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felassan · 6 months ago

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Edge – The Future of Interactive Entertainment magazine, issue #401 (October 2024 issue) – Dragon Age: The Veilguard story

The rest of this post is under a cut for length.

Update: this issue of this magazine is now available to buy from UK retailers today. it can be purchased online at [this link]. [Tweet from Edge Online] also, Kala found that a digital version of the magazine can be read at [this link].

This post is a word-for-word transcription of the full article on DA:TV in this issue of this magazine. DA:TV is the cover story of this issue. When transcribing, I tried to preserve as much of the formatting from the magazine as possible. Edge talked to BioWare devs for the creation of this article, so the article contains new quotes from the devs. the article is written by Jeremy Peel. There were no new screenshots or images from the game in the article. I also think that it contains a few lil bits of information that are new, like the bits on companions' availability and stumbling across the companions out and about on their own in the world e.g. finding Neve investigating an abduction case in Docktown.

tysm to @simpforsolas and their friend for kindly telling me about the article!!

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[image source]

Article introduction segment:

"[anecdote about Edge] We were reminded of this minuscule episode in Edge's history during the creation of this issue's cover story, in which we discuss the inspiration behind Dragon Age: The Veilguard with its creators at BioWare. Notably, director John Epler remembers the studio experimenting with a number of approaches during the early phase of development before eventually locking in to what the game was supposed to be all along, above all else: 'a single-player, story-focused RPG'. As you'd expect from BioWare, though, that was really just a starting point, as we discovered on p54." BioWare draws back the Veil and ushers us into a new Dragon Age

"BEHIND THE CURTAIN BioWare's first true RPG in age age is as streamlined and pacey as a dragon in flight. By Jeremy Peel Game Dragon Age: The Veilguard Developer BioWare Publisher EA Format PC, PS5, Xbox Series Origin Canada Release Autumn

The Dragon Age universe wasn't born from a big bang or the palm of an ancient god. Instead, it was created to solve a problem. BioWare was tired of battling Hasbro during the making of Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights, and wanted a Dungeons & Dragons-like setting of its own. A small team was instructed to invent a new fantasy world in which the studio could continue its groundbreaking work in the field of western RPGs, free of constraints.

Well, almost free. BioWare's leaders mandated that the makers of this new world stick to Eurocentric fantasy, and include a fireball spell - since studio co-founder Ray Muzyka had a weakness for offensive magic.

Beyond that, BioWare’s storytellers were empowered to infuse Dragon Age with their own voices and influences, leaning away from D&D’s alignment chart and towards a moral grayness that left fans of A Song Of Ice And Fire feeling warm and cozy.

In the two decades since, the world of Thedas – rather infamously and amusingly, a shortening of ‘the Dragon Age setting’ that stuck – has taken on a distinct flavor. It’s something director John Epler believes is rooted in characters.

“There’s definitely some standard fantasy stuff in Dragon Age, but everything in the world, every force, is because of someone,” he says. “The idea is that every group and faction needs to be represented by a person – someone you can relate to. Big political forces are fine as background, but they don’t provide you with those interesting story moments.”

Dragon Age: The Veilguard bears out that philosophy. The long-awaited sequel was first announced with the subtitle Dreadwolf, in reference to its antagonist, Solas – an ancient elf who once stripped his people of immortality as punishment for betraying one of their own. In doing so, Solas created the Veil, the thin barrier through which wizards pull spirits and demons invade the waking world. In other words, many of Dragon Age’s defining features, from its downtrodden elves to the uneasy relationship between mages and a fearful church, can be traced right back to one character’s decision.

“The world exists as it does because of Solas,” Epler says. “He shaped the world because of the kind of character he was. That’s, to me, what makes Dragon Age so interesting. Everything can tie back to a person who to some degree thought they were doing the right thing.”

Perhaps BioWare’s greatest achievement in slowburn character development, Solas is a former companion, an unexploded bomb who sat in the starting party of Dragon Age: Inquisition, introverted and useful enough to get by without suspicion. Yet by the time credits rolled around on the Trespasser DLC, players were left in no doubt as to the threat he presented.

Determined to reverse the damage he once caused, the Dreadwolf intends to pull down the Veil, destroying Thedas as we know it in the process. The next Dragon Age game was always intended to be his story.

“We set that up at the end of Trespasser,” Epler says. “There was no world where we were ever going to say, ‘And now let’s go to something completely different.’ We wanted to pay off that promise.”

Yet almost everything else about the fourth Dragon Age appears to have been in flux at one time. In 2019, reporter Jason Schreier revealed that an early version, starring a group of spies pulling off heists in the Tevinter Imperium, had been cancelled two years prior. Most of its staff were apparently moved onto BioWare’s struggling Anthem, while a tiny team rebooted Dragon Age from scratch. That new game was said to experiment with live-service components.

“We tried a bunch of different ideas early on,” Epler says. “But the form The Veilguard has taken is, in a lot of ways, the form that we were always pushing towards. We were just trying different ways to get there. There was that moment where we really settled on, ‘This is a singleplayer, story-focused RPG – and that’s all it needs to be’”.

Epler imagines a block of marble, from which BioWare was attempting to carve an elephant – a character- and story-driven game. “We were chipping away, and sometimes it looked more like an elephant and sometimes it didn’t”, he says. “And then we eventually realized: ‘Just make an elephant’. When we got to that, it almost just took shape by itself.”

2014’s Dragon Age: Inquisition was an open-world game commonly criticized for a slow-paced starting area which distracted players from the thrust of the plot. The Veilguard, in contrast, is mission-based, constructed with tighter, bespoke environments designed around its main story and cast. “We wanted to build a crafted, curated experience for the player,” Epler says. “Pacing is important to us, and making sure that the story stays front and center.”

Epler is very proud of Inquisition, the game on which he graduated from cinematic designer to a lead role (for its DLC). “But one of the things that we ran into on that project was an absentee antagonist,” he says. “Corypheus showed up and then disappeared. You spent ten hours in the Hinterland doing sidequests, and there wasn’t that sense of urgency.”

This time, The Veilguard team wants you to constantly feel the sword of Damocles dangling above your head as you play – a sense that the end of the world is coming if you don’t act. “There’s still exploration – there’s still the ability to go into some of these larger spaces and go off the beaten path to do sidequests,” Epler says. “But there’s always something in the story propelling you and the action forward, and allowing you to make decisions with these characters where the stakes feel a lot more immediate and present. And also, honestly, more real.”

No sooner have you finished character creation than Dragon Age: The Veilguard thrusts you into a choice. As your protagonist, Rook, steps into focus on the doorstep of the seediest bar in town, you decide whether to threaten the owner for information or make a deal. Brawl or no, you’ll walk out minutes later with a lead: the location of a private investigator named Neve Gallus, who can help you track down Solas.

You proceed into Minrathous, the largest city in Thedas and capital of the Tevinter Imperium – a region only alluded to in other Dragon Age games. It’s a place built on the backs of slaves and great mages, resulting in tiered palaces and floating spires – a kind of architecture unimaginable to those in the southern nations.

“When your Dragon Age: Inquisition companion Dorian joins you in Orlais, in one of the biggest cities in Thedas, he mentions that it’s quaint and cute compared to Minrathous,” Corinne Busche, game director on The Veilguard, says. “That one bit of dialogue was our guiding principle on how to realize this city. It is sprawling. It is lived-in. Sometimes it’s grimy, sometimes it’s bougie. But it is expansive.”

Immediately, you can see the impact of BioWare’s decision to tighten its focus. Around every other corner in Minrathous is an exquisitely framed view, a level of spectacle you would never see in Inquisition, where resources were spread much more thinly. “When you know that you’re gonna be heading down a canyon or into this plaza where the buildings open up, you have those perfect spots to put a nice big temple of Andraste or a mage tower,” art director Matthew Rhodes says. “You get those opportunities to really hit that hard.”

BioWare’s intention is to make strong visual statements that deliver on decades of worldbuilding. “People who have a history with Dragon Age have thought about what Minrathous might be like,” Rhodes says. “We can never compete with their imagination, but we can aim for it like we’re shooting for the Moon.”

The people of Tevinter use magic as it if were electricity, as evidenced by the glowing sigils that adorn the dark buildings – street signs evoking Osaka’s riverfront or the LA of Blade Runner. They’re just one of the tricks BioWare’s art team uses to invite you to stop and take in the scene. “A lot of what you start to notice when you’re the artist who’s been working on these big, beautiful vistas and neat murals on the walls is how few players look up,” Rhodes says. “We design props and architecture that help lead the eyes.”

For the really dedicated shoegazers, BioWare has invested in ray-traced reflections, so that the neon signage can be appreciated in the puddles. There are also metal grates through which you can see the storm drains below. “The idea behind that is purely just to remind the player often of how stacked the city is,” Rhodes says. “Wherever you’re standing, there’s guaranteed to be more below you and above you.”

One of BioWare’s core creative principles for The Veilguard is to create a world that’s actually worth saving – somewhere you can imagine wanting to stick around in, once the crises of the main quest are over. To that end, the team has looked to ground its outlandish environments with elements of mundanity.

“A guy’s normal everyday life walking down the streets of this city is more spectacular than what the queen of Orlais is seeing, at least in terms of sheer scale," Rhodes says. “One of the things we’ve tried to strike a balance with is that this is actually still a place where people have to go to the market and buy bread, raise their kids, and try to make it. It’s a grand and magical city, but how do you get your horses from one place to the next? Where do you load the barrels for the tavern? It’s really fun to think of those things simultaneously.”

Normal life in Minrathous is not yours to behold for long, however. Within a couple of minutes of your arrival, the very air is ripped open like cheap drapes, and flaming demons clatter through the merchant carts that line the city streets. A terrible magical ritual, through which Solas intends to stitch together a new reality, has begun.

“We wanted the prologue to feel like the finale of any other game we’ve done,” Busche explains. “Where it puts you right into this media-res attack on a city and gets you really invested in the action and the story right away. When I think back to Inquisition, how the sky was literally tearing open – the impact of this ritual really makes that look like a minor inconvenience.”

Our hero is confronted by a Pride demon, imposing and armored as in previous games, yet accented by exposed, bright lines that seem to burst from its ribcage. “They are a creature of raw negative emotion,” Busche says. “So we wanted to actually incorporate that into their visual design with this glowing nervous system.”

When a pack of smaller demons blocks Rook’s route to the plaza where Neve was last seen, battle breaks out, and The Veilguard’s greatest divergence from previous Dragon Age games becomes apparent. Our rogue protagonist flits between targets up close and evades individual sword swings with precision. In the chaos, he swaps back and forth between blades and a bow. He blends light and heavy attacks, and takes advantage of any gap in the melee to charge up even bigger blows.

“Responsiveness was our first-and-foremost goal with this baseline layer of the combat system,” Busche says. Unless you’re activating a high-risk, high-reward ability such as a charged attack, any action can be animation-cancelled, allowing you to abort a sword swing and dive away if an enemy lunges too close. “We very much wanted you to feel like you exist in this space, as you’re going through these really crafted, hand-touched worlds,” Busche says. “That you’re on the ground in control of every action, every block, every dodge.” Anyone who’s ever bounced off a Soulslike needn’t worry: The Veilguard’s highly customizable difficulty settings enable you to loosen up parry windows if they prove too demanding.

Gone is the overhead tactical camera which, for some players, was a crucial point of connection between Dragon Age and the Baldur’s Gate games that came before, tapping into a lineage of thoughtful, tabletop-inspired combat. Epler points out that the camera’s prior inclusion had an enormous impact on where the game’s battles took place. “We actually had a mandate on Inquisition, which was, ‘Don’t fight inside,’” he says. “The amount of extra work on getting that tactical camera to work in a lot of those internal environments, it was very challenging.”

Gone, too, is the ability to steer your comrades directly. “On the experiential side, we wanted you to feel like you are Rook – you’re in this world, you’re really focused on your actions,” Busche says. “We very much wanted the companions to feel like they, as fully realized characters, are in control of their own actions. They make their own decisions. You, as the leader of this crew, can influence and direct and command them, but they are their own people.”

