#but this is the first time its forgotten them all fucking simultaneously

[unforth]

Tumblr ate the remembered/suggested tags across every single one of my side blogs.

Uggggggggh.

[astra-ryuusei]

"Awakening the Sleeping Giant"

-----------------------

flings my creation into the unknown

the brain worms have gotten too powerful and I’m simultaneously dying of skystar disease of so have this 1400-ish-word Fucking Thing™ based on @keferon's mecha AU featuring human!starscream as the the little bastard you can't live with but also can't live without, and skyfire/jetfire as the unfortunate victim of Fate Being a Real Bitch Sometimes and accidentally deciding the outcome of the Space Race

"ulchtar" as a name for human!Starscream was borrowed from starscream's early name (and also Skybound)

also i don’t remember if the corporation that produces mechs in this au was ever properly given a name so i just kinda. gave them a generic one lol

-----------------------

Ulchtar is a mechanical engineer working on developing spacefaring mecha. He’s climbed through the ranks based on his expertise (and, occasionally by sabotaging other peoples’ work). Nobody really likes working with him; he’s kind of an ass at the best of times. But his experience with these systems makes him a danger if the company ever lets him go. He could sell his knowledge to anyone else in the world, creating new competition in a sector they’ve more-or-less monopolized. This keeps him from being kicked out…up until Mecha-Corp’s first voyage into the stars goes horribly wrong. After the disappearance of Jazz, the fingers are pointed at him, even though—for once in his life—he’s actually not to blame. It’s decided that he’s no longer useful, and he needs to be disposed of.

Ulchtar doesn’t know this, of course. Not until—after being called into a meeting in one of the downstairs labs—the door to go back upstairs locks itself, and he hears the telltale, unholy screeches of alien beasts around him. The beasts he has helped contain for years.

“…shit. Shit shit shit shit shitshitshitshitshit—”

He starts running. Not upstairs, that’s not an option, but maybe there’s another way out of here. He finds that the door upstairs is locked, but not the way down, and that means there’s still a chance, because if there’s anything the higher-ups here right about, it was the fact that Ulchtar knows way too much.

In a last, desperate attempt to survive (or at least go down swinging) Ulchtar decides to unleash his final gambit. He runs down long-forgotten halls, hurls himself downstairs until he reaches the lowest floor of the facility—a floor where nobody goes. It’s down here that he’ll make his stand and wake up an old “friend.”

The few who know it exists call it the “Sleeping Giant.” Corny name, but it made sense, given it's…well, fucking gigantic, maybe even bigger than Vortex. It was found buried in the Arctic in the mid-1950’s—what looked to be an ancient, alien shuttle, lost under the ice for perhaps millions of years. It was all kept hush-hush, but in secret, its discovery had turned the tides of the Space Race…and when it fell into the hands of what would soon become Mecha-Corp, they quickly learned it was much more than a vessel. It was alive.

Some of the earliest mechs? The huge, bulky ones that never ended up getting mass-produced because it wasn’t economical enough? They owed their design to the Giant. They owed their existence to the many times it had been torn apart and put back together to see how it worked, to the many years it had laid on a table inert, unaware of what humanity had done to it. It was their greatest trade secret.

And the Giant owes its currently-intact state to Ulchtar, who’d thought studying it as a whole was more useful than research on individual parts. Which is the only reason he knows, at least in theory, how to power it on. Hell, he’d even done some refurbishments when nobody was looking. He runs across a table far too big for him, pulling out cables and unlocking restraints. He doesn’t have time for final checks, not with a horde of kaiju bearing down on him. He just has to hope, to scream until he makes the stars hear his name—or he dies trying.

"COME ON!" He shouts. "WAKE UP, YOU OVERSIZED SUNOVA--"

At that moment, the stars respond.

-----------------------

He can’t move.

He’s freezing cold.

Is he dead?

How did he get here?

He’s…he was…looking for something, he’s pretty sure. Something very important.

Something so important he’d risk getting trapped under an ice sheet over it.

Who is he? He's not sure.

He wants to go home, but he can’t remember where that’s supposed to be.

Trying to remember hurts too much.

It’s hard to think like this, when he’s so cold and everything hurts and he’s so tired.

He lets himself drift, fluttering in and out of death-dreams that he can barely recall.

Eventually, after he’s lost count of the cycles, something happens. The dim light filtering through the ice gets brighter. Small creatures—the lifeforms of this planet, he thinks—peer down at him, pointing, shouting, but he is too weak to respond.

He has hope, for a brief moment, when he sees the sun again, but those hopes are quickly dashed—once more he’s trapped in walls and ceilings of white and gray. This time, the prison is own body. He’s escaped the glacier, only to find himself paralyzed and comatose. Occasionally he laspses into consciousness just long enough to steal a few kliks of awareness before he falls back into darkness.

At some point, he feels himself revert to ‘bot mode, which is something he'd forgotten he even had until then. He’s vaguely aware that he is being picked apart and put back together by the scavengers, again and again and again. The dull ache of not being whole is the only reason he knows he’s still alive, if this can still be called living.

And then…something changes. Everything goes dark for a very long time. The next time he’s aware of anything, his first realization is that he doesn’t hurt. He doesn’t feel broken. His arms respond when he tries to move.

What?

He sits up, still in something of a daze, taking in the surroundings. It’s a room seemingly sized for mechs, and yet the furniture strewn about is far too small—maybe meant for the scavengers? He has little time to wonder about the whole situation, because he soon hears them—the distant, telltale sounds of Quintessons approaching. He remembers what those are, in a way that’s almost instinctive.

To his right, though, he hears a small screaming noise. A lone organic is shouting something at him almost hysterically, pointing at the entrance before gesturing wildly, and then pointing up at the ceiling. It runs over to a set of controls, pushing at buttons furiously until the ceiling begins to open up. Once again, he sees the sky and feels something like hope.

Then tentacles lash out from behind the entrance, and he remembers this is no time for sentiment. He picks the organic up, deciding to just plop the creature inside his cockpit where’s it’s relatively safe and jump for it. He doesn’t trust the creature, not for a second, but he needs someone to explain what’s going on. Engines flare to life for the first time in millions of years, and he hears horrific screeches as Quintesson flesh is cooked under the heat from his thrusters.

They sail up and up and up until there’s no walls anymore and that feeling of suffocating is gone and it’s warmer than anything he’s felt in millions of cycles and he’s alive.

He lets himself spin a few times in the air. He’s above the clouds and the sun feels like fire on his still-frigid wings but somehow that’s good, it feels right. He wants to just hover here and bask in it forever.

He realizes why the creature is kicking him when gunfire whizzes past his face, followed by a pair of aircraft piloted by the scavengers.

Are the scavengers after him? Or the one he’s holding onto? He’s not really sure, but he also really doesn’t want to find out.

He transforms, looking for any way to shake them off. It becomes a mad, spiraling dance as he tries to avoid getting shot, to mixed results.

He considers the enemy’s design—these aircraft don’t look like they’re meant for spaceflight. Knowing that, he climbs higher and higher, looking to get above these things’ maximum operating altitude. He flinches as a few bullets scratch and tear at him, but doesn’t stop. This eventually pays off, as he sees his pursuers begin to stall out, dropping away behind him.

He hopes his scavenger didn’t get too sick in the cockpit. That’d be a mess to clean up…

…Primus, why am I worrying about that at a time like this? He laughs to himself, though this high up, the air is so thin that it’s barely audible.

