#Like you could actually add some lore expansion here

[randomruff]

OMG, THAT WOULD BE AWESOME! And you can picture all the sweet and spicy Sylus and MC moments it might have too!

Fic idea where MC gets fired because her relationship with Sylus gets out and even Xavier can't save her job no mater what he says or does. (he doesn't agree with the relationship but he knows how much the job means to MC)

Also knowing how much the job means to MC, Sylus provides any support an assistance for her to be able to do what she wants. Basically becoming the second leader of Onychinus. The ultimate power couple.

theres a scene where shes there with like one of the people shes recruited and the run into the hunters and they're like mocking her for getting kicked out and then she saves them from a wanderer and just walks off itd be SO BADASS BRO

sylus is all like "Sweetie i know youre upset but why do you need them when you have me."

if anyone does it lmk if not i might tackle it because it seems fun but also i got 3 fics going on rn

[m1d-45]

my love, my god

summary: the ‘tomorrow’ you’ve been putting off finally comes, but not how you expect it to

word count: 2.6k

-> warnings: spoilers for baizhu lore/story quest, you have several nosebleeds

-> gn reader (you/yours) and aether as the traveller

taglist (+those that asked for a pt 2): @samarill || @thenyxsky || @valeriele3 || @shizunxie || @boba-is-a-soup || @yuus3n || @esthelily || @turningfrogsgay || @cupandtea24 || @genshin-impacts-me || @chaoticfivesworld || @raaawwwr || @fleurdawn || @extremelytoastybread || @ambermondy || @loyal-to-dottore

<< first part || < masterlist >

living with aether was supposed to be easy.

you’d established a routine, your days simple. you spent your time in his library for plausible deniability, surprised at how expansive his library was. a lot of the books seemed like gifts, with little notes scrawled in the front covers. you honestly spent more of your time reading the notes than the book themselves, tracing over the handwriting.

barbara had given him a copy of a medical handbook, with notes in the margins from both of them for replacement herbs since the book was intended for use within mondstat. you didn’t try to memorize it, just skimming for a few details. some you knew, like wolfhooks or onikabuto helping to close wounds, but some was new. apparently, a diluted solution of cor lapis shavings in water could help heal broken bones, though it was noted that this shouldn’t be used in excess if the receiver didn’t have high enough elemental affinity.

a book of liyue’s local specialties, given from someone with exceptionally sloppy handwriting. there was a whole row dedicated solely to various recipe books, the one from liyue with a few extra pages tucked in.

aether liked to write in his books, you noticed, even the fiction ones. you had yet to encounter a single book that didn’t have at least one note in the margins, each in his sharp, quick writing.

‘cut lavender melon thinner than you think.’

‘who actually talks like this?’

‘when cooking for paimon, add slime concentrate to the broth.’

it was endearing. you saw so little of him in the game, most of the dialogue given by paimon. while you’d certainly gotten to know him in your time here… it was different, seeing his notes like this. it cemented the idea that you were really in your game, since what dream of yours would include the fact that ningguang had given him a journal of advice on how to deal with various poisons someone might try to use on him?

despite his expansive collection of books, he had very few historical records. the ones he did were well worn, filled with pages of notes as he tried to decipher the history of teyvat. it was sad to see, his writing becoming more desperate the further through the books you got.

‘ask zhongli for clarification.’

‘kokomi doesn’t recognize the name ‘istaroth.’ ask miko?’

‘dahri = khaenri’ah?’

‘ask zh ask dainslef. where would i even find him?’

‘even if i knew everything, would it make sense?‘

tears pricked at your eyes, and you closed the book in your hands before you smudged the writing. you wiped at your eyes, sniffling as you put it back on the shelf. it was hard not to feel bad, but even if you told him everything you knew about teyvat, would he believe you? would he still be as kind to you as he was? he was your one real anchor here, what with the world in chaos after you stopped playing… you couldn’t even point him in the right direction, since even that would raise suspicion.

maybe that was enough reading for today.

you wiped at your nose, walking for the exit to the library. when you reached for the handle, however, you spotted a smear of glittering blue across the side of your hand.

it took another drop of blood hitting the wooden floor before you realized what was happening, quickly plugging your nose and rushing to the bathroom. you took care to wipe up the drop that landed on the floor, both so it wouldn’t stain and so that nobody saw it.

you weren’t trying to die today. and even if, somehow, aether was fine with your constant lying to him, you didn’t want to ruin what you had.

not today, thank you.

despite it being where you’d first ‘landed,’ you had never been to mondstat. ever since your run in with zhongli, it was the nation you were avoiding going with him most, second only to maybe sumeru. venti, kaeya, and diluc, three of the most perceptive people in game, all in one place… it was a recipe for disaster.

unfortunately, aether was an excellent cook.

he’d decided to take his commissions from mondstat today, and only one required combat. plus, he wanted you to see the city.. and you couldn’t exactly say no to him without reason.

the first was helping wyatt find his key in dadaupa gorge. you’re not sure why he was drinking out there, but you’re not gonna ask too many questions. the gorge was beautiful in person, cranes nearly everywhere you turned… though that might just be because you were there. the wildlife had been getting more daring lately.

the second was delivering connor some mist flower corollas, carefully moved from aether’s inventory to a thick, special made bag. you got a strange look or two from the maids, but within a few minutes aether was teleporting you to the city, tunner‘s prescription in hand. mondstat was much more lively than in the game, though you supposed that was for convenience. having hundreds of npcs roaming the city, each holding their own conversations, would likely hit performance.

paimon told you all about the city, though all of it was things you already know. there’s the adventurer’s guild, there’s bennett—you both waved—and there’s ellin! that’s the statue of barbatos, boasting a height of…

paimon scratched at her head, looking up at the statue. “how tall is the statue?”

aether shrugged, holding one hand to block the sun as he tried to guess. “nobody ever said. do you think one of the sisters would know?”

“hm, paimon thinks our best bet is venti! he sits up there all the time, doesnt he?”

you looked over the statue, taking in all the details not present on it’s in-game model. even from ground level you swear you could see individual feathers carved into the rock. “you said he flies, right? i think we should ask the knights, they-” copper landed on your tongue, and you put a finger to your top lip. it came away blue.

shit.

you covered your nose quickly, the other two thankfully getting the message without you needing to talk. a napkin was pressed to your hand, and you were careful not to let any of the blue show as you switched your hand over it.

two nosebleeds with barely two weeks between them. were you sick? were the foreign bacteria finally showing face? you didn’t feel sick—if anything you’d been feeling much better physically, since coming to teyvat—but what if you were? what if it was some illness that only targeted outlanders- no, aether would have told you about that, he was too kind not to. but then why…?

you were sat in one of the pews of the cathedral, paimon sitting by your side. your eyes tracked aether to one of the nuns, but were quickly distracted by the beautiful stained glass set in the windows. shades of blue and green decorated the walls, coloring the inside of the cathedral. you couldn’t quite make out the scenes depicted, but it gave the room so much more *life* than its model. it was lived in, not just another location on a map.

“my my, traveller, you look different than i remember.”

you’re given little warning before kaeya speaks, his steps having not made a single sound. both you and paimon turned, her hands lifting in a wave while yours tightened around your stained napkins.

“hey kaeya! what are you doing at the cathedral? paimon doesn’t remember there being a service today…”

“just going for a walk.” his eyes shift to you, and you look away, in the direction aether left. the nun was back, but he was nowhere to be found. he wouldn’t leave to the winery already, would he? “who’s this?”

“a friend.”

a hand sets on your shoulder, and you jump. was it some unspoken rule not to let your steps be heard in a cathedral, or did it come with the territory?

aether passes you a small vial of a clear blue liquid, moving to stand between you and kaeya. “i talked to barbara about your nosebleed, this should stop it. a small sip will do.”

you don’t ask why he did that, instead just doing as he said. kaeya gave you an odd look but you were quick to follow paimon out of the cathedral, leaving them to it. soon enough aether joined you, and you all went back to the teapot for lunch.

it was a fluke. it had to be.

it wasn’t.

you were sitting at a table at wanmin, listening to xingqiu talk about his latest idea for a novel. paimon had helped you order, picking you out a minty drink that was as refreshing as it was delicious. you took a sip, sharing a look with aether over the rim right as a drop slid down your top lip. thankfully, the blue streak was explained by the tint of the drink, though chongyun did give you a few more odd glances than you preferred.

running into the arataki gang in inazuma city, itto excitedly showing you and aether the new beetles he found earlier. he stuck by your side, holding your hand in his as they switched to talking about tcg. they patted their pockets, searching for the cards they’d won today. a cough into your elbow was all it took for blue to mark the inside of your sleeve, and shinobu was quick to pass you a napkin coated with onikabuto dust. it felt funny against your fingers, but apparently the gang used them to patch wounds all the time when a friendly wrestle went too far.

the more people were around, the worse they were. your nose was near constantly itchy, like the world was channeling every irritant in a mile radius right into your face. any minor bump would cause at least a drop to spill down your lip, leaving you overcautious and aether forever worried. the bottle barbara gave you ran out quick, and though she ended up giving you the recipe, it was clear that something more serious was going on.

you laid on the couch, pinching a napkin around your nose while you waited for aether to finish your medicine. he’d gone outside to get the rest of the ingredients with paimon, leaving you to your thoughts.

you hated teyvat for doing this to you. you’d bet good mora that simply showing him the color of the stains on your napkins would solve whatever phantom illness ailed you, but you didn’t want to. you were happy with the life you had! you didn’t need a shining palace or the worship of the world, you just needed aether. him and paimon and your teapot, with the small herbs growing in the windowsill and crystalflies fluttering outside. why was the world so determined to get you to spill your secret? it wasn’t like he’d hate you for keeping it—at most he’d be surprised, or maybe even a bit apologetic himself.

it was stupid. shouldn’t you be the one to decide whether this was shared or not?

you sighed, the sound of the door pushing that train of thought aside. aether tapped your shoulder and you sat up, accepting the medicine thankfully.

“sorry about the delay, baizhu was dealing with another patient.”

“you went to the pharmacy?” you hand him back the bottle, looking away as you wipe off your nose.

“yep! when we got there he was mixing up a nasty smelling poultice for some other lady—paimon swears she can still smell it, even after all this time!”

“really?” you look up, satisfied you got it all off, but freeze. aether is standing beside you, and paimon’s sitting on the arm of the couch, but behind them is baizhu, changsheng loosely coiled around his shoulders.

oh no.

“one of the ingredients in barbara’s medicine is qingxin,” aether explains, “i only had so many, so i started buying them from the pharmacy. he got curious and asked about you… i hope you don’t mind?”

you barely hear him, focused on the lift of changsheng’s head as she whispers something into baizhu’s ear. he looks surprised, mostly, but also confused, and you know exactly why.

after all if he can sense god remains, he can surely sense the god.

“is there a problem, doctor?” you ask, and wait until both aether and paimon turned to him to raise a finger to your lips.

keep quiet. don’t tell him. i don’t want to lose this yet.

he looks between you and aether, clearly conflicted.

please.

after a moment, he sighs, shaking his head as he adjusts his glasses. “nothing is wrong, my apologies. changsheng, if you will..”

he begins to search through his inventory while changsheng slithers past paimon, curling around your wrist. baizhu takes out a notepad, pulling over a chair.

“aether, you’ve been coming to the pharmacy for qingxin for a little over 3 months. is that a good estimate for the length of time this has occurred?”

he glanced at you, and you nodded.

that was a lie, technically.. but it was for the greater good. baizhu would mark you some anomaly, recommend you just keep taking barbara’s medicine, and everything would be okay. you’d be fine. no stresses of godhood, no giving up your peaceful life in the realm within, nothing.

changsheng uncoils from your hand, climbing onto aether’s shoulders to get to baizhu. he doesn’t so much as blink, letting her wind back into place. what did she go to you for, then? “do any other symptoms come with them, such as nausea or headaches?”

