part 2.

7. Bioshock

I remember first reading about this game in the pages of Game Informer and being fascinated by the story and the environment of what was described. I had no idea how good it was until I launched up the game and finally took that first decent into Rapture. The claustrophobic environment, visual aesthetic of a dilapidated dystopia and the enemies being remnants of once good people were all an amazing experience. The story and characters were amazing, and the idea of an underwater city built to try and be free of any ideology or morality was fascinating, and finding out exactly how the city fell apart and collapsed under its own “greatness” was a very unique experience.

6. God of War (PS2)

This game was a birthday present when I was 15 and I loved it, I love Greek mythology and I love action games, so this was an amazing gift. The opening of the game is one of the best I’ve ever played, and the boss fights are some of my all time favorites. The music in this game is incredible, and I love the accurate representation of the Greek gods being complete fucking assholes and ruining lives because they just don’t care. Kratos is a great anti-hero (or villain, ether one is fair) and the Blades of Chaos are a really unique video game weapon. The sequels are amazing but this one holds a special place in my heart.

5.   Devil May Cry 3

Another birthday present, this one from the year before, this game was a very interesting experience for me; I’d never seen such a difficult game, or one so anime inspired. This game oozes goofy, over the top fun and demon slaying is always fun. The combos and weapons in the game are fantastic, and the story might be a big generic; but the game never takes itself seriously enough for that to be an issue. The characters in the game are great and Dante and Virgil being brothers who are enemies is a fun dynamic. This game also has some fantastic boss fights they really make you have to master your timings and attacks.

4. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

I fucking love Star Wars, I fucking love RPGs, and I fucking love good stories and characters; and this game has all of that. The story of this game is one of my favorites in anything, not just video games but all media, and the Revan twist is something that I didn’t see coming and really blew me away the first time I played this game. I’ve probably played through the story 7 or so times and I still love it, Bioware is at its best here and the character interactions and your decisions effecting everything in the game and you being able to ruin entire planets with your decisions really makes you feel like what you are doing is important to the galaxy. HK 47 calling everyone a “meatbag” is endlessly hilarious, and might be the first sassy Star Wars robot. I was at a con recently and got an autograph of Jennifer Hale (Bastila Shan) and its something very special to me in large part because of this game.

3. Mortal Kombat (2009)

Mortal Kombat 9 was such an amazing experience when it first came out. The past 5 Mortal Kombat games had been 3D, and had really suffered in quality because of it. The stories and characters had become terrible and the franchise was dying. Then came Mortal Kombat 9, or just Mortal Kombat as its actually called. The first 2D game in the franchise since the good old days of UMK3 and Mortal Kombat Trilogy, it was a reboot of the franchise that still used everything that had come before to set up the story. Knowing the old games was a benefit to the twists and turns of the story and altered timeline, but not essential to it. This was also the re-invigoration of the tournament scene for the MK games, which was a very welcome return. The roster of this game is damn near perfect, with the dlc adding an old favorite, the only good character from Deadly Alliance, Freddy motherfucking Kreuger, a new character that was a lot of fun, and I had the PS3 version so I also had Kratos which was awesome. Everything in this game represented a return to form and a new beginning for a franchise that desperately needed it. Mortal Kombat X and 11 have both been fantastic as well, but I chose 9 because of not just it being a fantastic game, but what it did for the series.

2. Dark Souls

I love dark fantasy and I love armor and weapons in video games, and this game has that as well as fantastic combat, and some amazing gothic horror as well. The bosses in this game are some of the best in any game and the game may be punishingly difficult, but the feeling of accomplishment when you finally get over some massive hurdle you were stuck on or finally slay a powerful boss that had been using your body as a punching bag is so incredibly satisfying. The sad state of the world in this game is also refreshing, instead of being some amazing savior sent to kill the big bad fucking up the world; your goal is ether to prolong the dying world for a little while longer, or end it and start something new. Killing gods that have been corrupted and used to be heroic adds a tragic twist to fighting bosses and makes killing them bitter sweet. I absolutely adore how you can make different characters and create builds around certain spells and weapons and I really wish more games would incorporate systems like that, even if they aren’t exactly balanced in any Dark Souls game. I also love how when you get past the opening area you can pretty much go where ever you want, the level design is almost perfect, with every location being somewhat connected to the next, often times looping in on each other.