He looked down at the planet below—dusk was soon to fall on this side of the world, and he needed to find somewhere to hide.

“…where do I even go from here?”

A knock from the organic, who held up what looked like a tiny datapad with a nervous grin.

Maybe they had an idea?

-----------------------

part 2

[ohwormwood]

random thoughts i have while playing isat pt. 7

[woe, spoilers be upon ye!]

opened the game and immediately went "im gonna make odile question my sanity!!!" but of course when i enter the house Siffrin decides to turn the scripted tutorial enemy into bean paste and ruins the run--

anyways. this panel will haunt me

i. i dont even know how but. I beat the king without him ever getting a chance to make his first attack. i just kept spamming slow and two jackpots later he was dead. i didn't even knoiw that was possible.

after a bit of fucking around i decided that i was gonna move on to act 5 and promptly burst into tears

update: i accidentally posted this too early dont look at me

sat and cried through the entirety of the party's interactions in act 5

screaming crying throwing up

even the king took one look at this dude and was like "are you good man like, you can take a rest before we do this you're literally about to topple over"

that post where odile says the oven copypasta during the mal du pays scene has permanently altered my brain and i literally laughed out loud when this line appeared

i haven't talked about it before but. a while ago i made a concept for a game based off the backrooms and omori, and odile talking about someone who is forgotten may not exist is the basis for the entire game's plot, it makes me want to go back and flesh it out a bit more!!!

i am deadset on the idea of making an edit with mirabelle's reflection craft but it's an uno reverse card

simultaneously in my brain: an edit where the sound mirabelle's reflection craft makes is the metal pipe meme

i am. such a fucking sucker for sickfics. i cannot get enough of them. act 5 has enough sickfic tropes to make a million spinoff fics on its own, it brings me life and i love it dearly

wailing

this line sends me into orbit every time i see it

odile attacking siffrin. hurts so, so so badly on an emotional level for me. Because like??? i get it. i get it and it sucks and she obviously doesn't want to, but she's scared. But siffrin is even more scared in that moment, and the immediate association of that pain with being hated by odile hurts me so much.

YEAHHHH ODILE GIRLBOSS SUPREME

they're so soft and squishy and cute in this image i c a n t

incoherent WAILING. this. this image. this image just about broke me. THEYRE SO HAPPY and RELIEVED, IT HURTS,,,

the tone shift to talking to the party afterwords is still so funny to me HJBDFBSBFH like lookit him. hes so smol. so silly.

we're kidnapping bonnie guys it's official

my honest reaction to this line: LESBIANS??????

and then she hits me with:

AND I LOST IT

more silly guy siffrin,,,,, my favorite

aaaa aAAAAAAAAAAA

ISABEAU'S SPRITE CHANGING TO BE DOING A HAPPY DANCE AFTER THE CONFESSION IS SOOOOO CUTE WAAA

bonnie and odile clapping for isabeau confessing will never not be funny but ALSO it implies the bonnie knew about Isa's crush. and i for one personally believe that they picked up on it from Odile's relentless teasing of Isabeau as the #1 Isafrin shipper

mirabelle: wait you had a crush on sif?????? and i didn't know????

my roommate, who is ace: this is the aroace experience for real,,,

literally all of the second interactions with Isabeau had me and my roommate SCREAMING

HOWLING LAUGHING

OK I NEVER KNEW???? THAT SIFFRIN TOLD ISABEAU ABOUT THE BAD TOUCH EVENT?????? IN CANON???? I ALWAYS THOUGHT THAT WAS A FANON THING BUT THEY ACTUALLY ADDRESS IT IN GAME AND???? ISA'S REACTION HAD ME ON THE FLOOR

siffrin: i kissed you once,,,,

isa:

the words "im being perfectly normal about this" is something i say on a daily basis so i relate to this wholeheartedly

AYO???????? ISA WHEN DID YOU BECOME SO SMOOTH????

this. this image. made my jaw hit the GODDAMN FLOOR. I WAS NOT MENTALLY PREPARED FOR IT AT ALL AND BOTH ME AND MY ROOMMATE S C R E A M E D WHEN WE SAW IT

LIKE???? HOLY FUCK SIF JESUSSSSSSSSSSS CHRIST???? how did isabeau not implode on the spot from that look bro howwwwwwwwwww

AND THEN. AS IF THAT WASN'T ENOUGH TO MAKE MY HEART START SOBBING. ISA BLOWS YOU A KISS???? AAAA???

annnnd scene!

i will continue playing to get some of the different loop endings and i totally plan on doing two hats in the future!!! so im not quite done with this game yet i just got impatient in act 4 and i needed the Emotional Catharsis of Act 5

[winchestermylove]

kinktober day 3: handjobs

sam winchester x dean winchester

okay so i decided to do kinktober for the first time ever (?!?!?!?) and it’s probably all going to be wincest. i also haven’t written in a while so sorry if this is bad. also i don’t know what im doing or what prompts im supposed to be using so we’re starting easy w handjobs 😏

it starts off as just getting off in the same room, not looking at each other but hearing the other’s heavy breath from the next bed over. they’re both squished into one room day in and day out, so might as well make use of it and forget the shower. it becomes routine.

sometimes dean’ll put some shitty porno pay-per-view on the tv, and they’ll watch together. still not paying attention to the other, being strict about not letting their eyes drift. dean says some offhanded comment about the girl’s tits, but sam’s too busy eyeing dean’s ring-clad hand.

one of the motels they stay in doesn’t have a working tv, so dean makes the excuse that they should sit on the same bed so they can use sam’s laptop. despite usually being adamant about not getting viruses on his laptop, sam agrees.

they’re so close together on the bed, but still have yet to touch. the laptop is between them as they respectively unbutton their jeans and start their (now nightly) routine.

sam can’t stop the way his eyes wander to dean’s hand stroking his cock. he doesn’t notice as dean’s do the same.

the following night, they repeat the routine as they get ready for bed. both of them crowd onto dean’s bed, not needing to say a word.

dean puts on his favorite video, and they get to work. everything is the same as usual, silent between the two save for their picked-up breaths and the quiet sound of skin-on-skin. that is, until dean mutters sammy’s name.

sam’s caught off guard, as the two of them had never spoken during these sessions before. he looks up at dean and dean’s already staring at him.

“sammy.” dean’s hand reaches down and slides its way onto sam’s still jean-clad thigh. sam jolts, “dean-”

“it’s okay, sammy.” sam nods, and dean’s hand begins to rub reassuring circles onto sam’s thigh.

sam’s breath hitches as dean’s hand trails its way to his cock, still exposed. dean’s hand wraps around the base and sam can’t stop the grunt that comes out of his mouth.

“god, sammy. little brother’s not so little anymore, huh?” sam looks back into dean’s eyes and can’t hold himself back any longer and lets out a long whimper as he reaches out to touch dean.

dean groans as sam’s hand wraps around him. their bodies are touching now, side pressed against each other, sharing body heat. they both start moving their hands simultaneously, the laptop now forgotten.

sam can barely focus with dean’s hand on him, but tries his best to keep a rhythm anyway. dean’s grunts increase as his hand speeds up, occasionally flicking his thumb over sam’s head every few strokes.

sam leans his head onto dean’s shoulder as he feels his stomach begin to tighten. dean turns his head to breathe in sam’s hair and says, “come on, sammy. give it to me, baby.”

sam’s hips buck up into dean’s hand as he lets out a long whine of fuck, dean. his come spills all over deans hand, and the sight makes dean follow.