“no, not really.”

“have you noticed anything strange about the blood? clots, maybe, or discoloration?”

you meet his pointed look, ignoring how your heart picks up. call it selfishness. “nothing.”

baizhu sighs. “are you certain? if you want this to go away, you need to be honest.”

at least you were right on one front. to get back the life you had, you’d need to give it up. while you knew neither aether or paimon would resent you—they’d dealt with gods disguising themselves before, surely they couldn’t hate you—their attitude toward you would certainly change.

your silence is clearly worrying, and you shake your head before anybody asks questions. “i’m certain, there’s nothing.”

he again looks conflicted, and paimon looks between the two of you, frowning. “uh, is paimon missing something…?”

“i’m sorry,” baizhu says finally, “but it’s for your own health.”

before you can protest, he reaches up towards changsheng. she shifts, revealing the napkin you used earlier hidden between her body and his, clearly marked with blue.

when did she-?

baizhu flicks out the napkin and paimon gasps. “i can tell they’re getting worse, and while i understand it’s your choice, i value your life more.”

aether turns to you, and you can’t read the expression on his face. “is that really yours?”

“…yeah. i put it together that teyvat wants me to tell someone, but i didn’t want to lose what we had.”

he smiles, holding out his hand. when you took it, he pulled you up off the couch and into a hug.

“you’ll never lose me,” he promised, “not even if you’re a god. not even if you’re my god.”

[maverick-werewolf]

Werewolf Article - (Play As A) Werewolf Video Games

The results of the poll for this month on my Patreon are in, and the winner is an opinionated article on werewolf video games! Apologies in advance if any of my opinions here anger you. I was asked for opinionated, so I went opinionated and did not hold back.

For clarity's sake: this will be a relatively concise list of SOME video games in which you can or do play as a werewolf. It will NOT include every single game in which you can or do play as a werewolf, nor will it include certain kinds of playable werewolves that exist in gaming, for the sake of brevity. You'll notice some missing and then want to be first to tell me I left out [thing], but I assure you I am aware of those too. I am also not going to list games in which you can play as a werewolf but it requires either user-made mods or else playing in a custom campaign/tileset/server (like Neverwinter Nights <3), only games wherein you can play as a werewolf as part of base game or expansion pack mechanics.

This IS a tiered list. It is tiered based on the werewolf gameplay mechanics and elements in the game.

Let's get started. I will begin at #9, go to #1, and then I will close with some words on some other games that didn't make the numbered list.

9. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm

Note: your player character will never have torn-up clothing or use his claws like in this artwork/like the enemy worgen do

I'm just going to list Cataclysm here because, frankly, I don't even want to discuss WoW at Shadowlands and beyond... even if discussing the model update will reach into that era of content. Obviously, I don't play WoW anymore and haven't in quite a while, but yeah, I used to really enjoy it. Played it for many, many years. Probably too many.

Cataclysm was a pretty outright bad expansion, but it did add playable worgen (something I obviously wanted from day 1 after seeing the worgen mobs running around), and they can even turn into human form, which is a must for me in terms of actually being a werewolf instead of just a wolf-person, which I wouldn't even roll. That was a nice touch I didn't actually expect from the devs.

Unfortunately, the model update turned them into something far "cuter" and more cuddly than I liked, not to mention adding preposterous fur options like stripes and merle, but the human form customization was nice. Still, the model update drove me toward playing different races, like maining my kul'tiran and night elf instead of the worgen I was always ultimately pretty disappointed in, given his wearing fine armor and wielding giant weapons. Anyway, the entire game took a huge nosedive not long after the model change, so it's a moot point for me regardless.

As for the deeper worgen lore beyond "they are werewolves with a funny name": I hate it with all my heart. I did my best to ignore every scrap of that and how they are just self-parodies, to delete the Gilneas/worgen starting zone quests from my entire brain, and especially to ignore the fact that they were all preposterously British despite England being one of the last places historically to even have many werewolf legends of its own. I have an article about that here if you are interested in the topic. The game made all of these things very difficult, especially how hard they wanted to drive home that the worgen are silly posh British parody dog-people strutting around in waistcoats and tophats instead of being fearsome cursed werewolves. So I won't bother going into all that.

The mechanics are fun except for the fact that you have to wear armor and use weapons, so ultimately you just look like a beast-person instead of a werewolf, especially after the model change making them far more appealing to a certain demographic. If Blizzard had wanted to put in effort, they would have made your gear look tattered and would have made you swap to claws when you turn, but that would've been a lot of work. They could have at least added a specialized class or something and then also given it to some Horde races to make the precious Horde players happy. I don't know. I just think werewolves wearing fine clothes and armor and wielding weapons is immensely silly. They're supposed to be werewolves.

So while they are extremely far from perfect, the worgen are at least relatively fun in that, if nothing else, you can go between werewolf and human forms and run on all fours as fast as the fastest ground mount, and I am deeply surprised they did either. I immensely enjoyed both of those things during my time playing a worgen, and they helped mitigate the great disappointment otherwise in many other regards - though not enough to keep me from maining other races, especially later on. But, in the end, WoW sucks now and it's unrecoverable, and WoW Classic is a joke, so I'll never be playing a worgen again anyway.

8. Diablo II

I'm sure you were looking for this one - the werewolf druid in Diablo II (preemptive sidebar: I am not going to talk about Diablo IV). I love his design and gameplay mechanics. He's fantastic. However, he is of course yet another instance of "the werewolf must be a druid," which I personally find a little tiresome after so much of it. But hey, this was one of the earlier games to do that, so it predated a lot of the craze.

At any rate, the Druid class in Diablo II obviously gets a werewolf form. It also gets a requisite werebear because werewolves can almost never just be werewolves, but at least the werewolf does not completely suck. You can also summon wolves, which is a bonus.

While I'm not really that big on Diablo-type gameplay - I prefer either third-person or else a proper isometric, party-based RPG - so Diablo II didn't really hold my interest a lot, the werewolf druid is very fun and a very cool werewolf, the setting is great, and the werewolf suits the dark Gothic feeling and look of the game that is enjoyable and well conveyed in the first place. The werewolf druid is a great addition that I am glad they added.

7. Baldur's Gate II

Let me make something perfectly clear: Baldur's Gate II is, in my opinion, the best game ever made (only Uncharted 2: Among Thieves also makes this rank for me). Combined with BG1 to create the Baldur's Gate Saga, it is one of the best stories ever told and also my favorite game mechanics-wise, again alongside Uncharted 2 even if yes, I know that those games could almost not be farther apart in terms of mechanics. I absolutely love BG2 beyond words. Please note I am talking about the original Baldur's Gate II, as released in 2000, not the "Enhanced Edition," which is a disgrace to the game, the entire series, and a piece of garbage. It's shamefully difficult to find the original game anymore, but it's worth it over playing the EE; trust me. I'll try to spare you any further ranting on this topic, as the original Baldur's Gate Saga is something very close to my heart.

Anyway, the werewolf in BG2 is - once again - a druid, specifically a druid subclass called Shapeshifter. It doesn't really have any werewolf gameplay mechanics in that you are not treated differently for it, nor do you transform out of your own control. In fact you will be spending the majority of your time in werewolf form, which can get quite tiresome. I'm not the biggest fan of a werewolf holding normal conversations with NPCs, etc. But regardless, it's there, and I love it, and it looks awesome, and that's more than I can say for so many games. Plus, you get cool bonuses and stuff. The power of it varies over time and with the progression of your character. I will not go too deeply into it, as I am actually an insane D&D video game nerd and even today I can spend far too much time building characters and tweaking numbers and doing ridiculous tricks in D&D games to powergame. If you want just one of my credentials I beat BG2 on the hardest difficulty with Ascension and no other gameplay mods. Long story short, the Greater Werewolf is quite powerful, and it shouldn't be a detriment to your party to either be one or bring along Cernd, one of my favorite companions.

So don't listen to the people down on the Shapeshifter in BG2. You can get mods that make them overpowered, anyway. Also don't listen to my complaints about it not feeling werewolfish enough because that's nearly impossible to come by anyway if you're not playing the #1 game on this list. Go try one out. It's fun! Plus, BG2 is the best game ever made.

6. Altered Beast

What are some of Mav's favorite things? Ancient Greece, hoplites, hot men, werewolves, dragons, tigers...

When I found out Altered Beast exists and is a game wherein you play as an awesome hoplite dude and turn into a werewolf, a green dragon, a tiger-man, and ultimately a werewolf is still the most powerful of all his forms, I was ecstatic. I had to play it immediately.

I wasn't disappointed. It's a fun, unforgiving game, because it was made before video games started becoming what I think we're supposed to call accessible today. I don't know what else there is to say about the game if what I've already said hasn't convinced you to play it. The werewolf form is your first transformation, and your most powerful is a golden werewolf. Me being me, I appreciate that a werewolf form is still the best in the end instead of being outshone by other creatures, and even the other forms available are all very cool.

As I said, I really don't know what more one could ask for of this setting and gameplay. I've never been picky about genre; I play a very wide variety of video games and have plenty of fun, and I certainly had fun with this one.

(Note: I'm not going to talk about that 2005 Altered Beast remake, I like to pretend it never happened)

5. Werewolf the Apocalypse: Earthblood

I'll be the first to admit I'm far from the biggest World of Darkness fan ever, as has brought many insults my way already, but I was pleasantly surprised by the mechanics of the werewolf form in Earthblood. I will not call it the "crinos form," as that terminology is so immensely silly that I could no longer take it seriously if I did. So anyway, the gameplay actually lets you feel like a werewolf, and you even get two stances you can swap between for different combat styles instead of anchoring werewolves down to just doing one thing. I'm not going to wax on about the lore, the story, etc. - but man the werewolf mechanics really are fun. It is, of course, the main draw of the whole deal, and they didn't slouch on that element.

It's important to me that a werewolf feel powerful and also violent. Werewolves should not be cuddly, or else they are no longer werewolves. Painting hallways with the blood of my enemies as if I'm recreating the Ninja lead-up in Metal Gear Solid while in werewolf form is cathartic and a good way to give the player a sense of being a werewolf instead of just an animal-headed person. This is a very solid "play as a werewolf" game, and one of the few games that exist with the primary purpose of letting you really play as a werewolf, whether you are a predetermined character or not. Be warned, the game is notoriously janky, but if you're like me, you're enjoying the werewolf mechanics enough that you don't care - or you can be even more like me and not give a toss about "jankiness" in a game in the first place.

4. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

While a significant and crushing downgrade from the werewolves in certain other Elder Scrolls entries - more on that momentarily - at least Skyrim let you become a werewolf in the base game. No waiting for an expansion pack and no waiting forever until you move on (thanks, Oblivion). However, the differences between the mechanics of werewolves in past entries and the Skyrim werewolves are many and tragic. I confess I did not play Skyrim much, partially as a result of these exact elements, and partially because I just don't spend much time playing video games anymore, among other things.

In Skyrim, being a werewolf becomes what is colloquially called an "awesome button," letting you turn into a big, strong, cool werewolf that can eat people to extend your werewolf timer. It's great and enjoyable, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't actually feel as if you are truly cursed with lycanthropy or smelly lupus or whatever silly name Elder Scrolls gave it (yes, I know the name, but that doesn't make it less silly). You have no real disadvantages to being a werewolf, such as having to worry about when you will transform outside your own control - because you never will, which is an immense downgrade in terms of feeling werewolfish and adding appropriate challenge and downside to being a werewolf. You also don't have to worry about being forced to devour a civilized race in order to sate your accursed hunger. Instead, you're doing that on purpose to turn out of werewolf form again, because the more you eat, the longer you stay transformed. Still, the werewolves in Skyrim are good - they just don't compare to previous entries. But I certainly appreciate them and the fact that they are present in the base game.

3. The Sims 3

Trust me, they do look better in game, but I couldn't find any of my own screenshots because it's been a hot minute since I played this.

