#I was fine playing on normal for 90% of the game but I had to duck the difficulty down to easy on the final boss...

[loveletterworm]

I didn't set out to find out what the mystery game you were playing was and... And I don't think I did, either! I've been playing the new version of YIIK though and kinda having the same thoughts I'm enjoying it a lot but it is kind of unrecommendable on account of the story representation being straight up esoteric. The steam screenshot doesn't line up though so I don't think that's it even if the colors are a little similar. I don't think YIIK is 50 hours though at least I hope not I'm only 15 hours in I don't have the stamina for long RPGs. I only have so much gamer stamina it's dwindling I'm weak but I'll spend it all on YIIK. I think this is a worthwhile usage of my time.

I heard that YIIK recently got a big update that's supposed to make it like good now, in some manner, but I kind of can't imagine ever playing YIIK if only because I find the phrase "yiiking out" too funny and it might in some way ruin it to actually live the yiik experience first hand...to know what yiiking out truly entails....I think spending your limited gamer stamina on playing YIIK is a noble goal though. Because it's funny to have a limited amount of things you can do and to decide to devote that energy to YIIK.

Out of curiosity I checked for you though and you might be like 3/4ths in or halfway these are just numbers without particular context to me

[inkskinned]

i got rickrolled today but it didn't work because i have adblocker installed, so youtube just told me i violated the terms of service. yesterday i was trying to edit a picture as a joke for my girlfriend, and google made me check a box to prove i'm human because i wasn't "searching normally".

it isn't just that capitalism is killing fun and whimsy, it is that any element of entertainment or joy is being fed upon by this mosquito body, one that will suck you dry at any vulnerability.

do you want to meet new friends in your city? download this app, visit our website, sign up for our email list. pay for this class on making a terrarium, on candlemaking, on cooking. it will be 90 dollars a session. you can go to group fitness, but only under our specific gym membership. solve the puzzle, sign up for our puzzle-of-the-month-club. what is a club if not just a paid opportunity - you are all paying for the same thing, which makes you a community.

but you're like me, i know it - you're careful, you try the library meetings and the stuff at the local school and all of that. the problem is that you kind of want really specific opportunities that used to exist. you are so grateful for libraries and the publicly-funded things: they are, however, an exception - and everything they have, they've fought tooth-and-nail to protect. you read a headline about how in many other states, libraries have virtually nothing left.

do you want to meet up with your friends afterwards? gift your friends the discord app. you can choose to go to a cafe (buy a coffee, at least), a bar (money, alcohol) or you can all stay in and catch a movie (streaming) or you can all stay in bed (rent. don't get me started) and scream (noise complaint. ticket at least).

you want to read a new book, but the book has to have 124 buzzwords from tiktok readers that are, like, weirdly horny. you can purchase this audiobook on audible! your podcast isn't on spotify, it's on its own server, pay for a different site. fuck, at least you're supporting artists you like. the art museum just raised their ticket price. once, they had a temporary exhibit that acknowledged that ~85% of their permanent art galleries were from cis white men, and that they had thousands of works by women (even famous women, like frida! georgia o'keefe!) just rotting in their basement. that exhibit lasted for 3 months and then they put everything away again.

walmart proudly supports this strip of land by the street! here are some flowers with wilting leaves. its employees have to pay out-of-pocket for their uniforms. my friend once got fined by the city because she organized a community pick-up of the riverfront, which was technically private property.

no, you cannot afford to take that dance class, neither can i. by the way - i'm a teacher. i'm absolutely not saying "educators shouldn't be paid fairly." i'm saying that when i taught classes, renting a studio went from 20 bucks an hour to 180 in the span of 6 months. no significant changes to the studio were made, except they now list the place as updated and friendly. the heat still doesn't work in the building. i have literally never seen the landlord who ignores my emails. recently they've been renting it out at night as an "unusual nightclub; a once-in-a-lifetime close-knit party." they spent some of those 180 dollars on LEDs and called it renovating. the high heels they invite in have been ruining the marley.

do you want to experience the old internet? do you want to play flash games or get back the temporary joy of club penguin? you can, you just need to pay for it. i have a weird, neurodivergent obsession with occasionally checking in to watch the downfall and NFT-ification of neopets. if i'm honest with you all - i never got into webkins, my family didn't have the money to buy me a pointless elephant. people forget that "being poor" can mean literally "if i buy you that toy, i can't afford rent."

you and i don't have time to make good food, and we don't have the budget for it. we are not gonna be able to host dinner parties, we're not made of money, kid. do you want some kind of 3rd space? a space that isn't home or work or school? you could try being online, but - what places actually exist for you? tiktok counts as social media because you see other people on it, not because they actually talk to you.

there was a local winter tradition of sledding down the hill at my school. kids would use pizza boxes and jackets and whatever worked, howling and laughing. back in september, they made a big announcement that this time, rules were changing, and everyone must pay 10 dollars to participate. when im not scared shitless, i kind of appreciate the environmental irony - it hasn't gone below 40. so much for snow & joyriding.

i saw a bulletin for a local dogwalking group and, nervous about making a good first impression, showed up early. the first guy there grimaced at me. "sorry," he said. "there's a 30-dollar buy-in fee." i thought he was joking. wait. for what? the group doesn't offer anything except friendship and people with whom to walk around the city.

he didn't know the answer. just shrugged at me. "you know," he said. "these days, everything costs money."

[paucubarsisimp]

Heyy could you write something about Pau Cubarsí being jealous but it’s not a normal thing because he usually shrugs it off but this time some guy really got on his nerves? 🩷

només tu

pairing: pau cubarsi x reader

summary: in which a random guy flirts with you and it gets on your boyfriend's nerves

warnings: none!

a/n: i tried putting catalan into it instead of spanish so lmk how it is!!

pau had never been the jealous type. not once. not even when he probably should’ve been.

he was quiet, steady—the kind of boy who didn’t need to raise his voice to take up space. he didn’t have to prove anything to anyone. not on the pitch. not in interviews. not even when someone was clearly trying to flirt with you right in front of him.

and you liked that about him. the way he trusted you, the way he trusted what you had. you felt it in the little things—his fingers brushing yours under the table, the way he’d glance at you and smile like he already knew you were his.

but tonight? tonight was… different.

the dinner was supposed to be casual. just a little post-match thing with friends and a few people from the club. pau had played the full 90 and you could still see the faint marks of the game on him—grass-stained socks, a tiny red scratch on his knee, his curls still damp from the shower.

he sat beside you, relaxed and quiet, his hand resting on your thigh under the table in that gentle, familiar way. he wasn’t saying much—he rarely did—but he was there, completely. tuned into you like always.

then someone new showed up.

a guy from the media team. not a player, but familiar enough to be bold. he sat across from you and started talking—fast, confident, a little too smooth. and somehow, all his attention landed on you.

you tried to be polite. really. but he kept going. kept leaning in. kept laughing at things you didn’t even mean to be funny. touching your hand when you reached for your drink, brushing your knee under the table like it was nothing.

and pau… wasn’t smiling.

his hand tensed on your thigh, just for a second. then he shifted, sitting up straighter, eyes focused now—not just on you, but on him.

then came the comment.

“so… you and cubarsí? didn’t peg you for the quiet type. thought you’d be with someone more, i don’t know… fun?”

he said it like it was a joke. but no one laughed. and you barely had time to open your mouth before pau spoke.

calm. quiet. and sharp enough to silence the whole table.

“maybe she likes quiet.” a pause. his voice low but clear. “maybe she doesn’t need someone who talks too much and says nothing.”

you felt it before you saw it—his hand gripping yours under the table. firm. grounding.

the guy across from you let out a weak laugh, trying to brush it off, but no one really picked it up. the conversation moved on. awkwardly.

pau didn’t.

when you were walking back to the car, the night air soft around you, you finally broke the silence.

“you alright?”

pau didn’t answer right away. he was looking ahead, jaw clenched, curls falling a little over his forehead.

“i’m fine.” then a pause. “i just… didn’t like the way he was talking to you.”

you stopped walking, tugging his hand until he faced you. his brows were furrowed, lips parted like he was still figuring out what to say.

“he wasn’t anything,” you said gently. “you know that, right?”

he nodded. looked down. then finally met your eyes.

“i know. it’s just…” he exhaled, like the words were stuck somewhere in his chest. “he looked at you like you were something he could win. like i wasn’t even there.”

your heart softened instantly.

you reached up and brushed your fingers through his curls, tucking one behind his ear.

“pau… mi amor… you’re always there.”

he leaned into your touch, eyes closing briefly like it calmed him. then he opened them again and whispered, “ets meva, no?”

his voice was barely audible. catalan. a little unsure. a little possessive. soft in a way that made your heart ache.

“sempre,” you whispered back. always.

he stepped closer, slipping both arms around your waist now, pulling you in until there wasn’t any space left. the city could’ve disappeared around you and he still wouldn’t have let go.

“no vull compartir-te.” i don’t want to share you.

you smiled, pressing your forehead to his.

“you never have to.”

then you kissed him—slow, certain, sweet. and when you pulled back, he still looked a little serious, but softer. more at ease.

“you’re really not used to being jealous, huh?” you teased gently.

he laughed under his breath. “not until you.”

taglist: @barcapix, @universefcb, @nngkay, @joaosnovia, @ilovebarcaaaa, @levidazai, @hollyf1,@mxryxmfooty, @halfwayhearted, @landoslutmeout , @meganesanchez, @linnygirl09, @spidybaby,, @vicolette lmk if you want to be added!

[7s3ven]

NOBODY’S SON, NOBODY’S DAUGHTER. luke (pjo) pt. 2

PART 1 > PART 2 > PART 3 > PART 4 (last pt)

( masterlist )

IN WHICH… Y/N is finally claimed by her father, who turns out to be Zeus. Now, she’s stuck in an empty cabin as the only forbidden child of Zeus. Luke, on the other hand, is thrilled to be playing her knight in shining armour and getting her through each lonely day.

“I’m in the wind, you’re in the water. Nobody’s son, nobody’s daughter.”

( follows the show - kind of just a oneshot bc i’m bored )

Warnings : a little bit of jealousy, arguing, Y/N being indecisive and confused (real), not proof-read

—

TAG LIST : @hottiewifeyyyy @kamiliora @be-bap @finnickodaddy @th0tblckgrl @shoyofroyoyoyo @csifandom @uniquely-her @imafrkinsimp @syraxesrevenge @ahh-chickens @dracoslovergirl @midnightstar-90 @8812-342 @liv1104 @krkiiz @arialikestea @ch16rles @lizziesliz @maryclx01 @jennapancake @lukecastellandefender @yuminako @coryoskywalker @julielightwood @crybabysbakery @jsbaby @liviessun @p3pperm1nttea @angie-esc @purplerose291 @prettylilsimp @10ava01 @froggiesstalks @happy-jj @czennieszn @gisellesprettylies @loveyava @kkrenae

I really hope this part is good enough 🙏

—

Being claimed was perhaps worse than staying in the Hermes cabin. The Zeus cabin was completely empty, much to Y/N’s dismay. Percy was unlucky enough to be a forbidden child too. Looks like neither of them would be having any half-siblings.

“I always knew she was destined for greatness.” Clarisse would say as if the life of a forbidden child wasn’t lonely and utterly isolated.

“Knock, knock.”

But there was one person who could light up the dim Zeus cabin.

“Hope you don’t mind that I brought strawberries. I picked ‘em myself. It was not easy work, let me tell you.” Luke chuckled as he walked in, shutting the door behind him. “Nice place.” He sarcastically said, staring at the cobwebs that littered the walls.

Y/N stared at him, unimpressed and unamused. “Being claimed was supposed to feel great. But I’m just back at square one again.” She huffed and took a strawberry Luke offered her. He sat beside Y/N, gesturing her to continue.

“You know, at least the Hermes cabin had another people. I’m stuck in this deserted cabin because my father finally decided that he wanted to see me! All I’m wondering is why it took so long. Why bother claiming me now?! Percy got claimed in under five days. I know people who have been claimed in one. Why did it take me ten years?! At least I know why I always attract trouble now. It’s because Zeus, that utter man whore, is my dad!”

Luke’s eyebrows silently raised at her words. “You’re welcome in the Hermes cabin any time, Y/N. Don’t forget that. I don’t think your dad was ignoring you… he was probably just waiting.”

“Yeah. Waiting until I finally proved myself to him. Because a child of Zeus should be a prodigy. No normal feat is allowed. It has to be impressive to gain his attention. How dumb.” Y/N scoffed.

“I was fine without him. I’ve gone my entire life never hearing from him and after ten years of being at camp, suddenly he wants to play daddy? He should’ve left me alone. But hey, at least you guys have more room in the Hermes cabin. I heard Chiron was going to move me.”

“What? But you’re practically part of the family. I mean, not exactly. It’d be weird if we were related because… you know… we’re friends and being such good friends with siblings seems weird.” Luke spoke so fast that Y/N couldn’t understand him.

