#Thank you for being invested

[sunglassesmish]

The way I am INVESTED in your work rom com!!

i feel like i’m living some weird ass story and the viewers are all confused with me

[qifreyplushie]

Hear me out- Imagine hualian just being hualian, but with He Xuan secretly fangirling in the background. Maybe, despite all of his cold words and lack of care for what's going on in Hua Cheng's life, He Xuan is actually hualian fan number one. I think there's a lot of untapped potential there. Like, ghost guys forced together for centuries, with He Xuan forced to listen to Hua Cheng's constant reverence about Xie Lian, I like to think that fish man would actually become quite invested in the relationship. (Sorry, I needed someone to see my vision and it just hit me while I was scrolling through your blog, so you get it handed to you like I'm a cat dropping a dead mouse at your feet)

not a day of peace for black water sinking ships

[moeblob]

You literally spent three hours having an ENTIRE SCHOOL (teachers included) slut-shaming a guy just for him to be a (spoiler).

[alongtidesoflight]

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

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

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

i'm starting off with the things i liked

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[aphrogeneias]

rockstar!eddie and assistant!reader live rent free in my mind 😍 how did they get together? how long did eddie have to pursue her before she let her guard down? i need more from them they’re my faves

babe, they're my everything

i wrote a little about how they "met" here. reader is their tour manager's assistant, she deals with everything they need while on the road, and because she's really introverted, it took eddie a while to notice her, but after he did, there was no going back. he was relentless, trying to get her attention.

i think it must have taken a least a few months of pursue from eddie for her to start corresponding to his advances. like, she never really rejected him, but she was cautious, as we know her to be.

she was the one who kissed him first. he'd been flirting with her all night, using all of his well rehearsed lines and dimpled smiles and showing off. he'd asked her for a small little favor before going on stage, and she complied, as always. could never say no to him, since the first day. eddie never really needed those favors, he just wanted to see her, and although she pretended to not know of his ulterior moves, she was more perceptive than she'd been letting on.

she gave him an barely there kiss, a mere brush of her lips on his, right before he got on stage. her notepad in hand, his guitar on his back. quick, just fast enough to not get caught, and pushed him towards his bandmates, already moving to their places.

that night, eddie's smile could have powered the whole venue.

[andy-clutterbuck]

Men's Fitness | 2014

[iamespecter]

Hey I hope you don't mind me shooting you an ask but I just wanted to say I love your Unexpected Reunions fic it's so very cute, I wasn't going to keep going with my Caine fic until I saw yours pop up later and it's inspired me to see it through! I would be honored if you'd like to check it out, but that's completely up to you. I wish you the best with your story! Can't wait to see how it goes?

Thank you very much for the compliment, but I'm going to have to ask about this... "Caine fic" you are referring to..... I am very much interested......

[solei-eclipse]

okay. hello guys. my bad for not responding to stuff or being as active recently, had a lot of work to be done and other stuff to focus on that took a lot of my time. I wanted to make more art, but I unfortunately had to put that energy into other things (which got to the point where I could not put them off any longer and had to stay working on it). I know I missed a lot of stuff and I'm sorry for it

[kanerallels]

New day new ask but! Yes, The Scarlet Pimpernel novel is amaaaaaazzziinnng. The old original movie is also fun! But imho the 82 movie is far the superior of the film versions. I also absolutely insanely adore the Broadway musical from the 90s, and there's a great ya/apocalyptic sort of retelling called Rook by Sharon Cameron that I also love.

But I highly recommend watching the movie (it's a little long and slowish and 80s hair but perfect, then reading the book (it's very short and a pretty easy read), then listening to the musical soundtrack. (Fair warning, they all have slightly different endings as far as the final climax, but with generally good reason for the changes and they kind of took elements from Baroness Orczy's other novels about the character.)

Sir Percy Blakeney is the best hero with a secret identity to ever hero identity secretly, tbh. He's clever and charming and idiotic and hysterical and dashing and pathetic. And Marguerite is sweet and smart and daring and ridiculous and sly and witty and splendid. -deep sigh- yeah, highly recommend 10/10 every time. Ok bye!