“fuck, sammy,” another groan as sam finishes dean off. dean settles onto his back, hand still on sam. sam is dazed as he tries to calm his breathe down and settle his body.

dean looks at sam and sighs.

“fuck, sammy.”

[saiikavon]

You know what it is about Solas, that makes him simultaneously my favorite character and also just so annoying to me because I think I've got it

I consider myself a curious person, wanting to learn all I can and surround myself with people who are also curious and love to learn. And I think, when you are a curious person, you can really open yourself up to lots of different perspectives and experiences

BUT

When you are a person who Learns, you also run the risk, I think, of becoming attached to your own intellect and the things you have learned. You can become as obsessed with the Knowing as you are with the Learning, and when you do that...you can easily convince yourself that you know more and are wiser than pople who may not share your inherent curiosity

Which is a long-winded way of saying that sometimes very learned and experienced people can become pompous, know-it-all assholes

Solas, I believe, has convinced himself that what he knows and what he has learned is worlds above what other people know, and the frustrating thing is, he sort of does. He has truths that people have long forgotten, histories that he witnessed first hand that have become twisted over time. Furthermore, he has presumably had time to reflect on all he's done and all that came of his actions, so he can operate based on information only HE has

I know people like this. I have fallen victim to it myself at times. Thinking that the act of reflection itself means you will ultimately come to the best overall conclusion, since you are, indeed, giving something its due consideration before acting, where others would jump in without thinking at all or gaining all the information. The problem is that just thinking things over does not automatically make one correct. You may have taken every new point of information without checking your biases, or with even an unconcious interest in confirming them. You may let a specific emotion guide your research. You may forget to actually listen to what's been told to you or to consider the feelings of those around you - the facts may not care about feelings, but feelings can and do shape certain facts.

Solas' folly is that he has lived through so much and ultimately applies all of that experience to things he learns about the new world without actually considering the people who live in it. Oh, he wants to save them, this lost flock, as he did the slaves bound by the Evanuris. He thinks that because they do not know better, he must decide for them what to do.

What I adore about him is this compassion, this curiosity, the way he paints his picture of history. The way he feels for his people and the way he learns about the world.

What I cannot stand is how he holds this learning over everyone's head, even people he claims to respect. It drives me absolutely bananas when I see someone I genuinely love spend so much time talking themselves into a corner that they now think anyone who presents a new perspective must automatically be wrong. I hate when I catch myself doing it. I understand the burning need to defend the position I've spent so long cultivating because someone has tried to tell me I'm wrong.

You can't argue with a person like this in one debate. They've already argued with themselves and, intentionally or not, developed a counterpoint for each and every point you can make against their stance. Even if they convince themselves they don't want to go down this path...well, they've thought about it for so long, they now feel they have no other choice.

I adore Solas. I hope, hope, HOPE, that in Veilguard, we can give him an argument he will finally consider. I hope we can tell him he's being a stubborn fucking dipshit and he will listen. I hope we can provide him a new way to learn and that he will try to move on. I hope he will leave his past to rest and try to make reparations to those that live in the present.

I hope my Inquistor Wren Lavellan can go to him, smile as she kisses him and calls him a fool, then take his hand and find home.

[ninewheels]

So I just saw a montage video on YouTube of Amazing Shots in Furiosa, and yeah are A+ (Furiosa is an A+ looking movie) but the priority of this video is clearly on the shots that look amazing in the desktop background or tumblr gifset sense. Which is fine, I love those, and that channel can do whatever it wants, but there are many different kinds of amazing shots, and this just inspired me to talk about my personal favorite shot in the film.

First of all, this is what I think of as an Alfonso Cuarón oner (although Miller's been around longer, were the 80s Mad Maxes like this and should he have dibs?) which is to say a oner that doesn't draw attention to itself, but uses the uncut nature to create a particular feeling, and also because if your blocking set-up means you can transition smoothly from one great angle into another without cutting, why not do it?

We see Furiosa and Jack being dragged out of the V8...

And laid on the ground in front of Dementus...

Who starts making with the villainous grandstanding that is his specialty. This whole scene is about simultaneously conveying how powerful he is, but at the same time how powerful he isn't. Notice how the harsh sunlight backlighting him and his droogs amplifies the melodramatic menace; notice also how much of his monologizing is quite nihilistic, and puts more emphasis on how Furiosa and Jack fucked things up than how good it's gonna be when they punish them.

He moves camera right, and the camera keeps him in frame, but it doesn't move away from Furiosa and Jack either. They're also in the foreground here, and a little closer to center than Dementus is. (The center point is right in between Jack/Davidson and the background biker nearest to them.) Not only are they pulling the audience's focus from Dementus, they are pulling each other's focus as well. They share this tender moment ("My Jack" "My Fury"), not giving a flying fuck about whatever this asshole is saying.

(Also, pay attention to Harley's grip on Furiosa, and how he releases it to let her nuzzle up to Jack.)

"I'm chewing the bloody scenery over here, pay attention to me!"

This specific section of the shot--the camera and the characters refusing to focus on him, and then him getting pissy about it in a fourth-wall nudging fashion--was the part that I was thinking of when I decided to make this post. I'd forgotten how long the shot in its entirety was, and it's all good.

It's harder to tell with Jack, but Furiosa definitely never once looks at Dementus in this entire scene. Most of them time she's looking at Jack, but even when she isn't, she deliberately keeps her eyes off of Dementus. She knows how much he loves being looked at, and decides to not give him the satisfaction. (There's a parallel to "Witness me!", one that increased for me in Dementus's final scene with the line "Do you have it in you to make it epic?" which has strong War Boy energy to it.)

Up to this point, movement was limited, both for the characters and the camera. While the angles shifted, the camera would linger in place for longer sections, or move slowly from one to the next. And after our heroes are dragged away from the car, Dementus is the only character who crosses any distance.

Now the time for talking is over (in a tonal sense, obviously there's still more dialogue) and the time for action is here: specifically, enacting punishments for these two. All the characters are in motion now, and the camera is too, and it stays active until the end of the shot.

In a shot that is physically tracking Furiosa the whole time, these couple of seconds following Jack as he's being forced to run behind the bike are the only part where she's not in frame, not even in the background. It enforces the finality of this physical separation of the two of them. He's alone now (in the way that matters) and when the camera moves back to her, she is too.

And a more blatant follow-up to Harley's body language from earlier. He's like the camera and the audience in a way--he's been paying more attention to our heroes than to his lunatic boss's nihilist proclamations. (I've heard someone assert that he's the one who let Furiosa go, which might emotionally match what's happening, but there's no actual evidence for it, and it's so much more in-character for her to single-handedly find a way to straight-up tear her arm off at the mangled joint.*

And we end on this: Dementus is staring intently at Furiosa, and Furiosa is not looking at him, which in this case is because it'd be physically impossible for her, but the imagery is telling the story it's telling. A different film with different characters could use still this exact same blocking and framing, but create a different story by having the prisoner crane their neck to the side in vain to make some attempt to address their captor, whether to beg for mercy or tell them to go fuck themselves. Furiosa may be defeated, fully aware she's living the second worst day of her life, but she can still deny Dementus the thing he wants: her attention.