She silently stared at him. “… You’re weird. Chiron just wanted to make more room for the newcomers. And, you know, I had been there for so long that I wasn’t considered new.”

“You okay, though? Your cuts aren’t still hurting? You don’t feel sick, right?” Luke carefully inspected her face and bruised arms, eyebrows furrowed in worry.

���Luke, I’m fine.” She reassured him, laughing. “Nothing hurts anymore.”

“Guess I’ve got to let you win the next game now.” He sighed. “I can’t believe you guessed Poseidon and got it right.”

“I took a wild guess. I wasn’t expecting it to be correct.”

Luke shrugged and stood up. “I need to go check up on some kids. A new group just arrived. Will you be alright by yourself? I can always go get Clarisse.”

Y/N stared up at him and a part of Luke wished she would ask him to stay. To stay in the stuffy cabin and just… talk.

“I think I need some alone time right now.” She softly smiled, resisting the urge to ask him not to walk out, to keep her company. “I just need to process all the shit that went down.”

Luke chuckled, ruffling her hair. “That’s my girl.” He began to walk away before he turned around last minute. “Hey, Y/N… thanks for staying by my side.”

“No problem. Thanks for being my friend, Luke.”

With a wounded heart and the embarrassment of being friend-zoned hanging high over his head, Luke walked out of the Zeus cabin.

Y/N didn’t see Luke again until a few days later. He was always so busy with the new kids but he still had time to leave a small box of strawberries on her porch.

It was dinner when Y/N could finally speak to Luke. She smiled at him and subtly waved and he grinned back. He had been talking with Chris about a boring topic but his eyes lit up when he saw Y/N. Luke stood up to sit with her before he was quickly intercepted.

“Luke.” One of the new girls said, staring up at him with her big doe eyes. She was claimed the moment she stepped into camp by Aphrodite. She seemed to already be her mother’s favourite. “Are you free to sit with me and my friends? We want to ask you a few questions.”

Luke was pulled away by the girl, leaving Y/N to watch him sheepishly grin. Y/N’s smile faltered. “I think he’s avoiding me.” She muttered to Percy, resting her cheek on the palm of her hand. She felt a twisted knot of jealousy well up as a girl giggled and grabbed Luke’s arm. And he let her.

The younger boy looked up in confusion. “Who? Luke? I don’t think so. Girls just seem to really like him.”

Y/N frowned but didn’t say anything else. She could only stare again as the girls around Luke laughed as he uttered something with a bashful smile.

“I’m turning in early.” Y/N said, standing up. She pushed her plate of dessert towards Percy, who slowly took it.

“You good?” He asked.

“Yeah. I’m not feeling well so I think I’m going to sleep early. Good night, Percy.” She deeply inhaled as she walked away, catching Luke’s attention.

“Excuse me, ladies. I’ll be back. I need to talk to someone.” He hurriedly got up, racing after Y/N. Percy, who was eating his second serving of cake, muffled a laugh. Luke was so whipped.

“Y/N.” The brunette boy finally caught up to her. He grabbed her arm, spinning her around. “Why are you leaving early? We haven’t talked for weeks so I thought we could use today to catch up.”

Y/N stared at him in confusion before she turned her head and quietly laughed. She covered her mouth to conceal the noise. “Luke… it’s only been three days.”

His face dropped and he cleared his throat. “I know… I was testing you. That’s all.” Yet his eyes looked at everything but Y/N. “So, how has your cabin been?”

“Lonely. It doesn’t feel the same without Chris ranting about Clarisse.” Y/N sighed, lightly biting the inside of her cheek.

“I’m not sure if I can rant about Clarisse like Chris but I could try keeping you company.” Luke offered, gazing at Y/N with eyes that begged her to agree.

She merely shrugged, not stopping Luke from strutting into her cabin and lying down on her bed. He outstretched his arms, confusing Y/N. “Hug.” Was all he said.

Y/N was never much of an affectionate person but Luke certainly was. His gestures ranged from secretly fiddling with her fingers to picking her up and swinging her around in the middle of the battle arena.

Begrudgingly, Y/N closed the distance between them. Luke grinned, pulling her closer. A few moments later, Y/N attempted to pull away. Luke prevented her from doing so. “Five more minutes.” He whispered in her ear.

But those promised five minutes turned into an hour.

And a peaceful hour turned into all night.

And all night turned into the sun rising and Clarisse waking the pair up.

“So this is where you’ve been hiding, Luke.” The Ares girl snickered, folding her arms over her chest. “Your siblings are wondering where you went. I assume by the lack of clothes on the floor that you two did nothing. How surprising for you, Luke.”

“Clarisse.” Y/N warned, sitting up.

“Okay, okay. I’m going. See you at breakfast, Y/N.” Clarisse sent her friend a teasing wink before she slithered off, laughing to herself.

“Sorry. I fell asleep.” Luke muttered, stretching. He not-so-subtly placed an arm around Y/N and when she didn’t shove him away, he smiled.

“It’s fine. I’ve already prepared myself for whatever gossip is about to spread around camp.” Y/N leaned back, shaking her head, while Luke chuckled.

“Nothing we haven’t dealt with before.” Luke retorted.

Camp Half-Blood seemed obsessed with the little thing going on between Y/N and Luke. Friendship, romance, confusing situationship. The campers called it many things.

“I’m so tired.” Y/N muttered, rubbing her tired eyes. Luke took that as his chance to gaze at her. His eyes traced over the bridge of her nose and the curve of her Cupid’s bow.

He smiled to himself, pressing his face deeper into the crook of Y/N’s neck.

“Luke. We need to get up.” As if suddenly uncomfortable with his close proximity, Y/N stood up.

“Oh. Yeah. I know how you can’t miss breakfast because you get cranky without it.” Luke chuckled while Y/N shoved him.

“Get out, Luke!” Y/N exclaimed, throwing a pillow at him. He bellowed out a laugh as he ran towards the exit.

“See you at breakfast, sweetheart!”

Y/N, with flushed cheeks and a racing mind, barged into the Ares cabin. “Clarisse.” She said, holding onto the doorframe for support. “I need your help.”

“What do you need?” Clarisse questioned as they walked side by side. Y/N sighed.

“Well, for starters, Luke is acting weird. I mean, he was always kind of weird but it’s gotten… more extreme. He’s getting so close and… calling me these pet names. What am I supposed to do? And why does it make me feel shy? Clarisse, help me!”

Y/N gripped her friend’s shoulders tightly. Clarisse lightly snorted. “Y/N, he’s just in love. Let the boy be.”

“In… love? W-With… me? In love with me?!” Y/N’s mind was spinning by now and it looked like this was her mid-life crisis. “He’s not… he can’t be… no… no… No! I have to go, Clarisse!”

Clarisse watched as Y/N sprinted off with the speed of a lightning bolt. “Haha. It’s so fun messing with them.”

“Hey, Clarisse. What’d you say to Y/N?” Luke immediately filled in Y/N’s spot. He furrowed his eyebrows, glancing at Y/N.

“I just told her how in love you are with her.” Clarisse winked and laughed at Luke’s appalled face.

“You… did what?” He questioned, panicking. “Why… why would you do that?! Clarisse! Shit!”

Luke, just like Y/N, rushed off. Clarisse smiled again. “So fun.”

Y/N hid within the comforts of her own cabin. She was supposed to teach some of the newbies archery but she was sure Clarisse could fill in for her.

“Luke… in love with me… no way.” She shook her head and deeply sighed, clutching onto her blanket. “He likes that Aphrodite girl.”

“Hey, sweetheart.” Speak of the devil. Luke opened the door, grinning at her. “Sorry I’m late. I tried meditating but I ended up falling asleep.” Classic him. “I brought you some food. I gotta teach some kids sword-fighting soon but I thought I’d just leave this here.”

Luke had one leg out of the door before Y/N stopped him. “Luke, can you maybe, I don’t know… stay over tonight? Again? It feels less lonely with you.” Y/N spoke slowly, as if testing the waters.

“Uh, yeah. Yeah. Sure. I’d be happy to keep you company. You can count on me, Sparky.”

Y/N scoffed, staring at Luke with her lips parted. “Sparky? No way are you calling me that.”

“Too bad. See ya, Sparky!” Luke managed to close the door before the pillow Y/N tossed his way hit him. She scoffed, looking around yet no words came out of her mouth.

“Sparky… Sparky?!” Y/N exclaimed in disbelief. “What sort of nickname is that?!”

Luke, who stood outside the door and heard Y/N, chuckled. He ran his tongue over his teeth, “Cute.”

A quiet knock on the door interrupted Y/N’s half-conscious nap. She stumbled to the entrance, slowly twisting the knob. “Hey.” She mumbled to Luke, who was holding an armful of snacks.

“Hey, Sparky.” He greeted her with his usual boyish smile. “Did I wake you?”

“I was just taking a small nap. You can always let yourself in, by the way.” Y/N muttered, yawning.

“I didn’t wanna be rude.” Luke replied as he stepped inside, brushing past Y/N. “Hey. I have an idea.” He suddenly said, spinning around. Y/N raised her eyebrows, gesturing him to continue. “I know you don’t like hanging out in this cabin so what do you say we check out the lake?”

“That’s breaking the rules.” Y/N said, shaking her head.

“Come on, I wanna go on a walk. And I’m already breaking rules being here. A few more can’t hurt.”

Y/N wanted to say no but how could she when Luke was looking at her like that?

“Fine.” She softly agreed. Luke dropped the snacks onto Y/N’s bed before dragging her out of her cabin. She didn’t even have time to grab a jacket.

Luke placed a finger over his lips, telling Y/N to be quiet. The two carefully creeped through the words, quietly giggling as they shoved each other.

“It’s prettier at night.” Y/N whispered, staring at the lake that sparkled in the moonlight. Luke smiled, nodding his head.

“Yeah.” He replied, but he wasn’t looking at the glittering water. He was looking at Y/N. “It’s absolutely beautiful.”

Y/N turned her head, faltering when she saw that Luke was already gazing at her. His lips curved into a bright smile.

“So, so… beautiful.” He repeated, staring into her eyes.

“Luke.” She muttered, thickly gulping. Butterflies swirled around in her stomach. After years of pushing down her growing feelings for Luke, they were coming back.

“Y/N.” He chuckled, adjusting his stance. But he slipped and fell into the lake. Y/N gasped, staring into the murky darkness.

“Luke?” She called out. “Luke!” He resurfaced, spitting out a mouthful of water. A few moments passed before Y/N burst into laughter. She stepped forward but tripped over a stray tree root. She hit the water with a loud slap, shocking Luke. He gasped, quickly swimming over. “Sparky, you good?” Luke questioned, holding her tightly.

She coughed. “It hurt a little but I’m good. Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah. I’m good. Thanks for asking, Sparky.” He twirled a strand of Y/N’s wet hair around his finger, his gaze flickering to her lips. “Don’t kill me for this, Y/N.” He whispered, leaning forward.

His lips pressed against Y/N’s, who froze in shock. The kiss only lasted a moment before Luke pulled away, holding back the animalistic urge to do it again.

“I won’t kill you… if you don’t kill me.” Y/N quietly responded, grabbing Luke by the front of his shirt and tugging him forward.

The second kiss was less controlled, more wild. Luke held Y/N tightly, scared she would slip away if he lowered his guard. In this moment, Luke didn’t care about his drenched t-shirt or his soaking hair. All he cared about, and had cared about for the last few years, was the girl in front of him

“You kissed?!” Clarisse screamed, tugging on the ends of her curled hair.

“Hey! I don’t want everybody to know!” Y/N hurriedly shushed the girl. They were hanging around in the arena for some extra sword training and Y/N clumsily mentioned last night.

“Okay, but seriously. Reel back. You guys kissed? Not once, but twice? Oh, man, Y/N. You are so whipped for Luke!”

“I am not! Besides,” Y/N fidgeted with her fingers as she spoke, “I heard one of the new Aphrodite girls is interested in Luke.”

“What? And you’re just gonna let her have him? You’ve been crushing on Luke since you first saw him.”

“I wouldn’t call it that! It was admiration.” Y/N quickly snapped to defend herself. Clarisse mockingly raised an eyebrow.

“You couldn’t stop gushing over how he pushed you out of harm’s way when you got claimed.” The Ares kid pointed out.

Y/N huffed. “I mean, I’m a feminist, obviously. But… I wouldn’t really mind him saving me. I’m not entirely opposed… to the idea. I’m just torn, okay?!”

“What are you confused about? Luke obliviously has the hots for you too.”

“Luke and I have been good friends for ages! I’ve known him for ages too! If we start dating and it goes up in flames… I don’t only lose a partner but I also lose a friend! There’s so many factors to consider. So many things that could go wrong.”

“You already kissed. Sooner or later, he’s gonna confront you.” Clarisse’s eyes flickered to a figure behind Y/N, “And looks like he chose now. You wanna talk to him or do you want me to make a distraction?”