It's an idea with merit, albeit one that could be read as spin. “It’s not lost on me,” Busche says. “I will admit that, on paper, if you just read that you have no ability to control your companions, it might feel like something was taken away. But in our testing and validating with players, what we find is they’re more engaged than ever.”

There may be a couple of reasons for that. One is that Dragon Age’s newly dynamic action leaves little room for seconds spent swapping between perspectives. “This is a much higher actions-per-minute game,” Busche says. “It is more technically demanding on the player. So when we tried allowing you full control of your companions as well, what we’ve found is it wasn’t actually adding to the experience. In fact, in some ways it was detrimental, given the demanding nature of just controlling your own character.”

Then there’s The Veilguard’s own tactical layer, as described by BioWare. Though the fighting might be faster and lower, like a mana-fuelled sports scar, the studio is keen to stress that the pause button remains as important to the action as ever. This is, according to Busche, where the RPG depth shines through, as you evaluate the targets you’re facing and take their buffs into account: “Matching elemental types against weaknesses and resistances is a big key to success in this game.”

You pick between rogue, warrior and mage – each role later splitting again into deeper specialisms – and draw from a class-specific resource during fights. A rogue relies on Momentum, which is built up by avoiding damage and being highly aggressive, whereas a warrior is rewarded for blocking, parrying, and mitigating damage.

Those resources are then used on the ability wheel, which pauses the game and allows you to consider your options. The bottom quadrant of the wheel belongs to your character, and is where three primary abilities will be housed. “Rook will also have access to runes, which function as an ability, and a special ultimate ability,” Busche says. “So you’re bringing five distinct abilities with you into combat.”

The sections to the left and right of the wheel, meanwhile, are dedicated to your companions. Busche points to Lace Harding, the returning rogue from Inquisition, who is currently frozen mid-jump. “She is her own realized individual in this game. She’s got her own behaviors: how she prioritizes targets, whether she gets up close and draws aggro or stays farther back at range. But you’ll be able to direct her in combat by activating her abilities from the wheel.”

These abilities are complemented by positional options at the top of the wheel, where you can instruct your companions to focus their efforts on specific targets, either together or individually. Doing so will activate the various buffs, debuffs and damage enhancements inherent in their weapons and gear. “So,” Busche explains, “as you progress through the first two hours of the game, this full ability wheel is completely populated with a variety of options and different tactics that you can then string together.”

BioWare has leaned into combos. You might tell one companion to unleash a gravity-well effect that gathers enemies together, then have another slow time. Finally, you could drop an AOE attack on your clustered and slowed opponents, dealing maximum damage. The interface will let you know when an opportunity to blend two companion abilities emerges – moments BioWare has dubbed ‘combo detonations’.

“I like to think about this strategic layer to combat as a huddle,” Busche says, “where you’re figuring out how you want to handle the situation, based on the information you have on the encounter, and how you and your companions synergize together.”

Deeper into the game, as encounters get more challenging, Epler says we’ll be spending a lot of time making “very specific and very focused tactical decisions”. The proof will be in eating the Fereldan fluffy mackerel pudding, of course, but Busche insists this shift to fast action isn’t a simplification. “What really makes the combat system and indeed the extension into the progression system work is that pause-and-play tactical element that we know our players expect.”

The autonomy of The Veilguard’s companions doesn’t end with combat. BioWare’s data shows that in previous games players tended to stick with the same two or three beloved comrades during a playthrough. This time, however, you’ll be forced to mix your squad up at regular intervals.

“We do expect that players will have favorites they typically want to adventure with,” Busche says, “but sometimes certain companions will be mandatory.” Others may not always be available – part of the studio’s effort to convince with three-dimensional characters. “They do have a life outside of Rook, the main character,” Busche says.

"They'll fall in love with people in this world. They’ve had past experiences they’ll share with you if you allow them in and get close to them.”

Being separated from your companions, rather than collecting them all in a kind of stasis at camp, allows you to stumble across them unexpectedly. Busche describes an instance in which, while exploring the Docktown section of Minrathous, you might bump into Neve as she investigates an abduction case. “If I go and interact with her, I can actually stop what I’m doing, pick up her arc and adventure with her throughout her part of the story,” Busche says. “What’s interesting is that all of the companion arcs do ultimately tie back to the themes of the main critical path, but they also have their own unique challenges and villains, and take place over the course of many different intimate moments.”

Some parts of a companion’s quest arc involve combat, while others don’t. Some are made up of large and meaningful missions – as lavish and involved as those along the critical path. “While they are optional, I would be hesitant to call them side content in this game,” Busche says. If you choose not to engage with some of these companion-centered events, they’ll resolve on their own. “And it might have interesting implications.”

The Veilguard promises plenty of change, then, even as it picks up the threads of fan-favorite characters and deepens them, honoring the decades of worldbuilding that came before it. This is perhaps the enduring and alluring paradox of Dragon Age: a beloved series which has never had a direct and immediate sequel, nor a recurring protagonist. Instead, it’s been reinvented with each new entry.

“It’s a mixed blessing to some degree,” Epler says. “The upside is always that it gives us more room to experiment and to try new things. There are parts of the series that are common to every game: it’s always an RPG, it’s always about characters, and we always want to have that strategic tactical combat where you’re forced to make challenging decisions. But at the end of the day, I think what makes Dragon Age Dragon Age is that each one feels a little bit different.”"

Q&A Matthew Rhodes Art director

Q. Early BioWare RPGs were literary, with the emotions and detail mostly happening in dialogue boxes. How have you seen the studio's approach to visual storytelling evolve? A. This has been my entire career. When I first showed up at BioWare, it was at the tail end of Jade Empire, and then I was working on Dragon Age: Origins and early Mass Effect. The games had taken that next step out of sprites and 2D models, and it was like: 'How do we say more? How do we communicate more clearly?' During those early days, a lot of games depended on words to fix everything for you. As long as your character was talking bombastically, you could lend them everything that they needed. But as time went on it also became a visual medium, and it's been this long journey of trying to establish art's seat at the table. I've worked with some great writers over the years, and art is also an essential part of the storytelling. From Dragon Age: Inquisition on, I've been trying to stress with my teams that we are a story department.

Q. Is part of that also letting writers know that your storytelling assistance is available, to help them show rather than tell? A. On The Veilguard, that principle has been operating the best I've seen it. Where you would need a paragraph of dialogue in one of those exposition moments where a character just talks to you, we could sell that with a broken statue or a skeleton overgrown with vines. We've had more opportunities to do that on The Veilguard than most of the projects I've ever worked on combined.

To a hammer, every problem looks like a nail, and so in every department, writing will try to solve it with more words, and art will try to solve it with more art. I've bumped up against moments where it's like, 'As much as we could keep hammering on this design, I think this is actually an audio solution.' And then you take it to audio, and you don't get that overcooked feeling where each team is just trying to solve it in their silo. It's a really creatively charged kind of environment.

[main body of article ends here]

Additional from throughout the article --

Image caption: “Spotlights shine down from the city guards’ base as they pursue you through the streets of Minrathous.”

Image caption: “While most of your companions can be sorted into comfortingly familiar RPG classes, The Veilguard introduces two new varieties: a Veil Jumper and a private investigator.”"

Image caption [on this Solas ritual concept art specifically]: “The name previously given to the game – Dreadwolf – was a direct reference to Solas. Your former companion, now on his own destructive mission, still features, despite the name change.”

Text in a side box:

"RATIONAL ANTHEM The hard lesson BioWare drew from Anthem was to play to its strengths. “We’re a studio that has always been built around digging deep on storytelling and roleplaying,” Epler says. “I’m proud of a lot of things on Anthem – I was on that project for a year and a half. But at the end of the day we were building a game focused on something we were not necessarily as proficient at. For me and for the team, the biggest lesson was to know what you’re good at and then double down on it. Don’t spread yourselves too thin. Don’t try to do a bunch of different things you don’t have the expertise to do. A lot of the people on this team came here to build a story-focused, singleplayer RPG."

Image caption: “In combat you no longer control your companions directly – this is a faster-paced form of fighting – but you are able to direct them in combat, and can even blend their abilities in ‘combo detonations’.”

Image caption: “You’ll be exploring new regions across Tevinter and beyond – Rivain is a certainty, and that’s only accessible via Antiva travelling overland.”

Image caption: “There are three specializations per character class; on the way to unlocking them you’ll acquire a range of abilities.”

Text in a side box:

"MEET YOUR MAKER “Full disclosure: Dragon Age has traditionally not done skin tones well, especially for people of color,” Busche says. “We wanted to do a make-good here.” In The Veilguard’s character creator, you can adjust the amount of melanin that comes through in the skin, as well as test various lighting scenarios to ensure your protagonist looks exactly as you intend in cutscenes. “Speaking of our first creative principle – be who you want to be – we really feel these are the kinds of features that unlock that for our players,” Busche says. “We want everyone to be able to see themselves in this game.” For the first time in the series, your body type is fully customizable too, with animations, armor and even romantic scenes reflecting your choices."

Image caption: “Your companions are a mix of old and new – Lace Harding is a familiar face. Veil Jumper Bellara is new, with a new occupation, while Davrin is a new face with a familiar profession – he’s a Warden.”

Image caption: "Arlathan Forest is home to the ruined city of the elves, now a place of wild magic, Veil Jumpers and (allegedly) spirits".

Image caption: "Bellara is driven by a desire to learn more about the elves, rediscovering the shattered history and magic of her people."

[source: Edge – The Future of Interactive Entertainment magazine, issue #401 (October 2024 issue) - it can be purchased online at [this link].]

#dragon age: the veilguard #dragon age the veilguard spoilers #dragon age: dreadwolf #dragon age 4 #the dread wolf rises #da4 #dragon age #bioware #solas #video games #longpost #long post #simpforsolas #anthem #jade empire #mass effect #obsessed with the idea of helping neve solve cases...

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interstellarflare · 8 months ago

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A Cinderella Story || Anthony Bridgerton

-PART TWO-

Summary: Have courage, and be kind. Words that you tried to live by ever since the passing of your parents. Though your step-mother and step-sisters did everything in their power to hide you and your status away from the rest of the Ton, you never expected to catch the eye of Viscount Anthony Bridgerton himself.

Authors Note: This is my first Bridgerton series! I had an absolute ball writing this, and I hope you enjoy it! There is a tag list open if anyone wishes to be kept updated for future parts. I would also like to apologise for the previous tag list not working! It has been fixed now! Gif by @fifty5hades

|PART ONE|

The horses had been restless ever since you had arrived in town. Lady Worthington, Elizabeth and Mary had been traversing between multiple shops for hours now, the three of them making multiple trips back to stuff every inch of the carriage full of boxes and bags that contained every expensive item of clothing imaginable.

The horses flinched every time the carriage doors slammed closed, their heads lifting upward as they were startled by the harsh sound. But after a few gentle pats and sweetly whispered words, the two black geldings calmed down and went back to their idling. You released a deep sigh, gently ruffling the horses’ mane as you people watched. Lords and Lady’s strolled by, some of them sneering at your dirty and slightly big dress, but you didn’t mind. You never had minded.

Sure, these clothes weren’t kept in line with their usual standard upkeep, but it was all that you had. Clothes were better than none at all. You had been so caught up tending to the horses, that you hadn’t noticed the figure creeping up behind you along the cobblestones. You jumped as the culprit tickled your sides, releasing a loud shriek as you spun around to meet the face of a young girl you knew all too well.

“Oh god, Eloise! Don’t do that!” You cried, the young Bridgerton cackling at your fright. She smiled, lightly punching your shoulder as she cried “Oh come on, this is the first time I have seen you in weeks! Does that wicked woman lock you up in a tower or something?”

“She might as well…” You replied sharply, gripping the harness of the horse closest to you “I haven’t seen the sun in days.”

“Don’t you joke about that, you know I will actually have my brothers come and save you from that hell” Eloise teased, pointing her finger at you with a stern expression. You rolled your eyes, shaking your head as a small yet grateful smile graced your lips.