There are definite shortcomings with this screenplay, but the direction, the cinematography, and the general moment-to-moment storytelling are fucking good.

[spacevixenmusic]

Unfairly Maligned Games, Vol. 3

Games I loved that got low scores, review bombed, or have some other weird negative stigma attached to them that I think is unfairly earned.

NOTE: I don't believe in giving games a number score or a letter grade. Maybe I'm just bad at criticism or very easy to please, whatever.

Indivisible [2019]

Mostly only known as the "from the makers of Skullgirls" game, Indivisible is another prime example of a game that was crowdfunded as one thing but turned into another, and gets a bad rap for its association with the ever-present controversiality of Skullgirls' creators. That said, I still think - as always - that it's crucial to view a game for what it is, not what it isn't. And what it IS is an extremely engaging mish-mash of genres and endearing characters, oozing with style and appeal, that fills a very particular void left behind by some of the most classic RPGs of a bygone era.

At its core, Indivisible is a 2D Metroidvania/RPG hybrid with an unusual battle system that plays similarly to an old PSX game series called Valkyrie Profile. During combat, each character's gauge will fill up, allowing them to take action(s). Your four party members are each assigned to one of the four face buttons on a controller (e.g. A, B, X, Y), and pressing that button will - in real-time - execute an attack on the enemy. Using it in combination the D-Pad allows for several different types of attack. All party members' attacks can overlap simultaneously, allowing you to string together combos to really rack up the damage, or juggle enemies to prevent counterattacks and break their defenses. The Metroidvania and platforming portion comprises the rest of the game, with a heavy focus on using those same action skills to scale massive environments, solve platforming puzzles, and dodge spikes. Typical Metroidvania stuff.

Story-wise, in our modern world of RPGs that is dominated almost exclusively by Japanese and Scandinavian narratives, Indivisible is breath of fresh air that focuses heavily on South and East Asian mythology and themes. Heavy inspiration is taken from the cultures of India, Tibet, Mongolia, and the South Pacific. This is reflected not only in the characters and their various ethnicities, but in the game's approach to spirituality, reincarnation, second chances, and being a teenager hellbent on destroying god. Our main protagonist Ajna is a teenager studying martial arts who isn't quite as in touch with her spirituality as her mentor would like her to be. When war strikes the land and burns her home to the ground, she gets pissed and sets out on a quest for retribution, discovering in the process that she actually does possess certain godlike powers of destruction, and also that she can absorb certain people into her head, which is just a cute way of lampshading having a Party System.

I've seen Reviewers and big Opinion-Havers on the internet criticize the game's writing for having a bull-headed protagonist who boldly rushes into confrontation, unleashing her wanton destruction without first considering the catastrophic consequences for civilians. It's almost like they've forgotten what being a teenager and making poor choices is like. But I say fuck 'em. I say we need MORE stories about uninformed teenagers with immense godlike powers and no sense of nuance making rash decisions and fucking up royally. That alone is crucial to understanding the rest of the game's themes about atonement, reincarnation, and understanding why you believe what you believe in. That's what Indivisible is all about. In many ways, I feel like Ajna shares a common story arc with Korra from the Avatar series, and it's very cool to see how she learns to deal with the damage she's caused and what insight that gives her when facing down the Big Bad.

Of course, what is a good story without characters to flesh it out? The characters in this game are absolutely charming and multifaceted, coming from a wide array of different cultures and personalities, many of which are vastly underrepresented in not only RPGs but video games in general. Personal favorites include, but are not limited to, big booba water mom Thorani (based on a buddhist deity of the same name), Leilani the Hawaiian sharknado (spins around in a cyclone attack using a leiomano, a Hawaiian shark-tooth sword), lesbian pirate mom Baozhai (based on the famous Chinese pirate Ching Shih), and of course, local nihilistic swamp witch Razmi (a loose mishmash of Korean and Persian Zoroastrian shamans). The full cast of characters is enormous (well over 20 playable ones alone), and each one comes with a unique moveset and playstyle that not only keeps gameplay interesting, but matches their personality and the role they play in the story.

But if there's one thing I truly want to focus on when I gush about this game, it's this. Indivisible has one thing over most other games of its genre, something that modern RPGs in particular suffer heavily from a severe lack of, and that's its strong commitment to multiculturalism. Indivisible made a clear decision to not only feature characters from around the globe, but to blend their cultures together in interesting and exciting ways that don't diminish or water them down. Every character is allowed to shine in their own way without diluting what makes them stand out in the first place, which is why you can have a game that features a gunblade-wielding cowboy, a Namibian songstress, an armless Chinese dancer, a Kamen Rider knock-off, and a Mongolian archer who people keep mistaking for Pearl from Steven Universe. This sort of melting-pot cultural stew used to be common in classic anime and 90s RPGs, but kind of fell out of fashion with the rise of gacha waifu games and Elder Scrolls derivatives. Now more than ever, I feel like Indivisible is exactly the sort of injection the gaming world needs to rekindle those flames of pure imagination that the old classic era brought us.

All that said, one of the biggest reasons Indivisible will always have a dark mark next to its name is of course due to the fact that its lead designer (the studio head) was involved in a sexual harassment case that resulted in everyone on the team either quitting or being laid off, and the rights to the work and characters getting lost in the shuffle. Additionally, the game was still finished and released as intended, but did not feature any of the guest star characters that were promised during crowdfunding, most of whom were indie darlings of the time (Shovel Knight, Hyper Light Drifter, and Super Time Force to name a few). Naturally, this has left a sour taste in many folks' mouths, so it is somewhat understandable why the game would have a negative stigma attached. There are also a few bizarre and possibly off-putting cameos hidden among the NPCs (a few outdated meme references and Zone-tan, of all people), but these are entirely skippable and serve only as background extras.

Sour grapes aside though, I wholeheartedly recommend Indivisible for anyone looking for a fresh take on action RPGs. The neat hybridization of Metroidvania and real-time RPG with fighting game mechanics gives it a very unique identity, and if the compelling spirituality of the story doesn't grab you, the charm of the characters absolutely will. It certainly took me for a ride. My only word of caution is to follow the game's own suggestion and get good at Blocking in combat as early as you can!

[emmy-noethers-rings]

aaahhh thanks @hollyofmercia!! im so glad to be counted as a beloved mutual!!

Last song: Cabaret 2 by penelope scott. my brain kinda grabbed that one tehe

currently watching: well. this is a podcast blog so im going to interpret this as currently listening and thus: Hi Nay!!!! its so good. its fun and spooky and fits in with my dnd campaign and go listen to it >:3

Three ships: the Bismarck, the turtle ship (거북선), and the American Turtle. tehe. But to actually answer the question: Krejjh & Brian Jeter (strange case of starship iris), Medusa & Andromeda (Khôra podcast), Paige &Hayworth (The silt verses)

Favourite Colour: Scarlet. like scarlet macaw scarlet yknow?

currently consuming: breakfast. but also been playing civ 6 and reading gideon the ninth

First ship: pfft fuck it if i remember. Havent been in fandom that long so maybe Sam and Oliver (Spirit Box radio)

Relationship status: In possession of a husband >:3 and loving them dearly

last movie: Casablanca i think?

currently working on: programming a video game to play with my younger sibling while im off at college together; embroidery; drawing a bunch of stuff; a uni degree; weighting dice to cheat at dnd. All of these are happening simultaneously.

anywas i think im supposed to tag 9 people but i cant count so get tagged beloved mutuals:

@thecontortionistswristwatch @motherofmostlysnakes @time-travel-nacho @lottiethedottyhottie @cindereleanor @suncrayon @rotationalsymmetry @pajrc1234 @in-a-sea-of-black @cybersp4ced @worlds-smallest-epsilon @jumpingthesefences @cyan-skies @dynamicsbitch

if ive forgotten you im so sorry ive tagged you in absentia bc ofc. i forgor

[nicegaai]

I used to not care about Sweden ships that much but then my third eye was opened to his shipping potential and I now love every Nordic ship with him.