“Distraction, please. I’m not ready. I need to understand my own feelings before dealing with his.” Y/N practically begged Clarisse. Being such a good friend, the daughter of Ares nodded.

“I got your back, girl.” She walked past Y/N, blocking Luke’s path. “Yo, Luke, you interested in having a little spar?”

“Uh, actually, I need to talk to Y/N.” Luke uttered, glancing over at the H/C-haired girl.

“Y/N needs to check on someone. One of the Ares kids got badly injured. You go ahead, Y/N. I’ll be with you soon.” Clarisse waved her off. Y/N silently hurried off, avoiding all eye contact with Luke.

She wasn’t ready to face him just yet. I mean, what do you say to a friend you kissed? More like made out with. And passionately, might I add. Beside a lake at night.

Y/N knew Luke would go looking for her an hour before curfew, so that’s exactly why she sought refuge in the Ares cabin.

“This feels stupid.” She murmured as she rolled under one of the bed, shooing the dust away.

“He’s obviously going to try and ask Clarisse about your whereabouts. You only have to hide under there until he leaves.” Erin, a girl who was a year younger than Y/N, spoke. As predicted, Luke knocked at the door.

“Hey.” He said when Erin swung it open. “Is Y/N or Clarisse here? I need to talk to ether of them but Y/N would be preferred.”

Erin shook her head. “No. Clarisse is showering right now. Maybe check Apollo’s cabin for Y/N. She might be helping out with the injured. She does that sometimes.”

The second Luke disappeared, Y/N crawled out from under the bed. She combed away the dust in her hair. “I know what you’re thinking.” She grumbled, looking up at Erin. “Why am I going through all this trouble? It’s complicated. I’m not ready to face him… yet.”

Erin hummed as she stepped towards Y/N. “None of us will be helpful with advice but if you really want help, visit the Aphrodite cabin.”

That’s how Y/N found herself standing on a porch decorated with pink and hearts and shining pearls. She sighed to herself before she hesitatingly knocked. A short blond girl answered the door immediately.

“We’ve been waiting for you.” She said while Y/N stared at her in discomfort. “Not in a creepy way, though. I swear. We knew you’d need help with you-know-who so we kind of planned it already. Come in.”

The girl warmly guided Y/N inside, beaming. “Our head counsellor isn’t here at the moment but Mai should be plenty of help!” The blond girl pointed over to a brunette who sat on her bed, reading a book. She was dressed in black shorts and a pink crop top. But when Mai looked up, Y/N was sure she was judging her.

“On second thought,” Y/N nervously said, “Maybe I should come back another time. Maybe in the afternoon?”

“The time you come doesn’t matter.” Mai piped up, closing her book. She gazed at Y/N curiously. “You’re afraid of expressing your feelings, aren’t you?”

“I didn’t know this was a therapy session.” Y/N lightly joked.

“Y/N, it’s obvious to everybody that you harbour some feelings towards Luke.” Mai said, pressing her pink-tinted lips into a thin line. “You guys are like the dynamic duo. I understand that dating someone who’s also a friend is scary but sometimes you’ve got to take the risk.”

“If you’re scared about going back to your cabin and running into Luke, you can crash here for the night.” The blonde girl from before offered. Nobody else seemed to have any problems with that so Y/N agreed.

She ended up on the bunk next to Mai, her unlicensed love therapist. Y/N tossed and turned but she still couldn’t fall asleep. She quietly groaned, rubbing her eyes.

“Can’t sleep either, huh?” Mai piped up, pursing her lips.

“No. I can’t help but worry.”

“Let me ask you one question, Y/N. Do you like him?”

“Luke?”

“I didn’t say a name.”

Y/N groaned again. “Fine. You got me. Yes. I guess I like him. I like his smile and how he’s always giving me food and how he barges in when I’m feeling lonely. I think his curled hair is adorable and there’s no other guy better-looking than him to me. But… I’m scared that I just like his platonically. Or what if we do date and I end up losing him?”

Mai smiled. “Don’t stress over it too much. You’re the daughter of Zeus, after all.”

“Yeah, thanks. Good night, Mai.”

“Night, Y/N.”

Luke approached Y/N the next day at breakfast. He let out a subtle sigh of relief when she didn’t run away. “Hey,” He whispered to her, tapping her shoulder and interrupting her conversation with Erin and Clarisse. “Can we talk? Alone?”

“Uh, yeah.” Y/N exchanged looks with both of the girls, who nodded and mouthed good luck. “What did you want to talk about?” Y/N asked when they were in the safety of her cabin and away from all the prying eyes. She played with the hem of her bright orange shirt.

“Forgive me for how blunt I’m going to be but what are we, Y/N?” Luke asked, not beating around the bush.

“We’re friends.” Y/N choked out, her conversation with Mai last night going down the drain. Perhaps it was selfish but a part of her wanted to remain friends because at least that way, neither of them would get hurt.

“No.” Luke wildly shook his head, “Friends don’t kiss. Friends don’t spend the night in the other’s cabin. Friends don’t look at each other like we do. Friends don’t sneak out in the middle of the night to go to a lake and end up making out! And now you’re ignoring me!”

His voice increased in volume the more he spoke.

“That was a mistake, Luke! I-I didn’t meant to! It just happened! I’m not ignoring you! What makes you think that?!”

“Well, what am I supposed to think, Y/N? You’re always running off and our conversations are up and down now. Sometimes we don’t talk for days! Sometimes you seem obsessed with me! I don’t know what to think!”

“That’s rich, coming from you!” Y/N furrowed her eyebrows. “If you’re not with Chris then you’re with that Aphrodite girl! You practically ignore me when you’re with her!” Y/N harshly poked his chest.

“I do not! And back to the previous conversation, was it really a mistake? Was hugging me a mistake? Was staring so adoringly at me a mistake? Was kissing me a mistake?! Maybe it was a mistake to you, but it wasn’t to me.” Luke caressed her face, holding it tightly. “Kissing you… will never be a mistake to me. Never, ever.”

Y/N gulped, practically shaking in Luke’s embrace. His lips lightly brushed her’s and she flinched.

“Sparky- Princess- Y/N,” He finally decided on what to call her in the heated moment. “I have feelings for you. And I have for a long time. So if you don’t like me back… just tell me. Because I can’t spend the rest of my life chasing after you. I get that you might be in denial but once I walk through those doors, I’m giving up.”

“Luke…”

“Do you like me or not?”

“Luke… please…” Y/N didn’t really know what she was begging for. Tears welled up in her eyes as he took a small step towards the door.

“Do you like me or not?” He repeated in a firmer tone.

Y/N silently stared at the ground, her hands clenched into fists.

“I guess I was wrong about you returning my feelings… I’m sorry for bothering you. I’ll leave now.”

Y/N’s body moved on its own as she reached out to grab his arm and harshly pull him back. Her voice was supposed to be gentle but hanging out with Clarisse seemed to have an impact on her.

“Of course I like you, Luke! How could I not? But I’m afraid and confused and I don’t know what to do. I see the way other girls look at you. They like you. And I’m scared that I don’t stand a chance against them. And what if we mess up, Luke? If we date then break up, we won’t be able to be friends again. I can’t handle that!”

“I don’t think I can be just friends with you right now, Y/N.” Luke softly replied, taking Y/N’s hand in his and pressing a light kiss to it. Y/N stared at him with flushed cheeks. “I don’t care about any of those other girls. The only person I care about is you. We don’t have to rush into a relationship but I just need to hear you say that you like me. That’s all I need for now. Can you do that for me?”

Y/N shakily inhaled. “I…” She hesitated. “I like you, Luke.”

Luke pulled her into a hug, smiling as he inhaled the sweet scent of Y/N’s perfume. “That’s all I needed to hear, Sparky.”

[charmandabear]

11. Astarion x Reader 👀

We're not going to worry about how long it'll take me to answer these. We're not going to talk about it. Listen, I'm trying so hard to not make these into whole things, I just want to treat them like writing exercises, but I physically can't not finish smut once it's started.

From @astarionfreak's smut ask game ~ other entries

11. "I touched myself last night thinking about you." "I know."

Tags/Warnings: reader isn't gendered but has a vulva, blood/blood drinking, p in v sex, somewhat rough sex (reader gets a little feral in this one)

You're not subtle about it at all.

Every time he catches you staring, you quickly turn your head. At one point you even just shift your eyes, trying to pretend you're looking at something behind him. But there's no way he isn't at least a little suspicious.

Since the night you let Astarion bite you, the tension between the two of you has been palpable. Something about having him pressed down on top of you, his lips on your neck and his hand cradling your neck in a way that was disproportionately gentle set something on fire inside you. You really thought that you could just get over your little crush if you got it out of your system. Sate the need and you could go back to just being friends... Or whatever you are with him.

But it had the opposite effect. Now, his very presence turns you on. The wind catches his scent and you instinctively press your thighs together. He grins after making some sassy remark to Gale, and the glint of his fangs in the light makes your mouth go dry. You even need to suppress a moan when he gets a particularly impressive kill. You really hope no one heard that one.

So now, sitting around the campfire with the rest of your companions, you're just trying desperately to appear normal. You laugh absentmindedly at whatever joke Karlach just made while in your mind, Astarion's railing you up against a tree. It's only when you realize that Wyll has been trying to ask you a question for the past 90 seconds that you know you're too far gone to be in polite company.

"Sorry, I'm just a little out of it, long day," you make the excuse lamely. "I'm going to turn in a little early, I've got a bit of a headache."

"Do you want something for it?" Shadowheart asks with a frown. "I've got some herbal remedies that might help."

"I'm fine, I think I just need some rest." You force a smile onto your face. "'Night, all." You walk back to your tent stiffly, speeding up to cover the last few meters quickly. Your breath wracks through your body and your blood pounds in your ears. You've never - never - gotten this worked up over another person, never mind a man. Honestly, he's not even really your usual type, you'd normally be much more likely to pursue someone like Shadowheart. But she so clearly has a thing for Karlach, and that's not something you'd want to get in the way of.

But this pale, devastatingly handsome vampire elf has your desire in a chokehold.

You light a lantern inside your tent and take out your journal to sketch. You try to conjure some of the imagery you saw today to keep your brain off Astarion. Scratch and the owlbear cub playing. The terrifying harpies that almost lured one of the tiefling children. Astarion's blade dripping with harpy blood while his bright red eyes sparkle with mischief and the thrill of he kill.

Fucking hells.

You eventually put your journal away and lay down on your bedroll, staring at the ceiling of your tent while the others continue to chat and laugh outside. You listen to their conversation die down, their goodnights, and finally the distant sound of crickets and other nighttime fauna. Your eyes start to grow heavy, or at the very least bored of looking at the support rods in your tent.

You only realize that you've drifted to sleep when you're startled awake by a soft tapping on the canvas flap that separates you from the rest of camp.

"Y-yes?" Your voice is shakier than you'd like, although it's not like a vicious creature would politely knock on your makeshift door. The flap lifts up to reveal the literal last person you'd like to see right now.

"Hello, darling," Astarion grins in that irresistible way that he does. "I wanted to check in on our fearless leader. You've seemed dreadfully jumpy all day."

"Oh! Um." You can feel the heat rising in your cheeks. "I'm.. fine. Thank you, Astarion." You nod your head in a gesture of dismissal, but he doesn't move.

"Are you sure? You're positively flushed." His smile suggests he knows more than he's letting on. You chew on your lower lip to distract you from the growing ache between your legs.

"I'm perfectly fine, Astarion, thank you. Good night." You reach to close the tent flap but he holds onto it. Your fingers brush against his and it's like a jolt of lightning passes between your hands.

"I'm not buying it," he hums, dropping his voice. He pushes his way into your tent and you scramble backwards. The last thing you need is for him to touch you - you might not be able to control yourself if he does. "Now tell me, what's had you so hot and bothered all day?"

"N-nothing," you stammer, wishing you could just disappear on the spot. He raises an eyebrow and you backpedal. "Well, fine, I think something Gale cooked isn't sitting quite right with me. I was... embarrassed." The lie rings hollow even to you.

"Come now, love, we both know you're a terrible liar." He crawls towards you on his knees, a predator stalking his prey. Your breath catches in your throat. "Do you have something you need to confess?"

You're trapped. You've run out of room in the tent to back away, and Astarion has all but crawled on top of you. His scent is intoxicating and his eyes gleam in the low light. The words tumble out of your mouth before you can stop them.

"I touched myself last night thinking about you."

"I know." The grin that curls across his face is fiendish. Your heart threatens to beat out of your chest.

"You know?" Then you gasp suddenly. "The tadpole..."