Eloise Bridgerton, the fifth eldest in the Bridgerton family, had figured out who you were the first moment she had met you. She was smart and witty, and had instantly put two and two together, and had no problem reminding you whenever she ran into you on the street.

The daughter of one of the most prominent Lords on the ton, suddenly vanishes after her father’s unfortunate and sudden death, running away due to the grief and sadness at the loss of her parents. Then not two days later, a new maid is hired. The ton wasn’t the biggest fan of the Worthington family, according to Eloise. The horror stories she had heard from Daphne and her brothers were more or less disturbing to say the least. She had never met your stepsisters, and prayed that she never would, but of course with the latest season coming up, that might be a little hard.

You turned to face Eloise fully, leaning back slightly as the horse’s head chased after your attention, obscuring your view slightly. “And just what are you doing in town? I thought you would have been at home preparing for Lady Danbury’s ball this evening?”

Eloise groaned loudly, slumping against the side of the carriage with a loud thump. You laughed softly at her behaviour, watching as she rolled her eyes and turned her gaze skyward. “Though I so wish that I could stay at home and read the night away, my mother has made it clear that I am to find something nice to wear for this evening. I am being chaperoned by my brother-“

“Oh?” You asked teasingly, chuckling at the glare that formed on her face “and which brother do you have the pleasure of accompanying you tonight?”

“Oh, you are so funny…” Eloise grumbled, crossing her arms over her front with a huff “…I am being chaperoned right now! ‘So that I may not run away’, according to Anthony.”

Your laughter echoed throughout the street, as Eloise rushed forward and begged you to keep quiet. You held your stomach and wiped a stray tear from your eye, releasing the horse’s harness as you did so. “Oh Eloise, I will say I do not envy you-“

“Oh but I envy you! But remember you used to be a part of this life”

“The only ball I went to was when I was a child, and even then, I don’t remember that much of it”.

Eloise scoffed, shaking her head in disbelief. “To be blessed with such fortune as you have, though I suppose being related to Lady Worthington can be accustomed to being related to a toad-“

“Shhhhhhh!” You hushed, pressing a finger to your lips as Eloise smirked “Don’t say such things out loud! They could be back any minute-“

“Oh, I don’t care much. That woman is despicable-“

You watched her eyes widen, her words dying out as a small squeak replaced her sentence. Focused on the space behind you, you turned quickly and froze, suddenly feeling rather small and very aware of your current dress.

Anthony Bridgerton, the Viscount himself stood before you. He stood tall, hands clasped together behind his back as his deep brown eyes flickered between the two of you. You suddenly felt self-conscious the longer he stared at you, but you were the first to look away as you bowed your head, and once again returned to tending the horses.

“Must you always be difficult, dear sister” The Viscount spoke sarcastically, a small huff escaping him as he clenched his jaw in annoyance. You heard Eloise groan, “Must you always insist on stopping and chatting with every Lord you see? Surely it gets rather tiring”.

“It is polite, Eloise…” he spoke through gritted teeth “need I remind you that your prospects this season rely on me helping you to find a suitable husband-“

“Ah yes, because Daphne’s season went so unbelievably well. Tell me dear brother, how was it that Lord Berbrooke became our dear sister’s only suitor for some time, hm? Who, pray tell, was responsible for that match, until our lovely Daphne married the Duke of Hastings?”

The scowl that formed on the Viscount’s face caused an unpleasant shiver to run down your spine, but you couldn’t help but chuckle softly as Eloise stuck out her tongue in retaliation to her brother’s disapproving look.

You turned your gaze upward and met the Viscount’s eyes. He was looking you over, his scowl turning into a gentle smile as he sighed heavily. “You’ll have to forgive my sister, unfortunately she seems to forget her manners when in public” he spoke informatively, sneering at Eloise as she rolled her eyes and mumbled under her breath.

You shrugged your shoulders, “There’s nothing to forgive, my Lord. I am well acquainted with your sister’s antics I’m afraid-“

“Don’t you dare take his side Y/n!” Eloise screamed, stomping her foot like and annoyed child. You laughed a reply, noticing the man beside you chuckling alongside you “We both know you’re not the biggest fan of society Eloise, I am simply stating fact-“

“I never thought you would betray me like this…how could you” She spoke softly, clutching her chest in mock-hurt as she dramatically slid down the side of the carriage, coming to rest on the step below the door. You heard the Viscount laugh, “Perhaps Miss Y/n here as a point. You will have to be on your best behaviour tonight, so I suggest that perhaps you should start practicing your etiquette before then-“

“You are both the worst” Eloise grumbled, standing up from the carriage step and slowly walking towards the store front before her. “If anyone needs me, I will be inside. The two of you can gossip about me at your own leisure while I suffer numerous dress-fittings inside” She whined, opening the door and disappearing inside.

You once again turned your attention back to the Viscount, looking up at him shyly as you fiddled with your hands in front of you. “Your sister does mean well, you know. Forgive me for speaking out of turn, but I am lucky to have a friend like her, especially at my status.”

He smiled at your words, his eyes meeting yours and softening on your form. You felt nervous under his gaze, with how he was looking at you with such interest. No Lord had ever looked at you like this, nor even recognised your presence. It was nice.

“I know she has the best intentions, yet it is the way that she goes about them that sometimes hinders her reputation” He replied, sighing heavily as he watched you intently for your reply. You shrugged “Well, she is a part of one of the most famous and revered families on the ton, she is constantly under the public’s watchful eye. What is the harm of having some freedoms here and there?”.

Your question was innocent enough, but you noticed the Viscount’s brow furrow as he thought on your words. His gaze fell to the cobblestones in contemplation, before returning to your figure with a mischievous smile. “You certainly know a lot of the ton. Tell me, how do you know so much?”.

Your eyes widened and a small blush crept onto your cheeks as you stuttered, “W-Well, Lady Worthington and her daughters discuss these sorts of matters quite openly-“

“Wait, Lady Worthington?” he asked, his eyes suddenly wide with what you could only assume was fear. You eyed the Viscount suspiciously, tilting your head to the side as you spoke. “Yes?...What of them?”

“Oh no, nothing. It has only now just dawned on me that you are the same Y/n that Colin mentioned when he returned from the Worthington household after calling on Miss Elizabeth, and the same Y/n that Eloise calls a friend. I feel rather stupid for not realising it until now.”

A smile formed on your lips as you dismissed his revelation, “Well, I’m not the most memorable person around, I am merely a maid-“

“A maid who has the ear of my sister…and now mine I suppose.”

Your heart skipped a beat at his words, your cheeks once again flushing a bright red as you turned to face him. “You’re…you’re not ashamed to be speaking so openly with me?” you asked him softly, your eyes wide with shock as you waited anxiously for his reply.

The Viscount shook his head, lightly lifting his shoulders as he hummed. “Should I be? Anyone who works for Lady Worthington has my sympathies.”

Perhaps he would be ashamed, if he knew who you really were.

You were left speechless, unsure of how to reply to his words as your mouth fell open and closed. Before you could think of a reply, the store door burst open to reveal Eloise, who now looked incredibly pale and distraught. Both you and the Viscount shared a look of confusion.

“Are you alright Eloise?” You asked cautiously. She looked between you and her brother, breathing deeply in a panic.

“My dear brother, if you wish to keep your marriage prospects hidden until the ball tonight…I suggest we run” Eloise replied breathlessly, rushing over to her brother and taking his arm in hers.

“What are you talking about-“

“Oh for the love of god, Lady Worthington and her daughters are inside! We should run, now!”

Your eyes met Eloise’s, and then those of her brother who were just as wide, perhaps even more terrified. Without thinking, your shoved both Eloise and the Viscount down the street, laughing as you did so. “Go! Don’t become trapped as I have!”

The Viscount’s laughter caused your heart to soar, as he waved a quick goodbye while Eloise dragged him away and around the corner, right on time as Lady Worthington, Mary and Elizabeth stormed out of the store in a huff. You returned to stand by the horses, trying desperately to contain your laughter as the three of them stumbled towards the carriage, boxes in hand, and struggling to squeeze into the already overstuffed carriage.

“I suppose you found everything you were after, my lady?” You replied quickly, pressing your lips together to stop yourself from chuckling, “should we perhaps return home?”

Lady Worthington’s icy gaze settled on your form, causing a shiver to run down your spine. “Did I tell you to speak? I think not. Just go, we have a lot to do before the ball.”

Tag List:

@infectedbypedropascal @erysione @spookystitchery @scoopsahoyspidey

@misscaller06 @slayqueenizzy @everythingmarveltopgun @idek-what-to-put

@everythingbagel00 @thecraziestcrayon @bollzinurmouth @reejero

@pinkcat246 @ambitions-like-ribbons @jackierose902109 @ladybirdbeetle7

@sweetsourpus @in-deans-arms @blackthorngirl @kee-0-kee

@sometimesminsan @prawntoastsworld @scoopsahoyspidey @darkness-falls-xo

@reallysparklychaos @hottie-bishop-belova @riptidewaters @jay-being-weird

@khhhhjj @golden-girasol @linnygirl09 @xoxonoire @stanmixtapes

@freyagallileaevans @gracielou0518 @judig92 @rafaaoli @queenslandlover-93

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@this-gave-pidgeon-further-shock

#anthony bridgerton x reader #anthony bridgerton #anthony bridgerton imagine #bridgerton x reader #bridgerton #bridgerton imagine #jonathan bailey

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synvil · 6 days ago

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The Rumor // Rockstar! Rafe Cameron x Influencer! Reader (( series! ))

“I cannot believe you ran into THE Rafe Cameron, from OBX!”

You’re quick to shush your friend, bringing a hand over her lips to shut her loud ass up while you look around to ensure no one else heard. “Shut up-! not so loud..” Once you were sure no one was looking over, you slowly relax your shoulders, exhaling softly and lean back in your seat, already exhausted for the day. “It’s not what it looks like..”

“Uh huh. Newsflash, you’re literally all over the news!”

As if to prove her point, she turns her phone towards you and on screen is the breaking news.

“Rafe Cameron, star of Rising Band, OBX, Seen With A New Face: Potential Lover?!”

Your eyes widen in disbelief as the photos of you two from yesterday’s events were all over the display. “No way.. I-I don’t even know him!”

Your friend scoffs as she pulls back her phone and pockets it, shaking her head at your voice. “It doesn’t matter, rumors are spreading already. Especially since you still have his jacket, don’t you?”

Pink tinges your cheeks at her question as you nod lightly, an awkward hesitation in your breath. “Well- yeah- i don’t know how to give it to him..”

Taking a sip of her tea, your friend can’t help but giggle at your predicament. “And to think just yesterday, you had no idea who OBX was, and now you’re sparking rumors with leader, Rafe Cameron.”

Rolling your eyes, you exhale heavily and lean back, sinking in your chair as you struggle what to do, picking up your phone from the table. “Yeah, lucky me.” You mutter and see a notification from instagram.

“@obx.rafecameron has followed you.”

“No fucking way..”

Breaking News : New Series Alert!

[Name Lastname], a up-and-coming influencer making a name for herself manages to land an invitation to a promoting event.

Unbeknownst to you, you’d be encountering a celebrity you literally don’t know anything about, other than your friend’s growing addiction with him and his band.

As for Rafe Cameron, a handsome yet stoic, violent but quiet star, versatile in his skills between drums and guitar, has quickly gained a fan base after his reputation blows through the roof.

Known for refusing all advances and questions related to his romantic relationship, every one is led to believe the man will never find a lover.

However, after an incident occurs and the media captures snapshots of the two of you together, sparking rumors of a potential affair, your lives are no longer the same as they become intertwined with one another.

And unbeknownst to him, you’d capture his full attention the moment you meet eyes.

To think, as a rising influencer in the online world, you’d be sparking rumors with one of the growing, greatest band members to form, OBX, Rafe Cameron.

“I don’t fucking care, [Name]. I want you. I don’t give a damn what the rumors say, let everyone fucking know. Because you’re mine.”

What will you do now? Will the rumors be true? Will there be angst? Will someone have a problem with you?

Read more to learn the latest on our scandalous rumoring relationship between [Name] and Rafe!