2. (tie) Dragon Age: Origins

The second Bioware game on this list, it has all the roleplaying and great character writing of KotOR and more, a deep universe that they created; this game was in development for a long time to create a rich lore and new twist on fantasy tropes. The world really feels fleshed out and the characters feel like real people, with issues and hang ups and oddities that make them not just archetypes like most games have. Making decisions that effect characters and your companions can often be tough because you really care about what happens to them and how they feel, and how the world sees you. The gameplay isn’t perfect, its an odd mix of turn based and real time, but it still works pretty well. I put Dark Souls and Dragon Age in the same spot because I love them both for the same yet opposite reasons, if someone could take the roleplaying and world building of Dragon Age and combine it with the stats and combat and boss fights of Dark Souls it would create the perfect game for me.

1. The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion

I absolutely loved playing this game when it first came out, and I really wish I could get it to work on my PC so I could relive the glory that is this game. Skyrim is probably the more obvious pick for most people, but Oblivion was my first Elder Scrolls and first Bethesda game; and Oblivion has better rpg mechanics and a better story in my humble opinion. I love the Dark Brotherhood questline in this game more than any other questline in any game ever, its so fucking good. The game looks like shit graphically now, but back when it came out it was gorgeous, and I remember the first time I played it on an HD tv I was blown away. The rich world and the big name actors being in it was a real treat, and having Sir Patrick Stewart play the king really gave that character the gravitas and importance that was needed to establish a character quickly. Sean Bean being his son was also fantastic, and brings this list pretty much full circle because of him being in Goldeneye. The armor and weapon designs are really good for the most part, and I love collecting all the Daedric artifacts and creating havoc with them. I still get excited when I hear the music from this game, and its orchestral quality really adds to the epic feeling of the game. There’s no one stealing sweet rolls or arrows to the knee in this one ether.

There are a lot of other games that I love and that were hard to leave off this list, but its pretty long as it is; and I’m sure eventually new games will take the place of some of these.

[ao3feed-bakudeku]

by carnationsaint

Introducing our Endearing Narrator, Bakugou Katsuki:

“Oi, fuckers. I was told to do some of this shit for PR or whatever but some of you assholes seem stupidly entranced by my life. Which is an awesome life, by the way, because I’m the fucking best. You better fuckin’ believe it, because if I have to say that shit twice I’ll fuckin’ murder you on the spot, ‘kay? Anyway, what I’m supposed to say is that this is like some diary shit. It’s about my fantastic fuckin’ life becoming as fucking great as it is now. What’s it to you? I’m fucking happy as shit now, don’t throw me a fucking party for it. I guess I get a boyfriend and fall in love or some stupid gushy bullshit. And I fucking really like him, alright? Don’t fuck with him. Yeah, I guess my friends are cool too, but this is all about my boyfriend and how fucking perfect he is. Hands off, dickheads. He’s mine. And this is about how he became mine. Oh, and it’s a bit about some feelings shit that happened, and some fucking kidnapping and conventions or whatever. I’m not saying any more shit, because if you read it you’ll find the fuck out. If you can’t read, then get the fuck outta here. Useless.”

Words: 3763, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Categories: F/F, F/M, M/M

Characters: Bakugou Katsuki, Midoriya Izuku, Shinsou Hitoshi, Todoroki Shouto, Kirishima Eijirou, Shindou You, Inasa Yoarashi, Uraraka Ochako, Asui Tsuyu, Iida Tenya, Kodai Yui, Tokoyami Fumikage, Yagi Toshinori | All Might, Dabi | Todoroki Touya, Todoroki Enji | Endeavor, Kaibara Sen, Toga Himiko, Gran Torino, Shigaraki Tomura, idk lots more, Oh and some kinda useless OCs

Relationships: Bakugou Katsuki/Midoriya Izuku, background Shinsou Hitoshi/Todoroki Shinsou, background Shindo Yo/Kaibara Sen, background Iida Tenya/Kodai Yui, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Hitoshi Shinsou & Midoriya Izuku, Todoroki Shouto & Midoriya Izuku, Katsuki Bakugou & Eijirou Kirishima

Additional Tags: Adult Pro Heroes, Future Fic (~23 yo), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Bakugou Katsuki Swears A Lot, like a lot, Everyone swears a lot, Bakugou Katsuki is Bad at Feelings, Protective Bakugou Katsuki, Feisty Deku, Idiots in Love, jealous bois, Sexual Awakening (kinda), Sexual Tension, like tooth rotting, Literally Tooth Rotting, Bakugou Katsuki Tries to be PC around Women, They Practically are Fucking Boyfriends, oblivious bois, Was a Smidgeon of Angst, Not Anymore so SIKE, Unreliable Narrator, Oh and There's a Convention Somewhere, Does Anyone Read these Tags?, Sexual Content (described then maybe later), Please Don't Copy to Other Sites, Social Media Stuff too