You probably think I'm trolling you, but the werewolves in The Sims have always been pretty fun; I remember when the ones in 2 first came out, I enjoyed them like crazy. The ones in 3 rocked and were easily the best variant; too bad the game is relatively difficult to get running properly, and many aspects of the werewolves are delicate and easy to glitch, including your entire Sim's werewolf form design. I am not going to talk about those abominations that were added to The Sims 4, because they are some of the worst things I have ever had the misfortune of seeing and are not werewolves by any metric.

Sims 3 changed the aspects of Sims 2 werewolves that I didn't like, such as how being a werewolf altered your sim's entire personality over time and how the werewolf form always looked the same. They made the system much more robust. Frankly, the Sims 3 werewolves are some of the better werewolves in gaming, especially for the kind of game that The Sims is (expect assorted dog jokes, for example, given it's The Sims, yet it still isn't half as bad as it could be). I also love the wolf-man design; it works much better with Sims than something bigger and more wolfish. Certainly far better than whatever the hell is in Sims 4, which again, I will try my best not to talk about.

Anyway, I absolutely recommend Sims 3 if you enjoy Sims games and werewolves and want to have some werewolf fun. I'd probably still be occasionally blowing my finite amount of time on this earth playing it if I had it properly running on my current PC.

2. The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall

Bet you didn't expect to see this one, did you? You thought I was gonna say Skyrim as #2, right? Actually, I bet you thought I was going to say that one as #1.

The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall is a game many would consider unapproachable today. I enjoyed it. Obviously, I played it for the playable werewolf, and I had fun! They work similarly to the ones in Bloodmoon, but, in my opinion, they still aren't as fantastic as the Bloodmoon ones. But the game does force you to actually live and behave as a werewolf - I love the werewolf hunter[s] mechanic - which, again... it's almost the only one of its kind other than Bloodmoon. For that, it gets #2 on this list.

And that means you know what makes #1, untouched in its glory, undimmed by time...

1. The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind - Bloodmoon

Alright. Have I ever talked about how this is the single greatest werewolf game ever made? I think I have, but let's get into it again.

I like Morrowind in the first place. I think it's hands down the best of the Elder Scrolls series and, frankly, the only one really worth dedicating much time to (forgive me). I played it when it first came out, and while I have never been the kind of person to pour hours into any ES or even any other open world game, Morrowind held my attention even as a kid - before I knew about "open world" and before it was such a buzzword - whereas other games before and after it struggled to do so or else failed entirely. Morrowind was groundbreaking for its time in many ways. And then they announced the expansion pack called Bloodmoon that would let you play as a werewolf. I was so excited I could hardly stand it, and even with my extreme werewolf pickiness, I was not disappointed. At all.

This is a game wherein the werewolves are treated as a serious threat, they are insanely rare to encounter in the wild in any capacity (I actually became a werewolf through a random encounter because I ran around on Solstheim obsessively every night rather than just becoming one through the story - it took me many nights, IRL, to encounter one), and when you do run into them, they are likely to destroy you. You are insanely, over the top powerful when you turn into a werewolf, yourself. Some would even call it stupid. I would not. You run at the speed of light and your jump turns into borderline flight. It's basically gliding. You're also preposterously powerful in general. I love it.

Most importantly of all, however, is that you are actually forced to roleplay as a werewolf. You will turn each night, and you must consume 1 victim NPC of any of the playable races. Solstheim is full of assorted enemies that will work for this, but when you go back to Vvardenfell, it can be harder to find a nightly meal while avoiding devouring any quest NPCs. Plus, you have to manage your gear before and after transformations, and you have to be sure you are never witnessed transforming. The entire system is in-depth and very awesome, making you actually feel like a cursed being that has to worry when the sun starts to set, forcing you to run far from civilization.

I cannot put into words how much I adore this game's werewolf system. Nothing compares. This is a real werewolf system, instead of "play as a wolf-person" or "hit the awesome button to become a werewolf for a little while with 0 consequences" like basically every other werewolf game out there.

So long story short, if you claim to love werewolves and want to play as one in a video game, and you haven't played Bloodmoon, then you're lying to yourself and the whole world. Shame on you.

And now for things that didn't make the list...

10. Assorted Acknowledgements

This category is for ones I don't even really have a lot to say about, but I figured I would mention them.

Terraria - You can get an item that lets you turn into a werewolf when night falls. It's pretty fun! I like the mechanics of it, plus it has a neat werewolf design, to boot. I dock serious points in this game for straight-up replacing the zombies with hordes of werewolves in hard mode, though. "Werewolf infestations" and werewolves being zombie stand-ins these days is preposterous and overdone. But I had a lot of fun running around as a werewolf and exploring, so it's absolutely top of the non-tiered list especially as far as werewolf mechanics go.

Pillars of Eternity - The "werewolf" in this game is one of several animal-person forms the druid can get, continuing the common theme in gaming of druid werewolves. The wolf is decidedly the worst of the lot, less useful even than the prey animals available. Put bluntly: they are basically terrible, and you're an idiot to ever use this form when there are so many build options available. There are also lots of other RPG options available. As in other games out there in the world. You should play those instead.

Guild Wars 2 - You cannot actually play as a werewolf in Guild Wars 2, but I figured I would mention it because lots of people do. If you want to roll one of the Norn giant race, either as a pretty giant woman who is the mommy stepping on you from some men's dreams or as the ugly tiny-headed cartoon men, you can get an ability to turn into a werewolf for like 30 seconds; it's far from exciting. And like so many werewolf abilities today, it comes with the option to also turn into other humanoid animals with different abilities. I've heard that, of them, only the cat and bear are useful, which is not a shocker as video game logic goes (game devs think wolves straight up suck at everything lol). I didn't play a Norn during my stint with Guild Wars 2 - I played a male human. He's Nolan North, so he's obviously the only choice and also why I played the game as much as I did.

The Elder Scrolls Online - This disgraceful abomination of a "game" is terrible in every way and could not have been a bigger disappointment on the promise of an "Elder Scrolls but MMORPG" concept even from the very beginning. It was never good, it only ever got worse, and I am happy to say I abandoned it long ago (I am not happy to say I was playing it in early closed beta because of the promise of werewolves - and I played it far more than I should have, so I am not coming at this from ignorance). It is a game with designs so ugly and unremarkable that you want to quit and walk through the woods just to remind yourself beauty still exists in the world. ESO clearly had no idea what direction to take itself in from the moment it dropped, and it certainly was never created with the pretense of playing like an Elder Scrolls game but being massively multiplayer. It has no sense of mood or atmosphere whatsoever and possesses writing that will make you long for the riveting tales in other low-rent, low-thought MMORPGs. You can play as a hideous weird sad werewolf model that is absurdly small (most likely smaller than the race you are playing as, which means you actually shrink when you transform) and should have been left in beta, which functions like a worse awesome button werewolf than the ones in Skyrim, because you also suck gameplay-wise especially depending on the dev's mood with the meta. It is terrible, as is everything about the game. ESO also went out of its way to completely wreck all previous Elder Scrolls werewolf lore that was actually really good. Anyway, don't play this. Your time is worth more than that, even if you don't think it is.

That covers some of the best! Requisite apologies if I didn't include your favorite.

( Free Newsletter  — Patreon — Wulfgard — Werewolf Fact Masterlist — Twitter — Vampire Fact Masterlist — Amazon Author page )

[subwaytostardew]

▽ Subway to Stardew - Adoptable Joltik ⚡️

This would play after Emmet's 8 heart event and getting Joltik up to 8 hearts as well.

I released a separate mod specifically for adopting Joltik, so you only need to get them up to 8 hearts to adopt them! You can do it right now!

Adoptable Joltik Mod Link: https://www.nexusmods.com/stardewvalley/mods/21002

And of course... Commentary under the read-more.

Joltik's adoption event sat in the drafts for quite a while. It took me whole a day to implement and I didn't let myself sleep until I finished everything. (It's 1 PM now...)

The event ended up wildly different because of how extra custom pets are implemented. You would think that they would be added in the same way as you get your cat/dog that you select during character creation. No. You have to buy a license. Only Marnie is authorized to sell them.

Here's the original script for Joltik's adoption event:

[Joltik Adoption Event]

Emmet: @! Joltik likes you verrrrry much. They want to stay with you. I'm letting you adopt them. Yup. I filled out all the paperwork. The Joltiks are legally documented now. 

I never gave ours a name... Galvantula wouldn't let me. She is verrrry picky about it. But that's okay. Joltik is yours. You should name them. She came along for approval. So. What name should I put on the adoption form?

[Name input box like Marnie's adoption thing...]

[Galvantula pauses for a moment to think and then offhandedly agrees.]

Emmet: Galvantula didn't shock me for that. That name is okay. Yup. I will file that with the Ferngill Republic. Don't worry about it. Make sure you take verrrry good care of our little Joltik!

[Joltik jumps and heart emotes]

◇──◆──◇──◆

The whole naming portion was a source of much more frustration than it should have been. In events, the name input box is brought up by the "catQuestion" command (which applies to dogs chosen at the start, too...

If you refuse, then Marnie also shows up no matter what you do. Farmhouse positions are also tricky and made even harder to find reference for after 1.6 added the farmhouse being moveable. Joltik kept spawning where Emmet was supposed to be so I had to use a move command just to get them to spawn one tile to the side. Galvantula was fine. I didn't get to updating her vanilla portraits yet so she's staying quiet.

The catQuestion command also only adds the pet you pick during character creation. There's no fields to target the usage. You have to buy a license. It's the only way to get another pet. I didn't want Joltik to replace a cat either since in-story you would have to earn the trust of both Emmet and Galvantula... There's no way you can do that by the first 25 days of spring. It's immersion breaking and you lose a cat.

I did find the license aspect funny though. It was oddly fitting for the mod's lore of Pokemon being pretty much banned from the region. Emmet is a threat to Stardew Valley's ecosystem. Not the best guy for the task of combating anti-Pokemon xenophobia.

Pet sizes are apparently hardcoded so I had to make a new spritesheet for Joltik as if they even need a 32 x 32 pixel area per frame. I did end up making new sprites for them while I was at it. I tried to base it off of the cat's behaviors so I have less animation fields to edit (I was tired). The cat loafs a lot. Trying to convey that in a tiny spider posed quite the challenge.

After everything was done, I figured that the whole adoption portion of the mod could easilly be taken apart to be its own mod as a demo of sorts for the expansion. So I went and made a content pack to post.

Bringing up your starter pet's friendship level takes quite some time, so it would be awkward if I let the event play with no preconditions. Because of that, I ended up including Joltik as an NPC and locking their adoption behind their heart level.

We actually only had two lines per day of the week (not including season) for daily dialogue. That shot up to six lines per day of the week for a full 0-2-4-6-8-10 in spring because I was determined to publish a mod. (I've been modding for nearly a year nonstop and I don't have anything playable... humiliating...)

Anyways! I hope you're all having fun with 1.6! It certainly brought new challenges and opportunities to the modding scene!

▷ Station Steward Thylak

[midnightkolrath]

Quick thought ideas on a DMC2 remake potential

Thinking about DMC2 recently and how a remake could benefit into making the story MUCH better than how it unfortunately ended up (due to the messy development of the game but alas). These are just things I've thought about off the top of my head on how they could easily benefit from remaking 2 and putting in much needed reworks and additions because man this game has potential still if redone right. I threw these on Twitter recently, but I'm giving abit more expansion here. I'm sure there's more ideas, but this is all I've gone to throw on the floor for right now.

Give Argosax an actual personality that matches their description of being a demon lord and rival to Mundus in territory terf war. They also have a cult like Mundus, as DMC2 has highlighted, so...surely they need to be represented better as a threat, yeah?

Make Arius much more of a threat. He’s a sorcerer, so have him FLEX that alot more. He made Lucia and the secretaries, who're artificial demons, and he ends up taking in Argosax's power...so like...keep him abit hammy if you want but make him the SCARY kind of hammy.