Latest Album “The Rumor” :

Track One : The Encounter

tba..

a/n : so fucking rushed and unedited bc i’m so excited and don’t have a full outline planned out lmao. like the plot line and title is so bad and needs work so i’ll go back and edit it at some point lol.

but i’m really excited about this and i hope you guys are too, and thank you so much to @rafesheaven for all the help !! (´∩｡• ᵕ •｡∩`) ♡ she was so sweet and helpful and i hope she enjoys this too !!

potentially may make this partial social media au! so we’ll see.

please let me know your thoughts or suggestions!

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mareastrorum · 13 days ago

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Been chewing more on how C3 wound up here. What’s throwing me is the strange shift from the cast’s unflinching “yes, and” game in C2 to a misplaced feeling that they need to choose correctly in C3.

I want to be clear here that this isn’t a criticism post because I genuinely don’t know what’s happening here. It’s just odd behaviors that seem to signal a problem, and I don’t know what solution would resolve it. I’m not going to be so presumptuous as to hypothesize about any cast member’s thoughts.

In the Cooldown for C3E118 (and offhandedly previously), Laura and Ashley expressed some nervousness about making big decisions because they’re worried about making the “wrong” choice. Without more, that attitude alone would explain much of the party’s indecisiveness about key campaign questions. After all, their characters are the two Ruidusborn of most interest to the campaign villains, and other characters (especially Orym, Laudna, and Ashton) have insisted that Imogen and Fearne take the lead on Predathos.

But this isn’t a story in a vacuum. C2 got completely derailed multiple times. The Mighty Nein decided to steal a pirate ship and leave the continent the campaign was set on; shortly after they returned, they decided to reopen a collapsed tunnel to go the opposite side of the continent; then Caleb returned the Luxon Beacon and made themselves heroes of an enemy nation instantly. That’s not even getting into the fact that Molly died before the Nein got to Shadycreek Run (which absolutely would have been all about his backstory) or that Twiggy left an incredible magical artifact that wasn’t supposed to be given to the Nein. Each time, Matt adjusted and made it work. Granted, C2 was more of a sandbox campaign, but Matt demonstrated his flexibility as a DM time and again.

Like, as a general rule of thumb, DMs shouldn’t offer options that would torpedo the campaign. It’s rational to avoid situations that have a genuine possibility of undercutting the game. Matt has been DMing for a long time; he’s done a very good job of finding ways to make the campaign work regardless of the decisions the players make. Even when players do something directly against the signals he threw out (like Ashton trying to absorb a second shard despite consistent, dire warnings that it would kill him), he works with the players to come to a reasonable solution (Ashton survived but the shard wouldn’t take, and he got some character moments out of the failure). We, the audience, know Matt is good at pivoting when he needs to.

In addition to taking the players’ curveballs like a champ, Matt also takes big swings for the sake of the story. In C1, Matt broke his biggest city with a dragon invasion, then made a new god leading an undead titan to go stomp out the world’s oldest civilization. In C2, he let the players go off the map whenever and still made the digression relevant to their character arcs every time. Not to be parasocial, but if we can figure out that that Matt can handle this sort of thing, the players certainly have a better feel for it than us.

So what is going on in C3? We know Matt isn’t scared of breaking Exandria or destroying the pantheon: he set that possibility in motion as the default ending if the players did nothing. CR literally did a mini series about the start of the end of the world with EXU Calamity. Laura and Ashley were also in Downfall and making big choices between the gods and mortals. Breaking stuff is what they do!

Where did this idea that there’s a “wrong” choice come from? That type of thinking kills a lot of great improv, and the whole point of the “yes, and” exercise is to shake it off. While it’s incredibly obvious to say not to think that way, the real issue is sorting out why that mentality has taken hold at all. That’s a problem no amount of fan discussion is going to resolve.

#critical role #c3e118 #bell’s hells

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thankskenpenders · 1 year ago

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Amy's fortune cards

The Sonic fandom has long been the kind of fandom that takes minor details very seriously, for better or worse. On the one hand, this means fans will really dig for the diamonds in the rough, latching onto fun character interactions, animations, bits of background worldbuilding, and more in pieces of Sonic media that many would write off as "the bad ones." But it also feels like every week another needlessly hostile debate over Sonic minutia erupts on Twitter, whether it's over individual lines of dialogue, fanart that makes Tails' shoes blue, or the ideal length and volume for Sonic's quills.

So it was probably inevitable that a fandom-wide debate would erupt upon seeing Amy's new gameplay style in the DLC for Sonic Frontiers, which takes the once-obscure fact that she enjoys reading tarot and shines a spotlight on it like never before.

I mean:

The thing is, while I basically always try to tune out Sonic fandom bickering... for once, I kind of sympathize with the detractors? Don't get me wrong, I like Amy's tarot stuff, and people on all sides of the discussion are being overly nasty about their opinions, as usual. (Sonic Twitter remains my personal hell.) But when I set aside the hyperbole and zoom out, I do think I understand why some fans are put off by the sudden shift in focus for the character, even if I think it's cool.

It's complicated. Let me attempt to present the cases for and against Amy's fortune cards

For years, I was always one of those fans who thought it could be fun if they played with Amy's tarot reading, or even leaned into some kind of magic with her. Part of that is my own biases showing, but there's just something that makes sense there, especially when you look at Sonic, Tails, and Amy as a trio. (I would argue that's the real "Team Sonic" these days, especially in the comics where Knuckles is more likely to be stuck on Angel Island or otherwise doing his own thing.)

You could argue that Tails is all about logic, relying on science and technology and deductive reasoning to solve problems. But Amy is all about emotion. She wears her heart on her sleeve, is extremely empathetic, and is very prone to magical thinking - both figuratively and sometimes literally. Her origin story has always been that her tarot cards told her it was her destiny to meet Sonic on Little Planet. She's claimed to be able to "sense" peoples' presences - particularly Sonic's. She's the type to believe that The Power of Love is a literal magical force. So, on some level, it makes sense to mirror Tails's science by having Sonic's other best friend believe in magic. And then Sonic is somewhere in the middle, primarily following his own gut instincts but taking advice from both of them as needed. This isn't totally accurate to how their dynamics actually function in canon stories, but I think it's a mode that could work for them.

Going off of that, it's fun to lean all the way into Amy being a magical girl, or even a witch, using her fortune telling as a foundation. Take, for example, this version of Amy from Diana Skelly's old Sonic cast redesigns from before she freelanced for Archie and IDW. This is one of MANY such redesigns for Amy.

Fast forward to the 2020s, and Amy's tarot cards are, in fact, finally getting brought up again in canon. Which is fun! I like seeing that. I like all of the individual stories involving Amy's fortune cards. This is a fun character trait for Amy, a fun nod to old lore, AND a fun storytelling device, all in one. It's really cool that the Sonic universe has its own thematically appropriate arcana, and that the cards are getting made as physical merch. And sure enough, the official card backs and borders were designed by none other than Diana Skelly, in yet another cool example of an ascendant fan leaving their mark on the series.

BUT... when you step back and look at the big picture, I get why some fans find this shift in focus jarring. At the moment, it's starting to feel like every new story about Amy involves her fortune cards to some degree.

The most recent mainline comic arc to feature Amy as the lead character, 2021's Trial by Fire arc, prominently features a sequence where she reads fortunes while camping with the girls. The Origins version of Sonic CD now bookends the game with scenes of Amy and her tarot cards. Sonic randomly mentioned it in a scene in Frontiers. And now, just this week, we got the (very cute, gorgeously illustrated) Amy's 30th Anniversary comic with a story revolving around Amy's tarot cards, followed the very next day by the Frontiers DLC in which she gets a brand new tarot-based moveset. Even her base melee attack now has her throwing tarot cards instead of swinging her hammer. Again, I like all of these individual things, but after years of it almost never coming up at all, it's VERY noticeable that Amy's tarot cards are suddenly everywhere.

To be fair, I'm looking at this from the perspective of a superfan who's actively following ALL Sonic media. Casual fans - especially kids - aren't necessarily going to be reading the comics every month, buying the thousandth rerelease of the Genesis games, or playing the ultra-hard new alternate ending DLC for a game that came out last year. Each of these stories is going to be someone's introduction to the idea that Amy can read tarot, and that's probably part of the idea behind this unified push.

But to play devil's advocate, for my fellow superfans, I understand why it feels like a very minor footnote of Amy's character is suddenly becoming the entire focus of her personality. While Amy has always been said to enjoy fortune telling, that wasn't really a character trait in and of itself, but rather an example of her being a typical girl who hopes she'll be able to find true love one day. It's less that Amy can literally predict the future and more like her using a cootie catcher or going "he loves me, he loves me not" while picking the petals off of a flower. So I get not vibing with this stuff, or feeling like it's being pushed very hard out of nowhere.

What I don't agree with are comparisons like "it's like if they made Knuckles' moveset revolve around him liking grapes." Like, I get it. Ian Flynn loves shoehorning in his little winking references for us nerds, and mentions of Amy's tarot cards were previously on the same level as other random bullet points from old Japanese manuals. But a multifaceted hobby like fortune telling that opens up so many narrative and aesthetic possibilities is obviously very different from having a favorite food. It's ALWAYS been a part of her story, not just a random fact, and there's no reason why the fortune telling can't be elevated to something more.

And, hell, even if it wasn't an established character trait, there's nothing inherently wrong with injecting new ideas into a character. One of the best Amy stories in recent years, the Free Comic Book Day special "Amy's New Hobby" written by Gale Galligan, came up with the idea that Amy's secretly been drawing little comics about her and her friends. Is this based on Lore? No. But it's cute, and helps tell the story of a younger Amy who's still coming out of her shell as both a hero and a friend.

Certain fans are also looking at Amy's Frontiers moveset and using it as evidence that once again the Vile American Contributors like Ian are CORRUPTING Sonic Team's perfect vision of Sonic with their misinterpretations. And like. Come on. Ian does not control the gameplay. He's a freelance writer. The tarot stuff is clearly something that Sonic Team likes if they made it the basis of Amy's new moveset - and, you know, if they keep approving comics and animations about Amy's fortune telling. None of this gets made without their blessing, and lord knows how much they can micromanage shit and shoot down ideas over the most minor of details.

Like, yeah, Amy's fortune telling was probably conceived less as a sign that she Knows Magic and more as a pretty mundane hobby for a lovesick young Japanese girl to have. But you're gonna sit there and tell me that using Amy's tarot cards for more than that could only be the result of a cultural misunderstanding? That nobody in Japan uses tarot card theming and aesthetics (or the general idea of magical cards) for the cool factor? Stardust Crusaders? Persona? The Astrologian class in FFXIV? Cardcaptor Sakura?? Hello??? Do you think Capcom put Gambit in Marvel vs. Capcom ironically because they thought using magic to throw cards at people was stupid? There's tons of precedent for this! It's nothing like Knuckles throwing grapes at people, be for real.

Giving Amy a very magical girl-esque moveset also just makes a lot of sense. For decades her hammer attacks have literally made sparkly heart shapes appear around her. Leaning into both that and her tarot cards in her new moveset makes a lot of sense to me.

But, admittedly... I do think it's very odd that her hammer is treated as a secondary element here, rather than having her primarily use her hammer and adding the cards for extra flair. If hitting the attack button made her swing her hammer instead of throwing cards, I'm not sure we'd even be having this discussion right now.

But the tarot-cycle and Amy riding her hammer like a witch's broom are fucking SICK and I will not concede on this point

The thing is, this whole fortune card discourse is but a small piece of a bigger problem. Amy's been a character who needed some work for ages, but there's basically nothing you can do with her without pissing SOMEONE off.

Years of stories where Amy's crush was her primary motivator and Sonic went "Ew, cooties!" have lead many casual fans to believe that being Sonic's obsessive fangirl is Amy's entire personality. At best people might call her Sonic's Minnie Mouse. This isn't just a matter of Amy having haters within the fandom - venture outside of that bubble and you'll realize that this is how MOST video game playing people seem to see her to this day. I don't feel like this is a fair assessment of the character, but this idea didn't come from nowhere. No matter how much good deeply entrenched Sonic fans may see in their old dynamic where Amy perpetually chases Sonic, this is a very real problem that Sonic Team has to contend with for their leading girl. Of course all those games where the way-past-cool protagonist thought Amy was annoyingly clingy and tried to get away from her made people think less of her.