SuFin - need I say anything? Iconic. Next.

DenSu - Enemies to friends to rivals to friends again to fuck buddies to lovers

SuNor - surprisingly sexy. Ship that's able to simultaneously bring out the best and worst in both of them.

SuIce - why just give him Ice a big brother kink? Give him a daddy kink TOO

All this to ask, any headcanons for SuNor specifically or for Swe ships in general?

HELLO my dear my beloved my angel of the askbox. i love this journey youve been on, you are completely correct in everything and ur suice take made me scream out loud btw <3 i want my babybabyboy 2 have a daddy kink so bad <3

YES OFC 🫡 SYNTHESIZING MY MINDS VERSION OF MRSWEDEN INTO SM COHERENT FOR YOU POSTHASTE

(edit: this was not very posthaste of me.................... enjoy anyway if u are still out there... i love you...)

hard agree that sunor is So Hot. im obsessed w them as a concept. like. you dont even know

first of all sunor has the norice problem where ppl want to assign them Platonic Sibling energy but then u look at them and its like why is there clearly sexual tension here...... i suspect its norways fault for havign that sexy voice disease where everything he says comes off flirty. and sweden is -- 🧠💥 wait wait wait wait wait

its coming together. sweden spent a lot of his life as a closeted gay man and was very uptight about it (source: look at him), claiming to humans that nations dont do sex and that he is a good asexual boy with no impure thoughts and other times pretending to have interest in women to fit in, depending.

but norway is shamelessly himself in every era—at least in comparison to sve... he wont pretend to be something hes not. and he wouldnt hesitate to fuck a strange man for fun, even in times where getting caught would severely damage his reputation. sweden even in modern day would not do one night stands. or you know. never say never, but hes LEANING never. norway is leaning Always.

what im saying is. sve would be so jealous that nor is living his best life and doesnt feel shame, even in an era(s) where he really should. and i think due to a series of cinematically coincidental outside circumstances (my brain is writing a fanfic without me rn) (edit: i have since forgotten the fanfic), they would start butting heads about it, not in the same way su and den fight... theyre passive aggressively sniping at each other. sve wants him to represent himself better, and nor is like i can literally do what i want forever.

from the outside it looks like a brotherly disagreement over differing life choices, but its 100% sexual tension fueled. nor is like lmao why are you mad? are you jealous? and would come onto him to freak him out and sve would be like STOP this is WRONG but he wants it so bad and they both know it. he hates nor because hes hot and fucking everyone but him and the one thing he can't do is admit he wants him. ...all norway has to do to win is keep teasing him until he breaks, but it would take several years. not decades, bc even if the flirting is infrequent sweden is not strong enough for this treatment.

... in general, i think they have different views of sex. to me norway has a high sex drive, lower than average standards, and doesn't feel shame as acutely as he does and sweden cant stand it. that's my sunor headcanon. they fuck anyway ofc but in modern day sve has made nor get std tested at least once. but could they be exclusively together like a monogamous ship? .............. i could be convinced.

OTHER SU SHIPS, QUICK FIRE ROUND

sufin - need we say more? i want to anyway... i love them married with kids i love them divorced i love them in a 500 year unlabeled situationship i love them one-sided and i dont really prefer one dynamic over another tbh. actually wait i do have a hot take. i think finland deserves to top sometimes. FinSu nation rise up <3

densu - what can i even add to this... they should look like the happiest couple on the surface but be crazy & toxic behind closed doors. theyre perfectly normal guys when separated but when left alone together they scare me. this is a good thing to me btw

suice - jsgdk gjk s klga liwi egi j tjil 2 t. g 8aw9e gae0jo d ;gawj dp2gjawodgijl aij e 0g;eglj aw irgl ajoweg lahrigawi egji awlji dg d i need to write them together more i could get so insane ab these two & i have a scene planned for my longfic where they fuck like crazy and i think ab it once a week. suice is so cute. theyre so cute. AHH

[strxnger-things]

I admit i didnt believe in birthdaygate/memorygate for a long time but after recent events with the st writers twitter i'm starting to believe, and after looking further into how it could be plot relevant i cant believe i never realised how important the shed scene is. like omfg its been right there the whole time???? vecna knows all of wills happiest memories???? ofc he is going to use them to his advantage somehow

(Referring to this post I made and the memorygate theory)

Heeeeey!

Yeah, I guess we'll see in Season 5 whether there's any kind of valid thread here (I'm personally on the fence with the whole thing, and just spitballing and having fun with it)

So far it's been established that Vecna "consumes" the thoughts and memories of the people he kills. They're kept in his mindscape. Everything that made them who they are as a person. And that's going to be an important plot point, especially surrounding Max in S5, imo.

But Vecna didn't kill any of the people present during the shed scene, so how can he do anything with their memories? Well, we know Vecna has the power to view memories without killing someone, but maybe he can actively manipulate/consume them without killing someone too. As in, it's not something he normally does (because why would he need to) but it's something he's capable of doing if he wanted. And Will is different from all of his other victims (save perhaps Billy). For some reason, he doesn't want to kill Will. He wants to play with him, possess his body, or potentially wants to win him over for reasons we don't know yet. We see El explore some of Billy's memories in S3, and Max's in S4. She's not possessing them, she's just able to enter their mindscapes and explore memories whilst she's in there. So we know that both El and Vecna have that power, it's a lab-kid thing that they can do. But Vecna also has this weird connection with time. So could he effectively alter memories and 'change the past', in a sense? Vecna's spent many hours levitating in the Creel House attic room, moving his consciousness from person to person and reading everyone in Hawkins like books. Watching them. Hearing everything. We visually see how it works in S4, just briefly before Vecna chooses Patrick as his next victim. So after Joyce, Jonathan and Mike tell Vecna what Will's happiest memories are (oops), maybe Vecna goes on to locate those exact memories and fuck around with them. And it's not just that those memories are Will's happiest memories - it's that Will's birthday and the rainbow ship drawing were most important to Joyce, it's building Castle Byers that was most important to Jonathan, it was playing D&D and first meeting Will that was most important to Mike.

I don't think it'd be one big event where Joyce, Jonathan and Mike all got simultaneous headaches one day, to be revealed in S5. But it could be a background scheme that Vecna's been slowly working on ever since the end of S2 after El sealed the gate.

Which is why as soon as we start S3, it's like Will has started to... fade? He's slowly being overlooked and forgotten. By S4, Will's birthday doesn't exist, Jonathan is distant and caught up in his own shit, and Mike seems to think his first real important connection with anyone was meeting El in the woods. There are still maaaany plotholes and questions with this theory, so I'm keeping a very open mind with it <3

[kipocricyy]

note 1: where visiting the past can be creative liberty or mental destruction…alternatively, malachi visits hope world for the first time.

he could remember the first time he entered into…hope world. the first time his brain found itself wandering aimlessly, distracting a young malachi from the woes of his worlds. it was always filtered in by music that instantly calmed the raging in his veins, and even as he sat in front of his production equipment he could faintly hear it charming its way into his subconscious.