Okay this is all AMAZING. The retelling thing is 101 percent going on my list, and this sounds really great!! I also saw a post once that compared Sir Percy to not one, but two of my all time favorite fictional characters, so like. I can't just not watch it, ya know?

Also you should know that after I got this ask last night I went down a rabbit hole of looking at the actors in this movie (IAN MCKELLAN??? AND THE GUY WHO DIRECTED DOWNTON FREAKING ABBEY???) and then I saw that the guy who plays Percy is also in Ivanhoe from the same year, and I couldn't NOT investigate that (I love Ivanhoe, okay? It's definitely problematic because it was written years and years ago, whatever. I still love it. This is not the time for a rant about it) and now I. Might have to watch a 1982 production of Ivanhoe because it's got some EXCELLENT actors in it including Julian Glover who plays one of my emotional support background character in Star Wars (mainly thanks to this fan fic that you specifically would love because it's got all these honorable caring male characters who do what's right and the platonic relationships? Flawless. I digress) and SAM FREAKING NEILL PLAYS SIR BRIAN DE BOIS-GUILBERT??? To say nothing of yet another Downton Abbey actor being there.

But I digress--I really wanna watch this thanks to that whole rabbit hole from last night, and I also really wanna watch Ivanhoe lol! If I do watch it, I shall let you know, I promise!!

[pianoandcookiedoughlover]

marauders as songs without words (mendelssohn) pieces: regulus black

okay, i've been thinking about this for the past few days so i finally had to type it out. i've been doing some practice sightreading out of this book featuring all of mendelssohn's songs without words and after playing through one that really reminded me of regulus i wanted to do all of the marauders!! but for now, i will stick with regulus, who inspired this all.

i honestly have two options for him. first, op. 30 no. 6 in f sharp minor. i linked here a barenboim recording (barenboim is just such an excellent pianist i love his interpretations)

this is the one that really caught my attention. from that e sharp in the third measure, i felt regulus's blunt nature. we have this repeating figure in measures five and six that appear throughout the piece, which makes me think of his family's constant presence in his life. i see the trills as him sort of floundering under the pressure from his family while also wanting to be his own individual, but he eventually succumbs to his family's wishes with the following falling line.

towards the end of the piece, there is this pattern of playing a broken f sharp octave in the left hand followed by a block chord in the right hand that to me is reminiscent of his struggles with where he was in the later part of his life, constantly fighting between who he is and who he wishes he could've been, if he could go back and rewind these past years. the last two trills feel like a vulnerable representation of him before he fades away into the last few measures.

overall, it has that drama that a black brother needs and this sort of haunting sound that i think regulus might appreciate.

the other option was op. 67 no. 5 in b minor which i found after when i was fully fleshing out this idea but arguably prefer (again, the barenboim recording).

again, this piece has that slightly bitter sound that i think works well for regulus. also that chord on the second beat of measure 9 (about 0:26 in that recording linked above) is just so devastating, i love it. then by measure 14 (0:44 ish) the piece takes a distinct turn to a major sound. it feels innocent and nostalgic, like thinking of a happy memory with a rosy background. this could be representative of regulus's happy moments at hogwarts, with his friends and perhaps romantic interests (regardless of who you ship him with).

but soon enough, it takes a tragic minor turn, so suddenly and smoothly. he has returned home, reminded of his life as his family's heir and what they expect of him. we then return to the main theme with slight adjustments to the harmony. after his time at hogwarts, he has a new perspective of his family and their involvement with voldemort. he is disillusioned with it all, angry for what they have made him become, yet hopeful that there is some way he can fix it.

measure 28 (1:28) marks a choice. i think it perhaps up to interpretation how you see the ending...

anyway, so that was me totally geeking out over these pieces and my newfound interesting in the marauders. i apologize, i'm still quite new to this fandom so i don't know if i've captured regulus's character perfectly. i would absolutely love to hear any music recs for him or other marauders characters or your opinions on these two!