If new stories were to go back to emphasizing Amy's crush on Sonic a little more, they'd probably be taken as confirmation that Amy's just the girl with a crush on Sonic and that this is her entire personality. Conversely, when the crush is played down, you piss off the hardcore SonAmy fans who don't seem to understand that they're Charlie Brown and Sega is Lucy holding the football. You can't win.

And so here we are. In the absence of what was once her defining trait, now reduced to an occasional blush or wink in Sonic's direction, new stories are trying to mine Amy's past for additional material to work with. Having been a thing fans wanted to see for years, right now we're getting a lot of tarot, but we're also getting reminders of her compassionate nature and her desire to go out of her way to help the little guy. This is an ongoing process. I continue to hope that her bubbly, exuberant demeanor can shine more in future stories. Now, I also hope that the tarot stuff gets balanced out a little better with other traits of hers. But I don't want it to go away. I think it's fun.

This course correcting is far from exclusive to Amy. Knuckles is getting stories that remind us that he's a competent fighter, an experienced treasure hunter, and even a self-taught archaeologist after years of him being perceived as either the dumb one or just the guy who stands in front of the Master Emerald all day. And Tails has been getting some stories reminding folks that he's a capable hero in his own right and not just Sonic's timid kid sidekick.

But no supporting character will ever compete with the sheer number of new ideas Sega has tried with Sonic himself. Like Amy, his Frontiers moveset has also given him half a dozen new superpowers that he never had before, from the Cyloop to air-slicing projectile attacks to his own take on Shadow Clone Jutsu and beyond. He's also been a hoverboarder, a swordsman, a time traveler, an Olympic athlete, a racecar driver, cursed with a Flame of Judgment, imbued with alien power, a fucking Werehog with stretchy powers, and on and on and on.

If Sonic can do all that, Amy can try out using a tarot-cycle.

Anyway TL;DR the REAL problem with Amy's current characterization... is where the FUCK is Amy's bestie, Honey the Cat???????

#tkp post

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respectthepetty · 2 months ago

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GMMTV 2025 - Hot Tops and One Bottom

GMMTV offered up ONE straight show, and even though I'm salty that I didn't get Midnight Museum 2 and despite the current state of the world, I have never been happier to be alive at this exact moment that I'm living in. GMMTV really cemented that it is Disney BL, and said FUCK THEM HETEROS!

As usual, I'm listing what shows I'm most excited to see from GMMTV's annual unveiling, but in order to be fair to the other shows, I will not consider one of the shows in the rankings because I am a Jaidee fan first, and a human second:

Dare You to Death

My boys are giving me ~Murder, Manipulate, Make-Out, and MAYHEM~ so I'm already seated, sat, and sitted. I've always thought Joong should play a character who was insincere and a bit crazy, and Dunk should lean into his haughtiness (emphasis on HOT), so even though all these other shows look great, they aren't JoongDunk trying to solve a murder while trying to not murder each other, and it would be unfair of me to hold that against everyone else. I was going to take whatever I was getting from them, but THIS?! Sorry, to everyone else, but y'all never stood a chance.

#1a - Memoir of Rati

Moment of honesty - Inn and Great are fine as fuck. They are already attractive to begin with, so to put them in a historical drama, of course, I'm going to eat it up. This is a serious piece about political and social tensions which I have no doubts they will carry into getting some awards for it. I was getting worried that these two weren't going to have another show together next year, but not only did GMMTV give them one of the meatier plots, the series also has Aou and Boom in it with an amazing story as well, so this was easily my top choice.

Or at least it was my top choice until . . .

#1b - Ticket to Heaven

Religious trauma aligned with Catholicism is my special brand of queer angst, so this series already has me all the way fucked up. Fourth is such a phenomenal actor and Gemini always acts his ass off, so I know they will have me in a fetal position every single episode clutching my rosary and praying for God's mercy since I'm already in my feelings about this. The heathens in the room better read up on some biblical references because if you thought I was doing too much over a cross necklace in Let Free the Curse of Taekwondo and the praying in The Warp Effect, I Saw You in My Dreams, and Marahuyo Project, block me now because that was only the tip of the religious iceberg.

#2 - Cat for Cash

Although I'm a vegetarian, I'm a Disney villain who strongly dislikes animals, yet even I was happy to see First getting advice from cats on how to make coffee and how to win over Khao. This is the FirstKhao romance we have been waiting for! It looks soft and sincere, and even though the plot involves hearing cats, First as the worst debt collector and Khao as a grieving sad boy are their most realistic characters they have ever played. The series also looks like it's going to make me cry, so thank goodness Satang showed up to make sure I would be emotional about every show GMMTV gives me next year.

#3 - That Summer

On the topic of Satang, I'm shocked that I clicked with this trailer. I was ready to write this off as a Hallmark series due to its plot about a prince with amnesia falling in love with a commoner until the trailer revealed that he doesn't have amnesia, and the commoner knows he is a prince. The trailer situated the problem will come from their class differences plus Mond is kissing a homie (in secret), and since I just asked for more series with sad wet boys on the beach, this show goes at the top for GMMTV delivering me something I didn't know I wanted but a show I definitely needed.

#4 - A Dog and a Plane

Tay and New got me by the throat in 2019 and 2024 with Dark Blue Kiss and Peaceful Property, and even when I wanted to be mad at Cherry Magic, I couldn't because these men always sell the hell out of a ship even when they shouldn't. I'm a Jaidee fan first, and a human second, but I'll throw on some polar bear and whale jammies any day to join the Polcas because Tay and New have not disappointed me once in their joint shows or individual shows. So here I am, super duper excited to see New play a GAY flight attendant (a stereotype I love to see) whose man is trying to screw Pun only for Tay to take the hush money yet still catch feelings AND FLIGHTS! Marc's there too, so it's time I was served openly gay men who are trying to join the mile-high club since it's been over a decade since I got Pedro Almodóvar's I'm So Excited.

#5 - My Romance Scammer

I support marriage equality, but I do not believe in the institution of marriage, so I'm thrilled that GMMTV decided to throw me some gay divorce the same year gay marriage was legalized! Next, I'm getting the odd ball couple of Ohm and Fluke with Fluke being a dummy who falls for the first man who is nice to him, only for Marc to think he has a great relationship with Junior, BUT IT'S ALL A SCAM! I will probably end up defending this show with my life because this is the romcom romcoN I deserve!

Side Quest - Tarot Card Series

The theme for this year's announcement was "Riding the Wave" but it should have been "Wheel of Fortune" because there were a lot of shows about destiny and changing the future, so I'm going to rank those in a quick sub-category:

1) My Magic Prophecy

This is the dynamic I want to see from Jimmy and Sea. Jimmy IS a doctor, so getting a clean-cut smarmy version of him will pair so well with muscular Sea being a jerk. I was going to make a quirky comment about how they can now see the future as a reference to Last Twilight, but I'm still salty about that show, so I'll just be happy for them and THIS show.

2) Head 2 Head

I'm excited for the Only Boo kids because I think they should've gotten the My Love Mix-Up remake since I think they do well with being complete opposites that make perfect sense being together. This is also how I found out that Surf from I Saw You in My Dream is now with GMMTV.

So although it was awkward to realize GMMTV had acquired another BL boy under my chismosa nose (am I slipping?), it's nice to see the company staying on brand as Disney BL in its attempt to capture all the Pokemon Avengers BL Boys.

3) Wu

Since I've been watching High School Frenemy through my dash, I know plenty of people will be ecstatic to see Nani and Sky play soulmates, again (because High School Fremeny is gay af!), but I'm showing up because I got the red bracelets of destiny tying the boys together!

The trailers this year were surprisingly lax on the colors, so I'm taking what I can get how I get it. Bring me the RED STRING OF FATE!

4) MU-TE-LUV

This is Club Sapan Fine with a different name so it's going to be campy and messy. But do I think GMMTV will handle fems well? No. Am I pressed about it? Also, no. Because I actually watch AND enjoy Club Sapan Fine, so if GMMTV wants to try its hand at wild wacky camp in an anthology-style series, I'm down to clown, at least for the queer episodes that is.

5) Melody of Secrets

This was originally going to be number three on my Tops List, but as the trailer continued, I got more confused. Then, Force's face blurred and it looked like he got snatched by a demon, so I got scared. Like real scared. I don't eff with los espookys, so I'll be watching this show with the lights on and my Care Bear squad to protect me.

Honorable Mentions

I watch ALL GMMTV queer shows (and even the ones that only I think are queer), so I'll still enjoy something about these shows, but they were just lacking that special razzle dazzle:

Burnout Syndrome

Director Nuchy. Gun in black lipstick. Gun being a sex worker. Off being an asshole. Thor. Poly(?). This should have been my Holy Grail, but I can't believe the show will give me a proper love conflict when OffGun are a branded pair. Also, Nuchy gave me ToddBlack, who I will NEVER be over, so even though I know she can and will give me *THE* toxic couple to root for above all other toxicitos, unless these two are about to drown each other in that bathtub and play Olympic-levels of mind games with each other, I'm reserving my excitement until it airs.

Me and Thee

A soap-opera loving mafioso. Pond in suits with slicked-back hair. Phuwin being beautiful. Santa looking delicious. Est back in his Naughty Babe assistant mode. Perth. COLORS! Just like Burnout Syndrome, on paper it looks like something I would devour, but a third of that trailer was Pond and Phuwin in a bathtub, and in my Michelle Visage voice, "stop relying on that body" even if that's the biggest reason I'll be showing up to watch.

Whale Store

Milk licked cat food off of Love's finger, and I fear this might be too lesbian for me. I don't kink shame, and I'm always down to eat a girl out go down, but cat food? Really, sis? On top of that, this felt like a JittiRain series with Love's character clearly hiding something that is going to hurt Milk's character, then the side couple was crying and making everything awkward. I support the lesbians. I support queer rights AND wrongs. I'll be repeating this even as I'm watching it.

Boys in Love

GMMTV was smart putting all the new kids in a show with Papang x Podd as the little older romance crumbs to keep us satisfied for the time being, but that's also why I'm being petty. If this is the stepping stone for Papang and Podd to be leads for GMMTV 2026, then I'll take what I can get, but I feel like Oliver Twist asking for more porridge, when I should already be getting a damn buffet!

Love You Teacher

This show almost had me in the first half. Sam's character was giving me everything. The premise was solid. Perth was an already gay man in a long-term relationship with his boyfriend. Things were going well even with the accident. Then, the show brought on the real plot --- seven-year-olds. Jesús Cristo. It was a lovely time up until then, and now, just like the cat food, I'm realizing new things about myself and my boundaries on a random Tuesday morning, and I don't like it.

Girl Rules

This is the female version of Only Friends saran wrapped in women's empowerment. No me gusta pero lo voy a ver because I support queer wrongs even when they are oh-so-very wrong.

The Love of Siam: The Musical

What. The. Fuck. But also, sign me up!

Dishonorable Mention - Only Friends 2: Dream On

I've reached new heights in my pettiness because this show is in Petty Prison before it even airs. My blog is a living record of how badly I wanted Minx Mix and Flirty Fluke in the first season of Only Friends. It was the only thing I could think about; then, I ended up hating the first season, so I counted my blessings that Minx Mix only showed up for two whole seconds and Flirty Fluke was nowhere in sight. And now this has happened. This is a lesson in "be careful what you wish for" because I have never been more upset that I finally got what I wanted. Unless the show gives Boston his cake and lets him eat it to, I'm not watching it. Not Minx Mix, Flirty Fluke, or Ohm's body could convince me to do this a second time.