Astarion lets out a bark of a laugh, loud enough that you're worried it might wake your other companions. "Darling, I didn't need a tadpole to figure that one out. Like I said, you're a terrible liar." He nudges his knee closer to the apex of your legs and you can feel your arousal making your underclothes wet. "What I want to know is, how did you picture me? My head between your legs? Did I have you on all fours in the forest? Or..." His lips ghost against yours now and your head feels dizzy with lust. "Or perhaps I had you pinned down in this very tent, taking my time as I had my way with you?"

Your instincts take over and you close the minimal distance between you, pulling him down on top of you as you ravage his lips. You claw at his clothing, no longer interested in maintaining decorum. He tears at the laces of your breeches, pulling them down below your hips and exposing your dripping cunt to the open air. A cry rips through your throat as he licks a thick stripe up your slit, and his chuckle rumbles deep in his chest. He pulls up on his knees and grins down at you, open and wanton, as he slips out of his pants.

"So very eager," he hums as he frees his cock, engorged and already dripping. A shudder runs through you as you see it, and you yank on his shirt and pull him down to meet you. You kiss him roughly, catching his lower lip in your teeth as you hook your leg around his waist.

"Shut the fuck up and fuck me, Astarion," you hiss through gritted teeth, and you groan loudly when he easily sinks in up to his base.

"Someone wants the whole of camp to hear," he growls in your ear as he begins to slowly thrust into you.

"Then you better make it quick so we don't wake them," you snarl in response, all pretenses having vanished. You tangle your fingers into his hair and press his face to your neck. You feel his lips stretch into a smile just before he sinks his fangs into you, the icy shard of pain melting into the heat of his mouth warming with your blood.

You jut your hips up into him, desperately chasing your release as he drinks his fill. He fucks into you, hard and messy, and before long you're feeling the pressure building in your core.

"Gods, Astarion, don't stop," you gasp hungrily in his ear, and he increases his pace to a punishing rhythm. You're starting to grow faint from blood loss just as your orgasm comes crashing down on you. Your walls clench and shudder around his length and he tears his mouth away from your neck, his expression wild and bloody. A few more broken ruts and you can feel him spilling inside you, the feeling his pulsing cock prolonging your own climax.

The two of you eventually still, covered in a sheen of sweat and panting heavily. Your ears strain to hear if there has been any disturbance in camp to indicate that your other companions heard anything. Outside your tent remains, thankfully, silent.

"Well then," Astarion exhales quickly as he slides out of you. "Darling, if it's going to be like that, then you just need to invite me next time."

[snootlestheangel]

Hear Me Out

Guys, just, hear me out: YouTubers/Streamers AU for COD. There was a series of posts on @cod-dump 's blog about what games are banned for the boys and I've just been thinking about this but with Ghost, Gaz, Soap, and Alex where one of them is the actual streamer/gamer dude and the others just almost always play with him (maybe Roach if we went on the path that he's not actually mute, just kinda hates talking)

Retired or discharged for whatever reasons, the 141 are actually kinda happy to be living semi-normal lives. Maybe they're not all entirely civilian now, maybe Price has a position that doesn't require him to be on the field but he's still teaching/being a Captain.

But he's constantly telling the boys to find things to do to keep themselves happy. Especially Gaz and Soap, cause the military is kind of all they know, they've never had to be civilians really as adults.

Ghost is transitioning fine, and he's been a huge help for Soap, but Gaz is still kinda struggling. Eventually something happens and Alex is part of his life, but it's still not really what Gaz needs to feel "normal".

So Soap and Alex convince Gaz to start streaming/recording videos of their gaming sessions. It's a slow start, and Gaz is getting frustrated.

Until one time they play something silly but incredibly rage-inducing. It's a trending game because it's designed to pit you against your friends but is still silly nonetheless. There's one clip in particular that starts trending and becomes the reason Gaz's channel starts to take off.

The clip? Gaz yelling at Soap for something and Soap immediately just cursing him out in straight Scots only for Alex, an American, to scream into his mic as loud as humanly possible "WHAT THE FUCK IS A KILOMETER?!?!" after having been dead silent for the last 2 minutes. Why did he scream this? Not because of Soap's Scots, but because he had secretly just won the round after having lost the entire time they'd been playing.

People eat that shit up! Suddenly everyone's like "damn there's this hella attractive dude that records gameplay with his friends and they're all really funny." Everyone falls in love with Gaz's appearance first, but then they actually hear him and his friends interact and it's just trading insults and stupid jokes, acting like there's no one watching and they're suddenly kids again.

It eventually comes out that Gaz and his friends are all veterans, and despite the air around military not being the best, there's no denying that caring for veterans is a must. People slowly start to support Gaz's channel/streams, and before he knows it, he's actually got quite the following. His whole thing is about "wanting to do something to distract himself and others from the shitty aspects of life with a few laughs and some good games"

Eventually they convince Ghost to start gaming with them. It makes Gaz's popularity grow because now there's this really deep accent in the mix that's completely clueless as to what he's doing like 90% of the time (I just have this gut feeling that '22 Ghost is so fucking awful at video games) that they refer to simply as "Ghost". Suddenly, the chaos Gaz and his friends are known for increases tenfold. Ghost is flirting with all of them, Soap is arguing with him over literal couple things that come with living together, and there's a new element of really dark humor that wasn't there before (there was dark humor, just not this dark)

They're playing The Backrooms one time. They're not even in the game yet, just in the lobby. Gaz is laughing at Alex's tag for the game "MYLEG!" which is a reference to that one fish in Spongebob always yelling "my leg!" after an incident. Gaz is laughing too hard to actually explain to his viewers that, yes, Alex is an amputee. Soap starts making fun of him, as usual, and that's when it happens.

Alex: "I'll take my leg off and hit you with it, Soap, I swear to god." Soap: "I forgot you were already missing one for a second there and got real concerned." Alex: "No, Soap, I planned on removing my other leg. The one that's still attached, yeah. Just like a lil *pop noise*, ya know?" Gaz: *wheezing so hard he almost throws up*

Then they're playing this silly monster/cryptid hunter game called "A Day Out" and there's skeletons every now and then on the map. Gaz walks up to one and just starts freaking out, saying Ghost's name over and over.

Ghost, freaked out: What?? Gaz, pointing at the skeleton: Look, it's you! *cackling* Ghost, after a concerning long pause: *quietly* Nah, I'm not gonna say that Alex: SAY IT COWARD Ghost: No, that's my brother *Gaz making the most horrified face as he tries not to laugh* *Alex and Soap are losing their shit* Gaz: NAH THAT'S NOT OKAY

That clip posts and the internet looses it. I see this being the actual first video Ghost is in, so for this to be the first thing the viewers get of him, it's safe to say he's a hit. It's also never explained that Ghost does have a deceased brother, so there's just an acceptance of Ghost's skeleton brother.

There's several times where they've all gotten together and played silly games like Mario Kart when there's a bunch of them. There's the sober one and there's the drunk one, where there's so many different languages being hurled as curses at each other, Gaz gives up on captioning ANY of it.

OOOOooooooooohhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!! WHAT IF! Roach becomes his editor once he gets popular enough so he can spend more time playing games, solo ones when the others are working.

For a while, everyone's going crazy wanting to see what the others all look like, and sometimes (cause we're assuming the world they live in now during all this is a lot better), they're joined by Rudy or Alejandro, or both in one rare instance. Sometimes, for old times's sake, during the drunk gaming sessions, they'll call Laswell only for her to scold them. There are times they'll bully Roach who always, as the editor, changes their words from the insults to compliments. Or he definitely trolls Gaz a lot with some of the editing, and it's all around just a good time. Hence why everyone wants to know what they look like.

Then it's around the holidays after about 2 and a half years of Gaz's channel being as popular as it is. He posts a single picture on his socials with a group of people and the caption: "Love seeing the boys over the holidays."

It's such a nice photo; Alex with an arm wrapped around Gaz's shoulders, Soap and Ghost on his other side with Roach between Soap and Gaz.

And the internet has once again gone crazy. Why? Cause not only are these dudes fucking hilarious, but they're hot and taken.

Except, as they all end up teasing him about, Roach is very much still single XD

I have been watching too much YouTube lately, can y'all tell?? Haha anyways back to my hole I shall crawl

[cat-mermaid]

somthing is happening that I don't think Nintendo or the games industry (indie excluded) at large seems to have considered:

If somthing is going to start costing more, people start scrutinizing the thing way more than they previously would have

I'm seeing a lot of people saying that they've looked Mario Kart World over and decided that its lacking, that there ain't enough content to justify the price of play

And I mean, yeah? If this was a $60 game people would be over the moon, they'd be singing its praises for how new and cool and fun it looks, but now? A game thats $10/$20 shy of $100 depending on what version you get?

Everyone's expectations get jacked up along with the price. We were grimly expecting GTA 6 to be a $90/$100 game because its fucking GTA, the game series that everyone fucking knows even if they don't know a thing about vidya gaems

GTA means an incredible gaming experience like no other, huge dense and full of enough content to last you for months or even a full year and more. People will buy it and goshdammit they darn will justify the price by it being the fucking video game, and Rockstar knows it

but Mario Kart? At launch? With bare bones everything? Almost a hundy dollars???

*whispers loudly* its just Mario Kart

and i'm secretly delighted right now cos heres wat i'm hoping: Nintendo has screwed over all the triple games industry's plans to crank up the prices of games

I think if GTA6 had come out first at a hundy bucks, it would have sold like hotcakes and normalized the idea of higher prices because GTA is the video game. Right now there are a ton of casual game players that do not follow game news (the kind of people Nintendo failed to account for when they were marketing the WiiU) who have no fucking clue about the looming intent to sell GTA6 for more than $60

They'd show up on release day, get smacked in the face with the price, then justify it to themselves with "inflation" or whatever and swallow the cost because its fucking GRAND THEFT AUTO BAYBEE

but because Nintendo rushed out ahead exuberantly, like a screeching wide eyed 4 year old into the street after a ball, the whole thing is now fuckled

Every game that isn't GTA is going to get looked over with a microscope and a fine toothed comb. wheres the $90 of content? Why should I buy this luxury priced game?

The industry willfully ignores the fact that AIN'T NO ONE GOT NO MONEY and going forward, if game prices do go up? That means your average Johnny Jerkoff is probs only gonna be able to buy one major big release every few months, which means that they're going to be waaaay more discerning when it comes to the games they choose

Higher Prices: Less game sales

a game that would have done gangbusters at $60 will now languish at $80/$90 because its still being made with the same about of content as a 60 smackers game, and people will always want more bang for their buck

so in summation Nintendy has screwed over the industry, tariffs be damned, they were still planning high prices well before orange man took office

People from all walks are fucking pissed about the new prices of one of the few previously affordable forms of escapism, and that anger is going to carry to every new game related announcement from now on. I'm really interested to see what the reaction to GTA6's release date and price announcement will be by the above mentioned casual gamers, now that they've gotten good and outraged by the whole Nintendo shitshow

Good stuff, thank ya'll for attending my Ted Talk

[doyoulikethis-videogame-song]

Ask Masterpost 11/28/2024

I will be answering all the BLOG RELATED asks I have received since opening my inbox here :). Sorry for taking so long to make a second one!

Do songs used during a cutscene count?

Absolutely :)

Hi, I hope you are doing well! I have a question if you dont mind answering. I had submitted a song while submissions were open and I didn't really think about the 'songs have to be released in some official capacity' too hard until after I submitted it. The music IS officially released but because its an obscure jrpg from like... 2002, the official release of it was a cd exclusive to Japan when the game came out. Does that still count?

If the game itself is released for the public to play (regardless of how obscure), I count that as officially released. That rule is only meant to prevent people from submitting leaks or datamines or the like.

Not sure if it's the indie game anon is talking about, but one indie game that has a bunch of non-bespoke music that people may not realize is the case is Corn Kidz 64: basically most of the songs are preexisting songs that were on sites like modarchive (many of which date back to the 00s and one of which dates back to the 90s), which means that a decent chunk of the OST is off-limits by the blog's rules. Now one thing the game does is do the Banjo-Kazooie type thing of having songs shift arrangements depending on where in the level you are, and said arrangements were done by the game's dev (plus one minor song done by the dev themselves) basically going by how the tracks are numbered on the soundtrack (here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2844830/Corn_Kidz_64_Soundtrack/), the off-limits songs would be 1-3, 5-6, 14-16, 18, 20, and 22; while the songs that would be fine would be 4, 7-13, 17, 19, and 21

Not a question but I'm publishing in case the relevant person(s) want to see it.

i've read the ask masterpost and saw a question regarding alt versions of songs but there's a specific case i'd still like to specify: what about beta/unused versions? do they have to be included in the final shipped product in some way (either put in the game as bonus content or included in the soundtrack releases)?

Unless the beta/unused versions are included in the ways you described (bonus content or included in soundtrack releases) and anything similar, please don't submit them -- They're not the intended public product, even if they are interesting.

are normal non-idol gacha rhythm games fine? like, the ones you'll find in arcades?