2007

“alright man, i’ll see you.” hakeem said as he began to jog off back towards their apartment complex. his old jordans thudded against the ground in a natural rhythm, fading away into the distance until malachi was left with himself and the asphalt of their decaying court. he was two blocks from home roughly, far enough to not hear the screaming and breaking of things that was being tossed between jaime and her new current ‘boy toy’. he could add this guy to the list, steadfast on being his ‘dad’ while simultaneously treating his mom as if she hadn’t birthed him. his bushy mustache and trash southern accent was foul to his northerner ears. he found it especially gross hearing it curl around his and his mother’s name. staying out for a few more hours so they could get high and pass out on the couch was an easier feat than drowning them out in his room. 

the ball kissed the ground in a light pattern as kai toyed around with it. his own worn shoes of the same brand scuffed and squeaked as she shuffled around, faking out moves with invisible players and dabbing up lebron in his own little world. but the screams of his imaginary crowd was snuffed out by the uneven sounds of more sneakers entering the court. this would go one of two ways but malachi would pretend like he wasn’t tense and on guard as the other boys began to crowd his space. “fuck.” he murmured, language much too vulgar for a kid his age, but truthfully all of them were talking just the same. 

“we don’t even gotta tell you how this is about to go, do we?” said what seemed to be the ringleader of the group that joined him. he was light skinned, freckles auburn the same color as his eyes and brows. things moved much too fast for him to understand after that, punches being thrown in each direction, malachi being dragged off a kid who was now holding his teeth in his hand, blood pouring from every orifice it could fight its way out of. and that made them mad. all at once they came at him, the fourth grader finding his back to the concrete, and then his skull, the world’s  noise suddenly muddled into one piercing sound. it felt like he’d been dunked underwater, the sound of some passersby’s screams for them to stop and malachi simply laid out on the asphalt, floating in the waves that just tried to drown him. “we didn’t do nothing, we lost the game and it got heated, we cool. right anime boy?” 

for a moment he hadn’t registered where he was, forgotten the blood that was shed, only followed the colors that danced in his vision and indulged into the music that had wafted seemingly from no where. it was a small moment of bliss, one where all the rage simply melted off of his skin. the red he saw had melted into the hues of yellows, greens and blues. accented by oranges and violets and merged together by indigos. it was quick, only a few seconds he was sure but he’d felt it. he felt the way he drifted away…just for a moment there was bliss, quiet, but tantalizing music. maybe they’d knocked him out and he’d just come to, but slowly he realized the world didn’t fade, but simply lowered it volume to the symphony that was beginning to swell in his mind. it began to warp its way into his new reality and before he knew it he was back as if he’d never left. 

“what?” he said finally, eyes finally registering that he’d been staring at  not only his aggressors but a kindly, dark-skinned woman with purple box-braids. she couldn’t have been any more than thirty and the look on her face showed that she didn’t believe anything the other guy had said.  “i said we just got into a heated thing about the game…we cool right anime boy?”

“i’m not japanese,” kai answered, as if that was the issue at hand here. “what happened?” the woman finally asked malachi, the one on the ground, but probably better off than the two that were currently being led home faces in hand. “um, fuck i went up for a lay up, came down on dude in the yellow shorts. it was an accident, but we were losing and it just…blew up from there.” she seemed to not believe malachi either, but the look of anxiety on the other boys face faded into some form of acceptance and malachi hated how that made him feel. it was only a moment later where she’d taken her leave, leaving kai and the other three remaining boys to their own devices.

the ring leader surprisingly helped him to his feet, rough hands dusting off malachi’s hole-y band tee. he assumed he’d be left alone, a reward for ‘not snitching’, but he simply took a step back and smiled that dazzling white grin, “aight now homie, go ahead and run me them shoes, you can bare foot it to the crib i’m sure.”

[watatsumiis]

[🍓 anon]

first of all thank you so much for the in depth reply!! after reading your elaboration i actually think we're at least on very similar pages about her character, just approaching it from different directions! if you would be so gracious as to entertain a (hopefully brief edit: it was not brief) blorbo ramble about why i simultaneously near-completely agree with you and also love her so much:

so, in response to the following, bc this is something i agree pretty strongly with:

I think some of the ways this game handles really heavy topics seems to be almost... dismissive, at times. I understand that it's a game that's supposed to be marketed towards a broad audience and there are some concessions that need to be made to keep a smooth gameplay experience. This isn't a knock at the writers at all, just an observation. These huge events seem to happen in canon story and they seem to be dropped soon after apart from a few hints and side mentions, and I wish it was explored more?

basically, just... yeah. this whole paragraph. i have a friend that really hated the inazuma arc because of generational trauma they have with dictatorships and revolution, and how cheaply and shallowly Genshin seemed to present and then drop it, almost as if its goal was just to present opportunities to sell watered down "revolution flavored" characters (sorry if that sounds harsh, i don't mean to say it's bad or wrong, it's mostly just how the writing hit me-- the characters are really rich and full of personality as always, but it feels like the consequences of the labels they were assigned were...glossed over/forgotten about at best, and purposefully ignored and "woobified" at worst).

like the writers repeatedly bring up really really serious consequences, like how taking someone's vision seems to have extremely serious impacts on their mental health, almost akin to taking their entire motivation for life or a part of their soul (a different friend called it "inventing new war crimes"). or like how the whole of watatsumi island is unable to grow food or trade, so for them this war is a matter of survival and for Inazuma City it's a matter of....what, pride? there's no real driving force and there's a huuuuge disconnect between E!'s actual aspirations and what she's actually doing to her people because of it.

(there are other issues i have with the genshin worldbuilding in general too like.... i mean obviously there's a lot to complain about in sumeru, but also the quest with Dainsleif in the chasm was really upsetting for multiple of my friends as well)

so i guess my love for E! as a blorbo in spite of all this comes down to three main points:

1) i am immune to bad worldbuilding. i can see it just enough to acknowledge and deinternalize, but i mostly focus on smashing interpersonal relationships, feelings, personalities, and other character traits like aspirations and needs.

2) E! has a personality that i relate to a lot, and crucially, i don't see her as like, "just some sweet girl that missed her sister and didn't know what she was doing uwu"; my love for her is specifically the love that i dole out to my reformed villain blorbos. i love her as someone who fucked up HUGE time while she was in a bad place, got literally slapped/kicked/sworded back into facing reality, SAW what she'd done and went oh. shit. no more. no more of this. and she clearly doesn't quite get what she did wrong at first, beyond "people are telling me that my people are miserable-- is this truly an eternity worth preserving? i will consider and evaluate this feedback strategically and autistically and see if i can do better" and then like. she stews on it for a while, realizes she was wrong, and ends up literally in a battle to the death with a manifestation of her former ideals because she wants to do good and she wants to change and do something for her people for once. (the for once is the important part because she did not do anything good before that.) and it's not a lot and it can't ever possibly make up for the horrors she inflicted on her people up until now, but it means a lot to me personally to see someone do horrific things and then go "you know what this sucks. im in control of my own life and im going to choose kindness from here on out. it won't fix anything. but i can at least stop future suffering"