#gmmtv 2025 #I support the girls‚ the gays‚ and the goths #and strangely‚ I'm kinda get all of those #I support queer rights AND wrongs #dare you to death #Memoir of Rati #ticket to heaven #cat for cash #that summer the series #a dog and a plane #my romance scammer #and so much more

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ordinaryschmuck · 1 year ago

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I love that The Ghost and Molly McGee's forced cancellation isn't just frustrating to fans of the show but to people in the animation industry as well. They're just as sick as we are about how much studios disrespect animation. They keep looking for the next Spongebob, Simspons, or goodness forbid Family Guy, but instead having faith in the creators and their content, they just...wait. They wait to make a profit and do the bare minimum to market their shows and make them available.

Let's look at Gravity Falls for example. I remember that when Gravity Falls was still airing, you would be able to find out a new episode was coming out based on coming across a commercial by random chance or by the people working the show promoting it online. Add that with the fact that it was on a different channel that required you paying MORE for your cable to get it. It WAS available through Disney Channel, a channel more available at a cheaper price, but the entire of Season Two got moved to the more expensive Disney XD, where Disney shows go to die, because...REASONS. With no warning or announcement. I think I found out about Gravity Falls moving to Disney XD because the trailer played during a commercial break. And that's just the START the show's problems. Mixed in with poor marketing, the show would have a crazy inconsistent schedule, where we'd have four episodes a week, a few months of NOTHING, a few more episodes a week, nothing for a few months, a random episode playing between that nothingness with next to no promotion, and all of that happening to the rest of the show until it finally died a slow death with its series finale where four episodes got stretched out for six months. That...is NOT okay. And it doesn't stop with Gravity Falls.

Steven Universe, OK KO, Ducktales 2017, Amphibia, The Owl House, and now Ghost and Molly McGee are all shows that had similar and sometimes WORSE treatments as Gravity Falls did, where the networks gave next to NO marketing, the creators had to promote their own shows themselves, and the airing schedules were so inconsistent with wildly long hiatuses that only the most dedicated fans were willing to keep watching. General audiences (mainly kids) weren't willing to keep up with shows that had ongoing stories if the episodes stories kept being too spaced apart and never had reruns as frequent as other shows like Teen Titans Go or Big City Greens (Or whatever's constantly on network TV nowadays. I don't know. I mostly watch shit on streaming).

The people of the animation industry is catching onto all of these tricks, and they're getting sick of it. They're getting sick of inconsistent schedules. They're getting sick of trying to bend over backwards in every possible way to make the show they wanted. By either making serialized content as episodic as possible so the network could air it more or by condensing their stories as much as they can, already expecting that forced cancellation to happen sooner than later. And in some cases, they don't even get the luxury of being told their show is ending. Did you know that Inside Job and Paranormal Park both had seasons that were already in development before Netflix pulled the plug shortly after releasing new episodes of their shows? Did you know that The Ghost and Molly McGee was already working on a Season Three before Disney shut that down so they had to force out a series finale that would still be good despite the cancellation? Because it's true. It's ALWAYS true. Creators want to make MORE, but the studios won't let them because they didn't profit off of it. Except they WOULD HAVE if they treated it better.

I want kids to grow up with characters that stick around through their childhood, just like I did with mine. I want kids to have their own Ed, Edd n Eddy, Codename: Kids Next Door, Phineas and Ferb, or Kim Possible. I want kids to watch shows that last more than two-three seasons, stick around for years, and leave an impact as if they have all the time in the world because to them, it feels like they do. I want kids to have a show that ends on a high note because the creators wanted it and not because the networks demanded it. But the unfortunate thing is that it doesn't seem possible nowadays. Because if a mostly episodic show like The Ghost and Molly McGee fails, despite being charming and inoffensive and something most kids will love, the what hope IS left.

#the ghost and molly mcgee #gravity falls #steven universe #ok ko #ducktales 2017 #amphibia #the owl house #disney #cartoon network #netflix #animation #rant

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pjo-tvs-version · 4 months ago

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I know that no one asked but I just wanted to add my two cents to the current pjo era we are having right now...

First off, I love Rick and the books he has written but honestly tsast and wottg aren't some of his best works. That's not the problem because yeah not all books can be amazing but the problem is that they are his most recent ones. Cotg was better than these 2 but it too had it's drawbacks. Now I have this thing where if I like something then however bad it it, I try to make myself enjoy it. It's like a coping mechanism- delusion. But with wottg, I actually sat back and thought. Since when did I take a week to finish a pjo book? I am the person who finished Hoo in like less than a week and I took a week to finish wottg which took me aback. The characters were very oc. Grover was perhaps the only character close to his actual well character. I don't usually nitpick but like I had said in a post earlier, continuity and callbacks in a book series are what make them extremely enjoyable and small textual errors are like pricking needles to me.

My main issue was Annabeth and then Percy. Look in know in this fandom there are many Annabeth antis and that's fine, I accept that. But now the worst part is that what they have said about Annabeth is to some extent true in this current Annabeth version we have. Look Leah is great and I love her with all my heart but Rick please don't mingle both of them together. Let show cannon be separate and book cannon to itself. Let Annabeth in wottg be her book character like please. She has friends? Great! The main thing we know about her friends are that they think Percy isn't GOOD ENOUGH for her? Awful! She is the mom friend? Okay(though I personally believe it should be Grover but fine if people are okay with it this is just a personal opinion guys)! BUT that should not make Percy 'alley boy.'

This brings me to the second part. We love Percy and love his humor. Well I recently reread the Battle of the Labyrinth (don't ask why I don't know I just had the sudden urge to read it). He isn't very confident and does underestimate himself often but it wasn't taken this FAR. Every single next line was describing how Percy sucks at everything while Annabeth is here in all her perfect glory and believe it or not this is coming from me, who loves Annabeth. I love Percabeth because it's a balance. They balance off each other soo well. They both comfort each other. They both know that they are smart. They both know that the other person has flaws. But in wottg it's just downright annoying because the dynamic is just "ooh look my gf is soo amazing, totally flawless with no error and here is me who sucks at any and every thing possible." This isn't the Percy we know nor Annabeth nor Percabeth.

LET ANNABETH BE IMPERFECT! AND PLEASE GIVE PERCY THERAPY because he needs it. For the next book Rick please just hire a better editor because I am not going into the MISTAKES in these books. You can hire me if you want because I swear I can do a better job than your editor. Seriously literally any pjo fan would do a better job. Wottg felt like maybe the second draft of the work which required maybe 3 more drafts to be published. It felt like an unchecked fanfiction and believe me that I have seen better fanfictions on AO3. The pjo fandom is an extremely loyal fanbase which is an extremely cool thing. But the problem here is that people like m even though I didn't really enjoy wottg, I would still hope for a better sequel because gaaahhhh optimism. I am actually wary of the sequel to tsast but that's for another post.

Whew! Talking so negatively about something was a new experience for me because I absolutely love pjo and will always keep it close to my heart. Rick please for the sake of advertisement please don't publish uncooked gibberish because it actually breaks my heart too see the hate and for once I understand it. Anyway, wottg wasn't all that bad. To balance out this post, I'll make one on the portions I liked because there were a few moments that were worth reading. Extremely sorry for the scattered thoughts and the rant but thank you and have a great day everyone !

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bicth-and-in-that-order · 1 year ago

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Rambling thoughts of various Yuri manga I’ve read

1. Kase-San and Yamada (Morning Glories sequel series) by Hiromi Takashima

notice how Kase’s name is first, which is representative of her being the main one to cause problems in their relationship

If you asked me what my favorite yuri manga was like 2-3 years ago, I’d say Morning Glories and Kase San everytime. Every avid yuri fan has either read or watched Morning Glories because, at the time in 2010, it was groundbreaking, and I stand by the fact that the original series still holds up to this day. It was cute, sweet, wholesome and only had a few obligatory “we love each other but we’re giRLs😳😳😳” moments. Most of all it wasn’t a pseudo-incest-straight-male-porn-pandering-garbage-fest—also known as “Citrus”. Was it cliche at times? Yes, but they all are lol. Did they add to the dumb ass “blonde femme and dark hair masc” trope? Also yes. But it was adorable and it was my first ever yuri so it holds a special place in my heart.

And it SEEMED like it was only going to get better in Kase San and Yamada, the sequel. The girls would be heading to college and the story could theoretically focus on more mature topics while they navigate their new relationship. Keyword: theoretically. Unfortunately, instead of exploring interesting relationship dynamics and storylines, the plot of each story arc boils down to: Kase is insecure because a man breathed next to Yamada or Kase is being completely insensitive to Yamada’s feelings…again…—> ✨miscommunication drama ✨—>big over dramatic apology scene—>boring makeup sex or other romantic gesture.

Literally that’s how every single plotline goes. Kase is so goddamn dumb and insensitive to Yamada’s feelings and Yamada’s a complete doormat who can only stay mad for 0.2 seconds before getting pussy whipped like a spineless ass bitch. And for all that Yamada sacrifices for Kase; her hometown, her dreams, her apartment, what does she get in return from Kase? Oh that’s right; bare minimum romantic gestures and a neglectful partner who can’t even call her “girlfriend” in front of others:

Like I thought we were over this shit. It’s been THREE years of them together, a whole anime production, and god knows how many irl years and we’re going back to “we love each other but we’re giRLs😳😳😳” WHY???

And then Kase later goes onto bet her entire three year relationship over the ugly bitch in the next panel, so now I’m questioning whether or not Kase even loves Yamada with the amount of bullshit she’s put her through. Which COULD be an interesting plot point, but Kase never gets any consequences for her actions and the creator genuinely thinks this is romantic and full of tension so I’m 10000% positive that this arc, just like all the others, will end with some makeup sex and we’ll be right back to step 1. Sigh.

2. Tamen De Gushi by Tan Jiu

Tamen De Gushi’s problems are interesting but it’s NOT because of the Chinese government💀

So today’s dark haired masc and blonde femme of the day are Sun Jing and Qiu Tong, respectively. Their personalities aren’t anything to write home about, if you read ANY high school yuri romance, then you know exactly what happens in this story beat for beat. But, BUT, however derivative it is, I find their dynamic very endearing and down to earth. Idk maybe it’s just the translation, but other yuri stories often have this very inauthentic “anime” vibe to it. Which is to say the characters act very cutesy, overly dramatic, and have this stilted, caricature-esque acting of how the creator thinks teenage girls are supposed act.

However, I’m happy to report that Tamen De Gushi is a breath of fresh air in this regard. The characters and interactions they have are grounded and feel organic, which makes them feel like real people, not aliens pretending to be human. This really elevates the humor in turn, oh did I mention that Tamen De Gushi is super funny? Because Tamen De Gushi is super funny, here’s one of my favorite panels and it’s all because of Sun Jing’s goofy ahh expression:

Like go girl give us nothing

If you’re wondering why I haven’t spoke much about the actual romantic relationship between the girls, that’s because there isn’t one💀 Which, okay, that’s not a fair assessment, they have a ton of romantic tension and they flirt a lot. It’s certainly building to a great romantic relationship, but it can’t quite get there due to legal/political reasons sadly. 😔

Edit: I received new information in regards to what happened to Tamen De Gushi. While I reached my limit for posting pictures, I want to point out that the Chinese government had nothing to do with Tamen De Gushi getting censored, rather it was a dispute between the author and the publishing company. The prior information I received was false and I prob should’ve looked it up more so sorrrry. The fact still remains though that after their big lesbian kiss towards the middle of the story and maybe a few other moments, that’s just kind of it. You’re stuck waiting for something to develop, but nothing really happens. The comic very quickly becomes a collection of slice of life segments and cute pictures that imply a relationship between the girls, but not really ;) ;). Now things are just kind of left in purgatory for the foreseeable future and, well, that’s Tamen De Gushi y’all.

Compared to Kase San and Yamada, the characters were much better, which is not saying much, but without an actual romantic storyline, there’s just not a lot for me to comment on to be honest. It’s really pretty though, look at this art :

3. Beauty and the Beast Girl by Neji

my personal favorite and the BEST yuri I ever read

So next on the list is Beauty and the Beast Girl (I’m going to abbreviate to BatBG from here on) , which I already spoiled my feelings on the matter so this will basically be me gushing about this story for several paragraphs straight, enjoy.