Absolutely! I only use idol gacha games as an example, though, because the songs in them are not specifically produced to be VGM. Any BGM or songs made for the idol gacha game (any song that's not a beatmap, essentially) is allowed.

are original songs from anime fangames allowed? I remember sending one back a long time ago and wanted to know if it counted

Yes, original compositions for fangames are allowed. I think I clarified this before but I will again just in case.

Hey, I'm curious, are tracks with lyrics allowed to be submitted? Just asking for later submissions, of course!

Absolutely, I just can't guarantee I'll link a lyric video when the song is revealed (I try to pick links that won't be copyright stricken/are from official sources)

[xenosagaepisodeone]

For the last 2 weeks I've been transfixed on a strain of lost media I've come to call "bad memory induced media", where the supposed media in question does not (or at least more than likely does not) exist, but there are swaths of people convinced that they have definitely seen it at some point. There is rarely anything more to go off of for the hunt than a vague summary outlined in a post on some forum, but the lack of specificity allows people to fill in the blanks with similar types of media that they've seen, giving them the impression that they've already experienced it. I've found that this is extremely common for alleged lost shock media in particular, which isn't surprising. I talked a little about this on my LOL SUPERMAN post, and I get the impression that a similar strain of logic applies on a smaller scale.

Anyway, 2 major cases I have been looking at for a while are Saki Sanobashi/Go For A Punch and Evil Farm Game. Saki Sanobashi in particular fascinates me because an urban legend like this should have crumbled to the wayside by like 2018 at the latest, since that's when anime more or less became demystified to normal people. The basic premise is that it is an 80s/90s horror anime about anywhere from 4-8 girls trapped in a bathroom. The girls talk about their lives, hopes, dreams and philosophies before slowly going insane and dying one by one. If you like horror stuff you probably are already getting the vague impression that it sounds familiar- which could be influenced by any swath of media artifacts from Saw to the Russian Sleep Experiment creepypasta to the Ikea SCP to ClockUp's Euphoria to snippets of Battle Royale to that one Grisaia no Kajitsu arc. OP insisted he found it fully subbed on the deep web (omegalul) and hasn't found a trace of it since, implying some kind of murky origin or legal status (the OVA is not pornographic btw). As you can probably tell, I think this is silly. Like, so much goes into anime production that it would be difficult to hide any traces of this thing's existence. Someone had to voice act those girls. Someone had to sit hunched over a desk and draw that settei. OVAs were such a new thing in the 80s and 90s that both sfw and nsfw series were advertised in magazines. The only way that this could be so lost that not even a MAL entry remains is if it had been a student/indie production or something made for a single comiket event...but even at that....you're telling me that someone still managed to rip this from a vhs and subtitle it? And then chose to upload it to the deep web instead of youtube? even the title sounds like something google translated but didnt format correctly ("Saki Sanobashi" being gibberish while "Saki-san no Bashi" translates to "Saki-san's Bridge").

And yet there are people who will say "I definitely saw this at some point" because they saw a reaction image similar to the alleged scene where the protagonist smashes someone's head into a mirror. "The neck scratching death sounds familiar...." because you watched a higurashi amv! And OP did too, and thought it was so creepy that he involved it in his fake story. It's almost grating how much you have to suspend your disbelief to embrace that something like this exists in the exact way that stories like this insist. While many people have accepted that the series is likely not real in the last 4 or so years, there still persists a cohort of people hunting for Saki Sanobashi, likely because they are kids who are now too old to believe in Squidward's Suicide.

Evil Farm Game gives me a chuckle because it goes like this: a redditor posts to r/tipofmytongue about an old flash game where you play as a farmer who kills his wife and then has to hide her body while going about his farm tasks. The setup is completely fine and actually kind of reminiscent of a few story driven flash games I played on newgrounds as a kid. Many people came forward insisting that they had played this as well, one person even producing a link to a file from their hard drive that they couldn't open, but strongly believed that the game was there. A subreddit was even created to support the search. The twist is that it was a misremembered joke from a vinesauce stream.

Everyone knows that memory is an extremely fallable thing; people can be coaxed into believing that they did or saw things that they didn't with the correct prompts. What gets me is that a lot of people on the hunt for "bad memory induced media" seem to largely be hyping themselves up. They want to believe there is something that exists against all reason no matter what. It's chuuni in nature. Do not get me wrong- the interest in finding a cool, mysterious, haunting piece of media isn't lost on me, but dog, the dopamine hit of finding a previously lost 1985 commercial for almonds in a box of vhs tapes you got from eBay is the same.

[pyromancerofaronons]

You know I keep running into more and more randos in FF14 that make me question why the fuck they're even still playing. Tanks and DPS that pull bosses literally the absolute second they can, even if we just wiped and some people might want/need an explanation for a mechanic, healers that sprint ahead of tanks and rescue them if they're not going fast enough, that one absolute c*** who refused to do any sort of healing and then them and their buddy blame me for dying, just a lot of stuff like that.

It really gives off the feel that they want to blitz through all the content as fast as possible, play as absolutely optimal as possible and move on to the next thing as fast as possible. Like, don't get me wrong I'm not advocating for taking the whole damn 90 minutes for a dungeon (I legitimately had that happen once and I wished for death for the two DPS who were the cause of it) but we don't need to be clearing dungeons in 9 minutes ffs.

I understand the desire to do well and that sense of accomplishment you get when you play incredibly well and you see big numbers and fast times but doing so to this degree in fucking normal content with random people is just setting yourself up for frustration and this is more than likely the exact reason why they've stopped enjoying this game. And I cannot stress enough that you should not be doing this shit in roulette's with random people. There are party finders and discord servers for people who want to speed run and want to parse. Don't play like an absolute jackass with random people.

There is an incredibly likely chance that the majority of the people complaining about the game are putting the blame for their lack of enjoyment on Dawntrail or changes that are perfectly fine when the problem is that they're ruining the game for themselves by being such sweaty try hards.

[samkerrworshipper]

Heyy, would you be able to do a quick Alexia Putellas and Lia Wälti where Alexia comforts her after the match (maybe with smut or something cute and wholesome)? The match yesterday and X has convinced me that they’d make such a good looking couple oof 😅 thanks!

captains connection

lia wälti x alexia putellas

let’s pretend that the game happened in spain and lia got injured because i needed some pain and injury contenttttt

warnings: smut at the end, pain, injury

———————————————————————

Lia was walking down the tunnel. Never in her life had she felt so fucking affected by a reporter, but today it had just been too much. Sure, she knew that her team stood no chance against the Spaniards, but there was a chunk of hope, a slither of faith in her team that maybe they would come close, give them a run for their money. A 1-7 loss was hardly anything to call giving Spain a run for their money. They were just too good, too quick, too fast, too good for Lia to even contend against. It drilled a hole in her heart that she didn’t know existed. Lia was used to losing, but this one hurt so much harder for her and she couldn’t even comprehend why.

“Lia! Walti, wait up a sec.”

Lia pivoted directly on her bare heel, she was tired and sore and wanted nothing more than to take a quick shower and go back to her hotel, finding safety in the unfaimiliar blankets and sheets of the uncomfortable bed. She was pissed off, and definitely not in the headspace to be talking with anybody, especially another reporter or journalist, her tolerance was completely non existent.

So when she was met with Alexia Putellas running after her, there was nothing she wanted to do more than turn around and waltz as far away as she could get. Who was she to run away from Alexia Putellas? Nobody would do that if they were right in the head. Lia paused from her spot in the tunnel, stopping so Alexia had the opportunity to catch up to her. Lia leant herself against the wall, her body was beginning to catch up with her and the 90 minutes of play were starting to set in.

“What do you need Putellas?”

Lia’s words held more malice than she hoped they would, but she couldn’t refrain, she was too tired and sore to try and entertain a friendly captains chat. Alexia deepened her frown towards Lia, the sparkly glint that had occupied the midfielders eyes fading quickly.

“I just wanted to make sure you were okay, that tussle you had with Salma was pretty rough.”

Lia frowned, she’d never had to experience this kind of encounter after a game, normally captains stuck to their own sides, especially after a thrashing like Lia had just enjured.

“I’m fine.”

When Lia thought about it, she really wasn’t fine, she was fairly certain the 19 year old had managed to crack a rib or two, the purple bruises up and down her torso evidence of just how hard she’d run into her in a fight for the ball. Salma had come out victorious, leaving Lia in her dust, rolling around on the pitch in pure agony. She refused to be taken off by the medical staff though, she wasn’t going to let her girls lose so drastically without her there to pick up the pieces.

“Are you sure, because Salma seemed pretty worried, said that she’d heard a crack.”

Lia hated this, hated the faux sympathy that was falling so easily from Alexia’s lips.

“I’m fine, what are you even doing here? Shouldn’t you be out celebrating?”

Alexia’s frowned deepened at the clear anger that was behind alias words, sure, her and the Swedish captain had hardly ever interacted, but she still felt obligated to be friendly, Lia did not share this courtesy with her.

“No, I think most of the girls are just heading back to the hotel for an early night, I wanted to make sure you were doing alright though, you seemed like you were having a rough time on the pitch.”

Alexia wasn’t exactly wrong, after the collision Lia had been in a lot of pain, it was harder to breathe, harder to do everything. It still hurt to hear the words leave Alexia’s mouth though, Lia just hadn’t been good enough.

“I guess when you win so much there’s no need to celebrate.”

Lia’s words came out as a murmur, a quiet breath that Alexia only just managed to pick up on.

“Nobody wants to celebrate a 7-1 win.”

There it was, the reminder of just how much Lia had managed to fail in one night, 7 times, 7 crucial times.

“Yes well it must be real hard being the best in the world.”

Alexia took a deep breath out, it was clear the Swiss was angry, she couldn’t really blame her, Alexia remembered the time before Spain was at the top, when they too were the little fish and it had sucked, it was never fun being the underdog.

“You’re only as good as your last game.”

Lia was getting sick of this, sick of the bull shit that was interacting with the Spanish captain.

“Alexia, what do you need, you clearly came here for something and as much as I love a social session, I’m not really in the mood.”

Everything about the dynamic was messing with Lia, why was the Catalan here, in front of her, instead of celebrating with her team.

“I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Lia plastered a sardonic smile to her face, it was so fake it almost made her feel sick.

“Well I’m alive, so feel free to leave.”

Lia’s hand came up to point towards the other end of the tunnel, the end where she could hear music gently thudding against the concrete floor.

“Is it a Swiss thing to be so dismissive?”

Alexia’s tone was curious, she was trying her very hardest to decipher the swiss woman, but it was proving to be harder than she thought.

“It’s a loser thing to not really want to interact with your opponent that just thrashed you.”

Alexis snickered a little bit at your attempt at sarcasm, it was sadder than anything.

“Fair enough.”

Instead of walking away, like Lia expected her too, Alexia stayed in front of her, her eyes roaming across Lia’s body which was still leant against the wall, her only support to stop her from toppling over.

“Alexia, what are you doing here?”

Lia’s voice was more vulnerable then it had been all day, the exhaustion finally overtaking the defensive barriers she’d had up, breaking them right down.

“I wanted to make sure you were okay, to look after you if you weren’t, because I figured that you’d be too busy helping the other girls to even give a moment to think about yourself.”

Lia’s breath caught in her throat for a second, because realistically what was she supposed to say to that?

“I’m fine, my girls are fine, it’s my job to look after them, that’s what we sign up for, isn’t it?”

Lia figured that Alexia probably hadn’t had to pick up the pieces for a little while, she played for Spain and Barcelona, the two best teams in the world currently, there was no losing for them, no hard games, no suffering.

“It’s also your job to look after the whole team, including yourself, the girls will be fine, they’ll survive without you, what matters is that you are okay, mentally and physically.”

Alexia have Lia a small smile, a little quirk of her lips that made Lia feel like she was under a microscope.

“I’m fine Alexia.”

Lia didn’t even really convince herself, her breaths were becoming more laboured by the minute and she felt like shit.

“It would be okay if you weren’t.”

The next thing Lia knew, Alexia was cocking her head, and for some reason nothing was making sense anymore. Alexia’s face, her lips, her arms seemed so perfect, so inviting, everything that Lia craved. Lia wasn’t thinking straight, if the thoughts about it, she was thinking gay, very fuck gay. That was the joke that played in her head as she leant in shamelessly, her arms wrapping their way around Alexia’a shoulders as she moved her lean onto her body from the wall. Alexia’s lips were as soft as they looked, like pillows below Lia’s. It took Lia a total of three seconds before her brain kicked in, and she was pushing herself out of Alexia’s arms, the shame and shock setting in from what she’d just done.

Alexis just stood in front of her, smirking a little bit to herself as the Swiss captain’s face drained in embarrassment from her impulse.

“Fuck, I am so sorry, I wasn’t thinking, I’m going to head back to the change rooms now, the bus will be leaving soon, I’m so sorry.”

