#but this shit is also very extremely physical and its not good for us. we need medication.

[lunarflare64]

You know I'm starting to think this constant feeling of fear, dread, and 'please for the love of god leave me alone' that has no cause might not be going away

[lame-cameoliob]

Kallus' motivations are so interesting

I just need to get these thoughts out so I’m throwing this ramble here:

Now, this may totally just be me thinking too much (fork found in kitchen) but I feel like when it comes to how we tend to think about Kallus’ characterization, the implications of Kallus’ experience on Onderon are very overlooked. 

So he goes to Onderon with “the boys”-- which, the term “the boys” has its own set of implications about how Kallus must have really cared for those troopers under his command but I digress– and on a patrol they’re attacked, yada yada, we all know the story. 

But Kallus becomes fully paralyzed. He doesn’t describe the extent of his paralyzation but given that he had to watch as his squad was “finished off one by one” it’s pretty fair to assume that he could not move whatsoever. The fear that any person would experience in that situation is completely indescribable, that is genuinely some shit straight out of a night terror. 

He is– as we know– spared (albeit we don’t get exact details (did the merc try to kill him but reinforcements arrived before he could? Did the merc think that Kallus was already dead? Secret 3rd option?)) and he makes a full physical recovery, but there is no way in hell that he is not coming out of that encounter with some crazy PTSD. 

There’s not a whole lot of info on Imperial mental health services but I don’t think it’s a longshot to assume that they are probably close to nonexistent.

So the empire now has… an ISB agent with field experience… with untreated PTSD… where said PTSDs inciting incident pertained to a Lasat… and they’re looking to make an example out of Lasan……….. Are you picking up what I'm putting down here…...?

If you aren’t; it is BY NO MEANS a wild assumption to say that the Empire– essentially– weaponized Kallus’ PTSD, given that he would be less likely to question the moral atrocities happening on Lasan since he was already biased against Lasat as a whole. 

Now, we don’t really have a solid grasp on what Kallus’ exact role in Lasan was since he’s  kiiiiinnnd of an unreliable narrator– I mean we’re given the line in Droids in Distress where he takes credit for giving orders during the siege, but Kallus routinely just runs his mf mouth whenever he’s throwing hands so it’s like…  that could either be the truth or a crazy exaggeration, we as viewers have literally no idea what’s going on there– but it goes without saying that Kallus is obviously not excused from his participation just because of (likely) untreated mental illness, but that is literally like the whole point of his character so like we all knew that

Now, after Lasan, Kallus does something really bizarre for an imperial to do; he accepts the borifle given to him through the Boosan Keerah, and even though he doesn’t know about the cultural significance of that, he still takes it upon himself to learn how to use this weapon. I think that literally any other imperial would have tossed that shit out on sight, so I think it does kind of imply that Kallus did have a good deal of respect for Lasat culture.

Now we can all recall how Kallus is so annoying and also batshit insane whenever he fights Zeb for the first season and a half of rebels, and ME THINKS that this is because he wants to prove to himself that if he were not paralyzed on Onderon, he could have saved the members of his squad. He had to sit by and watch them die, and I think that he just wants the vindication; now you may be thinking, But Emma, he beat the Lasat who gave him his borifle, why would he still be obsessing over this– say it with me now– he is mentally ill. No victory will ever be enough to prove this to himself. Point blank period. 

(edit:) He is for sure operating from a place of extreme predjudice and bias but I think it's worth noting that he’s not operating under the usual xenophobic imperial mindset that other species are automaticaly lesser than. (end edit) This weird obsession that he has in seasons 1 and 2 deels like it's mostly there because he wants to outwit and outfight Zeb (and the rest of the Ghost crew… but especially Zeb) (edit: Though it is 100% influenced by Xenophobia-- his mental illness and xenopobia DO coexist!!)

And after the Honorable Ones???? It’s literally never brought up again. He chills tf out so hard after that it is high key uncanny. And like, yes duh that is because– for writing purposes– that’s the beginning of his redemption and they want viewers to root for him as fulcrum, but it also implies that after finding common ground with Zeb, and understanding where he’s coming from and who Zeb is as a person, he realizes that he’s been CRASHING TF OUT for basically no reason. 

And he is SO QUICK to switch sides?? Like, he is fulcrum at least a decent time before the beginning of season three. The whole point is that the second he asks questions and delves deeper into what the Empires motivations are he is disgusted enough that he doesn’t just drop everything and disappear, no, he became a spy for the rebels because he wants to help. I feel like that just goes to show that, at his core, Kallus is a good person. A deeply confused, and hurt, and misguided person, but a good one. 