Potentially have Dante and Lucia’s campaigns be steamlined into one consecutive storyline. Alternate as the story goes on like in DMC5. I feel like since the two campaigns were mostly, iirc, copy paste parallels...they could just have the two stories basically run side by side. Give Lucia's side more room to be more unique.

Have more lore for the Protectors (The group Matier and Lucia belong to). They fought Argosax and worked together with Sparda, so like…an added crumb of flashback or so wouldn’t hurt imo. I'm not asking for like a whole big thing on it, just... [pinches fingers together] abit more.

Have Dante and Lucia interact abit more. Lucia being outted as an artificial demon is something I feel can have more connection there. A ‘Devils Never Cry’ moment, if you will. As cheesy as it can be seen nowadays, the series IS named after it. Well....moreso the fact that any demon encountering Dante 'may cry', but you get what I mean. Plus, its stated Lucia has a crush on Dante....so like...give that more to lean on? I'm not saying they have to build to anything actually happening, as we know how Dante is, but juuust enough, you know?

Have Dante’s brooding be more akin to, say, how the first DMC anime handled it. I feel like he was a good balance of ‘Man I’ve been through shit’ tiredness but still ‘I got some snarky humor and understanding towards others’.

The obvious rebalancing of weapons so it isn’t just GUN 24/7, but they can be cheeky and add an achievement referencing that, sure why not.

Maaaaybe add styles. Though acrobatic Dante with the movement he can do in this game, while silly, is still kinda fun. Trickster DOES have its roots from this game, as an inspiration.

Give the bosses in this game personality, please I am begging. They’re barely, if at all, memorable because they’re plain as hell. Remake them, replace, idc, I just want that boss banter.

Speaking of, make the Argosax fight less a pain and maybe better utilize that fact that it reuses the DMC1 bosses. I feel like we can go more body horror on it, esp if Argosax gets more a personality. Like…Argosax’s title is literally Argosax the Chaos, go crazy on that.

Speaking of Argosax having potential...did you recall that they casually flip genders in the second form they turn into? To me, you can make that unsettling in the sense that you can make Argosax sound more unsettling. Like the idea brewing in my head is to make it sound like more than one person speaking at once...like a legion. Or akin to how the true final boss for Sonic Frontiers was handled voice wise. Like I said, you can REALLY potentially run more with the fact that Argosax has 'Chaos' in the title.

[spearxwind]

Hi hello I wanna talk a bit about CD currently but Im not sure if its gonna be too long/negative so I'm gonna put my thoughts under a lid <3

So like. To start off it's really not a secret that I have a lot of trouble when it comes to crafting stories. This has been the case for many years, and will continue to be the case probably forever.

Challenger Deep felt like an exception to this at first, but since starting development on it my life took some turns that made it clear that CD suffers from the same and from different problems

To start with... I started using it as a vehicle for my grief at the start. Talas (especially) and Graves were both used as vehicles for my grief while I was going through stuff the past couple of years, and that inevitably bled through into The Everything.

It's not a bad thing to do this at all mind you (It helped me immensely) but it gave CD a strange foundation for me to build on that now I feel like I am at a major disconnect with, so I would like to build some more foundation around it, so to speak.

I would like to recraft the story (not rewrite it entirely because theres things i rly love, but theres others that I'd like to improve), and a lot of the lore (I feel like I closed my options a bit too much with some of it so I want to make it more expansive too. Part of why I wrote it the way it was was so I could invite friends to make stuff for CD but that did not go over well at all so I think I am going to not do that again). I just havent had the time to work on it properly, and since it's in this state where I feel like I need to "fix" it, I don't feel as passionate about it as last year so at the moment I'm letting it ride and waiting for when I'm excited to work on it again

I would like to add more characters as well and actually do justice writing-wise to the characters that are already in there too.

Also I won't lie, a big part of my investment in CD until recently was my oc ship, with Talas and Hades, and ever since I got into my current relationship I just havent thought much about them at all because I started pretty much actually living all of the shitposts and tropes I'd written and it started making me feel a bit strange to write/draw about that, so I need to fix that as well. See why I feel weird about it and what I can do to stop it and get back to those two

Additionally I've had a redesign of talas and hades' markings in my WIPs for months now. Hades is done, but on Talas' side Im not sure how to add in his bioluminescence pattern because something isnt working for me. I wanted him to be more visibly purble though with said markings. Everything else I really like, its just the glowy pattern (though watch me change the markings anyways bc im an indecesive beast)

Here's a snippet of them:

I wanted them both to have more natural fishy looking markings pretty much

So yeah, that's currently the state of things. I miss it a lot and i rly wanna work on it again proper, maybe now that I've acknowlegded it and made a post about it I will get a second wind like I've gotten before after getting The Gunk out of my chest.

If you read all that thank you I hope you have a swag day <3

[azems-familiar]

Omg this isn't even related to the ask game but the ask you just answered 😭 sorry bout that, I suddenly thought of more questions now.

Also THANK YOU SO MUCH to you and Davi for churning out so many writings these past few weeks holy crap, I've loved reading every one of them. Yall are spoiling us /pos

Okie question time: surviving Ancients building a New Amaurot?? Yes pls??? But also how do they survive???? I'm so glad Hyth and Elidibus are there though, they're unabashedly my favourites aside from G'raha and Emet Selch. I was also wondering if you guys have any plans on writing smth about how, after the Final Days, Emet, G'raha and Corrain (and maybe Lelesu) work to find some way to return to the first? This curiosity probably stemmed from you guys giving Lyna interactions with Uncle Emet, I could not stop smiling at those.

Thanks so much again!! Keep up the great work XD

okay SO. as to how each of the ancients survives is different; Hyth is the easiest, because in canon on Ultima Thule he and Emet choose to leave instead of using Hydaelyn's magicks to become corporeal again. so he just chooses to stay instead. Elidibus we're saving in the last tier of pandaemonium; between the last lingering fragments of Hydaelyn's gift and Emet's own magic. it will still take him a long time to recover and piece himself back together, but he will. Lahabrea is harder, but we've decided to go with a fan theory that his soul is stuck in Estinien's lance alongside Nidhogg, so once Hyth (who has the best soulsight) gets a look at it they're going to borrow the lance and just yoink him free. his multiple years stuck in a spear alongside an extremely angry dragon watching All That go down have chilled him out and forced him to think on his actions some, though that doesn't mean it'll be smooth sailing all the way through once he's freed.

as for returning to the First, right now we have this on our outline:

i'm headcanoning that the Ascians are capable of traversing the rift physically (even if that's not necessarily quite lore accurate, it's a little bit wibbly) and so Emet is able to take G'raha with him. the others will have to wait until Y'shtola finds a way across on her own, but i expect Elidibus will be willing to help her with that... we will see.

there are several plot points that since it's obviously setting up for future expansions and things, we're kind of waiting to see what the game does with them (like some of the stuff dawntrail introduced). of course we'll probably invent our own stuff eventually if we get to that point in writing and the game still hasn't given us any answers, but since this particular verse is sort of our "canon" we are trying to keep it as game-adjacent as possible so that we don't have to. do tons of wild work for it and it ends up not being related to the current stories being told at all.

i'll tag @sunderedazem in case there's anything he wants to add here, but thank you!! really glad to hear how much you're enjoying things. and the Emet and Lyna interactions are something we both super enjoy too - i actually have a half-done promptfic sitting around that's more of it, i just have to settle down and work on it. though unless something really changes the next thing to be posted will probably be the next bit of Ascian Azem :)

[chevvy-yates]

WIP WEDNESDAY

Decided it is time for another update so here's a longer post to what I've been up to and stuff that circles around in my head lately.

tagging:

@medtech-mara, @imaginarycyberpunk2023, @itzsassha, @humberg, @kittenchrissy, @rosapexa, @cinnamon-mey, @heywoodvirgin, @dreamskug, @drunkchasind, and everyone who sees and wants to do as well.

No pressure as always!

—

1. CHARACTERS & LORE

Let's begin with sth. first I have on my mind for a while: As this fandom (sadly) seems to fall more and more apart, I would like to know if there are still people interested in reading actual lore content or not. As some of you know my dear friend @nervouswizardcycle and I are continously building up some sort of our own expansion after the main game events with rp/fic, character builds, backstory lore and support by vp and it eats a lot of time. The lack of interactions on tblr during the last few months and in several discord servers has led to me not posting a lot anymore either (beside my mental exhaustion phases that come and go). It seems more active again though, as majority already played Phantom Liberty by now or are right into it, so they slowly come back bc they presumably avoided spoilers. —————— So, here is me wondering how many following my blog are 'really' interested to see me sharing all lore of the boys (including story parts) or does the majority prefer just to see pretty pics and that's it? —————— (I've wanted to add a poll here but it doesn't let me save my post so I might do it in a seperate one a bit later) I know: it's my blog, I post what I like in the first place, and I'll likely continue that way but somehow I would like to know if it's worth the effort of formating and thinking about how the posts could look or if I can take that time to do something else with it instead if there's less interest. So, I would just keep it in my tiny discord server I share with my rp partner(s)/in private chats with those interested bc it's gotten to be a lot and we are still at the very start it feels.

2. SKILLS, CYBERWARE & HUMANITY LOSS

As I'm the type that can't have ocs with no background/lore, I sat down the other day and did a build for each with their skills, wrote down what chrome everyone got (incl. additional c-ware from the lore books plus I'm reading e.g. into what programs my runner twins are likely to make use of). It went this far that my friend used the amount of the game's 'cyberware capacity' as 'humanity loss'. It is used in the lore books/ttrpg anyways. So I've counted all my boys possible capacity* and use it as humanity loss (HL) now which led me to thinking about which one of my ocs goes to get treatment and how often they go to see a MedTech on regular base. I thought I could give them a certain minus amount to reduce the HL for each depending on how much or less c-ware they got — e.g. Thyjs as soldier has most (but all is good Militech chrome) and used to go and still goes regularly so his HL gets a huge reduce — whereas Ryder's gets always nulled no matter how often he gets threatment, because BEAST (rogue AI) eats it away each time (to understand that in full you probably have to know the story). Ry must have most HL loss as he often walks along the edge towards cyberpsychosis, so I'm forced to reduce Thyjs' with most c-ware installed a huge amount. And that's how I made it now. It's probably far away from canon ttrpg as my 'canon cp world' consists of 75% game, 20% lorebooks and 5% own added ideas I haven't seen on the lore yet. And I like it that way I gotta say. On a little side note: It also had me thinking about creating a new support character for the team that could be in fact a MedTech. But I won't do that anytime soon.

* some things might still change as I slowly started playing their playthroughs and skill them for real now. I love each build so far because it's a whole different experience! And playing someone with noe netrunning ability is hell as I was only usedto paly netrunner before.