Lia’s voice was so terrified, terrified of the lack of self control she had. She just couldn’t contain herself, not when Alexia looked so fucking hot, with her very faint pink hair dye and with her Jersey and rustled up from the tough game. She was irresistible, insatiable, everything thing Lia was so deprived of right now.

Alexia’s hand around Lias wrist stopped her from scurrying away.

“I said I would look after you, if that’s what you need then my arms are open.”

Lia’s heart dropped, her feet forcing her to twist around to look at the Spaniard. Lias eyes searched Alexia’s face, looking for any signs that she was joking, that she was fucking around with Lia. When Lia found none her gut dropped to her ankle. It almost would have been better if Alexia had been joking, at least she could play it all off as a joke, forget that this whole encounter had never happened, but Alexia held no sarcasm or intent behind her eyes, just soft contentedness.

“I don’t want to be a bother, I can sort myself out.”

Alexia rolled her eyes at Lia’s refusal.

“Nonsense, you are very welcome, it’s up to you bebita, you come with me and I promise that I’ll look after you tjough, better than whatever you’ll manage in a shitty hotel room.”

Lia didn’t need to know Spanish to assume the meaning of the pet name that Alexia had sent her way, it made her face blush bright red involuntarily.

“I really don’t want to be a bother.”

Alexia shook her head, rubbing her thumb against the inside of Lia’s palm.

“Lia, you won’t be a bother whatsoever.”

Lia frowned to herself, because she felt like a fucking bother, like she was weighing down everyone around her.

“C’mon, your coming with me, you need somebody right now.”

Alexia didn’t gave Lia a few seconds to pull her hand away, but when she didn’t Alexia just started to pull her down the hallway, closer to the Spanish change rooms.

When the pair made it to the door, Lia stopped in her tracks, looking cautiously at Alexia, this was uncharted territory.

“I can stay out here.”

Alexia shook her head, pushing the door open wihh the one hand and tugging Lia in with the other.

“You’re very welcome, you are among friends.”

Everyone turned around when Alexia entered the room, Lia readied herself for some kind of hate, or dig at her team, but it never came, Alexia’s teammates acknolwedging the two of them before going back to whatever they’d previously been occupied with. Alexis walked Lia over to her cubby, sitting Lia down on the bench in front of it, a soft smile on her lips.

“I need to have a quick shower, you can stay or come join me, it’s your decision.”

Lia was terrified of sitting in the room by herself, or without Alexia there to protect her, but she also didn’t want to intrude on Alexia’s privacy.

“I don’t want to intrude.”

There were so many cautions with Lia, so many ifs and buts, this whole situation was so new to her and she was still struggling to work out how exactly she’d gotten here in the first place.

“I wouldn’t have given you the option if you weren’t welcome Lia, it’s about what your comfortable with. Shower or not I’m still going to look after you when we make it back to the hotel, but it’s your decision.”

Lia had become aware of the cold sweat that was plastered to her skin, and it was making her uncomfortable, uncomfortable enough for it to be a reason for her to take Alexia up on her offer. There was also so much doubt in her mind, and a little bit of fear about being vulnerable in this space, more vulnerable than she was already feeling.

“You won’t be mad if I stay out here?”

Alexia smiled at Lia, shaking her head.

“No cariño, absolutely not, just give me two minutes and i’ll be right back alright. If you need anything don’t be scared to ask, you know Jenni right, the one sitting over there, if you need anything just ask her, sí, I’ll be back before you know it.”

Lia nodded deftly, it was hard not to know who Jenni Hermoso was after the World Cup, considering her face had been plastered everywhere for weeks now. Lia knew that even if she was stabbed though right now, she’d probably not ask them for help, she felt uncomfortable enough being in a room of Spanish players when she was the only one wearing a Swiss jersey, suddenly feeling very self conscious sitting in her playing uniform.

Alexis grabbed her things for the shower, jetting off towards the other side of the rooms, leaving Lia all to herself. She stayed in her spot, a little scared to move even slightly. She stayed that way for a few minutes, just staring into space and keeping herself occupied as she internally went over the game in her brain, what she could have done better, whag she could have done to help her teammates. It was a tedious process, one that she could force herself to go through for hours.

It wasn’t until a certain Spaniard obstructed her vision that her eyes darted up from their spot on the floor.

It wasn’t Alexia, that was the big let down, instead Lia was met with the sight of Salma Paraluello, the Spanish powerhouse who was the cause of the bruises all up and down her ribs.

“Your Lia right, I’m so sorry about what happened-.”

Lia shook Salma off with a quick smile and the raise of her hand.

“Kid don’t worr, it’s part of the job, no bad blood, you did what you had to to get the ball, I’m fine.”

Lia remembered when she was as young as Salma, when she two had been absolutely petrified of everything and anything, the anxiety radiating from Salma felt far to familiar to Lia.

“If your sure you’re okay, it sounded pretty nasty.”

Lia couldn’t argue with that, she’d heard the loud crack that her ribs had made as Salma had connected with torso, it wasn’t a sound any athlete ever wanted to hear.

“I’m fine, I’ve had far worse, don’t worry about old me.”

Salma nodded quickly, smiling one last time at Lia before going back to wherever she’d come from. Lia missed being that young, when she didn’t have a care in the world, when all she was expected to do was turn up. Now there was so much more expectations for her, expectations to perform, expectations for her team tk perform, expectations that she felt like she was constantly falling short too.

She wasn’t left to her own devices for very long, Alexia returning not long afterwards, blonde hair damp and resting on her shoulders. She’d changed, into a simple pair of grey sweatpants and a red hoodie.

“Let’s get you out of your kit, hermosa?”

Lia suddenly became far more aware of the fact that she was still sitting in her smelly and sweaty uniform. She didn’t have a change of clothes though, there had been a spare hoodie in her bag, but that had been left behind in the swiss locker rooms.

Her internal worry was solved though by Alexia reaching out and offering her some spare clothes, a plain black hoodie that had a little Spanish emblem on it, and some matching sweat pants that brandished Alexia’s number 11 on the front.

“Okay.”

Lia took a deep breath, reaching for the hem of her jersey and pulling it over her head. She reached for the hoodie that was in Alexia’s hands, but Alexia pulled the hoodie away, her eyes focused on Lia’s ribs. Lia had tried her very hardest not to look, but with Alexia’s gaze directly on her body it was hard not to. She was a little bit scared at the sight, there was purple all up and down her ribs, deep, dark, purple.

“Hermosa.”

Alexia’s voice was thready, the shock evident as she continued to access Lia’s stomach and chest.

“It’s nothing, I’m fine.”

Lia grabbed the hoodie, very quickly throwing it over her head before Alexia had a chance to survey any more. Lia slipped her shorts off quickly, before pulling the sweatpants up and over her ass and standing up, level with Alexia, whose jaw was clenched and eyebrows were knitted together on her forehead.

“My cars here, so if you feel comfortable with it we can go back to my house?”

Lia wishes she was brave enough to say no, brave enough to say that she was comfortable enough to lie to Alexia’s face and say that she was fine to be alone right now. But she was desperately seeking out something, anything that the Spanish captain could give her.

“Yes, please, if it’s no trouble.”

Alexia just smiles and nods her head, reaching behind Lia to pick up her bag and then tugging Lia along with her towards the door. She said a quick goodbye to her teammates before walking Lia and herself out of the rooms and back into the tunnel. Alexia did all the work getting her and Lia into the car, opening the car door, getting Lia sat in the passenger seat and buckled in. Lia was on a different planet, her brain fading into places that it had never been.

Alexia began driving, watching Lia with a close eye.

“How come you didn’t tell me you were in so much pain? Those ribs look broken.”

Lia sat up in her seat a little bit with Alexia’s words, the Catalan’s voice awakening her from her haze for a second.

“It’s fine.”

Alexia frowned to herself, Lia was so quick to dismiss her own pain, it made Alexia even gladder that she’d convinced Lia to let her look after her.

“You don’t have to pretend with me, captain to captain, I know how easy it is to hide an injury for the good of your team.”

Alexia knew what Lia was feeling, she’d felt it herself multiple times, it was human, Alexia had been in the same position as Lia a multitude of times, the one thing she’d missed was someone there to guide her, someone there to tell her that it was okay for her to feel this way. Sure, Lia might have been a year older then Alexia, Lia might have been a captain for far longer than Alexia, but Lia had never had someone there to support her, Alexia had Jenni and Irene, she had people there helping her, Lia had nobody.

“I couldn’t leave them out there, it was hard enough during the game, somebody needed to be there after the game to pick up the pieces.”

Alexia knew the closer they got to her house the closer her and Lia were to encountering a different obstacle, which was vulnerability.

“You don’t always have to be that person, sure, you're the captain, but it isn’t your job to always make sure that everyone is okay, not immediately after a game.”

Lia didn’t really believe that statement, if she couldn’t perform enough on the field to get a win and she didn’t support her team then what even was her purpose?

“I know what my job is, I’ve been doing it for four years, I know my team and I know my capabilities.”

It was a lie, Lia was fairly certain that never in her life had she felt like she was more of a stranger to her teammates, she tried her hardest, but recently everything had felt so much harder, football, relationships, everything. Since the break up with Caitlin she’d felt like a skeleton, a half version of who she’d previously been.

“I never said you didn’t.”

Lia wished she was at home, back in her apartment in London, hiding under the covers on her bed instead of whatever this was.

Just when Alexia was fairly certain that the tension between the two of them couldn’t thicken any much more, they pulled into her driveway. Alexia let her eyes dart over to Lia, who was sat stock still in her seat, staring directly in front of her at Alexia’s door.

“C’mon Walti, I want to get some ice on those ribs.”

Alexia pinched Lia’s elbow, an action that seemed to snap her out of her trance, enough for her to reach for her seatbelt and open her door.

Alexia struggled with the key for a few seconds, before it finally went in correctly and Alexia’s door sprung open, to reveal a fluff ball of a dog at Lia’s feet.

“That’s Nala, she’s harmless, why don’t you go and get yourself settled on the couch and I’ll find some ice and something to drink.”

Lia just nodded, walking through Alexia’s hallway like it wasn’t a completely new place to her. It wasn’t hard to find the lounge room, she just walked the rest of the way through the entry hallway and was met with an open lounge room/kitchen floor plan. Lia gravitated straight to Alexia’s couch, plopping herself down onto it. What she hadn’t anticipated was the shooting pain that radiated directly from her ribs as she pounced on the couch. It was a kind of pain that Lia hadn’t felt in a long time, like she’d just been punched in the ribs.

It took her a little bit of jostling to find a position that didn’t hurt, but when she did she relaxed into the plush everything felt a bit better.

Alexia returned quickly, a ice pack and drink bottle in hand.

“Can you take the hoodie off, just so I can have a proper look?”

Lia really didn’t want to, but she knew if she said no in some roundabout way she would end up doing it anyway, so she saved herself the labour and reached for the hem of the hoodie, tugging it up and over her head, revealing her blackened stomach. It wasn’t a pretty sight, it even made Lia internally recoil a little bit.

Alexia sat down on the couch beside her, her hands gently grazing over Lia’s skin. It was almost sensual how good Alexia’s cold hands felt, her calloused hands trailing across Lia’s ribs tracing imaginary lines like she was writing a map. Lia tried her hardest not to wince when Alexia’s fingers prodded at the pinnacle point of her pain, but the debilitating shock that was sent across her body was too much not to groan. Alexia’s hand retracted almost immediately, her eyes looking up to meet Lia’s, a deep frown on her face.

“Their cracked, I’ve done my ribs before, nothing you can do about it, it just hurts for a few weeks.”

Lia couldn’t take her eyes off of Alexia, her eyes raking up and down Alexia’s body as she took the Spaniard in. She was in close enough proximity now to truly breathe her in, she smelt like citrus and strawberry soap. It made Lia’s scent receptors tingle, the appeal deep in Lia’s body. Lia followed Alexia’s eyes, down to her chest, where they were pinned. Lia’s nipples were pebbled, easily visible through her sports bra. Normally, she’d be ashamed, but Alexia was looking at Lia like she was the sun, like she was unworldly, and it did wonders to Lia’s confidence, and the rapidly growing pool between her legs.

When Alexia realised she was being watched she pulled her eyes from Lia’s body immediately, a little bit ashamed at the lack of control she had. Now was Lia’s opportunity to be confident, to show the Catalan that her eyes and glances were the only thing keeping Lia sane right now.

Lia reached her eyes up to Alexia’s chin, forcing the Spaniard to look at her.

“Like something you see?”

Alexia flushed at Lia’s insinuation, but she didn’t make any attempts to deny, just bit down on her lip meekly.

“You're injured.”

It was a matter of fact statement, and one of the only reasons that Alexia was yet to jump on Lia.

“We can take it slow, be gentle.”

Lia needed a distraction, needed something to make her feel less invalid.

“What about Williamson?”

Lia queried her brow at Alexia, curious of what it was that the Spaniard was referencing.