[locria-writes]

Do you mind posting a list of all the good otome games you've played or are really interested in? Or if that's too complicated, maybe a list of your top 10 favourites? I see you posting about them often and I've been wanting to try some of them because...hello hot guys galore...😱😱😱

you don’t know how much i love gushing about otome games and my harem of husbandos (also lmao i’ve outed my terrible tastes here)

pc games

steam prison // so so good, definitely recommend! my only complaint is that you can’t romance Good Boi finn (by proxy depriving us of that wonderful cyrus/sachsen banter), but i guess i can settle for adage lmao. hits a very good balance between humour and seriousness, but it’s a really long game to complete

nightshade // honestly, one of my absolute favourites ever. ost is kickass, sprites are gorgeous, and the plot is pretty good. they’re literally all such good beans ugh i love them all. depending on the play order you do, and whether you do the bad ends or not, it can be not-too-painful sad to wow-just-rip-my-heart-out-and-stomp-on-it sad. goemon is honestly the best though, just saying

hakuouki // i’d recommend both games, but if you can’t afford it, then get edo blossoms, since that’s where most of the romance is. also, they get their western uniforms in that one!!! hachiro is still my best boi (sorry okita, heisuke, harada, and everyone else). suuuuuper long to play through, i think it took me ~60 hrs to complete everything, but it’s a labour of love

amnesia // okay, i trashtalk this a lot, but it’s a solid game except for when they did my boi toma dirty >:c ikki is definitely best boi though. some routes are better than others (read: toma’s route is pretty meh while everyone else has pretty great ones), but ukyo arguably has the best and saddest one. i feel like this is almost an otome staple at this point lmao

nameless // another classic and favourite of mine! yandere galore, more than a little heartbreaking, and wow just wow overall. they’re all such sweet guys (yes, tei and ??? included), and the side characters are all fantastic and very memorable. it’s kinda long though, i think 50+ hrs to finish everything, but oh my god is it worth it. i teared up quite a few times

ozmafia!! // a controversial choice, but i loved all the characters in it, and in the end, the plot did pay off. it just feels like a very cramped and rushed game at times, but the characters make up for it, honestly. i’m just mad over how they did my boi hamelin so fricking dirty #JusticeForHamelin #HamelinDidNothingWrong yes i’m still salty about it

cinderella phenomenon // highly recommend this one since it’s free! it’s probably my favourite oelvn to date -- beautiful art, great storyline, and wonderful characters except when they did my boi varg so so dirty :c the last 2 routes are definitely more painful than the first 3, and way more important to the plot.

the rose of segunda //another oelvn i highly recommend! pretty, a great read, and lovable characters. there’s a secret romance too, and holy god it was so good! frederique and mc are so great together, and i honestly fell so hard for leopold because w o w  i love me an ambitious man like him

monochrome heaven* // i have so many feelings about this one, but i’ll still recommend it lol. it’s very...depressing and can get difficult to read at times. honestly, it says a lot when the worst boi turns out to be the best boi. i remember just feeling so hollow after finishing the game, but it was worth the hours i invested

‘till death do us part* // a very questionable addition to this list, but i really liked it. marcus and jack are probably the most ‘romantic’ of the bunch, but i guess it’s not really an otome game

boyfriend to death 1 & 2* // 2 more questionable choices a la the above, but i enjoyed them both. lawrence, damien, and strade were my favourite guys

mobile games

ikemen sengoku // l o o k, i’m a sucker for the sengoku era, beautiful art, and great casting choices for voices okay??? i like playing softer and more light-hearted games sometimes, and this is the perfect game for that. honestly, every single guy is likable and none of them treat mc terribly (yes, including the yandere, the snek, and the playboy).