I dunno, this is just a really long winded way of saying that Kallus is the perfect example of an imperial pawn. Like the Empire is an incredibly effecient indoctrination machine that exploits people at every turn, especially their own soldiers, and I think that Kallus’ relationship with that indoctrination along with his own motivations is just super super interesting and I think about it literally all the time

[ranposgirlboss]

~types of hugs they would give~

was daydreaming about ranpo and then my brain jumped to them giving hugs??? idk how that works but HERE WE ARE!!!

charas: dazai, chuuya, sigma, ranpo, and poe

genre: FLUFF >:))); a bit of flirting in dazai's because, well, dazai; can be seen as romantic or platonic other than that!!!; extremely wholesome shit idk :O; some hurt-comfort, but very mild!!

LETS COMMENCE ＼(°o°)／

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

DAZAI

-over dramatic mf FRRRR

-hugs with him arent really emotional or srs or anything like that, HE KINDA JUST CLINGS TO YOU OUTTA NOWHERE NGL-

-like he'll be running away from kunikida and cling to you from behind to use you as a sheild

-awoop, jumpscare!!

-would probably make a comment about ur body or something, and how your just, "so charming" and he "jUsT cAnt KeEp hIs hAnDs oFf yOu!1!" (you can admit youre scared of kunikida beating the shit out of you its ok)

-tbh if you were crying or something like that, i feel like you would have to ask him to hug you, rather then him automatically doing so. (as we can see with atsushi 🥶)

-i feel like his hugs would be good enough for the circumstance, but he's kinda cold ngl (unless you like that!!)

-pretty much just uses u as a sheild tho 😭

CHUUYA

-i know that ive always gotta make him floating someone or something..... BUT HIS ABILITY IS SO COOL CMON

-if you asked him (and yall were close) he may float you

-WOULD BE HELLA EMBARRASSED ABOUT IT (DONT LET DAZAI SEE YALL, YOU'LL NEVER HEAR THE END OF IT)

-yall have really gotta have a really good amount of trust for him to hug you or just be physically affectionate in general!!!

-would grumble about it and pretend he totally didn't wanna hug you too

-would give pretty good hugs ngl

-IT WOULD BE SO FUNNY IF YOU WERE TALLER THEN HIM THO

-if yall are around the same height or ur shorter then him, they're pretty comforting

-BUT IF YOURE TALLER THEN HIM YOU HAVE MAKING FUN OF HIM RIGHTS, AND ITS KINDA HARD NOT TO MAKE FUN OF HIM WHEN HE CAN BARELY HUG YOU NORMALLY

-if you were crying or having a bad moment, he probably wouldn't hug you that fast though, but if you're ranting to him about how horrible it is, he might just hug you out of nowhere cuz he doesn't know what to say.

-if youre trustworthy to him, his hugs are very nice, he would prob be neutral temp or slightly warm ngl

-UGH CHUUYA HUG MEEEE TOOOOO ಥ‿ಥ

RANPO

-THE ALMIGHTY INSPIRORER OF THIS (is that how you spell that ;-;??)

-WOULD GIVE SUCH GOOD HUGS OMG

-all you gotta do is ask

-unless hes busy being possessive of his snacks, he might think you're tryna sneak in and take a bite when he's distracted (눈‸눈)

-but when hes not eating (which is pretty rare), just ask him and he will

-might complain about being lazy a bit, but in the end, he will always hug you if you insist!! <33

-if you were crying or sad about smth, he would either literally fucking bearhug yo ass and comfort you or he would give you space to process your emotions, there is no in between.

-HES LIKE SO WARM BUT NOT THE CLAMY AND SWEATY WARM JUST LIKE THE REALLY NICE WARM.

-he also smells like sweets which is a more comforting and homey bonus!!!

-VERY AMAZING HUGS WOULD RECOMMEND 10/10!!!

SIGMA

-THEY DID MY DUDE SO BAD IN THE ANIME IM SORRY SIGMA YOU DESERVED BETTER THAN THIS MANGA SIGMA SUPREMACY

-but anyways

-ngl he would be kind of awkward sometimes but YOU KNOW HE HAS THE BEST INTENTIONS!!!

-SIGMA IS A VERY GOOD COMFORTER TO HAVE!!

-yknow how he memorizes everyones problems at the casino??

-yeah he also memorized yours, so he knows RIGHT AWAY when something is off or you need a hug!!

-he is very quick to hug you, not only to comfort you, but he also finds it comforting ⊂((・▽・))⊃

-will also leap on you out of joy (is extremely embarrassed after)

-overall, very wholesome, has the best intentions (i swear i forget he's apart of a criminal organization sm)

POE

-OH BOY

-would be so flustered if you asked him

-seems like he would WANT to ask you, but is too embarrassed and shy to ಥ‿ಥ

-PLEASE ASK HIM HE IS INTERNALLY BEGGING, AND HE NEEDS ONE (honestly everyone in bsd needs one)

-would so awkward at first because he doesn't wanna make uncomfortable in any way so he's like barely hugging you

-if he eases into it tho, he would actually be a pretty nice hugger

-just PLEASE ASK HIM FIRST, HE WILL ALWAYS ACCEPT

-if you were upset or sad about something, i honestly feel like he would just give you space to sort yourself, i feel like he would want the same space when he's upset.