“Leah? There’s nothing serious happening between us, we’ve both just recently fallen out of love with the people we thought were our everything. She’s like me crutch, we have casual sex, we’re fuck buddies, but nothing more, it’s more just a bond formed from heart break, there’s nothing exclusive about it.”

Alexia had run out of reasons, she didn’t feel comfortable fucking a taken woman, but with the revelation about Lia’s relationship she suddenly felt far less obligated to put a stop to the dirty thoughts that were circulating her brain.

“Drink some of that water.”

Alexia lowered herself to the floor, gently, her body still aching a little bit from the game. She moved to the gap between your knees, edging them further apart, all whilst you watched her.

“I’m serious Walti, no fun for you until I see you drink some of that.”

Lia rolled her eyes, picking up the drink bottle that Alexia had set down beside her, taking a few sips to appease the captain, and also so Alexia could get on with it. As Lia took sips, Alexia tasked herself with pulling down her sweatpants that she’d lent Lia and tugging them off so they pooled on the floor. Once Lia had set the water bottle down, Alexia reached up for the panties. Lia involuntarily lifted her hips, the pure desire thrumming through her veins being enough to fuel her.

“You want this?”

Alexia was looking directly at Lia’s glistening sex, she was beautiful, her clit peeking out from her folds, her hole leaking liquid desire. Suddenly, words were coiled at Lia’s throat, the desperation coming out in choken words, her body desperately wanting more than the cold air.

“Please Ale.”

Lia arched her back as Alexia’s bot mouth connected with her, her hips rolling directly into Alexia’s mouth, her body desperately searching for more contact, more anything. One of Alexia’s hands came up to rest on Lia’s hips, a warning, stopping her from moving. Alexia’s thumb rubbed rough marks into Lia’s hip bones, but she didn’t care, not in the slightest, not when Alexia’s mouth felt so impeccable. Lia’s breath hitched as Alexia’s mouth moved down from sucking on Lia’s clit to her hole, gently testing it out by thrusting her tongue into Lia’s mouth. It was pure pleasure, Alexia’s hands forcing Lia’s legs further open, as far as they would go, so she had complete access to Lia’s sex. She moved back up to Lia’s clit, nibbling on the sensitive nub but didn’t leave Lia’s hole lonely for very long, a single digit replacing her tongue. Lia was a goner as soon as Alexia started to thrust the single finger in and out, Lia’s hips grining haphazardly down onto Alexia’s face and fingers. She was a groaning, moaning mess, her stomach and pussy tightening and clenching down on Alexia’s fingers.

It was perfect, until the tightness in Lia’s stomach was too much, to sore, to bad. She winced once and i was enough to have Alexia’s head and fingers removing themselves from her body, Alexia’s head craning upwards to see what was wrong.

“I’m fine, my ribs are just cramping, don’t stop, feels so fucking good.”

Alexia wasn’t content with Lia’s reassurance.

She got herself up from the floor, rising from her knees and shaking out her legs.

“Ale, please, if you don’t help me then it’s going to be your shower head.”

Alexia smirked to herself, keeping note for later in the night.

“Hermosa, don’t fret, we’re moving to the bed, at least there you can ly down and the angle isn’t as intense.”

Alexia reached down, pulling Lia up to rest on her hip, and walking straight into Alexia’s bedroom.

Alexia didn’t fuck around, she returned back to her task with vigour and urgency that Lia didn’t know she had, this time two fingers thrusting in and out of Lia’s hole and Alexia’s tongue going back and forth between soft, broad kitten licks that spread from her lips to her clit, to intense sucking and nibbling directed straight at Lia’s sensitive bundle of nerves.

It didn’t take long for Lia to get to the edge, Alexia’s curving fingers finding the toe curling spot inside of Lia’s walls that was so insatiably perfect.

“Fuck, fuck, Ale, going to cum, can I cum? Please, been your good girl.”

Alexia smirked into Lia’s pussy, licking up whatever wetness she could find. She suddenly increased her face, nibbling down onto Lia’s nerves and thrusting her fingers in a wild pace, it only made Lia clench down on her hand harder, Lia’s body's response to her actions leading her to believe that Lia was right on the edge.

“Cum for me Lia, be a good girl and cum all over my face.”

It was enough to send Lia tumbling over the line into starry goodness, a soul shattering orgasm wracking her body, causing her to spasm on the mattress and grind down further on Alexia’s face as her body rode out the pleasurable wave that was her release. Alexia coaxed her through it gently, lapping at Lia’s hole and lips as she slowly came back down to earth. Once Lia’s body had stopped trembling, Alexia crawled up from between her legs, joining Lia on the pillows, smiling lopsidedly at her.

She leant in tentatively, Lia met her half way, getting to enjoy the experience of tasting herself on the Alexia Putellas’ tongue. It was ecstasy, pure magic, something that Lia never thought she’d experience. Suddenly though, Lia felt conscious, what if Alexia expected something in return and she couldn’t give it? As their kiss deepend, Lia reached her hand down to the waist band of Alexia’s sweatpants, but Alexia’s hand caught her wirst before it could go any further down.

“Tonight about looking after you.”

“But I want to help you.”

Alexia smiled into the kiss, it was often she was in this kind of situation.

“How about I give you two more, and if you feel up to it after that then I’ll let you eat me out, hmm?”

Lia nodded eagerly, a big smile opening on her face as she pushed her tongue against Alexia’s lips, the Spaniard granting access.

Alexia woke up how she did most mornings, the sound of rain pattering against her roof, light filtering in through the curtains, the birds chirping outside. She leant over to the space beside her, a space that when she’d last been awake had been warm and filled with the presence of a certain Swiss captain who had been nothing short of perfection all night. When she was met with cold nothingness her eyes cracked open fully, a deep frown developing on her face. The covers were pulled back, and all of Lia’s clothes from the previous night had disappeared from Alexia’s bedroom floor. Before Alexia knew what she was doing, she was springing out of bed, as naked as she was the day she was born and walking into her kitchen, to find a similar sense of nothingness. Her heart dropped with the realistion that Lia was gone, without a note, without a phone number, without anything. Lia was hurt, in so many ways and Alexia understood that, she understood that Lia had been vulnerable with her, and maybe she wasn’t ready to face that vulnerability in the daylight, where everything hurt more, everything was so much more real.

Her frown didn’t faze as she made her way back to bed, with the realisation that when she crawled under the sheets she no longer had a companion, it was just her, all by herself. Lia was in a similar predicament, lying in a hotel room all by herself, trying her very hardest to forget about the way that she’d felt so infatuated with Alexia. Captains like them didn’t have time for romance or sweet little moments, they had countries to lead, people they were responsible for. Lia would go back to London, back to Arsenal, she would be better, when she needed some love she’d utilise Leah for a night and then she’d go back to being the fearless leader that she had to be.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

WBITA if i told my mom to stop watching kdramas and get off the internet.

I [20F] have been increasingly frustrated with my mother [44F] for a very stupid and hypocritical reason. We're pretty close, with her mostly raising me on my own and all that, but we're very different people and often clash on a lot of things. Despite that, I like hanging out with her and telling her about stuff and vice versa. She also works from home, so we're around each other very often since I don't work rn.

The problem is that for the last month or so she's gotten very into kdramas and youtube summaries of manhwas and all that. I am not trying nor claiming to be a mental healthcare professional, but I am 99% sure she has some type of undiaognosed autism (like once she told me that for most of her life she didnt how to show or feel emotion and she would copy other people arround her and we had an argument about how that is Not The Common Human Experience. Among other things she's a neat freak, blunt, has told me before that she has very bad intrusive thoughts and so on) . This is relevant bc another one of her quirks is that she can become obsessive with something Very Easily. She cannot help herself from bingwatching shows, speedreading through books, She Has To Finish A Task Before Anything Else In This One Specific Order. This is serious, she geniunely gets angry or frustrated about any sort of interruption. Normally this is fine for me to work around, but the reason I am here with this ask is bc it's gotten worse.

Every time I go and try to talk to her, she's got her headphones on, watching a manhwa video (her headphones are bad bc they're work headphones so I can hear what she's listening to). 90% of the time I interrupt her, she does the biggest sigh, fixes me with a dead stare, and acts dimissive. At night, where she would usually hangout in the living room watching idle TV, she now goes straight to her room to watch kdrama's in bed, and her room is where she works from too. The latest development is that she's stopped eating in the livingroom during her work breaks too, which was the one time of day I could hang out with her while she's on the clock. She instead asks me to bring her food to her room and once again, on her personal laptop, watching manhwa summaries.

This, on top of my own personal declining mental health and the fact that sometimes I feel like our roles are reversed (I do any chore she asks me around the house, I cook for the entire house, I am the one sent to do grocery shopping etc while she goes out with her friends) I don't mind this usually, she is my mom, I am unemployed, and she does work a 9 to 5 even if it is from home. But now it stings a lot. The part that makes me think I am the asshole is the fact that the way she is acting right now is the exact same thing she used to scold me on before. "Take off those headphones, stop only hangin out in your room, notice the world around you" and I am still a bit like that. But I feel like I've changed. I finished highschool during the pandemic and quarantine and it fucked me up, not having the strongest friendships irl since I live in a fairly conservative country and I am very outwardly queer and stuff. But I've made an effort to start talking to her, to hang out with her, to help around the house. I was and still half am in the same behavioral pattern she is in right now, but I feel like I've made the effort to not wear headphones so often so I can hear if she calls me, to leave the door to my room open etc. It feels like minor things, ik.

I will also say, while I spend a lot of time online and on my phone/laptop, I do a diversity of things. I draw, I watch youtube videos, I talk and play games with my friends, I read, etc. Things I don't mind pausing. My mom, all she does, is ocasionally scroll through instagram, respond to messages, and watch youtube manhwa summaries. It is all that she does. And she acts like I've come in yelling during one of her meetings every time I interrupt her.

The problem here is, I am afraid that if I bring this up with her, that I will find out the change in behaviour I think I made would be invisible to her and that I would be the biggest hypocrite. And I do not want another yelling match as we have had several in the past on similar subjects, where I think I've changed but she doesn't.

Another one, it seems to make her happy. She laughs, and seems to be geniunely invested. Her new workplace is stressful and the work that she has to do is complicated, and I am glad she's found something to destress her and again. I do the same thing, I hole myself up in my room and spend time alone, why am I now mad at her for doing the exact same thing, right? But she's stopped listening to me. I tell her about things, she dismisses me bc she was in the middle of a video, and then comes calling for me because "Why haven't you done x y z Why is x y z here Why are we missing x y z" despite me having told her. I've suggested to her to watch some longer youtube videos together, which is usually our bonding method, and she'll agree. How that usually went was that I would wait until she called me since its her schedule we work around or that I pop into the living room and her seeing me would remind her. Now, again, she barely leaves her room. She just watches those videos and those shows. Nothing else. Works, sends out the roomba to vaccum every day, either gets her own food or yells for me to do it for her, and thats it. Checks on her plants maybe, does one or two chores that I haven't done. Back to her manhwas.

So , WIBTA if I confronted her about this and told her to stop? It risks another yelling match between us, it is hypocritical of me to do so bc I am the same. I am not gonna pretend I don't also become a hermit and hole myself up in my room. But idk. And it seems to be a geniune interest for her and it makes me happy, even tho in this whole situation I feel abandoned by my mother. Which sounds very stupid and dramatic but. Oh well.

What are these acronyms?

[silverskye13]

uh. is it a bad idea to sleep with a wrist brace (or future knee/ankle braces i get) or is it fine as long as it's loose enough

(i currently have bloodwork in and i possibly have arthritis or smth along those lines, very very bad muscle and joint pain, daily in legs and occasionally in wrists, but it started with only wrists)(aka why i have wrist braces but nothing else)

tbh im just sending this to you because. i think you mentioned joint pain stuff. but if not you can ignore.

(Oh also im gonna try to get a cane if i can but we'll see. other achey tips,, very appreciated? im taking the supplements i should and everything, exercising, but unfortunately nothing's been getting better and ive been dealing with it since 15/16)

Oh jeez! I'm sorry that's something you're dealing with anon. Joint pain gets really intense. Unfortunately I can't help much. Most of my personal issues stem from tendonitis and carpel tunnel, which while they give similar pains, give them for different reasons than arthritis. Mine is stress from repetitive motions, yours [possibly?] isn't.

So! Blanket disclaimer here that I'm not a doctor and I never saw a physical therapist. Below are my personal anecdotes. If you've already seen a doc or physical therapist about your arthritis, I recommend asking them specifically about sleeping with a wrist/knee/leg brace before taking my advice.

I've personally slept with a wrist brace when my pain was at it's worst -- especially when I still needed to draw during the day, so keeping the brace on while working wasn't helpful. I toss and turn and contort a lot in my sleep, so the brace helped keep my wrist stable, and gave me some compression while my muscles were learning how to relax again.

