#I'm not even high rn I'm just like this

[embryhallowed]

I act like a hardass but I still tear up any and EVERY time I see Steve Irwin's family living their best lives and being beautiful wonderful good humans

[vynnyal]

So let me get this straight:

Hollow knight is about the journey of a small creature possessing the corpse of a god's discarded child, and the character arc that unfolds as they realize they're more than the path they were set to take, eventually defeating the corruption instead of merely postponing inevitable destruction.

Rain world is about the journeys and experiences of many small creatures sent by a bunch of gossiping computers, and the efforts to help stop the destruction caused by a corrupted god that unfolds over hundreds of years, all to postpone his inevitable death.

Man, video games are fun!

[alongtidesoflight]

so here's my honest thoughts on dragon age: the veilguard, after ~40 hours of playing. i finished the main quest after having finished all companion quests and major faction quests. just to clear up what content i saw, i played as an elven transmasc rook who is a member of the lords of fortune. he romanced lucanis (although after finishing the game i'm now leaning towards taash). i don't know what's happening in playthroughs that have a different race, gender identity, romance or faction going on.

full spoilers ahead, i mean it. don't read further if you want to avoid them. i don't want complaining about it in my asks.

oh and also, if you're worried because of a few negative reviews online i can comfort you by saying don't give a fuck about a certain big name youtuber who is very much tied to bethesda franchises giving this a negative review. i'll explain why.

i'm starting off with the things i liked

the game looks really pretty. i was worried it wouldn't feel like thedas anymore (with them trying to "focus on northern thedas only" i thought they'd make a clear cut in environmental design. they do and they don't. it's complicated. i'll elaborate on it when talking about the negative stuff). anyway it does. minrathous feels like kirkwall. treviso enchanted me like the winter palace did. the hossberg wetlands reminded me of the hinterlands and a couple other inquisition maps. arlathan looked like... arlathan. the crossroads were different, but familiar. overall i like the way it looks and feels. it's thedas, with a twist. it's a good one, and gives everything a solid but unique feel.

combat is top tier. if you're a hardcore dragon age player you WILL miss the tactical aspect of it for a bit, but i promise you, once you're used to the way the combat works, you will be lapping that shit up. and once you get to ability combos you'll mourn the control you used to have over your companions in battle a bit less

the MAIN quest and its story. i expected worse, way worse. and for a while the game even had me tricked (harr harr you'll get it in a second) it is Really That Much Worse. but holy shit was it good. i walked away satisfied ngl.

your choices have SOLID weight. there's consequences, good AND bad. i got minrathous blighted, ruled over by venatori, and the leader of the shadow dragons ultimately died because of my decisions. i made those at the beginning and throughout the game. he died at the end. DAVRIN died because i didn't expect what i was saying to have that much weight. i thought i was in the clear. he had hero status. well turns out, your choices can still get your companions killed even if you do everything right. i fucking love him. he shouldn't have made that sacrifice just because i told him to do everything it takes once.

the inquisitor, morrigan and dorian being there, surprisingly. there's also negatives to this though, see below.

speaking of companions dying and the inquisitor playing a bigger role: the final quest feels like me2's suicide mission. i was blown away by it and the fact that i got to see the results of all my efforts playing out in front of me.

bioware are NOT trying to redeem solas. they love him as a character yes, but i wasn't forced to see any good in him. he betrays you. he fucked my rook over twice. he fucked him over right back, for good this time (the veil wasn't torn down, i anchored it by binding him to it, he's doomed to uphold it). but solas really lives up to his name as the trickster elven god. rip to all the people who grew really attached to him over the years.

varric died. if you like him that's probably as hard reading it as it was watching it. varric died and the game lies about it until the very end. when the realisation hits, it hurts. but in the very best way.

the amount of care they put into gender expression and trans identities this time around. (i'll add onto this with negative points as well too).

rook feels very much ingrained in the world of thedas. he doesn't ask questions that expose the player to lore through dialogue as if he's stepped foot into thedas for the first time. those conversations feel very solid and good. i hope other faction players got as much joy out of this as i did.

and the things i didn't like and boy there's a lot unfortunately

the music. let's just get that out of the way holy shit. it doesn't feel like it belongs in this universe. it gets so incredibly sci-fi-y at times you'd think it's taken straight from mass effect andromeda. there's not a single song unique to veilguard that i really enjoyed. it broke my immersion, real bad. hearing a busker play the tavern songs from inquisition on a lute right after i killed some venatori with wobbly bass songs playing in the background is just odd. weird tonal shift. don't like it. it's made for people who like flashy light-weight cinema.