ikemen revolution // honestly, the same as the above. a great light read, lovable cast, and beautiful art. also, super stoked for mousse atlas to get over here because i’ve already decided that i’m completely in love with him

ikemen vampire // yeah, i know this isn’t out yet in english, but from what i played of jpn and what i’ve read of translations, i love it already. kinda feels like fate meets otome, and i love all the character designs, voices, and concepts

samurai love ballad party // like ikemen sengoku, but angstier lmao. i don’t really like the art and the sprites, but the story and characters are great, so i don’t really mind. i just wish my faves would stop being such disasters (ieyasu, sakuya, nobuyuki, kotaro)

love and producer/mr love queen’s choice // HAVE I TOLD YOU ABOUT MY LORD AND SAVIOUR BAI QI/GAVIN???? if you’ve played love nikki, it’s the same kind of grind, but i don’t even care??? the cards are beautiful??? the bois are all so wonderful and cute and perfect (yes, even shady af scientist)???? have i told you how wonderful and perfect my husband bai gege is??? also, download the japanese voice pack, the eng dub is kinda crappy

mystic messenger // so time-consuming, but so addicting lol. very fun, surprisingly dark, and all the characters are great (except for rika, we all hate rika). 707 is my home boi, but saeran is fantastic and i demand a proper unknown route because i want to get terrified by this lovely edgy angsty kid

my last first kiss // i can sell this in 3 words -- childhood friend romance. like, that’s my jam right there. i love the guys and their relationships with mc (fussy ayato is so cute, and mako and taka are so so sweet with mc). super fun and sweet read

lust in terror manor* // an elusive horror otome! it’s too bad it never got properly completed, but i guess there’s some kind of closure? translation’s kinda crappy, but good enough to read. rui and naoto were kinda meh, but hayato was the best boi, sorry i don’t make the rules.

several shades of sadism* // okay i can explain -- i love trashmen, i love guys with serious emotional baggage, and i love guys with flaws that make them oh so very real. minato is my favourite trashbag and i actually almost cried during his route because even though he’s an asshole, he’s really trying his best

cinderella contract* // this is where you realize i have no taste/standards whatsoever. trashy, i know, but goddamn i’m so invested in this. yuri is the trashiest of them all, and therefore he’s my husband sorry i don’t make the rules

princess of the moon* // ah yes, the trashiest of the trashy and i’m so ashamed i read this, let alone enjoy it as much as i do. very very smutty but i’m disappointed my boi dean didn’t get released on the og app

(*) -- game contains dubcon/noncon and just very questionable content in general. not for the faint of heart at all

[ghosty-schnibibit]

finally found time to listen to the first ep of graduation and holy shit!!! i love it so much!!!!! liveblog below ^u^

so i’ve stayed off tumblr for the last five days to avoid any spoilers and damn it was both hard and worth the wait, i am so hype for the rest of this season!!! i think this may be the longest liveblog i’ve ever done so apologies in advance to mobile users if the readmore doesn’t work.

oh dang! starting off with narration!

newa? oh cool we're not in faerun

“a blessing of unicorns” travis i am in love with your world already

loving the spookiness of the place names

trav i love it but this is so much lore so quickly bud i've had to pause to take notes like three times

"and our deaths become all but inevitable" jesus travis

i am so excited, this is going to be so much fun

this music is giving me such dreamworks vibes

AND A CAT :D

SPECTRAL CAT :O

and here's the other three boys!

griffin is getting out years of dm saltiness and i love it

a handsome half elf boy, neat

agro keen! nice name clint

his voice is like griffin put artemis sterling and indrid in a blender

sir fitzroy maplecourt, i love him already

clint no, i am too a ace for this

water genasi, that sounds fun

i cannot wait to see the fanart of this dude, he sounds so pretty

"you had me until the mustashe" same griffy, same

JUSTIN THIS CANNOT BE THE VOICE YOU USE FOR THE WHOLE CAMPAIGN, JUSTIN W H Y

clint started off vaguely crunchy and veered right into ned

this is untenable justin

just throwing this out there, just purely based on the voices, i think fitzroy is my fave so far

oh fun! like caduceus 

"that's an absolute unit!" mood

i need art of this dude so bad

... so the same name you gave the nitpicker lol

GARY THE GARGOYLE

fitzroy you precious baby boy

oh god this is bringing back memories

"what is a bunked bed?" says griffin 'every fantasy world i create contains elevators' mcelroy

"there is no shame in this" what does that mean justin

fitzroy is my sweet boy and i love him so much, my wee aristocratic dipshit

nice! 17 for the first roll of the campaign!

huh, nice! i like this mechanic

clint ilu

you mentioned maps in the ttazz trav, give me the maps

loving the verb usage lol

oh god its hagrid

i'm loving bud more and more each time he talks

"that's groundsy's place" that's where groundsy hides the bodies of students who displease him

ARGO WTF ARE YOU DOING

"both in different ways" dang

barn and battleground side... this sounds fun

does fitzroy want to be a knight? i love this

love the use of the word smooshed

hippocamp? oooooh horse mermaid, fun

BABY :D

nice, that sounds cool as hell

TRAVIS HOW HAVE YOU MADE ME CRY, THIS IS LITERALLY THE FIRST EP AND I'M LITERALLY IN TEARS OVER THIS BABY

y'know what, his voice has grown on me

justin you are crushing this entire scene and i love it

we're already getting some foreshadowing here and i am loving it

oh this music is so choice

YEAAAH first competent woman of the arc! :D

nice, go argo

"oooh, you're sir fitzroy" why does my boy have a reputation already

did my boy get kicked out of the hero tract without knowing it???

is he crying?????