-but if you ask him HE WILL VERY GLADLY HUG YOU SINCE HE HATES SEEING YOU SAD

-very nice hugs once you get past the awkward stage!!! just takes practice tho <33

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

HOW DO I WRITE THE MOST WHOLESOME THINGS WHILE LISTENING TO THE MOST EDGY SONGS PLEASE HELp

i was also getting distracted by my music and this was supposed to be posted yesterday but whatever!! that's how it be

ANYWAYS, I HOPE YOU ENJOYED, PLEASE ONCE AGAIN SEND ME REQS!! THANKS FOR READING ( ◜‿◝ )♡

[unreliable-narrator-2845]

massive info dump abt an au im working on below ( +art)

some doodles from an au im working on w/ some friends... it's kind of a riff off of both the portal swap au and mr bill pines au... essentially, the brothers are swapped from the beginning - stanley is seen as the smart, successful one, and ford a bit of an outcast black sheep of the family, seen as bad luck because of his extra fingers. stanley is the good, normal one, the one with all the people skills, and ford is the 'brute' slacker, and seen as far more stupid than he really is. stanley is the one who invented the perpetual motion machine - and ford destroys it on purpose out of frustration and jealousy, and is the one that gets kicked out.

ford goes down the path of crime, like stan did, but he's a little more, uh... intense about it. he can't go off of people skills, he's gotta bring actual stuff to the table, so he travels to weirdness pockets (smaller than gravity falls) and basically turns the whole criminal underground on its head by his uncanny ability to harness this stuff. people do not like him, but he's VERY useful, so he gets to live in constant fear of whether people doing deals with him are going to leave him alone after or kill him after, since he can't tell which is which.

unlike stanley, who i think would absolutely hesitate to actually do severe physical violence (past beating people up) even while during his homeless years, i think ford wouldn't hesitate as much. ford has absolutely killed people. he will kill again.

how i see it going down is that bill, doing his usual dealings and such, has one of his hosts killed by ford while he's in it after ford witnesses a crime. he goes "haha! oh shit! a witness!" and then gets his neck fucking snapped the moment he advances on him. bill is Not Particularly Pleased, until he actually gets into ford's dreams, and is... impressed.

i am a simp for bill being a simp - in this au bill doesn't bother manipulating him, he wants this rugged badass to be his husband NOW. when they make a deal, ford writes a paper contract that they regularly update. bill and ford have a very mutual deal, to say the least, and they get married - and ford is the one to take his last name, since he cut contact with the family who kicked him out, so he's mr. stanford cipher (which i think is a good au name?). stanley is the one w/ the middle name filbrick in this au btw.

behind the eye scar: ford got into some shit with the cartel. this happens after his and bill's marriage, but what bill can do is limited w/o being physically present, so he has to watch in horror as they torture ford as he tries to find a way to get his husband out. this is the inciting incident that makes him particularly antsy about getting a portal up and going.

meanwhile stanley in gravity falls comes across an interesting cave...

trivia:

bill could minorly heal the eye, but only so much. the eye is now permanently bill's, or at least in his coloration. ford keeps it closed, but it opens fully when bill is fully possessing him. their contract details that bill can come and go only with ford's explicit permission. they often have a half-possession going, where bill can enhance ford and take only mild control, if any at all.

ford has 4 depictions of bill across his body, all tats. he has lots of vague triangle tattoos also, and the portal shape on his back. bill is fond of possessing the depiction on his throat, which he can move around as he pleases

bill's priorities during the initial writing of the contract were extremely funny. ford was trying to figure out the exact details of mind access, body access, etc, and bill was just gushing about "WE NEED RINGS!!!" and "i get to take you on 4 dates before i propose hehe"

stanley went to BMU and was dormmates w/ fiddleford. they are covertly (not legally) married (because 1980s) and went to gravity falls together. stanley and ford both have an interest in cryptozoology in this. ford avoids gravity falls like the plague because he knows stanley would probably be there

^^ addition to the above: stanley's full name is Stanley Filbrick Pines-McGucket, though he is only Pines-McGucket informally

stanley also still has his mullet. sue me. also he has glasses because he needs them and he's a nerdy science guy in this one

i really enjoy the pre-portal 1980s part of the timeline. can you tell. there's so much potential here. i am frothing at the mouth.

anyways............................................. more content soon. repurposed an old empty sideblog to maybe dedicate to this au/gf content. we shall see.