3. FIC SNIPPET TIME

I decided to give you an insight of what I've roughly written yesterday about Ryder and Thyjs having a talk about how they feel for each other:

“Ik ben eerlijk. I liked that accidental kiss we shared a-and i-ik find je leuk, Ry. Probably more as— a friend is supposed to do.” De Wit instantly starts feeling nauseous and something tightens around his stomach but he needs to get it off of his heavy feeling soul. “I-I guess I have stronger feelings for you than I had expected and it’s confusing me.” He frowns, “It’s not usual for me. Never felt any kind of such an attraction towards other men. I-It’s just you— I think I might be into you, Ryder.” The last sentences came in a mere murmur than spoken and Ryder’s name was only a light whisper. Thyjs didn’t dare to look to his left. He feared he would lose his new gained friend now because he said his stupid thoughts aloud. Instead he continues staring at the distant horizon feeling the lump in his throat only getting heavier. The sun was already half arisen and the sky was painted in a bright orange and yellow fading out into never ending blue. After de Wit seems to have finally finished his long talk, Ryder realizes the pack has fallen out of his hands. He needed to repeat in his mind what Thyjs just told him. Did the man really pour out his heart to him at this very moment? He couldn’t believe it at first. The pale soldier he obviously secretly fell for just told him he was having feelings for him that reach further than friendship? It took him what seemed like an eternity to get out of his frozen state. Ry moves up into a straighter position, still supporting his body with his right forearm, turning more towards Thyjs, who is still watching the rising sun with a rather sad look on his face blinking every once in a while. Eventually Scharfenberg brings up his left hand to reach for the older man’s face and de Wit suddenly feels two fingers under his chin making him look at the younger man again. He sees a tiny smile on those dark lips he caught himself looking at so many times in utter secrecy. That tiny smile that’s usually the base for a brighter even more heartwarming smile baring dangerous fangs who make the man look frightening, but smiling like that? Thyjs often caught himself thinking Ry looked cute with these fangs as well. Ry sees Thyjs’ confusion as his eyes look questioning right back at him. So Ry better says something now. “I-Ich äh—” he clears his throat, “—I don’t know where to start. How to talk feelings in the first place.” Letting Thyjs talk himself off seemed to be right for Ryder and it was worth it, because he thinks it’s the most earnest confession someone has ever made to him, yet he doesn’t know how to answer to all this best. So he decides to place himself into a sitting position, to look the soldier boy straight into the eyes. His gaze gets distracted by Thy’s slightly opened lips for a split second. It is the same situation as earlier downstairs, only that Ry has his fingers still under de Wit’s chin and starts to lead his face towards the other man. Just a few inches are left between them and Thyjs can feel the younger man’s warm breath on his skin. He also has this incredible sight at those beautiful male black eyelashes again the very moment they cast down and then he feels those same lips from before on his own with such a soft pressure that again he closes his eyes in an instant and starts to revel in that same electricity running through him but also the revenant paralyze surrounding him again.

It is just a brief kiss, similar to the one in the apartment downstairs but shyer in its move. As soon as it happened it ended. Ryder opens his eyes afterwards immediately because he fears somehow the man in front of him would get up, step back and turn away but instead he still feels his chin pressed softly against his fingers. It casts another tiny smile onto Ryder’s face as his now racing heart skips a beat or two, seeing that Thyjs didn’t make a move nor a sound. His eyes open now as well and Ry swears he’s never seen heterochromia looking so soft but also surprised at the same time at him like Thyjs does right now. He waits for a reaction but Thyjs just keeps looking at him, lips parting shortly just to close again. “What? — Did that make you that speechless now?” Ry asks with nearly the same surprisement. Thyjs lets out a heavy breath and nods, eyes totally lost looking at him which lets Scharfenberg put on a warm smile. “Want to— try again?” Thyjs swallows his unspoken words that gathered in his throat he couldn’t speak aloud and nods again. Heavier, his lips turning into a smile as well and his eyes are suddenly filled with happiness and relief, like he’s telling Ryder that he cannot wait to have their lips meeting once more and to feel that intense buzz from before as it spreads through his entire body like when he’s powering up electricity. This feeling right now? It’s strong and sends an entirely new sensation through him. Is dat het gevoel van vlinders in je buik? He wonders but doesn’t get much more time to think about it because Ryder choses to lean in for a second time.

It can and probably will be rewritten or changed but I definitely want to have it this way! Thjys starts talking and talking almost doing a monologue instead of a dialogue until he comes to the final point and Ryder wants to respond with words but doesn't know how to (he may find them a bit later) and just does what's best: kiss this soldier. I'll max out this kissing scene for a lot more pages just because I can.

I love the idea of Thyjs as war machine being totally romantic and getting super takative when alone with Ryder. And Ryder definitely is a soft romatic boy, alsways was bu Beast made his life harder to show this side more but Thyjs gets to see it also in private.

4. VP

Since I do more 'actual play the game' now even though I have installed most of all mods back, I rarely do pics atm. If I do, they are just rather nice pics where I try to use the ingame light rather than to spawn spot lights. here's a preview of what comes next:

I have so many ideas I want to put into reality. Especially pics that underline the rp/fic chapters mentioned above. But I'm not going to force myself. I'll see what I can realize for the rest of the year and what gets to be stamped as a New Year's resolution. I'll probably focus on a few blorbo pics this weekend because Ryder's birthday is around the corner (31st October) and Jay's boyfriend Enzolino has just a day prior. So if I can manage, I'll do that in the first place.

Thanks for reading! <3

[evilpenguinrika]

The brain bees are making me think about my hosie/final fantasy 14 AU and will not leave me (literally started writing this post at 4am but stopped because it was almost 5am but now I've come to finish this post at an appropriate time in the late afternoon)

Youre free to check out what kind of weird niche AU I've created by going through my "hosie ffxiv au" tag on my blog!

Okay. So I've had a lot to think about in terms of what Jobs Hope, Josie, and their kids would have and despite my very first post saying otherwise, I've come to a new conclusion:

Hope Mikaelson, our favourite Tribrid, would have these Jobs in this exact order:

Dragoon (no Tribrid reasoning tbh. Dragoons are just fucking hot ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ although one could argue it would fit her werewolf side)

Red Mage (there IS a Tribrid reasoning for this. Red Mages use magic, so that's a no brainer for Hope's witch side. But apart from magic casting, they also fight with rapiers, and I thought that was a cool little touch. Plus, it reminds me a lot of the blood sword we saw Hope use in the show. Not to mention Red Mage--like Dragoons--have some very fanciful moves that made me think of Hope as well. Very fitting.)

Dark Knight (another with Tribrid reasoning. I haven't actually gotten to Heaven's Ward expansion pack to unlock this Job or its Job Quest so all the information of Dark Knight are from videos I've seen. But the Job is perfect for Hope's vampires side as Dark Knight has this blood guage or something which was so fitting. And the lore behind this Job apparently goes super fucking hard lol. And edgy and broody, which is even more perfect for our resident Tribrid!)

//

For our lovely and favourite brunette siphoner, Josie Saltzman, here are the Jobs she would have in this order:

Black Mage (this felt like a no-brainer Job for her to have. Especially because this class focuses a lot with switching between your Blizzard spells and Fire spells. And we all know Josie is secretly a pyromaniac (lol I jest). So for her, Black Mage is perfect)

Blue Mage (this is another no-brainer and fits in theme with her Siphoner witch abilities. Blue Mages are able to copy the moves they've seen from their enemies, now sure this may not seem very Siphoner themed, but I assure you, it's sort of parallel to it. Siphoners are able to use magic if they siphon/take magic from someone or something magical right? Blue Mage is sort of like that in which they acquire spells of enemy moves to add to their arsenal of magic. So it makes sense in my book)

Honourable mention for Josie before I move on is the Bard Job. I felt like this Job would suit Josie nice because Bards have music stuff and I thought that fit. Though I don't quite remember if Josie being into or dabbling in music was canon or a fan fanon thing. Now, with the next Expansion Dawntrail coming out summer, I have been made aware that there are a few other Jobs that will be included in the pack--new jobs too (Viper being one of them but I'll get to that Job later). So it's possible that I will update this list for Josie once more when we get news of the rest of the new Jobs.

//

Moving onto my very precious Hosie Fankids!

Lana Mikaelson, she, like her mom Hope, is a Tribrid as well! So this will be pretty much the same except for one additional Job:

Dragoon (same reasoning as Hope)

Red Mage (originally I didn't think of Lana taking Red Mage, but when I realized Stormblood Expansion pack is now included in standard edition and free trial permanently, I had to try out Red Mage. And then I realized Red Mage is a perfect fit for Lana for the same reasons I gave in Hope's section)

Dark Knight (same reasoning as Hope)

Viper (this is one of the new Jobs that will be included in Dawntrail expansion and I am so excited. What information we have are from things that had been showcased already, with gameplay footage you could find on YouTube. But I chose this Job for Lana is because I'm a simple pal and loved the aesthetic. But also because YOU FIGHT WITH DUOBLADES THAT CAN THEN BE CONNECTED INTO ONE DOUBLE SIDED BLADE HOW COOL IS THAT PLUS it also fits well with a certain event and scene that I have plans for when it's time to write about Lana's adventures in my future kid fic series So I Swear That I'll Protect It. It was too good of an opportunity to pass up)

//

Hayley Mikaelson. The werewolf of the kids and one of Hosie's twins! I love Hayley she's the best:

Monk (felt this Job was fitting for her werewolf side. She's a heavy hitter, packs a mean punch, and werewolves sorta rely on that, most of the time I'm assuming. Sorry it's been a while since I've watched the series haha. But for Hayley, despite her werewolf side, I felt like Monk was the perfect fit!)

Rogue (now, I've already written up an in depth reasoning for picking this starting class here. But I'll paraphrase here anyways. I thought it might also be jnteresting to have Hayley, not only be a charge in type of girl, but also someone who knew how to be sneaky and use her cunning. She would have been taught to try out different battle tactics so she wouldn't just rely on her base instincts. The reason this is a starting class is because the next 'evolution' I guess is the Ninja Job, which I'm not sure if I want her to take. It's also very jarring to have a pirate-esque western-y feel and then evolve to something very Japanese-theme, but that's just me. Plus Jay is the anime weeb in the family lol

So literally after writing this post the other day I logged in to play as Hayley and ended up having her pick up the Marauder class so she can actually become Warrior haha

Warrior (like I've mentioned before, Hayley's fighting style is very rush in guns-a-blazing. She will do whatever it takes to have the focus on her so her friends or siblings/family can get the jump on the enemies without fear of getting targetted themselves. Which is absolutely fitting as a Tank role because Tanks pull mobs and enemies, they make sure all mobs and enemies are focusing on THEM while the rest of the party does their job without fear of being targetted. And I specifically chose Warrior as the Job for Hayley is because out of the four Tank Jobs: Paladin, Warrior, Dark Knight, and Gunbraker, I felt like Warrior fit better for Hayley in terms of her role and personality)

Reaper (I was writing this post about how to incorporate Hayley and Leo's TVDU backstory abilities into FFXIV AU and now I can't unsee Reaper being an excellent fit for Hayley because my hc is that Hayley is a werewolf yes, but she also has vampire blood running in her--courtesy of her Tribrid Mom) [RPR Job point added Feb 1, 2024]

Honourable mentions for other Jobs Hayley might take up. I have been humouring the idea of her taking on one of the four Tank Jobs (Paladin, Warrior, Dark Knight, and Gunbreaker), but I truly am unsure which of the Tank Jobs would be best suited for her. I mentioned previously that she's quite a "charge in head first" type, and that's usually what the Tank Jobs do where they pull enemies away from the party members so the party can do their thing. And I think Hayley is very much like that. Maybe Paladin or Warrior would be the two I could see for Hayley because iirc, in one of the intermission chapters for my very first Hosie fic Sad Bedroom Eyes, she was playing D&D and had chosen--nope never mind I just checked I had her pick the Monk class. Welp, that doesn't help me lol. I'll think more on this and then decide. Either that or wait to see what the new Jobs are for Dawntrail (I mean I guess Viper could also fit. And it would be nicely aligned with Rogue. We'll see though).

Also with her picking up a Tank job, I think Hosie would have very different outlooks and opinions on it. Hope--since Dark Knight is also a Tank--would be proud of Hayley and would probably help her fit into her role as a Tank until her daughter feels more confident and comfortable. As opposed to Josie who would be fretting about Hayley having to be the one to pull enemies and have all the attacks be aimed at her. I also think if the entire family goes do dungeons, Hope and Hayley would both be Tanks, Hope being main Tank and Hayley being off Tank at first--but I think they'll switch roles so that Hayley will get a chance to be main Tank. I think that would be really fun and really sweet bonding moment for the Hosie family.