"i had my feelings hurt by a strong man" b a b y  b o y

who's the asshole?

argo my sweet sarcastic boy

oh fun, new npc buddies :D

i'm getting some wicked malfoy vibes from this guy

argo is being a dick but in a very deserved way

travis was not kidding about the sheer volume of npcs, holy shit, i'm only about 45 minutes in and i think that's seven different npcs with names and distinct personalities

oh fun! fantasy wheelchair 0u0

make that ten named npcs

his full name is argonaut, cool!

i am so excited for her holy shit, i need to draw every single pc and npc but i want to draw her the most, i love her so much

fitzroy is a dipshit and i love him

ooooh i get it now, so it's almost more like an acting school, i am digging this setting so much trav

damn that is confident

... are they the only ones clapping?

higglemis is such a mood

justin ilu holy shit

i love leon so much already, he's so soft spoken and sweet

"you would not survive that" fair call lol

griffin no you're going to destroy me with second hand embarrassment

what are you doing fitzroy my dumb dumb boy

"i'm in heck" g r i f f i n

oh my sweet summer child. oh my poor baby :(

yes, what is your class my sweet failure boy

so he's a wizard boy, love it

thank you for trying bud ilu

f i t z r o y  2

druid boy!

rouge buddies :D

so we've got a druid, a wizard, and a rouge, nice balance, a little heavy to magic users but so was balance lol

... i am terrified to know what this squirrel thing is

never mind that is actually freakin adorable, and i love her so much

oh goody malfoy's back

... it's hazing. he's going to haze them.

trav’s doing a really good job of giving npcs with similar pitches of voice different cadences to their speech

the fuck griffin

"that would put me right off lemons" a r g o

oh he has a cape... i know i kept thinking of him as a sort of malfoy character but now i can't stop picturing eridan

i am genuinely loving all the hp digs, this is so good

SNEAKERY

oh nice! birdy teacher :D

griffin what owl character are you referring to??????

i love how mundane this is, no joke, it makes it feel really grounded

good to know since they don't really have a healer

they have a dedicated party class, i love this

are they actual skeletons??? holy shit travis i love this so much

he's such a nervous baby, awww

DAMN GRIFFIN NICE

i love how supportive these boys are

how did you manage that trav, dang

HE'S A WHAT GRIFFIN??? I'VE BEEN PICTURING HIM AS A LIL NERD BOY THE WHOLE TIME, HE'S A BARBARIAN????? H O W

"we don't talk about it" i love this

is that a spell? i need to look that up

i love this skeleton friend so much

clint's tradition of naming his weapons continues and i love it

clint what are you d o i n g

NICE! go argo :D

"fuck life lessons!" jesus fitzroy

so it's more of like... a vocational school, size-wise, which aligns with a lot of the background info trav's given us. nice, easy to mentally picture

blame taking???

"you're the one whose magic came and ruined everything!" i am so eager to know this magic barbarian boy's backstory

agro's going for a more errol flynn aesthetic lol

puppy :D

"we feel settled on bud" i just realized this is the second character justin's playing that we don't know the real name of lol

i am so eager to learn what the heck this is and i just know it's going to end in a cliffhanger with only 11 minutes left in the ep

"does a plant cry out? it is plant!" i love this sweet firbolg boy

awww, ranier is a sweety, i love her so much, she's my favorite npc so far

bud’s giving himself some larry bird boots lol

everyone but bud are dumb dumbs lol

this music is so good

i am so intrigued travis holy shit this is so good

a credit to trav, this is the first npc that's made me think of magnus in terms of vocal cadence and tone

oh groundsy

poor fitzroy lmao

I AM SO READY FOR THIS

in conclusion: i am so incredibly hype for the new season!!! i know this ep was mostly setup but i’m already super interested in everyone’s characters and the mystery of whatever’s going on in the spooky forest, and i’m loving the direction travis is taking with the world and how he’s combining the magical with the mundane to make a grounded yet fantastical setting! i can’t wait for the next ep and for all the great things to come this season with everyone ^u^