[queerian]

in response to the call for discussion on stone identities

prompted by last week's stream with @drdemonprince and @testdevice

this post is about sex and it's very personal! feel free to ignore if very personal essays about sex from your internet friends or strangers is not your idea of a good time

What does sex look like for you, and what brings you the most pleasure or gratification from it?

It starts with a sensory warmup. My partner touches me gently and slowly in a way that wakes my body up to pleasure. I do not get aroused without either being touched this way or thinking about some extremely specific niche freak kink shit. I tend to be nonverbal during sex, unless I need to break "scene" and communicate something specific purposefully, but sometimes it's hard for me to find my words again. Even without speaking I am very expressive. My partner can tell from my reactions when an escalation would be enjoyable. They use their hands and toys. They are very good with their hands, and we have a LOT of toys and other paraphernalia. I had never had an orgasm, at all, in my life, til we did things this way. It is an intense physical pleasure extended to far longer than I can manage by myself during solo activities, sometimes for hours. It allows me to stop my over-analytical thinking brain for a while and sink into sensation and feeling and being in my body, which most of the time I feel disconnected from (thanks alexithymia!) or troubled by. I do think of it as a somewhat meditative state. This kind of sex is also extremely collaborative and intimate. There is a huge amount of trust and being "in tune" with each other.

Is your stone identity related to sensory issues, neurodivergence, or trauma?

All three! I was never coerced into sex by individual partners, but "sex positive" culture (if you were with me you'd see the face I make while doing the scare quotes) has been coercive enough to traumatize me into believing that I am a bad person if I don't "give as good as I get" and that I'm a terrible person if I don't want to reciprocate stimulation in sex. I've been working on this one for years. It still has its claws in me.

Sensory issues make certain sex activities unpleasant or not enjoyable for me, and I appreciate now being able to choose to not do them. For example open mouth kissing. I like kissing skin in some body places, I like having some of my body parts kissed, but I do not like sharing saliva or breath. I've always been very picky about what goes in my mouth for sensory reasons, and that's not just a sex thing. On the other hand, other kinds of sensory stimulation in sex can be extremely pleasurable for me. I also tend to keep my eyes closed the entire time (I avoid eye contact at the best of times but in sex it's uhhhhhh even more Too Intense) and this lets me sink into other sensory experiences more intensely.

The neurodivergence bit I think is pretty clear from everything else I've said in this piece of writing.

How did you figure out you were stone?

I once turned to aceness as a way of trying to validate myself at the same time as problematizing my own lack of "appropriate" desire. "It is it wrong of me to not want to touch someone's genitals, whatever they may be, to not want to get them off, to not even let them get themselves off using my body, and it's wrong of me to not desire them carnally, to not be obsessed with and fulfilled by them romantically. Thus, I must be ace and aro, because that means it's okay to not want all that sometimes or all the time."

I've come to call myself a "stone bottom" in a deliberate effort of self-acceptance and self-validation. I was long aware of the idea of a stone top, a touch-me-not, someone who derives pleasure and gratification from getting her/their partners off but does not want to be fucked or gotten off. I don't recall seeing anyone else identify as a stone bottom, but as a mirror image of a stone top it makes perfect sense to me: someone who derives pleasure and gratification from being gotten off, from being touched or fucked, but does not want to get their partners off. I think I've only ever seen that called "selfish" unless it was in a power exchange scenario and part of dominance and submission.

Are you a gay man who identifies as stone, or a stone bottom, or some other identity that's less often talked about?

I'm non-binary/agender and generally perceived by society as a woman. I have a vagina. I've only ever had sex with people who have penises. I feel like it's pretty unusual for me to be a person with a vagina having sex with a person who has a penis and the penis is not involved at all in the sex. With previous partners, it's not just that it was expected that at some point they would be sticking it in me, it's that I never got to opt out of someone else using me, even gently, lovingly, and with attention to my pleasure. See aforementioned cultural trauma, lol. Reciprocation simply was not something I could abstain from without being a Grade A Asshole. Back then, I didn't even "actively want to not reciprocate". I wanted to be "good, giving, and game", like Dan Savage wrote you should be in his column that I read in my hunger to know more about sex and be having it a "correct, right" way. I wasn't yearning to be a stone bottom. I didn't know that was even an option. I didn't know it was possible to be a pillow princess and to have a partner that enjoyed this kind of sex, for it not to be a chore or imposition on them, and for this kind of sex to be a mutual sharing of intimacy.

Plenty of people buck the stereotypical straight cis sex scenario of "man (penis haver) does a little "foreplay" for the woman (vagina haver) to get her ready for the main event (penis in vagina), which they do til he ejaculates, and if she's lucky he'll eat her out or rub her clit and she might also get an orgasm." There's a thriving counter-culture where "reciprocal sexual gratification" is emphasized, all sorts of books and guides and tips and porn showing how important it is that "she comes first" or whatever, but most of it still centres around the point that "reciprocity is essential to not being an asshole". If he's an asshole for not appropriately tending to her pleasure, surely she would be, too, for ignoring his. And I really, really strongly internalized the belief that if I am not reciprocating, I am an unforgivable asshole. There's something, too, about the lack of "balance" that has long made me feel morally incorrect. (Points again at the neurodivergence.)