Contrary to what the title suggests, it really has nothing to do with Beauty and the Beast’s story except in name. The main girls are Lily Blind, who is actually fucking blind 💀 and Heath the monster girl. Already I’m happy because instead of blonde femme and dark hair butch, it’s blonde femme and of-course-you-have-purple-hair-and-pronouns masc. Lol, all jokes aside, Lily, unlike her blonde femme counterparts is quite assertive and voices her opinions all the time. In fact, she’s the one who pushes Heath to be more open and communicate with her rather than the other way around. This is, in part, due to the story BatBG is trying to tell. I say BatBG is in name only to Beauty and the Beast because Lily isn’t trying to find the “beauty” within Heath or learning to love a beast or whatever, she’s fine just the way she is and her love for Heath is unconditional. Plus the only thing beastly about Heath is her appearance…which I’ll harp on later, but her behavior is in no way different from a regular human except in very rare, specific moments.

At its heart, BatBG is a story about forgiveness (the creator literally says as much) , but it’s also about the cycle of violence that results from being outcasted and deprived of love. BatBG is set in a world of humans and monsters, where the monsters are outcasted and either have to stay away from human society like Heath or assimilate themselves by hiding away their monster like traits, which is a really queer narrative on top of an already queer story. I don’t want to go into too much spoilers, but sometime before the beginning of the story, Heath in-directly hurts Lily before they ever meet. However, it’s not about Lily needing to forgive Heath, or trying to get over the pain she inflicted upon her, rather its Heath learning to forgive herself and in effect, learning to love herself as much as Lily loves her.

Another big aspect of BatBG is disabilities, Lily Blind is in fact Blind lol and while there are times she struggles with her blindness, she never views her disability as something she needs to be ashamed of and never, ever, blames Heath for it or holds it against her unlike what many, many, many, many other stories end up doing. Her blindness isn’t treated like a super power either, it’s a legitimate disability. She just accepts that it’s a part of her and goes onto say that if not for her blindness, she would’ve never met the love of her life, which I found to be an incredibly profound thing to say.

Now that I’ve gotten this far, I suppose I can add a bit of a disclaimer. So BatBG is waaaaay more explicit about the physical affection between the girls than in any of the previous stories I talked about. Heath and Lily are constantly kissing on, hugging, and almost always flirting with each other, and make no mistake, these girls do be fucking. The sex scenes are never perverted or gross, but genuinely super sweet and romantic, which makes it way hotter imo (huh imagine that🤔). And aside from being hot, it also serves a purpose! Lily’s pretty damn horny underneath all her nice girl antics and while it’s not a major part of her character, it does give a slight edge to her personality and, most importantly, balances out the dynamic between Heath and Lily. It would’ve been very easy to fall into that boring trope where Heath is aggressively horny and Lily is the submissive blind girl, but by making Lily be the one to initiate the sexual encounters, it not only compliments Heath’s more reserved nature, but breaks the stereotype that people with disabilities are pure precious being who couldn’t possibly have sex, which is ableist af btw. Many people think the existence of any sex scenes at all is superfluous, but in BatBG, it truly elevates the story, the characters, and the romance in ways that wouldn’t be nearly as satisfying without it.

Now, with as much praise I gave BatBG, there is one criticism I have, but it’s a quibble really, and it can be explained in a single image:

There is a dissonance between the story and the art, the story says: “Heath is a big, ugly scary monster”

The art says:

And like yes, it can be argued that Heath is simply regurgitating the things bigoted people have said to her, but at no point in the story is this ever challenged or brought up in any meaningful way. Lily is blind so she doesn’t know what the hell she looks like and the other characters aren’t any help either. It’s not a big deal or anything, it just would’ve elevated the story if Heath was actually kinda ugly/more monstrous and not incredibly beautiful because right now it’s giving skinny girl who calls herself fat all the time, and it’s like, babe, who tf are you fooling? 😭

Other than that, BatBG is incredibly profound despite its premise being so deceptively simple and I love it to pieces so …yeah! READ IT.

4. Superwomen in Love! Honey Trap and Rapid Rabbit by sometime

Well, at least there are no blondes

So imma just abbreviate to SiL btw

Alright, let’s get started. The premise is that a villainess falls for the super hero girl and then that plotline is dropped in about 16 pages. I’m not even joking, the villainess falls for the hero, loses her job as a villain and then joins the hero all in one chapter. The REAL plot is actually about a council of evil alien-humans who want to destroy humanity because of generic super villain reason #434: the leader of the aliens is sad and misunderstood :( I’m not even going to lie, I had 0 interest in “X” (the generic ass name of the main villain) and her band of useless lesbians. They did literally nothing in the story except be a nuisance and contribute to X’s incel breakdown at the end. Their inclusion actively made SiL worse because the story has this weird tonal problem where in one breath the villains are portrayed as complete jokes and then you turn the page and now they’re shooting children like girl what💀 And these useless lesbians hog sooooo much of SiL that desperately needed to be given to Honey trap and Hayate to develop their relationship.

When the story DOES actually focus on Honey Trap and Hayate, it’s pretty good, even cute at times, there just wasn’t enough time given to them to flesh their relationship out. As it stands, Honey Trap and Hayate don’t have much of a dynamic, or personality for that matter. Honey Trap’s main gimmick is that she’s extremely horny for Hayate and delulu:

Aside from that, she’s a great value version of Heath, but even a watered down character is better than, like, nothing. All I really know about Hayate is that she’s nice, heroic, likes wearing tacky clothes and ….that’s it. She loves Honey Trap because…………they fought together a few times so why not🤷‍♀️ I’d say at least that’s better than Tamen De Gushi, but actually it’s not because these grown ass women don’t even kiss , all we get is a love confession and their gremlin love child and that’s supposed to be satisfying I guess.

And the worst part is that SiL has the audacity to pretend the romance was something that it clearly wasn’t:

Girl…yall were “””enemies””” for 10 panels.

Now, it’s stated they have been rivals for a while, but I guess Honey Trap forgot all of that because the moment she sees Hayate’s face, my good sis is pussy whipped for life. And that’s in spite of apparently being the evilest one out of the evil group because Honey Trap has no grudge or baggage toward Hayate. She immediately turns good with no issues and Hayate is only distrustful of Honey Trap for 1 or 2 speech bubbles and then she’s not. Anything else that happened was off screen, which means it didn’t happen. Ironically, the very next entry on this list will do a MUCH better job at an ex-villain love story, but for SiL, there’s just not much going on.

Another reading of this story is to call it a “parody” but…no, it isn’t. SiL isn’t a comedy, yes there are comedic moments that poke fun of the genre, but the rest of the story genuinely wants you to take it seriously. Except it can’t. X and her league of dimwits are boring as piss and they oscillate between Saturday morning cartoon villains and child murderers seemingly on a whim. So I can neither be endeared to them nor take them as a serious threat. Honey Trap and Hayate are there, but I lament on all the potential lost from what could’ve been an amazing relationship.

5. Yamujiburo/Kianamaiart’s Hanamusa webcomic

This one is kind of cheating, but I also don’t care let me talk about hot MILFs💀

So the final entry on this list is a webcomic series by one of my fave artist: kianamaiart! And it’s right here on tumblr so check it out!

I stumbled upon this webcomic a few weeks ago, fell in love and now I want to talk about it. This yuri pair thankfully has no blonde femme in sight and instead features two popular Pokémon characters: Jessie from Team Rocket and Delia Ketchum, Ash Ketchum’s mom. What I love about this ship and the world Kiana creates around them is that it’s a very unconventional pairing. There’s just not many romances where a single mom falls in love with an ex gang member and the best part is, Delia being a mom is a big part of her character and she doesn’t ignore Ash in favor of her new relationship with Jessie. She has time for both and doesn’t prioritize one over the other, which many ppl fail to do even irl so good on you Delia!

Now, as for the romance it self, Jessie and Delia are a unique pair. Jessie’s overconfident, brash, drama queen personality doesn’t automatically put her in the “dominant” role and Delia’s sweet, motherly personality doesn’t automatically put her in the “submissive” role. Their dynamic in the webcomic actually plays out in the reverse, Jessie is the one who gets easily flustered and Delia’s…intense, to say the least:

(But Tbf if Delia looked at me like that I’d be at her beck and call too💀)

This subversion of these tropes creates a fun dynamic for the couple and it’s super adorable to see how their energies bounce off each other in each new situation Kiana puts them in. I also love how both Jessie and Delia inspire each other to live out their dreams and they become better versions of themselves by being together.

And one last thing, I don’t have any smart commentary to go along with this, I just really like this drawing of Jessie:

no thoughts, head empty

Final Thoughts

Soooo yeah, that’s the end of my dissertation on yuri comics. I know I ended up dragging a lot of popular yuri, but it wasn’t my intention to make you guys hate any of things I talked about. These were just my thoughts as an avid yuri fan, so let me know your thoughts as well, especially if you read any of the yuri I talked about. And even though I’m super picky about the type of yuri I read, I’d still love to hear any recommendations. Who knows, it might dethrone the undefeated champ that is Beauty and the Beast Girl.

#Yuri #yuri manga #long post #Anime #manga #lgbt #lgbtq+#wlw post #kase san and morning glories #tamen de gushi #beauty and the beast girl #superwomen in love #hanamusashipping

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holylulusworld · 8 months ago

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A birthday dream (4)

Summary: It's your birthday and your harem gets bigger...

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader, Soldier Boy x Reader, Jensen Ackles x Reader, Beau Arlen x Reader, Russell Shaw x Reader

Side-Pairing: Sam Winchester x Reader (same reader)

Warnings: language, implied smut, mentions of smut (oral/fingering/anal), fangirling, RPF

Catch up here: Another dream (3)

Dream a little dream… masterlist

“Shit…oh fuck,” you moan loud enough to draw attention toward your bedroom. Ben, Dean, and Jensen silently sneak toward the door, huffing as you are going at it with Beau again. “Harder…yes…right there.”

“She’s fucking that cowboy cop again,” Dean grumbles. He’s not a fan of your new addition.

While you, Sam, and Beau try to find a way to send Beau back into his world, Dean and Ben try to stay in your world, with you.

“Calm down,” Jensen shrugs. “It’s a phase. He’s new, and she didn’t ride his dick as often as mine.”

“Shut up!” Dean and Ben grunt in unison. “We hate sharing our woman. If you like sharing her with another dick, it’s your problem, not ours.”

Dean and Ben flinch when the headboard of your bed slams against the wall. Your moans and your lover’s groans grow louder with every thrust of his cock.

“She’s close, huh?” Beau asks while casually walking inside the living room with Sam. “Who’s the lucky one this time?”

Jensen, Dean, and Ben turn around like in slow motion to look at Beau and Sam. They gape at the two men and furrow their brows.

“What?” Sam asks.

“What are you doing out here?” Dean cocks his head to look Beau up and down. “Shouldn’t you be in there and press orgasm after orgasm out of Y/N?”

“I’d like that, but Sam asked me to help him with the books.” Beau looks at the books in his hands. “I licked her pussy this morning, though.”

Dean’s features darken. He squares his jaw and huffs. “I made her cum in the showers this morning. The first of many birthday gifts for our girl.”

“I fingered her until she squired while actor boy ruined her cute ass,” Ben smirks at Dean. They are still at each other’s throats most of the time.

“Uh—I got cake and flowers for her,” Sam awkwardly looks at the cake and flowers in his hands. “A thank you for helping me leave the apartment.”

“You mean you fucked,” Soldier Boy cackles, but his smirk vanishes when you cry out a name they never heard before. Well, not all of them. Jensen ducks his head and averts Dean and Ben’s gaze.

“Wait…if Beau and Sam are here too…” Dean turns his head to look at Jensen, “Who’s in there fucking our girl?”

“Ahem…you see,” Jensen clears his throat. “I—I had this guest role in a series and… I’m afraid Y/N watched the episode last night and…things got out of hand…”

“You are telling me that you played another dude and now she’s fucking him?” Ben glares at Jensen. “We told you to inform us if you take a new role, Ackles.”