//

Jay Mikaelson, the loveable goofball, twin to Hayley, big time anime weeb, and Siphoner. He will also have similar Jobs like his momma Josie, all except one additional Job:

Black Mage (same reasoning as Josie)

Blue Mage (same reasoning as Josie)

Dancer (in my fic So I Swear That I'll Protect It, Jay has taken dance classes and gymnastics and uses those moves to incorporate into his fighting in addition to his magic. It took me an embarrassingly long time to remember this information and only popped up when I was writing chapter 15 of We're Reckless And In Danger--second installment in SISTIPI series--so I quickly added this Job to Jay's list! And it's just so perfect for him)

//

Leo Mikaelson, the adopted son, youngest Mikaelson kid, and the ONLY HUMAN in a family of supernaturals. The kid's got his work cut out for him:

Scholar (I felt like this class was fitting for Leo since he wishes to learn all that he can about magic in order to relate more to his three older siblings. Of course Hayley is just a werewolf and does not have magic, but the sentiment is still there. And Scholars have a faerie that pretty much helps with buffs and heals and I think that's also nice for Leo. I see him as someone who's very friendly towards lots of creatures. And since Scholar is a Healing Job, I think it also works even more with Leo's need to want to support his siblings/family and help them out when he can.)

Bard (so I also wrote an in-depth reasoning for Leo taking up this class as well here, but I'll paraphrase. Asides from learning potions that do not require actual magic abilities, I think he'd also want to learn how to help protect his family and contribute a bit more. So he'd go to grandpa Alaric and ask for him to teach him how to fight with weapons. Obviously Hope and Josie were against that because Leo's too young to fight with weapons, but Alaric just teaches him archery--which works because Bards uses bows as their weapon. Another reason why I chose Bard is because in my first Hosie fic Sad Bedroom Eyes, I think I had Leo be really into theatre and performing arts, and Bards traditionally are performers, and in the game, they can play music. So that's why Bard is perfect for Leo!)

Summoner (in the game, Scholar and Summoners are Jobs that branched out of the Arcanist class. Summoners basically summon little versions of Ifrit, Garuda, and Titan to help fight them along with the Carbuncle. Oh, the Carbuncle is like a cute little fox creature anyways the Carbuncle turns into either Ifrit, Garuda, or Titan depending on the button you press anyways--like I said in Scholar, Leo would be out there befriending all the creatures like a tiny Snow White or Cinderella)

Astrologian (I mentioned how this is a great Job for Leo but never elaborated so now's my chance haha. Astrologian is also a Healing Job but they use tarot cards--which I thought would be excellent for Leo because it just connects back to Leo's wish to learn all that he can about magic. I'd like to think Freya teaches Leo how to read tarot and he's become very good at it)

Machinist (I think Machinist would be nice for Leo as well. The way I headcanon it, Leo would make potions and would somehow incorporate those into his fighting style. He'd probably tinker with things and build some sort of contraption or whatever. And Machinist are kind of like that--I mean they use guns in the game and I don't think Leo would actually use guns, but again, the sentiment is still there. The lore for this Job is that Machinist sort of follow the footsteps of Cid Garlond, a man who's great with utilizing magitek. So Machinist uses the knowledge that they know and turns it into something they can use in battle. And I think Leo would definitely--again--be creating trinkets of sorts to help his siblings/family that also incorporate the magic element)

White Mage (listen. Leo is a precious sunshine boi with a big imagination. Also White Mage are pure healers so that fits right up Leo's whole "i want to protect my family and make sure they're safe" and the fact that he is, in fact, the only damn healer in the goddamn family lmao. ALSO YOU GET A UNICORN WHEN YOU PLAY THIS JOB. OBVIOUSLY I'M GOING TO HAVE LEO PICK THIS JOB UP ARE YOU KIDDINGGGGG) [WHM Job point added Feb 14, 2024]

Wow I think that's about it for what Jobs Hosie and my Hosie Fankids would take up. Leo's ended up getting a lot more Jobs compared to the others, but I think it also makes sense considering how Leo is so eager to keep up pace with his supernatural family since he's the only human/non-supernatural.

Of course, maybe this list will get updated once the rest of the new Jobs for the Dawntrail expansion pack gets revealed, but until that happens...

If you've actually made it to the very end of this post, I am so sorry lol. But also thank you for reading through this very niche Hosie AU that was born out of my love for the ship and my love for the Critically Acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV with an expanded free trial which you can play through the entirety of A Realm Reborn and the award-winning Heavensward expansion and award-winning Stormblood expansion up to level 70 for free with no playtime restriction <3

[hypothesis-hobbyist]

I'm a little sad that almost a year in Splatoon 3 still feels like a lesser game than 2. A lot of this is Octo Expansion raising the bar for atmosphere, storytelling, and character development such that 3's story mode going back to being 1 and 2 was always going to be a letdown. I'm troubled that we know basically nothing about Deep Cut except bandits, big Marie fans, and that Frye has some kind of ADHD going on after watching Pearl and Marina get developed into compelling characters on their own, but maybe that just needs time.

BUT. 3's other problem is splatfests. Some of this is coding/matchmaking, in that you can get mirror matches for a majority of a fest and, it turns out, be on a minority team. Money recently won the popular vote, but I tracked my matches and half of all my open/pro matches were love/love mirrors and fully 2/3rds of all tricolors I was in were love/love/love, so it should be no wonder that people are claiming a rigged result. I don't think it's rigging, I think Nintendo has bad netcode and trying to leverage it for a three-way fest model is producing a lot of negative results. It's always more reasonable to assume incompetence over malfeasance.

Tri-Color itself is also a problem. The Zelda fest was the best so far, in my opinion, because the devs made substantial changes to the map for it instead of shoehorning a 2-sided map for a three-way match. This makes tricolors sometimes very frustrating and, honestly, FAR inferior to the old Shifty Stations, which both kept things fresh and interesting during a fest that could otherwise become boring AND were built around the gimmick. The late-2 shifties were amazing. The ones that progressively locked you out of parts of the map solved Turf War's biggest weakness, in that it made the whole match count and not the last 30 seconds.

So, where do we go from here? Hopes/suggestions:

- Side Order needs to be more like Octo Expansion in terms of storytelling, atmosphere, character development. The trailer certainly seems to suggest that, but it needs to be said.

- Tricolor should be made part of the regular fest rotation when three teams are available, otherwise you get a non-mirrored 1v1 match. This would a) Make Tricolor special and b) Make Fests feel less like meaningless effort.

- Either:

Tricolor maps need to become more different from their base maps. Right now Tricolor always feels like a worse version of the base game.

OR

Bring back Shifty Stations. They really made the 2 Fests worth playing as much of as you could, a supposed to today where I grind to Ruler, make sure I got enough catalog levels to finish before the season ends, and tap out so as not to do more mirror matches.

- More frequent updates. I know that the season model is what other big games do but honestly I miss the occasional random new weapon/item cropping up. Right now there's no reason to go to the shops anymore.

- More character content. We know you have the power to do this, Nintendo. You've got a team that loves to do little bits of lore and world building wherever they can. Add more dialogue for your idols! Tell us more about splat bands! Why is Paruko working retail???

-Final, wishlist item: more song variety during Fests. It would be amazing if there were, like, an actual setlist on rotation in splatsville.

[ava-monstrum]

LCB CH01 [8]? Overal thoughts

I forgot to say my overall thoughts on Limbus Company so, here it is (I'm copying this from my twitter post). This doesn't spoil anything story specific btw

I would say that the biggest appeal has to be the story and characters. The main cast of sinners are so chaotic and have distinctive personalities (besides Mersault but that’s aggressively the point). It’s clear we’re supposed to love this dysfunctional group and unwrap the story around them. Dante (who we play as) was a pleasant surprise considering that I wasn’t sure he would have a personality. If you follow me you should know my fav is Gregor.

And add to that a strange and twisted world that I’ve heard is super expansive with lore and world building, yeah, I’m super stoked for what’s in the future.

For the gameplay, Im not super knowledgeable on how to analyze gameplay but I found it fun for the most part. It’s a bizarre mix of fast and easy gameplay that makes you feel like a monster, only to suddenly hit a difficulty wall and get the team obliterated.

There are also A LOT of mechanics that at first don’t seem to affect the gameplay until you hit those difficulty spikes.

It’s a very wordy game, not just in story but also those mechanics. From status effects, random coin tosses, and gathering material for your ultimate attack, the game felt a bit overwhelming, even the tutorial didn’t quite help me understand the hud. I had to actually look into guides on YouTube to help me out, especially in Chapter 3.

I don’t really mind cause following the game, at lot of people talked about how this was standard for project moon games.

But it might be a bit much for some players. It’s definitely not a casual game for quick fun. Battles may take awhile, especially against abnormalities (monsters). You’re going to have to grind once you get to chapter 3 (trust me). And certain fights will wipe the floor with you if you don’t take the time to read the mechanics and make a solid team.

Now as for fairness, i haven’t spent any money on the game. And so far I’ve been fairing well. The base characters are actually pretty useful and I’ve been using them more than the ones I got from the gatcha (except for g-corp Gregor, I love him)

So yeah, the game will take up a lot of time but I haven’t found it unfair or tedious so far. But I’ll have to see how that changes as the game goes forward.

To be honest, I kinda feel like I would have tolerated bad gameplay if it meant unlocking more story. Its that charming.

So, cause twitters character limit sucks, I’m very happy with the game so far. I’ve been following its development for a while, and it’s given me everything I wanted from it.

I wish I could add more detail but I think this is a good explanation for now.

It may be a bit intimidating for some, but it’s free so there’s no harm in trying it out.

You may need some outside help to grasp how the game works, but that means we can all suffer together /s.

So, if you wanna delve into a dark but charming game, give it a try.

Just heed the content warnings though, there’s some dark themes, imagery that may be disturbing, and body horror.

[grimbunnies]

O - R - S for the tag!

O: Do You Prefer Your Sims to Have Skills or Popularity?

Answered here 😄

R: Cartoony or Realistic Sims?

Somewhere in between, I suppose.

Assuming this question is referring to appearance, I like the way the Sims 2 Maxis match feels like a middle ground between the ways Sims 3 and Sims 4 sims look. I'm not a big fan of most of the clay hair, but I'm also not a fan of the more "realistic" look that Sims 3 sims have. I prefer the realistic touches of the Sims 2, like hair physics. But I also think that too realistic robs the sims of some of their charm.

Now, if this question is about storylines, my answer is actually similar. I like a mix. I want the cartoonish escapades and the realistic emotions. For instance, I don't want the cartoonish reaction of Sims 4 sims. I want there to be a sense of ground life simulation that then I through ridiculous cartoon scenarios and character archetypes into.

S: Pit a TS2 EP vs a TS3 EP

I'll pit University against University Life. For a long time I was unable to really get into university in the Sims 2. There's a charm to it now that I appreciate, and I'm looking forward to sending more Sims to university, but I've always struggled with how it messes with relative ages of sims who go to college or don't. I really dislike that in the Sims 2 you can only go to college as a young adult and its a separate stage of life that other sims don't experience. In this regard, I really loved and took an instant shine to how Sims 3 allowed you to send any sim at any age...

But it was annoying for that fucking llama mascot to stroll on up to every household.

Sims 2 University has a lot to love. I enjoy the influence system. I enjoy the pranks and the objects that were added. As with any Sims 2 expansion pack, there's a lot of heart in what's created. So many little details that go unappreciated.

University Life adds a lot of things I really enjoy: Herbs, "Heat of the Moment Kiss" (I used this so fucking much), and protesting, to name only three.

I don't like how limited the degree options are in University Life. University does it better by having more. Also, the names of the classes in the Sims 2 are S tier.

Anyway, there's no conclusion. They're both great.

This exercise reminded me that most of the expansion packs for the Sims 3 were actually pretty good? I have fond memories of most of them, even Showtime and Island Paradise. I think the Sims 3 had a lot of good ideas, and I've been recently looking at the lore in the game and realizing that I didn't give it enough credit. There's a lot to like.

In regards to these expansion packs, I think the Sims 3 took a lot of what worked from the Sims 2 University and added improvements or utilized the changes they made between games to make the university experience flow more with gameplay.