Is it a struggle to get partners to respect it?

I have not dated much, and I have not fucked much, mostly because I did not want to do either of those things enough to do less interesting or more tiresome things in order to achieve sex or dating. I also rarely experience what I'll call "sufficiently motivating attraction". I currently identify as nebulously "somewhere" on the asexual and aromantic spectra, and this is inseparable from the stone bottom/pillow princess situation. All of this is also wrapped up in my one ongoing relationship with my partner. I honestly don't know how differently things would be with another partner. I suspect I have facets that come out in different contexts, in response to different people and my feelings about them. What I do know with confidence is that my partner respects me, understands me quite well, and we communicate openly and frequently about things. I trust that if they have an issue with the current situation, they'll bring it up and we can talk about it and work on things. I trust that every time we have sex, they're initiating because they want to just as I can decline if and when I want to. I particularly appreciate the fact that I don't have to be an object of desire. That they can enjoy making me feel good, and it's not about "having" me. The very fact that someone just wants to make me feel good, over and over again, is pretty mind-blowing.

[cerastes]

How do you rate the gacha booty shooter?

NIKKE sure is a game! It's the funnest mixed bag I've played lately. As a side game, it's been pretty good, because it's good at what it does good, and not terrible at its weak points, leaving you with a pretty "Ok :)" feeling overall.

So what's up with Nikke? Yeah, let's have a talk about that so I can explain a bit by what I mean with "fun mixed bag".

Nikke's setting is the same old tired, you've seen it a million times: Once day, humanity was almost decimated by a mysterious enemy that came out of nowhere... We call it... The Enemy! They were simply too strong, so humanity had to deploy its strongest weapons: Anime Girls. And you are the lucky Authority Figure that commands the Anime Girls to defeat The Enemy! But... The Enemy and Anime Girls have more in common than it seems...!?

Replace "The Enemy" with "Rapture", "Anime Girl" with "Nikke", Authority Figure with... Technically "Commander" but more on this in a bit, and you've got Nikke. In other words, the game's setting and premise are just a few word swaps away from being Punishing Gray Raven, Snowbreak, and a bunch of other properties. But here's the thing: Whereas Punishing Gray Raven tells you its story with all the charm and pizzazz of a Wikipedia article, and Snowbreak... Uh, stands there staring at a wall Blair Witch style because nothing ever fucking happens in Snowbreak, Nikke actually has good moment to moment flow. Allow me to elaborate.

Read More break here because I wrote a lot more than I intended:

Nikke has probably the dumbest premise to open with: The Nikkes are basically superpowered cyborg girls (war machines with human brains) that look like supermodels on purpose because they were created, in the game's own words, "with the ideal form in mind". That's all a wordy way of saying they are super hot girls with very powerful guns and superhuman physical capabilities. The dumb part is that Nikkes are treated like absolute shit in-universe by humans. You're telling me humanity is making cyborgs -- not even full on robots or AI, these are straight up people getting turned into weapons -- that are hot as fuck and have tits bigger than my head and asses that could crush cars under their sheer heft and then decided to hate them and treat them like shit, and also these cyborgs are the ones actually keeping humanity alive? Well yeah we need a reason for the Main Character (you!) to be Special and bond with them, so your thing is that You Don't Treat Nikkes Like Shit. In fact, you care for them.

Now, this is all absolutely fucking stupid, but then, the game sort of... Realizes how stupid it is? And some may say "this was always the plan" but to me personally it feels like they kinda realized how god damn stupid this all was as a premise, and they started veering the car mid-trip because for a while this all feels REALLY sincere, not in a foreshadowing way, but then you have some developments such as "no yeah, Commanders are a dime a dozen, are brainwashed into seeing Nikkes as walking garbage and that they'll be heroes, risk their lives for pennies and are extremely expendable", and there's also what I consider a really good and consistent thing the game has done: Nikkes were always a desperate last minute rushed product as a concept, so the safety measures in place so that they don't rebel against humans were never perfect.

This is what I mean by the moment to moment being good: The plot is absolutely whatever, the setting is something you've seen a million times, but the actual scene by scene, beat by beat, is fun. On the micro level, the game knows how to be entertaining and interesting, and when they expand these micro nuggets of gold to a macro level of writing, it's when they end up with their best bits of narrative and world building. I want to use two examples about the whole safety measures thing: Crow and Rose.