i also apologize for my musical analysis, i have been a bit out of the game for the past couple of years (college has been a lot lol) so i also love to hear other interpretations as well! i might type up some other characters' pieces out of my own interest (particularly i have one for lily i adore) but hopefully it brings enjoyment to other people too :)

thank you so much for reading to my silly rant! <3

[worstloki]

Loki surveilling the skyline of New York from the top of Stark Tower and clocking that his favorite paired set of buildings are gone. sad

[hazelpuff]

So I took a break from posting here since May due to the fact that -again - I had a problem making my Cudlow hood playable (whenever I entered the hood I got pink flashig). So I guess I would had to restart most of it AGAIN. I tried various solutions and nothing worked so propably next time I have to include even less cc, especially when it comes to decorating hood. Till now I don't really know how to do that while being happy with how my custom hood would turn out. I just wanted to play so I moved to TS4 for a while, since I didn't focus on every aspect of my gameplay and just created some sims (I just go to TS4 whenever I'm burned out on TS2 - mainly performence-wise). I played it for about 2 months and now I'm back to playing Sims 2, but taking it easy for a time being. I downloaded a mystery/drama-filled custom hood Jeans Shaker Oasis by Sokisims. It's packed with a lot of sims. It's really a well-made hood, I'm just starting playing it but I wanted to recommand it since I want to post some random pics of my gameplay from time to time here :D. As as I can see, it's still getting some updates but I think it's good to go when it comes to playability.

I want to go back to Cudlow (I spend too much time on sims/build-making to let it all go to waste), but for now I just want to enjoy Sims 2 again and be somewhat active on Tumblr ^^.

[punisheddonjuan]

Hmmm I really need to get some acoustic panelling (maybe some bass traps) for the office. I'm listening to music over my speakers in here right now and between how empty of a room it is at the moment (the only things in here are my desk, PC, guitars, and amp) and the barren walls, sound waves have a lot of long flat surfaces to reflect across. It makes the bass sound a lot boomier than it would otherwise, and the middle treble frequencies get a bit lost. The sound will improve once we put Cate's desk and a futon and some other furniture in here, but it still might be a bit too boomy.

Remember kids, one of the biggest contributors to an enjoyable audio experience is proper room treatment. At the very least, do your listening in a room that has lots of varied and soft surfaces which will absorb sound waves rather than reflect them. Bookshelves stuffed full of books and soft furniture like a couch work almost as well as acoustic panelling. The trick is to avoid large patches of flat, hard surface.

Honestly, I don't know how my old roommate was able to stand listening to anything in here with the way he had the room set up, and he always listened to music.

[deetheteadrinkingdragon]

So apparently there are only like, 3 actual Fright Krewe fics on Ao3 so I guess I need to come out of fic writing retirement and do my part to help feed us, huh.

[mbccari]

In other news !! This was my first time playing Rain Burst and Flore Unfurl and.... I'm afraid they've altered my brain chemistry in a way no other game has ever done and I'll never be the same person I was before

It was SO GOOD ?? I WAS SO HOOKED ?!?!? Couldn't stop playing because the story was so captivating, and of course the characters being so so well-written and interesting was an important factor... I loved both events so freaking much I don't even know how to express it with words 😭😭😭

(spoilers ⬇️)

AND... OKAY I GET IT NOW.... I already liked them with the tiniest crumbs of lore I had seen from fanarts and so but THIS ?? WOAH

Rain Burst specifically had me jumping and crawling up the walls.... these four scenes ?? My jaw dropped this was absolutely insane I love them and their toxicity !

Rahushalom I apologize, I wasn't familiar with your game. Like yeah I liked it before but now I'm a little bit crazy about it.

[eddywoww]

DEAR LORD PLEASE WRITE THE STOPPER IM ON MY KNEES

It’s honestly tempting

Along with my 100 unfinished fics 💀