I saw some relief after I've tried it, but if it's something you're experimenting with, I would do it cautiously. I've read online that some people don't think it's beneficial [mostly because, if the brace is too tight or you experience swelling at night, it can cut off blood flow and become painful or, in extreme cases, might damage nerves. This is, obviously, not a problem I've had. But given arthritis specifically involves swelling and inflammation, it's a caution you might want to keep in mind.]

If you're in the experimental stage, and it's an option you would like to try, I would start with your brace loose? When I tried it the first time with my wrist brace, I made sure I could still wiggle my wrist around pretty good [normally I kept it tight enough during the day that it was difficult to bend my wrist when it was on.] Just having the brace made me want to lay more still. I also experimented with sleeping on my side with a pillow under my elbow, so it stayed at a 90° angle, and my arm stayed more or less perfectly horizontal. It was difficult to sleep like that, but it helped me keep my arm in a position that didn't induce the same repetitive stress. If you want to check out this YouTube video here, the last option she goes through with all the pillows is what I used the most.

Otherwise, most of my pain regulation involves taking hot showers, doing regular [hourly, half hourly] stretches. Things like that. Because my pain is mostly tendonitis, generally speaking, rest and stretches does most of my help. Also taking specifically anti-inflammatory pain killers, like ibuprofen, because the stress pain comes from inflammation. Hot and cold compresses, sitting with the painful limbs elevated. I'm sure all things you've heard before, but they're worth recommending again just in case.

It's also worth mentioning this stuff isn't an overnight cure. When my tendonitis was at it's worst, starting the sleeping with a brace / propped up on a bunch of pillows / stretches / etc helped in a matter of 5-10 days, and if I stopped at any point during that time, the flare ups would resume. I remember getting really pissed when I [finally] figured out playing video games strained the same muscles, so the reason all my "resting" didn't help sometimes was because I was too dumb to actually rest. Now when I draw for a few days in a row and my shoulder starts burning, I stop what I'm doing and find a good TV show to disassociate to for the rest of the week.

I'm sorry you're dealing with all this. It sounds like your pain is worse than mine was, and I know mine made me miserable. I am wishing you so much luck with your coming tests! I hope they find the root cause of all this, and some more specialized folks can get involved to help you find relief. Stay safe anon.

[asa2705]

Well, my final thoughts after the last playthrough

The only thing I really don't have any complaints about is the locations, they are very beautiful. The third act is good, I liked it for the first time and I liked it in my last run. I like rogue combat style, so far my favourite in the series, the mage and warrior are so-so, I didn't really like it, especially mage, to be limited by just 3 spells is ridiculous. The armor design is atrocious, mods can save it in general, but without them 90% of armors can be just thrown away. Companions' armors should also be redone with retextures, otherwise they are as colorful as parrots.

All lore was completely abandoned, all the elves suddenly know that the gods were evil, don't tell me they belived Inquisition, that they considered a Chantry organisation or their own God of Lies. Qunari Rook walk around Minrathous and no one has questions, although it was said earlier that the kossiths are killed on spot. Qunari in general are just cannon fodder, Venatori are also faceless villains. Honestly, it's better not to think about the lore at all, the more you think, the more you understand how bad the situation is.

All dialogues are extremely simplified, the style is not consistent with the previous games, I'm done with hearing Yep answers. It was fine in ME but not in DA. Also if Rook is an elf, especially Veil Jumper, sometimes they speak like a Dalish, sometimes like a city elf, they could not decide who the main character is at all.

Companions:

I like Davrin's questline with the griffins, as well as the NPCs it involves, I liked Uncle Eldrin, he actually feld like DA character. I also like Bellara's questline in general, at least something really emotional in this game + she really grows into something by the end, especially if you choose her as the one who will be kidnapped, Neve looked strange in this role.

It is better to ignore Taash, the more you learn the worse it gets. I'd rather recruit their mother if I had a choice.

Neve, Lucanis are neither fish nor fowl, although the concept of their quests was not bad, the execution was average. The crows are too sanitized here, I think devs need to play DAO one more time or at least once for some. All this talks about Jacobus becoming a crow in the end... I felt just cringe.

Emmyric is not bad, but too positive, although the choice with Manfred is the only one that really makes you consider what is better.

I didn't like Harding. She's much more interesting and serious in DAI, here she's just a sweet cutie, I ended up always saving Davrin, because I don't care if she lives or not. I actually felt bad about Davrin.

The romances in this game, it doesn't matter whether they are present or not, nothing to say.

Only the male Rook voices are normal, I actually liked Voice 2, it was natural and pleasant mostly, the female ones are terrible, especially the British one, it's incredibly annoying.

The import of decisions from previous games is played out poorly, they said that they would leave everyone to decide for themselves what was before and not touch on it, but in fact they have their own canon that they imposed. I was kind of fine with 3 choices only, but no the way they executed it. Regarding the Inquisitor, the only thing that really matters is whether there was a romance with Solas or not, while the romance itself is just terrible in DATV. I think I was literally in rage after the final scene lol But this whining creature, drooling over Solas and forgiving him everything is not my Lavellan. I'm actually not a Solavellan fan, I prefer friendship path and think he has more chemistry with non elven Inquisitor, but I liked my Lavellan. It was not her at all.

Friendship path is the only one that looked good in DATV, at least it suited my Trevelyan. On the other hand there is no import of their possible hatred and dispuse for each other, but here if you import that Inqy swore to stop Solas at any cost, it looks like they were mostly friends but disagreed in the end of Trespasser.

I ended up playing in my last playthrough as a male elf, a veil jumper with a mod that returns cut Dalish lines, always choosing the most straightforward dialogues. This was mostly okay. Davrin and Bellara were also my constant companions. I wanted to romance Neve, but somehow it looked ridiculous, then switched to Bellara, and it turned out much more organic with some real chemistry, I imported my canon Inquisitor Trevelyan, well and after excluding everything I didn't like the previous times, this playthrough turned out more or less enjoyable. This is definetly not the way it supposed to be lol My first impression was better actually, it's when you try to analyse and replay the gane you trully realise how problematic it is.

I liked my Rook though this time

[picnokinesis]

My friend is running a text-based rpg campaign, and I'm absolutely in love with it, so I decided to draw a 'cover' for each day in the story. We'll see if I can do one for each day, but I'm SO proud of how these turned out so far - all of them are inked in my notebook first, and then coloured digitally. If anyone's interested in the story, I've explained more about it all under the cut!

OKAY. So the game is called City of Mists, and basically it's...kinda hard to explain, but I'd call it 'cyberpunk noir', but with a 90s technological aesthetic. Kinda like when you read Issac Asimov's books and they're using computers but it's all cassettes and film-based technology. Anyway, it's awesome. Every character has a normal life in the city - their 'logos' - but there are some characters who are called Rifts, who have something mythological manifest within them - their 'mythos'. Now, the mythos can kinda be anything, but the point is that it's a legend or story that manifests within the character, and thus gives them new abilities. And every Rift has to balance their logos and their mythos - because to delve too much into your mythos means you forget your normal life and become entirely consumed by the mythos...but to focus too much on your logos means to lose, and forget, your mythos entirely. The 'mist' of the city obscures mythological and supernatural things from those who haven't 'awakened' yet - but Rifts can see through the mist.

So, my little guy is - sighs. Okay. Y'all are gonna laugh. Please be aware that I know, okay? I know. It's fine. This is a choice I've made. But he's called Nakis Sandhu, and he's an investigative journalist (NOT with amnesia) who, when he was a kid, was involved in a train accident that killed his parents, but him and his twin sister miraculously survived. He's trans, and he has a van - he doesn't live in it, thank goodness, but it is important because his mythos is Captain Nemo from 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas (this is why he looks like Sacha Dhawan, because like....Sacha Dhawan should play Captain Nemo and I'll die on that hill). And so Nakis, when his mythos awakened, turned his van into the Nautilus - Captain Nemo's submarine - and so it now works underwater too, and can travel undetected. He also becomes like, a technological genius and can invent stuff on the fly, but he never studied engineering or anything - it just comes to him in flashes of inspiration.

Nakis' main thing is that he's trying to figure out what happened in the train crash when he was a kid. He saw something different to everyone else, because he saw through the mist - what everyone else thought was an accident was actually two Rifts duking it out (I think). One of these Rifts was a blue bull that is apparently called 'the Bull of Thunder', and the other was a man with fire based abilities - called 'The Burning Man'. On Day 2, Nakis discovered a metal case that had belonged to the Burning Man, that had been hidden for twenty years - since the day of the accident - and was full of clues, including some photographic film that needed developing. Unfortunately, seems that there's a strange filter on the photos, so it's impossible to tell what's on them...luckily, my guy made friends with a photographer on Day 1 (who I believe is another player character) whilst investigating something else, and as a result he's now passed the film on to him, in the hopes that he'll be able to clear them up.

One funny thing: Day 0 was supposed to be a 'chill' day to figure out how the game mechanics worked, and figure out what your character would do on a normal day. Nakis immediately went to investigate something and then nearly ended up drowning RIP. On Day 1, when continuing to investigate the thing from Day 0, he...got shot in the shoulder HAHAHAH but he's fine, he's doing great, he didn't bleed out in his apartment which is always a win. He also bumped into another player character by doing this - so yay!

[alexanderwales]

Game Review: Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom

Let me lead with a score: 7/10.

I overall enjoyed the core gameplay and thought that the story was completely mid, which normally would result in a better overall impression of a game. Unfortunately, the core gameplay was a lot weaker than it should have been owing to some of the game design decisions, and I have to knock the story points for taking far too much time and being sluggish to get through.

The idea of Echoes of Wisdom is that you collect "echoes" of objects you find and then use them to get through the game. You get the echo of a bed and use two of them to cross a gap. You use the bed to make a ladder to get to higher places. You use the bed to make a bridge, which is really just crossing a gap again. You use the bed to press a switch to open a door. You learn "old bed" very early on, and in my case, it felt like the solution to far too many problems.

The biggest issue is just game design: they didn't do enough of it. In theory from a game mechanics standpoint there should have been ~10 echoes that are mechanically orthogonal to each other, fulfilling different roles. In practice, there are 127 echoes, the menu for accessing them is a mess, and the vast majority of them are redundant. Even the ones that are technically distinct don't have much mechanical distance from each other: you use fire to light torches and lightning to light up green crystals, and this really felt, while playing, like a lazy reskin.

It kind of reminded me of the Green Lantern having the power to make "anything he can imagine" and then 90% of the time using it to make a fist.

Included in those 127 echoes are "combat" echoes, which you get from defeating enemies. They fight for you, and some of them can do other things, but mostly it's the fighting. In most circumstances, you just use the most powerful guy you can, with the exceptions being flying enemies and very rarely needing some kind of elemental counter or the bomb fish.

Some of this is surely driven by game design principles, namely "don't let the player get stuck because they didn't pick up the right echoes along the way". I sympathize with this, but it also kind of sucks, because it makes everything feel bland. There's surely a "minimum echoes" category, just like Mario Odyssey has "minimum captures", and my guess is that you'd only need around 10, and that of those 10, there's just not that much that they actually do differently.

This is especially a shame when compared to Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom, where the tools are wildly different. Magnesis, Bomb, Ice Block, Time Stop? Those four together have more mechanical variety and combinatorial possibility than all 127 echoes in Echoes of Wisdom. And Tears of the Kingdom was amazing, one of those times when I would sit back and marvel at how much variety and complexity there was, how many challenges were brought forth by really good game design. That doesn't exist here.

So the game mechanical premise is cool, but they don't do too much with it. How's the story?

Told in a different way, I probably would have found it fine. Instead, the heaps of dialogue, slow animations between pieces of dialogue, minimal quality of those animations, and cutsceneitis made me repeatedly roll my eyes. The fact that it was the same locations as other Zelda games also detracted from it, which is something they're going to run into if they keep having the same fantasy races over and over and over.

I think the older I get, the more I hate being stopped in the middle of a game to read a bunch of text, and this is especially true when the gameplay disconnects itself from its story. So if they had snappy responses to me pressing the "yes, I have read this" button, and animation skips that have been present in the vast majority of games for the last five to ten years, I would have liked it better. Instead, I was fighting annoyance with how slow they made everything, particularly the animations for nodding and looking surprised and all these other things. You can have these animations while the text box is being read! We have the technology!

The mute protagonist also doesn't help, and I don't really understand why they used it here except for legacy reasons. Zelda is the character we're spending the most time with, she definitely has a history and perspective, and instead we get very little of her thoughts and feelings. If the intent was to help me project myself into her shoes, it did not work.

So I think this is going to be my last Nintendo game, at least for a while. This game as an 86 on Metacritic, and I'm going to take my overall dislike of many aspects of it as a sign that it's just not for me. I was giving Mario & Luigi: Brothership an appraising look, but this is the game that convinced me that I just don't like the slow, clunky interface to formulaic surface-level stories. I would look past that for good, mechanically rich gameplay, but now it's seeming more hit and miss.