Crow is a Nikke that hates humans and is part of a squad of known dangerous elements that Missilis, the most irresponsible of the Big Three companies, is responsible for. This squad is Exotic, and Exotic works with you (your squad is named Counters) on this one mid-game chapter. The thing is, they never really intended to work with you, and Crow wanted you dead because Crow wants to spark a Human Vs Nikke conflict in the Ark (humanity's last big home), because you might quell the hostility between both sides. But, Nikkes can't intentionally kill humans (accidents happen and a Nikke may be ordered to subdue a human, but they are hardwired to not be able to shoot at them or kill them). So, how does Crow go about it when she betrays you? She has her squadmate Jackal plant a steel plate on the ground, and then shoots the plate in a way that the bullet ricochets and hits you. NIMPH, what's used to, among many other things, make sure Nikkes can't turn on humans, was so, so easily circumvented, and this is consistent with what we've been told about the Ark and Nikke in universe development in general: It's sloppy, it's lazy, it's not good. Rose, the other example, is a Nikke from a flashback story around a hundred of years before the start of the game. Rose was a prototype Nikke that was geared for melee combat instead of ranged combat, as all Nikkes are, and she was one of ten such units. Basically, Rose realized that their human Commander was intentionally trying to get them killed until one remained, which would be deemed the success of the line in Darwinian fashion. Rose got so immensely, justifiably angry at this that she plotted to kill the Commander. How can she do this, though, with the NIMPH that prevents her from doing so? Well, Rose was an actual swordmaster, and what she did was wear a blindfold, convince herself that what she was slicing was not a human, but a Rapture, and then she easily killed the shit out of him, unimpeded by her system. The NIMPH, end of the day, is sloppily made, highly dependent on the mental state of the Nikke, and easily circumvented. This is a very important plot point throughout the story, and the way they show this in multiple ways is really good.

Another thing I like is how the game goes about the player's title. It's technically "Commander" but the truth is, most every single Nikke calls you a different way relative to your relationship with them or their impression of you. Rapi and Anis some of the few that call you Commander, because they are in fact your subordinates, but Rapi says "Shikikan" while Anis says "Shikikan-sama" in a sarcastic way initially and after a while in an affectionately playful way, Neon calls you "Master" (Shishou) because she likes the way you use firepower, Liter calls you "Greenhorn" because you are, well, that in her eyes, Moran calls you "Partner" (Ototou, "little brother" in Japanese) because she's the head of a crime syndicate and she considers you as a cool person under her protection, the sports inclined ones call you "Coach", the school themed ones "Teacher", Viper, the flirty one, "Honey" or "Darling" depending on the scene, and so on, the old timey Scarlet calls you "My Lord", the religious Rapunzel uses "Believer", and the coarse, rough around the edges Snow White just uses "You" (Omae). It's a great touch that I like when it's done.

So, basically, you have a charming combination of a setting that's been overdone infinite times with plot beats that vary between legitimately good (the NIMPH and its logistics) and legitimately bad (Whatever the fuck Chapter 18 was, to name one case), and moment to moment that's really charming and entertaining.

The gameplay is honestly extremely unbalanced, and the sheer disparity in strength between units of the same rarity makes you wonder if they have anyone in the team that actually cares about balance, but honestly, putting the issues of balance aside? It's fun to point at stuff and shoot a million bullets and rockets, and they even get pretty creative with the fights sometimes in terms of enemy types and how they use them against you, so gameplay balance is awful, gameplay itself is suprisingly good for how simple it is.

I know people are going to be like "Dreamer, You Didn't Even Rate The Asses" so okay here:

First of all, the ergonomically perfect ass of the VIXEN that lured me into the game in a moment of weakness, Scarlet:

And next up, the Clothed But Massive Ass of Snow White

In fact, I appreciate the variety, because if it was just bare cheeks and panty shots, it'd be kinda whatever to me, but bodysuit ass and clothed but noticeably huge ass? Fresh, to be honest.

Also notable is that progress in entirely gated by passive production of resources and daily stuff because there's no stamina system. Bold!

But yeah feel free to ask more specific questions, but this is pretty much how I've felt about it.

[thrashkink-coven]

The reason why I never got behind the idea of god spousary is because it always seems very serious and official, and honestly borderline lonely at times.

The most official fancy thing that happened between Lucifer and I was my patronage. Patronage is already extremely binding. We spent hours outlining our terms and conditions. But when it comes to our platonic/intimate/sexual relationship, we sort of both just agreed to keep doing whatever feels good for both of us. He’s the god of Venus, he’ll never be offended by free love. I was already kinky when we met 🤷‍♂️. And when it doesn’t feel good anymore, we stop. That’s about it. It doesn’t have to be any more complicated than that.