tevinter nights is required reading. the podcasts are required listening exercises. the game is so fast paced, especially at the start, that there's no time to introduce you to characters and how much weight their names carry in-game. i would not have known who half these people are if i hadn't skimmed over tevinter nights. i'd care even less about them than i already did. there is no time to get properly attached to them. people will act as if you're talking to a legend personified and you'll be thinking man goddamn which chapter of tevinter night were they in again and what did they do???

there's a weird mismatch with the animations. you'll have beautifully fluid ones, like emmrich casting spells. and then you'll have rook's face animating in the most unnatural manner that's sorta reminiscent of mass effect andromeda's "my face is tired" addison, when their emotions SHOULD be landing with the player rn instead.

i'm not vibing with the art style. sometimes it works. most of the time it doesn't. at points i felt like i was watching tangled.

that also brings me to some of the dialogue. same issue. i am watching frozen. i am watching tangled. someone on the writer's team really likes the adorkable trope. bellara is its victim.

for all the talk about identity, bioware sure doesn't like theirs. the grey warden armor got a redesign again and it just makes them look like a generic army. i hate it lol

in general, i don't like the armor design. the wardrobe/appearances system is fine, but it's just not helping if all the armors are just... kinda bland or downight bad looking? and don't get me started on the lords of fortune armor. that is orientalism personified.

the world states should have been carried over, full stop. i know they said they didn't because they want to separate what happens in the north from what happens in the south, which... i could have lived with that. but the inquisitor sends you letters that keep you up to date on... the south of thedas. you learn that there's a blight again, that people are standing strong but it's difficult, denerim's fallen, the rulers are taking care of it, orlais is fighting and they're successful for a while, etc etc. what's good bioware. i thought we don't care about the south this time around. why are you feeding me so much boring generic information. if you're not gonna show any of it and just write letters, then carrying the world state over should not have been an issue. i have a game dev background. those few lines of code would not have broken your budget or pushed your engine's limits. fuck right off.

this gripe of mine carries over to all the cameos. as a lord of fortune you have to deal with isabela a lot. it's fun. i missed her. you get to go drinking with her and taash and bellara! also my hawke romanced her. she's not mentioned once. they had the opportunity to put a sentence or two about her in there with not a lot of effort, trust me.

when varric dies, all she has is a single line about it. for gold, for fortune, for varric. she only says it if you interact with her on your way to the final push. that's not mandatory.

morrigan is there. kieran isn't. the old god soul that mythal and then solas absorbed? who cares at this point, the gods are dead now and solas is locked away for eternity. i suppose? why is morrigan there. she feels unneeded. i wish they'd just left her down south, at least that way i wouldn't have had to witness her god awful redesign.

dorian at least feels as if he belongs in this story. the shadow dragons are a crucial part to protecting minrathous. he's also weirdly underutilised. isabela and morrigan had more lines than him in my playthrough.

on the topic of romance: bro that was underwhelming. no, genuinely. you know when romance picked up a bit? after the point of no return. i heard maybe two lines of companion banter about it before that. maybe i missed something which i honestly doubt, but romance did not play much of a role in lucanis's storyline. i saved his grandmother as he wished me to (and if you read tevinter nights you know she was rather abusive and their relationship not the healthiest) and told him to focus on his family. a reunified family my rook wasn't even introduced to as a partner at the end of all that.

really, do not buy this game if you're only in it for the romances. others might be better, lucanis's basically gave me nothing. except for an outing (the second coffee date i had with him, it was getting repetitive) all of it played out once i committed to the final quest. the sex scene was a fade to black. annoyingly right after davrin died. if you're looking for well paced and good spice, pick up something else. the sweet talk and the final goodbye were nice though.

for all the good the ever-presence of gender identity does, it is brought up in such a disruptive manner too. it doesn't even play out naturally if you CHOOSE the lines that are meant to be said. hearing the words trans and non-binary in this setting doesn't feel right, and i'm saying this as a trans guy. i think it could have been handled more gracefully. the amount of times my rook went "i'm a MAN" as if he's about to start drumming on his chest and roaring any second now got super nerve-grating. "i'm so glad you're into me... the me who is trans. remember?" just. tell me one trans person who'd talk like that to a person they've grown close with and are trying to romance. this game doesn't handle sexuality well, so all this hey my body might not look like the way you're expecting it to look talk amounts to nothing anyway. i feel about this the way i feel about krem: this is partial exposition to trans experiences... packaged up for cis consumption. the ONLY exception to that is interacting with taash. holy shit was all of that heartwarming and bro did it feel good and natural to talk to them about theirs and rook's gender.