(i think it would really be fantastic if the canon gave us some more npcs that hate her or like otherwise blame her for ANYTHING because it seems like everyone in inazuma still blindly loves her?? not a huge fan of that, but it's pretty easy to picture a fanon where that's true)

... and finally 3) is basically just that I'm biased. she's got my mental illnesses so i went from drawing her with ... a very mean caption, at the start of the questline before I'd met her, to the same drawing with the caption scratched out, saying instead "nevermind i need her to be in the washer high spin for 100 hrs" to just loving her fully after her second quest because in my fanon projection version of her, the drive to change and understand her people better is the repentance and regret for me, because that's the most constructive form that regret can take-- though i would still have liked, y'know, a formal apology or something, but. yeah that's what fanon is for

(also, about her voicelines, some of them are not actually her but the Raiden Shogun, I'm not sure which of those her voiceline about Kokomi is (it very well may have been hers), so that's also very valid, my response to that is. basically just fanon again because it feels to me like the kind of thing that she'd change her mind about after her second story quest)

ok sorry for the huge wall of text but thank you for indulging my blorbo rant!!! i don't think anything in here is too harsh but if it is feel free to call me out on that, cause i tend to get a little Passionate about my character essays but i don't mean it in like, an "any opinion but this one sucks" way or anything!!

This has been sitting in my inbox for a hot minute awaiting a response that I just don't really have the spoons to give, but I really really enjoyed reading your take on this character and all the reasons why you like her, and I felt like it deserved to see the light of day because it's so well thought out and interesting!

[liliallowed]

another question is do these cycles run independently.

like are there as many copies of that world all running simultaneously that occasionally connect into each other when the cycles match up?

if so if pebbles never dies then...

would the next reality have pebbles be the same but everyone just knows one layer?

actually bo you could've died once but that lizard could be on it's fifth death for all you know.

like do the cycles even align?

or is there just infinite copies of every person that reacts according to the person who just regressed.

there's many ways one can actually interpret this because what if I wake up and not decide to have a baby?

like would that person just wake up to a dream where they had a person giving them life? so it means that kids will always have more death cycles than their parents....

am I thinking too deep about this? yes.

I NEED A FUCKING GRAPH FOR THIS SHIT YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND IT'S NOT ONE TIME LOOP ITS HUNDREDS IF INDIVIDUAL DREAM LOOPS THAT MIGHT CONNECT BUT MIGHT ALSO SPLIT AND GO TOWARDS DIFFERENT LAYERS

l

also is that how the world's decides what point you come back to?

like if you have died 7 times but your mom doesn't remember you because in a different dream you were a different sperm that lost the race?

I feel like they're initially all individual cycles but people can each have different death numbers meeting every person.

like this baby can be a sage while that old man is still in his first lifetime....

you'd think they'd probably have some sort of rules for that...

like there's also the possibility that the personal loop doesn't link up with any other person's loop and you're just constantly forgotten.

in dusttale there's one singular loop affecting the whole world.

in rain world IT'S FUCKING CHAOS. WHO YOU SAW YESTERDAY MIGHT KNOW YOUR UNBORN SISTERS CHILD .

like what kind of fked up thing is this how do you even processes this shit.

no wonder they made iteratiors...

[fizzingwizard]

I got the Christmas sims event this time. It was not much fun, but I got to do it, and so I got the rewards :3 I reeeeally love the new TV. Can leave the rest but the TV is awesome.

Adventures in simming!

I was playing the girl, and the guy, who lives in a different household, asked her out. The game decided we should have our date at...

... a retail store. Interesting choice... There was a pool nearby so I figured let's just switch there buuuut

lol. ONCE YOU COMMIT TO A DATE AT A RETAIL STORE YOU MUST SEE IT THROUGH TO THE END!!! NO GOING SOMEWHERE ELSE COWARD.

So we found a bench in the park. Kinda pretty in Magnolia Promenade, I never have a reason to go there but it is just more of Willow Creek. Bench was nice enough and they even had their first kiss!

... Which was interrupted by no less than four notifications that NPCs in the area (not sims I made, not sims I was or had ever played) just got the retail maintenance skill, which I had forgotten even existed.

Congrats, Frog Williams.

Now, at least, the date was "over" so we continued on at the pool :)

Random bug roundup time!

To make her sit down and read this book took MONUMENTAL effort. Every two seconds she'd pop up to "cook steamed rice" or "cook herb focaccia." She would. Not. Sit. She would also stand up to "dance'" until I turned off the music. Like why can't she sit and read uninterrupted???

Those Home Chef Hustle items are so bugged but whenever I see posts about it the response is always "we have no idea why this is, are you sure it's really happening?" YESSS it's really happening. Also the rice cooker just constantly smells all on its own. No food in there, doesn't need to be cleaned. All I can do is right click-"reset object" and that fixes it. For a few in game hours at least lol.

2. I never had a dog on a Sulani lot before. I knew they could sim in pools, but I never thought to try the ocean! She just started swimming independently, it was so cute... But apparently she now has the fitness skill...??? Is this on purpose or a bug x'D I don't even know. But it's gotta be a bug since the pop up (same as human sims get) suggests a golden retriever can use workout equipment?????

3. This happens often - I upgrade the bed as much as it can be, but the sims still get an uncomfortable moodlet simultaneously with a happy moodlet because of how nice the bed is. A mattress that feels like concrete and a cloud at the same time. Concrete Clouds. Sounds like a band name.

4. In all households I've played recently that have cottage living animals, ALL of them instantly died when I logged into the house. One household had a cow: dead. (But the chickens were left alone.) Next household: one chicken, the only goat, and a whole bunch of rabbits died in succession, it was like the plague!

And in the third house, every single chicken died as soon as I loaded it. Also the two mini goats were suddenly elders.

I'm thinking something with the Life and Death pack either changed how death works with animals or just fucked something up. Oooor my game was already bugged and this is just the same bug evolving (bc it used to be that some chickens Never Died but all cows did, and chickens that grew into hens and roosters were still labeled "chick").

And of course there are a ton of other stupid bugs that I've complained about before. They are still thriving :) in case you were worried!

also random i've whined about this before too but SERIOUSLY whyyyy does it take literal in game HOOOOURS to "nurture" crickets why. why why why

[picathartidae]

Thanks for the tag, @vestigialpersonality!

Three Ships: I’m not a big shipper and I don’t really understand shipping as a concept (blame it on my aro/aceness). It isn’t how I prefer to engage with media, but I’ll try to come up with some pairings I like anyway. 

Resist!Dark Urge/Spawn!Astarion, Baldur’s Gate 3. To the surprise of absolutely no one, I like these two together a whole lot. I tend to prefer a male Durge over a female one, but whatever. It’s a good fun time and they vibe. I like how Durge is the one character that forces Astarion to step up and be the responsible stable one. I love how you see this more emotionally available side to Astarion in a Durge run. I love how two objectively terrible people can end up bringing out the best in each other, despite the odds. I love the mutual and simultaneous redemption arcs. 

Jonas Kahnwald/Martha Nielsen, Dark. These two are a fucking disaster and I am so taken with how their weird obsessive love for each other is so destructive but also so pure and how that is so tied up with the themes. The way this show deconstructs relationships and the lengths people will go to for the sake of their loved ones is really compelling to me.

Shen Qingqiu/Luo Binghe, Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System. Another trash dumpster fire of a pairing, but whatever they are my boys and I love them. All of MXTX’s main pairs, really, but sqq/lbh are my absolute favourites, likely because Scum Villain is by far the easiest read of them all for me. I like the relationship in how it is used to actively deconstruct masculinity and support the overall themes of the novel.