I never felt it necessarily to label our relationship, in the same way that I don’t feel the need to label my relationship with the Moon or myself. Our experiences together aren’t always romantic or fluffy, but when they are… good shit. 👍

I was blessed with an amazing human partner, my relationship with Lucifer only seems to amplify it.

I see a lot of god spouses expressing extreme grief over not being able to physically touch their deities and I’ve never really had that turmoil, likely because I do have a human partner to touch and kiss. and my partner is amazingly supportive and into the pagan thing lol. I’m incredibly lucky that I can do things like fuck in front of my altar and not feel strange about it.

and I’ve learned so much about myself, the way I love, the way I fuck, with his guidance too. Things that have made me an even better partner to the human I am with. Y’know?

When Lucifer touches me, I feel it in a way that is distinctly different to when my boyfriend touches me, and I don’t want them to feel the same. Lucifer is vivid and present, I truly feel every touch and hear every word. It’s overwhelming, and yet still not the same, and that’s a good thing. Lucifer isn’t a human and I don’t need or want him to be.

Lucifer has never felt like a partner, he can never fulfill what it is my human partner can do for me. And likewise, my human partner can never fulfill the role of my God. These two different relationships are both unique and special and fulfill different roles. They may both be romantic or sexual, but never the same. When my partner becomes my husband I won’t feel like I have two husbands. Lucifer will always be my God, and I will always love him so dearly, but he will never be my husband or boyfriend. I already have a boyfriend and he’s my everything. I’m so beyond lucky to be cherished so dearly by two amazing balls of sunshine.

I don’t think godspousing is inherently bad or wrong, its very interesting to hear about and I relate as a devotee with an intimate relationship with a deity. I also just really love hearing about other devotees and their relationships with Lucifer omg. It makes me feel so warm to know that other people are having good experiences with him.

(Its also really interesting to see him say similar things to different people as he does to me. Like, hmm, so he uses that line on all his bitches, I see. Very smooth, Lucifer 😌)

I guess godspousal just isn’t something that I think I would ever really be interested in, but I am a big fan of observing it.

[our-queer-experience]

Not the anon who sent the ask about queerplatonic breakups, but I felt it deeply, so I'm going to send a very long… Confession? Or maybe a vent?

This was years back. I'm not even sure the concept of QPRs existed at the time; if it did, I certainly didn't know about it, and neither did the other person, even though both of us would talk about how "friend" wasn't enough to describe us.

After an abusive relationship with a man whom I allowed to do whatever he wanted with me and more, I met this straight guy through a shared hobby. I will call him my, for the sake of simplicity and anonymity, "friend" Theo.

Theo and I quickly became close, realizing how much we had in common outside the hobby. We'd have deep personal conversations until the sun arose through chats and calls, and we did everything together and went together everywhere: If one was somewhere, the other was never too far behind. When we weren't together, we sent to each other things we knew the other would like to see, or related to the hobbies we shared together, and of course sometimes the gayest "bro" memes we could find as an in-joke. People sometimes assumed we were a couple (which didn't come without its good dosage of homophobia—Contrary to popular belief here on Tumblr, homophobes are just seeing two faggots when two men are too close. They don't make you questions.) and, no matter how much we denied that anything physical/sexual/romantic was going on, it seemed very few people were convinced we didn't actually have the hots for each other at the very least.

(Note: He knew I was aromantic and asexual: I learned about what those words were shortly after meeting him, identifying as bisexual before it, and having thrown myself into relationships I shouldn't have to fix myself in a "fake it until you make it" kind of way. He was an openly loud 'ally' very comfortable and safe with his sexuality, which is why he was fine doing all kinds of stuff.)

It was amazing to love someone and be loved in return so much, but it was actually very scary at first. No, not just scary, it was fucking terrifying. I had (have) never been this loved and in this way, never had been able to be this open and vulnerable with another person, talking about things I'd never told a soul—which also meant I reacted embarrassingly about it at first. I actually panicked about developing a crush on a straight friend like all my gay friends had suffered so much about. Fortunately, I quickly realized before doing something stupid that I was just extremely emotionally deprived, and Theo happened to be the first person who gave an actual shit about me in ages. Even though things didn't end well, I feel that my "friendship" with Theo healed a wound I had carried for years I didn't even know I had.

Years went by, and we pulled a lot of antics that would be interpreted as romantic but weren't for us, we just liked doing things as dramatically and extra as possible. It was an in-joke, and we made it clear since the start, but we also genuinely loved each other, so why not use Valentine's Day to gift your not-boyfriend the one game he wanted so much, but maybe present it first with a bouquet of flowers and a card with the corniest, worst pet name you could think of? We always got some good laughs about that kind of thing.

Theo was always very adamant about how moving together meant we'd have to be three: him, his girlfriend, and me, and that if the girlfriend didn't accept the arrangement then we'd be two because he'd break things up. Our "friendship" was that important. And, in the case of him never finding someone, we could get married if we hit 40 and were single (like Ted and Robin's pact), for the benefits and without our relationship changing.