If Sims 3 could function long-term, I'd play it pretty often, maybe even as often as the Sims 2.

[mrslittletall]

Here are some things that I think might happen or be explored in future FF14 expansions:

The void. This one is obvious to me. Loads of people seem to think that the void arc after Endwalker was filler and it kinda feels like it should have been one of the optional trials, right? Look at it, you got some dungeons out of it and a couple of trials. That felt very in line with the Stormblood optional trial with the auspices (I think that is their English name). But it is content that everyone is forced to do and I think that is because we totally will go to the void for good and help Zero out saving it. I actually wonder if Zero is another shard of Azem? I don't remember if she was ever compared to being similar to the Warrior of Light. We haven't seen everything of Etheirys so there are still quite a few parts where they could put an expansion. Those probably would be more in line of Dawntrail however, with it being more about the people and their struggles there, with the WoL more lending a helping hand to the current leader. But... I also think that the events in Dawntrail may have just been the tip of the iceberg of what is to come. So, Alexandria's shard clearly seemed to have been prepared for a calamity. Yeah, there already was a calamity of lightning but don't forget, we only have six elements and two poles, so some of them have to be used twice. And who prepared the calamity? The Ascians. Of course the unsundered are gone but their usual process was finding the shards of the sundered convocation and give them their crystals so that they would work on the calamity. There is a whole raid series about this (Eden raids). So... there is a very real possibility that some shards are still prepared for a rejoining with the Ascian in question don't even knowing that the unsundered are all gone now. Maybe we are getting some information about this in the Dawntrail patch content? Who knows. I am just thinking of stuff that could happen. The Azem crystal and the world fusion key. I kinda think that is what Dawntrail was preparing. Like ARR prepares you for the role of Warrior of Light and then the rest is bringing peace to Eorzea and finding out the truth about Hydaelyn and Zodiark. Dawntrail clearly started as low stakes adventure where you just help out a future leader with her quest and then it got serious. I don't think they will just pocket the Azem crystal as explanation for how you do trials. In the lore book that you can read in game it also says that the Azem crystal is starting to glow brighter the more it is used, so I am sure they are planning something with it. Will we ever meet the real Azem? I doubt it, that probably will give some problems with us being allowed to headcanon our own WoL... but I would be fine with it, especially if said Azem is fine with not existing anymore and giving the reigns to our Warrior of Light. Yeah, not gonna lie, I just love the angst of fearing that you lose who you are, lose your memories and might hurt your loved ones because your old self takes over. I don't think it will happen but a girl can dream. So, I guess what I would like to see is... - The Void - More areas of Etheirys (I like how the world map is clouded over. That always makes it feel naturally instead of in WoW where they seemed to add more and more islands out of nowhere). - Travelling to other shards, especially once that might have been prepared for calamity - Azem stuff Also, but I don't think this will happen, I always joke that the Allagan's are their own Final Fantasy games long before FF14 happens so it would be fun to go back in time to see it. Of course the events cannot be changed so that is kinda a naught point, just would like to see Allagan in its prime instead of the ruins.

[valandhirwriter]

I am not a real AsioF fan, but I watched HotD and to give you a few answers here:

Yes, travel times are an issue, same as it was with GoT. Sometimes you, as the person watching must assume that in between going from A to B some time has passed.

Characters and their dragons: you are actually expected to use your brain, remember who is who in the game, and which dragon is with whom. You can read "Fire and Blood" if you need a written guide so to speak, but actually this is something I cannot absolve viewers of: USE YOUR FUCKING BRAINS AND PAY ATTENTION. The only case where it is seriously impossible to tell them apart is the Cargyll Twins, and we - as much as everyone in universe - were not supposed to be able to tell them apart, right up to their final duel. Kudos to the twin actors who pulled that off. (Have you ever watched The Expanse? The first two seasons demand you pay attention and don't cater to some people's short attention spans. Something I found very refreshing.)

Time since Viserys death - look at the armies marching, and how they progress and you get a sense of the weeks that passed.

The kiss between Rhaenyra and Mysaria was improv. It was a dynamic that developed as the two actresses did the scene and they did it spontaneously. Hence no further mention, the other scripts couldn't forsee what would happen. Which is also why so little critism: it felt natural in that moment, coming out of the dynamic of the two women, it wasn't put in by any exec's wish.

The talking: this is a plot full of politics, intrigue, and unfortunately on both sides two characters being like Hamlet, unable to come to a decision. (Have you ever watched Hamlet, I'd recommend the movie version with Sir Laurence Olivier, though it made be antsy every time because the guy doesn't man up and decide what to do.) The second season got some impressive action pieces, especially the battle of Rook's Rest.

Targaryens and Fire: Not true. Targaryens are not immune to fire. The fact that Aegon II got burned at Rook's Rest, is straight from the book. (Again: refer to GRRM's Fire and Blood). Targs can burn, what Dany did in GoT was a miracle (GRRM said himself that Dany's dragon birthing was an unprecedented miracle). Secondly: Aegon's main fire damage came from his armor heating up and melting into his flesh, not from the flame directly. Rhaenys for example wore no metal armour while riding Meleys into battle. So the whole thing is not cut as clear lorewise. At least one Targ in history died after drinking wildfire (surprise surprise). There are some good lore video guys out there, the Three Eyed Raven and Crusader Chris have whole series dedicated to Asoiaf lore, and there were also some good episode breakdowns, who take time to explain such stuff.

Music: I cannot really speak to that, because neither Witcher nor HotD left any memorable music in my ear.

Humour: HotD would not work if they added a lighter side to it. This story isn't light. This is the war of the roses Westeros style. This won't end well, and when it is over, a young traumatized King who saw his own mother burned in dragonfire (Again: GRRM lore) will sit the iron throne. Under his rule the last dragons die, and the Targs become the dynasty we later encounter in GoT. Not quite the same as what we meet at the beginning of the show. Imagine Daemon on Caraxes against the Night King, and you know what we missed.

Let me add that I find it generally complicated to compare series, but I think Witcher could have profited heavily, if they had leaned more into the complexities/politics of the continent, and been less funny.

Fandom these days is toxic. I really have to say it, I see it in many fandoms, no matter what is made TV wise, fans will always complain. HoTD gets it's fair share of flag on Youtube and other channels. The problem is the fans most often. If they do not get what they exactly envisioned, it is bad. Creators can't really get it right any more, and I think that's why they tend to cater to audiences unfamiliar with the material, because they are their best bet of long term viewership.

About people saying that HotD S2 is better than Witcher S3. I understand them. I could not watch Witcher S3 without constantly cringing (I broke it off after half a season, it was too bad). HotD boring or convoluted or no, you can at least take serious and don't have to cringe all the time, when the next weird scene arrives.

In the end each of us can only decide what they like or don't like. I for one enjoyed the Acolyte, even as the series gets widely bashed by fans. I also enjoyed Mando S3, which had many fans complain.

Why is House of the Dragon allegedly so much better than The Witcher?

Just watched House of the Dragon S2 and I must say - I found it pretty boring in many parts?

Sorry, but the whole thing mostly and disappointingly feels like a very long and repetitive prologue to what might come in S3. And they do many things that are loudly criticised in The Witcher, some even a lot worse, but with HotD people seem to not mind? Honestly, this really puzzles me. Yes, the costumes and make-up might be better, but:

It's all over the place on the whole continent of Westeros and even outside of Westeros with people traveling from place to place in no time at all. OK, on dragon back, you can do that, but they also do it on foot and by boat. I remember some of the geography of the continent because I was very much into Game of Thrones some years back when it aired and also read all the Song of Ice and Fire books that were available (not the ones HotD is based on though), but the constant jumps from one place to the next are really confusing imo and you'd need to have a map by your side all the time to remember where is what. When the Witcher does that, it is criticised heavily.

Same with people, there are so many main and minor characters, some even with similar or the same names, how the fuck are you supposed to remember who's who and who is related to who and how, who belongs to which house, and who's allied to who and who's feuding who without looking it up again all the time somewhere on the internet? With all the incest and extramarital activities resulting in a host of illegitimate progeny, I found this extremely confusing, a lot more so than in The Witcher.

And does anybody have a shimmer of an idea of how much time has passed since the old king's death? Must be at least months but you hardly ever get any hints about it. And this poor girl, how long is she wandering around the desolate highlands alone trying to find the wild dragon? Must have been weeks judging by the other things that happened in the meantime ...

Maybe it's just me, but I did not find any of the characters really compelling. Not that they are not well acted, the acting is good enough, but emotionally they did not really leave any impression on me. Maybe the only character I find a bit interesting is Queen Helaena and this very young Lord Tully who shows unexpected spine and stands up to Daemon in front of the Riverlords. There are so many seemingly random new side characters popping up all over the place, too, miraculously gaining importance that one is supposed to keep track of, but also none of them that was in any way inspiring it me. And the poor cute Bracken knight only drew his sword and was already dead in the mud on a battlefield with hundreds of men hardly a second later ...

Rhaenyra suddenly and out of the blue kisses this lowborn woman (was her name even mentioned? I cannot for the life of me remember it). I don't have anything against women kissing, not at all, but why? There is no mention of anything going on between those two at all afterwards. Are they in a secret relationship now or not? I haven't read the book and don't know if it's in there, but how is that kiss, as it seems to have no relevance to the plot at all, not 'woke' catering to the LGBTQ community? But everything the Witcher does is?

Then there are the dragons you have to keep track of in addition to the many people and places. How many dragons are there? And who rides which one? And why the heck would a dragon in its right mind choose this dubious Ulf character who accidentally stumbles into its cave as a rider???

And the plot? Honestly, was there, beside the one fight between the three dragons, anything that was really exciting? I remember nothing, no battles, no good sword fights, nothing but TALK. At lest 90% of the plot is repetitive talking about politics and plotting and scheming. I have nothing against a nice political intrigue and of course that's what happens at courts and it can be interesting too. It was in Game of Thrones where you had really interesting characters, too. But here I found it mostly boring and uninspired. And The Witcher is criticised for having too much politics and too many side characters although it has a LOT less so than this season of HotD.

They also seem to have conveniently forgotten that in GoT they established that Targaryans would not burn from fire. In the books this happens only once because some kind of blood magic was performed, but in the show it happened several times, so it seemed to be the rule, not the exception. HotD thus kind of refutes their own made-up lore, which I found confusing and had to look it up online. (They could easily have made Aegon suffer from bad injuries due to the fall instead.)

The music was rather uninspiring, too, imo, except for the intro which is the well-known one taken from GoT and the music at the end of E8 which was partly based on the Rains of Castamere, otherwise there was not a single piece of the soundtack that would make me want to buy and listen to it. The Witcher has quite a few that I listen to again and again (including, of course, Jaskier's songs, but many more).

What I also like a lot better about The Witcher: It does not take itself that seriously and there is quite a bit of humour in it. In HofD S2, the imo funniest piece of dialogue was: "I want you to fuck my wives." - "How many wives do you have?" (that was between this pirate commander, don't remember his/her? name, and Lord Tyland, was that his name?) . And maybe the truest sentence in the show by this random braggart in the tavern who miraculously turns into a dragon rider Ulf: "A sense of humour would do you all good."

All in all, the only thing that I have found to be really good and outstanding about HotD S2 are the dragons. Without them, it would be less than mediocre. I don't think I would want to rewatch it and feel no desire to look up any of the characters and their relationships etc to find out more about them. I cannot say in how far it is or isn't faithful to the source material as I have not read the book(s?) HotD is based on, but even if it's more faithful to the source material, this has failed to make it a great watch like GoT (minus the ending, that was worse than the poorest fanfic could have thought it up). With the dragons it is alright to watch once, hoping for a more exciting S3, but there is absolutely no way it deserves higher critic/audience scores/ratings than The Witcher S3, the contrary.