rivain and nevarra are new locations added by veilguard. they're also incredibly underwhelming, small and constricted maps. rivain is a coastline with a few ruins. the hall of valor is a partial ruin nestled into a cave on a beach, with a fighting pit. isabela is there in her skimpy outfit commentating your pit fights. that's it. i'm sorry if you were looking for a bustling pirate cove or whatever. you're not gonna get it. the nevarran crypts btw are a long ass dungeon crawl. that's it.

speaking of maps. i thought people were being dramatic when they said you're gonna be fighting the same enemies on them again and again. i thought they were figure of speeching it. they're not. you WILL fight the same amount of enemies. in the same spot. every time you reload the map. best to stay on a map and clear out the enemies and do as much questing on that map as you can before leaving, because you WILL have to do it all over again once you return.

the three choices i made for my inquisitor didn't matter lol she didn't have to face solas and therefore couldn't stop him at any cost as she had sworn (maybe because my rook tricked solas into binding himself to the veil, there was also an option to fight him. would she have stepped in? who knows). blackwall wasn't mentioned. and either her using a small amount of her forces in the final fight was the reason the civilians of minrathous fared so well..... or it just didn't matter. ultimately i think she had very little impact on anything

[heteromerous-rhyming]

guys, can - can we stop saying that percy jackson is an unreliable narrator who thinks he's an idiot? bc like. rereading the books.

he's doesn't??? think he's an idiot????

like sure he'll say things like "echidna.... isn't that a type of anteater?" but he doesn't think that he's himself an idiot for that.

let me quote you the book: "Go ahead, call me an idiot for walking into a strange lady’s shop like that just because I was hungry, but I do impulsive stuff sometimes."

HE doesn't think he's an idiot, but he does assume that YOU, THE READER, will think that. and that's true to his life experience, true to his school experience, true to anyone with a learning disability like his.

[kuromi-hoemie]

Please drop the drink recipes that u cant taste the alcohol 😍

I'll share my two faves rn ^.^

Lazy Blackberry Mojito

ingredience..:

pink lemonade

club soda

bicardi

a box of blackberries

my steps :3

Put the blackberries in a ziplock bag (after cleaning them) n smash them to a pulp; it leaves you with the leftover juice and bits.

Add a few rounded scoops in a jar, fill with ice.

Pour bicardi (GENTLY), count to 6. u could do more tbh..

Fill halfway with club soda, fill the other half with pink lemonade.

Mix thoroughly.

This one's meant 2 be enjoyed with a boba straw so you can suck up and chew on the berry bits as u go.

Sparkling Sour Apple Cider

ingredieths:

Smirnoff Green Apple Vodka

Sparkling Apple Cider Non-alcoholic

Bicardi

my steps :3

Fill w ice.

Pour bicardi, count to ur preferred number.

Fill up to about a third with green apple vodka.

Fill the rest with Apple Cider.

The green apple vodka is very sweet and together they come out sort of like a sour apple soda.

Closing Thots...

Very generally I'd just say it's a ratio game to me 0: I try to fill the bottom 10-20% (usually) with liquor then mix whatever drinks/juices seem complementary.

The secret to a drink that hardly tastes like liquor is to not use too much lol!! 😭 u can always come back and make another one, if the first one could've been stronger u can go stronger, but start small.

Filling the whole thing with ice makes it go by fast and hits very refreshingly anyhow :^} see these ratio pics as just very loose starting points u can move around from.

[flowerakatsuka]

gonna post karamatsu's walking sprites from the tuxedo set, too, bc he looks very hamsome to me...

also, kara's boutonnière and this set referencing the valentine's day skit reminded me that the first valentine's day gift kuroba gives him is a preserved blue rose they made.