“Fuck, yes…Russell!” You cry out your newest lover’s name. “There…harder…fuck. You’re so thick.”

“I’m thick too,” Ben is done listening. He kicks the door open only to watch Russell slip out of your well-fucked cunt. “You!” He points at Russell. “Out of the room.”

“Dude, relax. She wanted to have some fun,” Russell smirks, looking so much like Soldier Boy in that moment. You whimper, already imagining getting double-teamed by them. “How can I deny her?”

Ben ignores Russell completely. He squares his jaw and exhales sharply. “And you!” He points at you. “Down on your knees, mouth open. You will spend your birthday filled with cock. Preferable with mine.”

“Hey, she’s not yours only!” Dean storms into the room, already tugging at his flannel. “I will join the party.”

“Me too!” Jensen stumbles inside the room.

“Oh, no!” Ben shakes his head. “You are the reason for the new guy.” He grins at Jensen. “You won’t get any for the time being.”

“Can I join?” Beau pokes his head inside the room. “Maybe just…watch or take care of her after you ruined her.”

“Mr. Cuddles his back. Great,” Dean sarcastically says. “Fine, get in here. You can have her after we are done punishing our slutty girl for dreaming of another man.”

You fake a sob. “But…but…Jensen wanted me to watch the episode. I tried so hard to focus on Colter, but Russell was right there. He looked so good, and I got…horny.”

“Look at our whore,” Ben taunts. “She can never have enough cock, huh?”

“So…if you are all done…” Russell walks back inside the room, a beer in his hands. He's still stark-naked but doesn't really care. He leans in the doorframe and sips his beer. “Can I have another round?”

“No!” All men grunt in unison.

“Newbies wait for their turn,” Sam clarifies. “You can help me with the books…” He whispers. “Wait for your chance. She gets needy after a nap…”

“Sammy,” you pout. “That’s our secret!”

Dean quirks a brow. “Ya know, Sammy. For a man pretending to not wanting to fuck Y/N you are sniffing around her pussy all the time.”

“Dean! Don’t be so… crude!”

“Sammy,” you purr. “We both know you can get very crude when we are alone.” You smirk at the former hunter. “How about you all come inside, close the door and we celebrate my birthday the best way possible…”

“Fuck…yes…” They all say in unison. All men will be a lot to handle, but you will be damned if you don’t take the chance and have a piece of all of them.

It’s your birthday after all…

Tags in reblog.

#dean winchester #beau arlen #soldier boy #jensen ackles #russell shaw #dean winchester x reader #beau arlen x reader #soldier boy x reader #russell shaw x reader #jensen ackles x reader #A birthday dream (4)#x reader #female reader

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vivwritesfics · 1 year ago

Text

Fake It Till You Make It

Chapter One - Royal Mess

The Princess of Monaco is wild and out of control. She needs to stop being in the tabloids for all the wrong reasons. Charles Leclerc has had a spot of bad press since his very public break up. He needs some good PR. What better way to fix their problems than to pair them up?

Notes: The Monaco royal family has been fabricated for this story! I know nothing about the actual Monaco royal family so I have made it up, turned them into characters

Warnings: Mentions of alcohol consumption, hangover

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ROYAL MESS

In the early hours of the Morning on Friday, the 19th of May, Princess Y/N of Monaco was found lying in the street outside of MK Club Monaco after what appears to be a wild night out. Fans of the princess know this is no new occurrence for her.

When asked, employees in the club were quoted as saying: “It is always a delight to serve the princess. She is always polite and kind when ordering from the bar, always offering to pay for the drinks of those around her."

"Princess Y/N is fun to party with, sure. But she takes it too far, gets too drunk, and leaves us all wondering how far is too far?" Said one club patron to our reporters.

It leaves us all wondering how far is too far for the Princess of Monaco? When will her family finally take action against her partying ways?

Pictures such as these are not uncommon for the Princess of Monaco, showing us just how far royal privilege goes. It is at times like these where we thank any higher power above us that she is just the spare.

Having your entire life published for the world to see was incredibly hard. From the minute she was born, Princess Y/N of Monaco had been watched by the public. Her birth had been publicised, with minute by minute updates from the royal family staff to the papers (that was a tabloid problem actually. The staff member that had been feeding this information to the public had been fired as soon as he had been discovered).

Everything she did, from her very first public opinion, had been on television for the principality to see. Monaco loved her, but they mostly loved watching her. At first she was cute, the nation fawning over her. Her first birthday was televised, as was every birthday until she became a teenager.

As a teenager, Princess Y/N of Monaco tried to be withdrawn, to stay away from the public eye. But it was damn near impossible. She was the Princess, everybody wanted to know what she was all about. Her social circle was a pool of sharks, ready to sell her out for a quick bit of cash.

As Princess Y/N got older, she began acting out more and more. She had her first drink at sixteen years old, two years before she had reached the legal drinking age. From that moment, her life changed.

That was the moment she became this wild party girl. Where she’d been pristine and proper for the cameras and the tabloids, Y/N changed. She stopped caring about the cameras that followed her, about what the tabloids were saying about her. She was going to live her life and she wasn’t going to give a damn anymore.

She became this wild party girl. She had appeared in every club in Monaco before she turned eighteen. All of them were her regular spots by the time she turned eighteen. It was embarrassing to the Royal family of Monaco. She was embarrassing to the Royal family of Monaco.

Embarrassing to the point where her father made her move out. He bought her an apartment, somewhere to go that was just hers. It got her out of the palace, away from the rest of the royal family. She still went to the palace when she was needed, but that was rare.

It was easier to get back to her Monaco apartment after a night of getting black out drunk, but sometimes Y/N ended up at the palace. It was a force of habit by then, getting the taxi to take her back to the palace. She was never turned away, always allowed inside. Normally she stumbled away to her childhood bedroom, falling asleep in her clothes from the night before.

That was what happened this time. She had fallen asleep in the sparkly top and jeans that she had worn during her night out. She stank of alcohol and had a wicked hangover when she woke up.

It was disorienting, waking up in her childhood bedroom. She wasn’t used to it still, even though it was a pretty regular occurrence. After a few seconds of getting used to the blinding light in her bedroom (she was too drunk to close to curtains the night before), she quickly figured out where she was and rushed to the bathroom to throw up.

Fuuuuuck.

Her brother was never happy to see her at the palace after a night of drinking. Actually, he was always pissed, especially when she was drunk.

When she was done throwing up in her en suite, Y/N washed her face, trying to wake herself up. She placed some toothpaste on the toothbrush that had been placed in her bathroom for when she stayed over and began brushing her teeth, trying to get the taste of throw up out of her mouth.

As she brushed her teeth, there was a knock at the door. She shouted something around the toothbrush in her mouth, but it was unintelligible. The knock sounded again, the person refusing to leave her alone.

With a huff and a sigh, Y/N walked out of the bathroom with her toothbrush still in her mouth. “What?” She barked as she pulled open the door.

In front of her was her brother, already dressed in his usual fine suit. “Fuck,” Y/N hissed around her toothbrush, and his expression dropped.

“Language,” he said, striding into the room. He scrunched up his nose, the room already reeking of alcohol. Oh wait, that was just her. “Shower, get dressed, and meet me in my office,” he said and turned on his heel, walking out of the room.

As the door shut, Y/N pulled a face and stuck up her middle finger. She was far too drunk for this shit.

Spitting into the sink, Y/N put her toothbrush back. She stripped off her dirty clothes from the night before and climbed into the shower. The hot water was like heaven against her skin, and she relished in it. The whole shower was a slow process. She was slow to squeeze her shampoo into her hand and run it through her hair. If she remembered rightly from the night before, somebody had accidentally thrown their drink over her.

She took her time getting clean. It didn’t cure her hangover, but it certainly made her feel better.

Once she was done, Y/N got changed into pyjamas. She didn’t bother dressing properly, what was the point? She didn’t care for the people taking tours around the palace, didn’t care for the staff walking through the halls, or the security in every room.

As she walked through the halls, heading towards her brother’s office, she waved to the tourists. They instantly snapped pictures of her in her hello kitty pyjama pants but, again, she didn’t care.

She knew more than anybody else in her family that they were not the most famous thing in Monaco. No, the twenty-six year old Ferrari driver was. Charles Leclerc, Il Predestinato. He was the biggest thing in Monaco, the pride and joy of the nation. Y/N’s brother only helped to fuel this. The Prince of Monaco was maybe the biggest Charles Leclerc fanboy out there.

She knocked on the door before walking into her brother’s office. There were two security guards on the door, keeping the public away. Y/N walked the short distance and threw herself down into the chair opposite her brother, his rather large desk between them.

The first bit of responsibility that Henri, the Prince of Monaco, was given by his father, was to look after Y/N, his little sister. She was his responsibility – Henri knew he was going to be grey by the time he was thirty.

Henri pulled a newspaper out of his desk drawer and threw it down in front of her. It was opened perfectly, showing off the picture of her laying on the grass. “Seriously, Y/N?” He voiced as he sat back in his chair, staring at her.

Y/N picked up the newspaper and read through it. She’d only been back from her night out for maybe six hours; they’d gotten the story printed insanely quickly. But they always did when it came to her, she was a hot topic for journalists.

“I don’t know what you’re upset about, Hen,” she said as she put the newspaper back and tucked her hair behind her ear. “They don’t mention you in the article.”

Henri let out a sigh as he ran his hands through his hair. He could have pulled it out from how much she frustrated him, let the bald spots appear. But he couldn’t. He was a prince; he had to be pristine and perfect. On the rare instances that the tabloids were speaking about him instead of his sister, he was often referred to as Prince Charming, and he had women swooning left, right, and centre.

Too bad Henri was more interested in cars than women.

“Do you seriously not understand who articles like this makes our entire family look?” He asked as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Are you that fucking thick? This shit makes us all look bad, not just you.”

Y/N let out a dramatic, sarcastic gasp. Her brother didn’t often swear, so she had to take the piss when he did. But Henri’s glare shut her up immediately. Although he tried to always remain composed, Henri was still scary when he was angry.

Well, she stopped with her dramatics, but she wasn’t going to back down. Suddenly, Y/N was standing up, her hands on his desk. “Like the article said, Henri, I’m just the spare,” she spat and sat herself back in the chair.

“Oh, don’t give me that,” Henri said as he shook his head. He tried to keep his calm, remain composed, but Y/N made this very, very hard. It had been six years of Henri doing this, and he still wasn’t used to it. “You’re nothing but a spoilt, little brat.”

Y/N raised her eyebrows. If Herni wanted to go there, he was going to go there. She let out a dry laugh as her nails dug into the arm of the chair. “I’m the selfish one?” She threw back, feigning surprise. “Was it me who threw a tantrum because I didn’t get a Ferrari 250 GTO for my twenty second birthday? No, wait, I think that was you.”

Henri glared, but he easily hid his surprise. How on earth did she remember the name of the car that he had so desperately wanted seven years ago?

But he dropped his glare and sat back in his seat, once again pinching the bridge of his nose. It wasn’t him that she was annoyed at, it was the article, and she was just lashing out. “Go on,” Henri said, waving her off.

Y/N stood up, marching out of the office as Henri placed the newspaper back into his desk drawer. She stomped her way through the halls, ignoring the tourists as she went to gather her things and head back to her apartment.

She was near impossible to deal with. Twenty-two years old, and jobless. She was living off her family, living fast and living like she wanted to die young. When she turned twenty, her family had tried to force her into getting a job, but that had pushed Y/N into doing even more wild and crazy stuff. She had disappeared for three days, her only respite from drinking being when she was sleeping on a friend’s couch. She was on a full-on bender and her family was incredibly worried for her.

Keeping his eye on Y/N and putting out her fires for her was a full-time job for Henri. It had him so exhausted, but he couldn’t sleep. She was going to be the death of him.

He had to do something with her, something to get her on the right track. But he didn’t know what.

There was one thing Y/N could be forced into. It was something fun, something she had done as a child and maybe the one event she looked forward to every year. Her eyes would light up as she watched it happen and she got to excited to hand the winners their trophies.

That was the Monaco Grand Prix.

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