Update: To clarify, I don't really mind many things that I mentioned about HotD, I can totally live with an unclear timeline and many characters, even if it's not easy to remember every name, relationship etc. If I really like a show or character, I simply look it up, no problem. But these are all things I have seen people criticise The Witcher for on social media, and then they say HotD is so much better. That's what really puzzles me. What I definitely liked about HotD is the diverse cast and that there are many female characters with a lot of screen time and importance. It's not a bad show, only I like The Witcher much better despite its flaws. This is not meant as an anti HotD post but a pro Witcher post.

[turtlewearingclothes]

So, Spooky did a thing a while back where she talked about how amazing people are, and I was inspired to do that as well! So, here are some of my rambly thoughts on a handful of people in the Superstar Daycare server, starting with Spooky herself!

@spookyuu

Spooky is an amazing person. Hands down. She is always willing to listen to whatever crazy rambles pop up. I first interacted with Spooky when I scared her by suddenly disconnecting from a call and I apologized for spooking Spooky lol. Her art is just to die for and I always feel supported when I talk to her. She’s always there to pick someone up if they’re feeling down. Oh, and Spooky is the one who drew my amazing profile picture!

@suokumi

They are slowly becoming the parent of the group, I swear. Suo is always there to make sure you’re taking care of yourself and to help you if you’re having a problem. They are so full of love and always willing to share it! If you say hi, good chances are Suo is there to greet you with love! Suo is also such an amazing artist who loves to make drawings for others. Their style is so pleasing and shaped, seriously.

@opudontdonut

Opu is full of fun and mischief, in my humble opinion. Whenever you’re talking to them, you’re going to have a fun conversation! Also, seriously, they are another amazing artist to add to the ever-growing list. HAVE YOU SEEN THEIR ANIMATIONS???? SO GOOD! I swear I can watch his stuff over and over again. 

@madame-mongoose

Honestly, where would we be without Monnie and Sy? There is so much I can say about how awesome Monnie is. Her art is just- chef’s kiss. She is the queen of shapes. I swear, Monnie has made me fall in love with bugs like no one else could. Now I actually get excited when I see one and my immediate thought is to send her a picture. Her love of Ghost Busters and Frankeinstien is so infectious, I swear. And have you seen her OCs??? Go ask her about them because they are amazing, from Cassia to Barry! 

@sycopomp

Like I said earlier, where would we be without Sy and Monnie? I haven’t been able to talk to Sy much, I can tell you that Sy is an amazing writer, and they have a great sense of humor! Sy’s writing made me feel feelings. So many feelings. I’m so glad I got to listen to OOIE be read out the day it was published.

@ari-fire-arts

Oh boy, I have so much to say about Ari and how awesome they are. A coder, an artist, a great voice for reading; I could go on. Ari is another person who is always making sure we take care of ourselves, from making sure we drink water to getting enough sleep. Ari is also a very hard worker, and is so talented! They were also kind enough to explain a bit to me about how coding works, which is so nice of them! Ari deserves all the love, just like everyone else here lol.

@okapikookie

Okapi is so cool! She is a kind and caring person who is great to talk to. She’s there to listen and is another hard worker! Okapi gives off a motherly and calming aura, if that makes sense? She and a few others have been coming up with an AU that is super expansive and so cool to read! I love talking to her so much.

@skittlewaffle

I will never stop giving Kay the praise she deserves! Kay’s art and creativity is just off the walls, and they are such an awesome person! Kay is so much fun to talk to. Kay is another really kind person, too. I love interacting with them and just overall feel relaxed when we’re chatting. I think Kay is one of the first people I really bonded with in the DCA fandom along with some others on this list.

@paper-lilypie

Gah, Lily is so so incredible! She was one of the first people I started following for DCA stuff. Lily is so cool and stunning, I love talking to her so much. Lily is both an amazing artist and an amazing writer. I could probably write a 5-page essay on how much I love her and her work. Lily is also great at giving us little clues to solve mysteries around CCRT, and just out of nowhere she’ll drop lore for us to unravel and I love it! It’s always a good time when Lily is around and just- gah she’s so cool!

@spaciebabie

Spacie is totally feral in a good way, honestly. Talking with them is an adventure that I love. I think they pretty much have everyone beat in the humor department and I will die on that hill, sorry. You’ll never be bored when you’re talking to them, and who can forget how they started the great Sunasspocolypse? I’m so glad they did, too, cause that’s part of how I found them on tumblr lol. Spacie’s art, OCs, ideas; they’re all stunning and I love them! Not to mention their singing voice cause damn, Spacie has the voice of an angel!

@sleepyjuniper

Oh June, such an awesome person! She is so kind and supportive, always willing to help! Visions is such an amazing fic and I still need to catch up on it and I will hopefully get to that soon. But everyone should go read it cause it’s amazing! Her art is also to die for and I swear she is going to kill me from the fluff she writes. June is so nice and everyone should go spam her and her fic with love.

@honiegoo

Goo needs all the hugs. They deserve hugs. Goo is such a cool person who is so supportive of everyone! Everyone gets excited when Goo appears. Goo is honestly such a great person that I wanna give all the love and affection to cause seriously, how can you not love them?

@nefariouslydinkle

Dinkle is so cool. I envy her expressions cause like, they convey so much with just a simple drawing! Please, teach me how you draw expressions like that! They are such an awesome person and everyone would benefit from having Dinkle in their lives!

@daunsun

I wanna give Daun the biggest hug! She is such a sweetheart (with some hilarious sass) who has made an amazing Flowershop AU that you guys need to check out! Her drawings are amazing and I wanna consume them all, respectively. Daun is also a great writer! She is just overall amazing and deserves lots of love.

@crazedauthor

Crazed? Gah, there are so many things I could say about her! She is wonderful, hands down! Her writing? So cool! I consume it all! Have you guys read 404: Personal Space Not Found? No? Well, you need to! They are such a fun person to talk to and have so many fun ideas! Go and give her love!

@certified-handler

There are so many good things I can say about Certified! She has so many cool ideas and they’re all so amazing. Her Fire Dancer AU? Dealer’s Choice? The Night Shift? They’re all so awesome and I have consumed them all with love and affection! The talent in Certified is off the charts! She is also great to talk to and I just have so much praise for her!

@cakesfunhouse

Cole is the master of dad jokes. Like, no one can beat them. Do you think you’re good at dad jokes? Do you think you’re funny? Well Cole probably has you beat. I know I said that Spacie beats everyone in humor but if they did have competition it would be Cole. Cole is such a great writer too! They love to hit you with amazing fluff when you least expect it and seriously, they are just a great person to talk to.

@derpygirl-draws

Jackie is the server baby, all praise the server baby! She is a bit of a chaotic gremlin, but in an endearing way! Her art style is adorable and I stand by it. Jackie is great at spreading cheer and positivity and I swear things would be so different without her.

There are honestly so many more people I wanna talk about but I am running out of time lol. Even if they aren’t on this list, there are so many wonderful people I’ve gotten to interact with that I could write pages of praise for. Frankly, there is so much more I could write about the people I talked about! I’m thankful for all of you, and I love you.

[possum-down]

Splat 3 DLC

prefice this by saying NON OF THIS IS CONFIRMED. this is mainly what I PERSONALLY would want to see in the splatoon 3 dlc, and is supported only by my own observations of in-game occurrences, nintendo stuff, and the occasional dream. if any of this does make it into the dlc, id be stoked, but i am also pretty bad at guessing so

What do we know so Far?

Very little! the only thing actual confirmations we have for the dlc is that it is coming, and that its gonna feature marina and pearl in some way as shown in splatoon 3 direct. we haven’t gotten any plot details, what new features it would bring, or even a release date.

if were comparing it to octo expansion, which came out a little under a year after splat 2′s release, we could very well see the dlc be released by august or september. on the other hand, depending on the size of the dlc, it could also take longer, but judging just from how nintendo likes to push out game releases, im guessing itll come sooner rather than later.

What are the biggest theories right know?

Concerning the dlc’s actual content, most have concluded it’s going to be focused on a world tour kinda event. This is hinted at most obviously through sunken scroll 22, which states that “After leaping from Inkopolis Square to the world stage, Off the Hook has found their new side project: performing vocals for a rising rock band as Damp Socks feat. Off the Hook!” the conclusion from this is that DSft.OTH is currently touring, and that the main protagonist of the DLC will get wrapped up in that some how. This is admittedly a very vague and non-solid premise, but seeing that we know OTH is probably going to be a big part of the DLC, its the best we have to go on.

Another more recent conclusion is that nintendo will be introducing a third playable race, in the form of cuttlings. @rassicas has made a post concerning the evidence here, so i won’t go to much into that, but it seems somewhat likely. knowing that nintendo really likes to push the theme of numbers in splatoon (all the references to the number 8 in octo expansion, three idols for splatoon 3, etc.) i don’t think it would be that much of a stretch to assume they would add a third playable race and finally add the last cephalapod species to the game (also would let them have a squid vs octopus vs cuttlefish splatfest)

What do I hope/think is gonna be in the DLC?

Personally, i think the world tour event is not only the most likely option, but also the most fun option. Similar to how the main story mode of splatoon 3 has different islands to explore as you move between kettles, i think having different music venues where you could explore little slices of the bigger splatoon world would be not only fun, but expand the in-game lore as well. It could give the splatoon team an excuse to show diffrent places weve heard about (calamari county, the northern land the bottom feeders come from, etc), without having to model something as big as the squares.

the only argument i can see against this is “how would an antagonist fit into this” and the thing is, i don’t really think there needs to be an antagonist. or rather, i don’t think there needs to be a big bad antagonist. we have already had a world-threatening baddie in the form of mr. grizz, and im hoping that nintendo doesn’t try and push such a serious plot twice, even if it is a dlc. i think an antagonist in the form of a rival band maybe, or some mysterious occurrences that keep trying to ruin pearl and marinas concerts would be a much more believable (and fun) enemy to fight rather than another commander tartar. the reason people loved octo expansion so much was because it stood out from the base game and gave players new lore on the characters they loved. the splat 3 dlc could do the same, by focusing on untapped aspects like the splatbands rather than trying to create the world-defying mission octo expansion had

Speaking of the bands, i do find it interesting that nintendo recently localized the splatbands as well. Splatbands have been around since splatoon 1, but only were localized now to english and given americanized names. along with having harmony/paruko suddenly showing up as a shopkeep, i am hoping this is signaling that the splatbands are gonna play a larger role in the actual games. I don’t think nintendo is going to go as far as to model everyone, BUT i do think it could have the potential to be the collectable item/lore in the dlc. instead of getting sunken scrolls/mem cakes from completing diffrent levels, i think band merch would be a much cooler collectible that also ties into the world tour theme. having a diffrent opening band at each location that you could then collect merch of would give an excuse to finally flesh out the splatbands in game and present the lore to a wider player base.

i think the splatband localization could also tie in a different way however. walking around the square, i find this building next to man-o-wardrobe crush station weird.

its just stand out from the other non-enterable buildings, being so prominently placed next to two other shops, and also looking like its closed off for renovations. why have this building right next to the other two on the strip?

it could be possibly hinting at another store. while i did struggle to think about what else the game could possibly sell the player, i saw a post that presented the idea of a music store where you could buy cd/vinyls to pick which songs play during your turf and anarchy battles (i cannot find the post, but when i do i’ll link it here). i think this would be a great choice for a dlc shop, since picking the songs played during battles isn’t a game changer like new clothes or weapons, and rather works more as a quality of life improvement. and again, this could offer a way to give more splatbands lore in-game, with either descriptions or fun facts given when you purchase a cd like the op proposed.

tldr: i think the dlc is gonna be a world tour that focuses on the splatbands and introduces cuttlings as the new playable species whatever the dlc does turn out to be, i really hope it’ll be fun. it does have some high expectations to live up too seeing as how well octo expansion was recieved, but im hoping it'll do what splatoon does best: release some new banging tunes, and hint at gay cephalapods