[ravene]

Me when I accidentally took a depression nap for too long and now I'm running late to the murder (that I planned) A.K.A. I tought it would be funny for Rodya to to the anime girl late to school run

[onyourstageleft]

[rqg179]

holy shit did kipperlilly kill buddy so that if kristen died no one would be able to bring her back and the only member of the church of cassandra would be gone

[foreverxdaydreaming]

x

[glasscitadel]

For a long time, Eden has a hard time acclimating to Gale. Everyone else in the crew gives him his space, understands he's reserved and prefers to stay quietly to himself... Maybe, at first, they're even intimidated by what he is, though they'd never say it out loud.

While Gale may have an added advantage of not knowing about Archaels, she is already incredibly social, and much of her culture encourages touch over words, which is very much the opposite of Eden's. He's often frustrated with how her tail mindlessly nudges or wraps itself around nearby legs seemingly without her notice, or how the question "are you okay?" is communicated with a gentle hand resting atop his own.

He's learned that in circles of casual/friendly conversation, it's best to stand opposite her, for her laughter and giggly bounces are a shared experience, accompanied by leaning on and grasping at the arms of whoever stands nearest. Nobody else minds this behavior, not even Julien, who was raised in his same home, or Azipha, who is often just as reserved as himself. She'll rest her head on his shoulder if they're sat beside each other, she'll pat his cheek if he says/does something cute. It's concerning.

Eden understands the dilemma is his, but touch is uncomfortable for many reasons, even nauseating at times. Though now a non-issue (since away from his home and the ever-watchful eyes of his advisors), he still knows it as an offense that often results in exile. He'll politely request for her to stop again, and she'll apologize again, and they will perform this dance again.