First Ship: I’m pretty sure it was Scott Summers/Jean Grey from X-Men. Scott was always my #relatable vaguely autistic king, and Jean was genuinely just so cool and interesting to my young self. I’m still salty about it and I will never forgive Marvel. 

Last Song: I have been playing Die For You (ft Grabbitz) on a loop for maybe a month now. This is what happens when my partner rewatches Arcane and then listens to all of the League of Legends and Valorant music and sends me their favourites. And also the song perfectly fits in with my stupid Durge and his stupid Durge vibes, so… yeah. A song from Valorant for you. I have never played it and I barely know what it is, but this song is great.

Last Movie: I think it was Dune Part 2? It’s fine. It’s a good movie. I think it had the same problem as the book for me, in that the messaging was like getting hit repeatedly in the head with a sledgehammer because it didn’t seem to trust that people would get it, but since I’ve seen plenty of people completely miss said message, I can’t really blame it for that. It's very visually impressive and Denis Villeneuve is an insanely talented man who clearly knows the book series so well. Give him all of the awards.

Currently Reading: an eclectic collection of BG3 fanfictions.

Currently Watching: I’m making my way through Teen Wolf for the first time, because I’m legitimately shocked I never watched it when it was on (I was directly in its target demographic and never saw it? Who even am I). At the moment, I’m about three episodes into season 4. It’s a whole experience and I have so many feelings. Is it good? Not even slightly. Does it make sense? Barely. Am I kind of loving it anyway? Fuck yeah. Teenage me would have been all over this show. I’m so mad.

Currently Eating: Carbs! Always carbs. Just finished some spinach and feta scrolls, specifically.

Currently Craving: a decently written character-driven genfic. Please, I am begging.

Favourite Colour: dusty blue

Current Obsession: pretty much anything D&D related. Mostly BG3 specifically.

Last Thing I Googled: lots and lots and lots of Forgotten Realms lore. 

Favourite Season: Autumn, purely for the aesthetic.

Skill I’d Like To Learn: figure drawing, for sure. I am desperate to be able to produce decent character art for OCs, especially since I am poor and can’t currently afford to commission someone.

Best Advice: You shouldn’t have to justify every facet of your existence to others. You’re allowed to take up space.

Tagging: I think everyone I would tag has been tagged already, so I’m just going to leave it as anyone who wants to participate, consider yourself tagged. 

[kirabasai]

beautiful additions. don't hide them in the tags i love them. i was actually discussing w my friend king (he doesn't have a tumblr sadly ik but he has ao3) more abt this earlier so i'm gonna dump some things we've discussed/brainrotted so far.

on the hair, lilia's pink/red streaks are actually dyed LMAO so that might not be a marker. i initially said the marker is the eyes, yuu and lilia's eyes are VERY similar, but king made me see the light by proposing lilia's little ear tufts that look like bat wings.

malleus and silver see it and INSTANTLY make the connection. they actually look similar enough that ppl look at them and go huh, must be cousins and never mention it around them because it never comes up. cousins because who would assume that a third year is a first year's bio dad? nobody! except malleus and silver. they Know. they have the horrifying realization that they're father has bred like oh my god, he actually at some point got someone pregnant. they do NOT wanna think of their dad in that context. they didn't even consider he was capable of it. poor silver has struggle sleeping.

but like, lilia was fucking WILD at some pt man. it's a miracle he doesn't have 20 bastard children running around and this yuu is the only one. he has decades of child support to pay lmao.

we were thinking this yuu was born sometime after malleus hatched (a very rough time in lilia's life), so that time period between malleus hatching and silver being found. accidental fulfillment of the forgotten middle child prophecy lmaoo. but yeah statistically it's most likely for yuu to be a full fae so that's what i decided. king and i had a brief thing where we weren't sure abt the genetics of it, but in the end we decided the bat fae gene is recessive (based on a couple things) so rlly yuu ending up bat fae was luck of the draw and fate fucking w lilia once more. we also decided on her being 142 because that's a nice even number, and based on our eyeballing and at-a-glimpse math of how bat faes age that would make her abt 14 in human years. she got to nrc early because she's good at magic. so technically she is simultaneously the youngest and the middle child if u think abt it lolol

as for yuu's mom, she doesn't give a fuck abt lilia! or anyone/anything tbh. she's out chilling in the twst maldives with a glass of wine in her hand while her only daughter (we at this pt decided this yuu was she based on vibes) was off at school. she doesn't care abt if yuu meets or finds her father because tbf yuu's mom doesn't even know herself— could have been anyone really.

king also suggested giving yuu a neglectful childhood from an alcoholic parent for angst and i loved that. we love angst here. king said its incentive for yuu to be taken in by her bio dad and u know what that's fair. i was already on board before he even said that because i love making my characters be angsty.

this yuu sorta gives me "so self sufficient never even considered there was neglect" vibes. like that's just their normal. in her head it's like, all families are different. and besides ppl cook the meals at home instead of their parents all the time, doesn't see an issue w the fact she started to do this younger than most because her mom occasionally forgot to cook for both of them. she's probably kind of casual about her home life too because she thinks it's normal.

riddle's overblot is probably a culture shock to her because to well adjusted ppl they look and go, oh his mom is a helicopter parent and abusive and probably a bit crazy. YUU however looks at riddle and is thinking is this guy in jail or smth, because she literally can not perceive a parent being like that. literal opposites.

taking the whole school year to find out WOULD be funny, maybe as an offshoot oneshot moment instead of the actual fic though. because sadly and realistically the chances of sebek not being in the room whenever yuu and lilia are with each other until the end of the school year are slim. that, and lilia knows his boys are hiding something from him (malleus & silver still do not know if they should tell him, let alone how to broach the topic)

when lilia is officially introducing malleus and silver to her as her brothers lilia would probably also say something like "hmm, though i suppose if you were to go into technicalities, malleus would be your third-brother" (like half-brother. i strongly hc lilia/reven/maleanor and we also don't know how dragon reproduction works so for all we know malleus could have 2 bio dads. just saying). and it'll b a ??????? moment for all 3 siblings because they do not have the context to know that lilia means third brother as in yuu and malleus share ⅓ dna from him. realistically they all might consider that there's another brother they don't know about, or does lilia mean sebek?? they do not know. honestly it's probably like dad lore.

twst au where yuu is lilia's illegitimate child. lilia had a rough time you know, had a lot of one night stands, doesn't even remember over half of them. totally reasonable. so yuu turns up to nrc and lilia is oblivious because the notion of having a bio child has never occurred to him. but malleus and silver notice. they're staring at yuu suspiciously and then looking at each other like... you see it, right..... that person looks a LOT like dad, right.... like A LOT a lot..... yeah. and yuu is also oblivious!!! yuu's never considered who their father may be. they see lilia and are like oh cool another bat fae, don't see too many of those.

lilia snd yuu unironically bonding over both of them being bat faes w/o ever realizing they're father and child.

silver and malleus are in conspiratorial whispers like. DO WE TELL THEM.

in the end it's sebek who tells them but it's like, complete accident. like oh lilia-sama!!! i was not aware you had a blood child!!! and they're both like. ???? what — but then it processes and they're like, wait. pause. squints at each other. looks in a mirror. PAUSE.