And again...

~~~

He allows irritation to build for weeks before his mind snaps while sat in Medbay as Nelson sticks EKG pads and other monitoring equipment to his nearly completely unclothed body, which already had his anxiety spiking. Gale is always trying to be the little helper, and it finally builds too much for Eden to handle. Unknowingly, that constant tight control over his influence loosens as her curious finger gently trails over the lines of his neck tattoo (after returning a fallen pad to it's former place near his collarbone), a feature so rarely seen by anyone not with the authority to perform physical exams.

At first, he doesn't notice, but as the overstimulation slowly fades and his heart-rate evens, an uneasy look to his crewmates shows him his panic and anger reflected. All three stunned into silence. Gale and Nelson have never witnessed this unique Archael communication, and, while harmless and natural, is terrifying to experience for the first time. The emotions they feel not their own, the unspoken words from Eden completely clear in their minds and bodies, reverberating them from the core and unable to respond or channel the energy because it is unnatural to them. A truly alien presence forced unkindly into their psyche.

It's not an influence command, but it is jarring. As Gale backs away trembling, Nelson focuses on understanding his (and not his) emotions-- he's smart, he knows it as a simple outburst of displeasure judging by the magnitude to which it was felt, and has already composed himself and is re-sticking fallen pads to Eden's skin as Gale shakily leaves for her room, sniffing back quiet tears. A queasiness settles over Eden, guilt of not containing the communication method with no off button and only an exhausting dimmer that needed to be maintained at all times.

When he's dismissed, there's relief that at least Nelson was able to smile and easily wave off his nervous amendment, but Gale... would be more difficult.

After an initial ignored apology and then many awkward, silent days spent in close proximity while researching flora on an anima-abundant planet, he eventually confronts her at her bedroom door (with much coaching and encouragement from fellow crewmates) on a day off with an armful of neatly folded, colorful clothing. Her look of surprise turns into embarrassment rather quickly, and the door is slid shut in his face. It takes a few undignified huffs to himself to motivate a second attempt and some gentle, reassuring words to coax the door back open.

This time, he's greeted with a shy but mischievous smile...

The promise of occasionally letting her play dress-up with him seemed to be the perfect atonement, after all.

[rosenfey]

🌷☕🌷☕ I've been playing a lot of cozy games these past few months also because I really like them but also because the cozy games community is genuinely the most chill and welcoming community video games-speaking I've personally experienced. now I'm not a very social person and I don't really talk much but it's nice to have a little low sensory space on the internet to parallel play in. ☕🌷☕🌷

[kenzan-kiwami]

to be completely frank i think most of the people i've seen with major complaints regarding RGG 8's story are forgetting that 99% of what they're saying can be applied across the whole series

[idiosyncraticrednebula]

Even since Michael's heavenly ascend, not just the music industry but, quite frankly, the entertainment industry as a whole has been left with a massive void that I don't believe will be fulfilled in the near future or ever again. That man had a star power equivalent to three Galactuses at their most powerful. You will never witness someone like that ever again, not in this lifetime nor the next one. He was and still is one of a kind.

[pokemonruby]

people trying to insist that oras is as bad as bdsp that is CRAZY

[boxwinebaddie]

hi uncle nina! sorry if this is kinda overbearing, but you havent posted anything today so i just wanna check in and make sure youre doing okay! <3

oh my god, sweetheart!!! this is not overbearing AT ALL! this is extremely thoughtful and makes me feel extremely validated. <3

i'm sorry for causing concern, but ty for being concerned about me.

because the school year is coming to a close, things around me at work have been pretty intense, so i've been tossed around like a ragdoll the past week and haven't had much time to write as a result. i also haven't been sleeping very well and rush a lot in the mornings, so i've forgotten to take my mood stabilizer the past couple of days which makes me v sluggish, zombie-ish and unpleasant in general. :/

...when i am like that, as a weird way of sparing you, i suppose, i try not to post on here too much because it feels quite shitty indeed for you to get a notification for my blog just to watch me bitch n moan.

however, i have taken my medication today and feel bad for fumbling kyle week...as we know i'm not really good at holding myself accountable or making deadlines. oddly enough, it's not that i don't want to answer my questions, it's just that other than not being able to really find the time recently, i just can't find the right...words?

( this ask is long and irrelevant, but read if you wish. ilysm. )

or, rather, i don't feel knowledgeable enough the subjects to answer? specifically in the areas of my tsot/tfbw styles and ncuniverses, i feel a little insecure because i don't know sp or the games as well as many other people do, so i'm trying to speed watch episodes/watch speed runs of the games online so i can at least keep some canon intact?

i also am finding that creating and understanding how high fantasy universes work is...difficult? lmao? also because i did crazy stuff with mutations and science and politics in my tfbw ncuniverse, that's also complicated and out of my wheelhouse...tldr: i have big ideas, but i'm not very good at backing them in fact or doing analytical stuff.

but...iiiiii need to, lmao. mental illness, but if i make a universe it has to be fully realized, it has to all make as much sense as possible, echo the canon, enhance it, feel real and be fluid...so if i'm not around too much it's because i'm trying to bolster myself with my sp knowledge ( ik, i'm a fake fan ) and watch/read/research high fantasy concepts and superhero/scientific fiction/dystopian stuff...so if anyone has any recommendations for me to watch or learn from in those realms, i'd appreciate it. again, this is intense...but i care a lot about my craft.

and specifically crafting something worthy of all of you, that makes sense, lives and breathes, reflects the show we love & is interesting.

ANYWAYS!!!! with that said, i got a cool ask about whether or not i have a gunslinger kyle? which? not yet? BUT YOU'RE A GENIUS BABY I AM SOOOOO ON IT!!! please let me cook and watch some things because actually, oh my god, i am very down. i'll update you. i might make a board to gather ideas, omg, omg, it'll be SPICY.

i got an ask about princess kylie, which, bless you, i am also still developing her character, i am going to pour over the books, watch some GOT, do some mapping out, watch some intricate dnd play throughs...and have some answers for you very soon: hang on, baby.

( she's little, bitchy, prissy and does need to be babysat, i'm afraid. )

got some on jersey i'm excited about! sorry for writing that ask meme about the sour skittles like that, again, writing has been trying for me lately and i had a concept that i wanted to share but wasn't sure how to express that. if you guys are alright with getting my asks in the form of notes some times i would appreciate it! anyways, keep your eyes out for some of those...if kyle week runs into next week, sorry.

idk...this is so long. all this to say...i'm really sorry? i haven't been a very solid creator lately, but i'm a little unstable rn. but i am working on it and i hope to be back on the horse by tonight and share my notes at least and show you guys how my brain is working.

in the mean time, please direct as many questions as you would like in the direction of riley, teri and ana who not only are epic writers but have been an epic support system/helping me get back into things.

thank you for caring, thank you for reading...keeping up with this blog and the questions and creating constantly is sometimes challenging, but very rewarding. i promise that i am not neglecting my asks or all of you because i don't care, its actually because i care very much and only want to give you stuff that is awesome and cool and well researched. so, again, just give me a second to get my barings and while it kind of eats at my bad bpd brain i might try and share stuff with you guys that's half baked because the feedback might help.

tldr: i love you, this made no sense, i'm a mess, but i am fine.

miss you and love you. happy kyle week.

-uncle nina