Unfortunately, a few years in, shit hit the fan: I went through a chaotic time, and several personal tragedies that are not relevant to this ask. At that moment, I needed my best "friend" that was always there for me to carry myself through the worst time of my life… but I ended up being on my own.

To be fair, he had been acting strange and distant for a while. I tried to bring it up and meld things, whatever was it that I had done wrong, but it was always somehow me "overthinking things", and he was just "too busy" now that he had had to move and adapt elsewhere for work related reasons. He would cancel plans on me more often than not (including the ones he started), leave me on read, didn't message me unless I did first, never asked how was I doing, seemed uninterested when I talked about myself, and never seemed to have time for me. The only times he seemed to remember me was so he could vent about something in a completely one-sided conversation. It made me feel used: suddenly he treated me like all of those girls that learned I wasn't straight. I was the emotional support gay, the therapist, a pet.

He denied it, but I went from a priority to a secondary character in his life, proven by the times he'd cancel on me because he "was busy" just so I saw pictures of that same day in social media later, either partying at a famous place or meeting with friends I didn't know. And I know some people are going to think now "He totally fell for you and panicked!", but I highly doubt it. I mean, I knew him for years. He actually had two girlfriends through the time I knew him: I even encouraged him to try his luck with one of his crushes, and it went well. It didn't last much though, that's true.

I choked on all the bitterness and resentment I gulped down as I kept trying to accommodate to plans that more often than not didn't come to fruition, as I tried to talk about this and this other thing for Theo to not pay attention and prove so minutes after. I started to pull away. I'm not sure if he even noticed until a lot of time later.

At one point, as I was struggling with my never-ending misery and bad luck, Theo, who actually knew what had happened recently, started spamming me with calls so I picked it up: he wanted to vent again about some nonsense. I couldn't take it anymore. I cut him off, told him everything I had been keeping to myself about his "busy status", told him to go fuck himself and find someone else to be his therapist.

Among all the excuses he put, not even once did he apologize. And so, I did the only thing I could have done: I told him I didn't want anything to do with him anymore.

Blocking him gutted me.

Through the years, mutual friends would tell me sometimes that "Theo sent his regards and wished you a Happy New Year" and the like, but I never responded to the sentiment or tried to unblock him. I couldn't forget it. I couldn't forgive it. I still can't: even if he appeared at my door today and apologized, asked to be "friends" again, I just can't do it. I can't place my trust again on him like I used to.

And then, a few weeks ago, I opened Facebook. I actually don't even use it anymore, but I couldn't help myself: yes, I checked on Theo… who has a girlfriend now.

Theo, with a girlfriend. Heterosexual. The expected outcome. Me, single, alone. Aromantic asexual. The expected outcome.

I still don't know why it hit me so hard. It's difficult sometimes, with the way I was raised, though I have gotten better at it.

Maybe it's because I realized why is it that he stopped trying to "communicate". Maybe it's because being replaced by a woman, for him to get a "normal" relationship and forget I existed, was always my greatest fear deep down. Maybe it's because I realized this relationship is not only gone for good, but the dream had always an expiration date. Maybe it's because there's no space in that picture for me, even if I wanted to. Maybe it's because he looked perfectly happy without me, a defective something who can't even be called a man, unable to feel any kind of romantic and sexual feelings and unable to do anything beyond a peck without recoiling in disgust. Maybe it's because I've watched all my friends following the expected script for the past years: finding someone, getting married, some having kids,… One that I can't do.

I don't know anyone IRL who is asexual or aromantic. My queer friends won't understand, because he wasn't my boyfriend, or will misinterpret it, talking about how I was and am still so obviously in love, whatever that is supposed to be; My straight friends, I'm not even out to them, so why bother.

Besides, I have no right to complain, right? Because I was the one who broke things off so, according to the rules, I would be "the dumper", right?

I couldn't and still can't talk about what I lost, about how it feels to long in not-love for the memory of a person that doesn't exist anymore.

- 🐆 (Is the leopard emoji already taken? I've seen people doing that but this is the first time I send an ask)

🫂

[princeblue]

What’s your quarrel with Sanemi ships? Just a curious question :0??

Oh it’s because people use sanemi ships to devalue the bond between him and genya.

At first glance yes you could assume that sanemi hates genya, but if people would bother to read a little between the lines they would see that Sanemi’s entire world revolves around genya and as does Genya’s revolves around sanemi.

It feels like specifically people use sanemi ships to shit on genya because they think he hates him, they like to imagine that sanemi would pick a girl he was implied to have a crush on by a ladies man (masachika, kanae) or the man he continuously hated throughout the entire series and only found tolerable at the very end during the heat of a battle (giyuu) then I truly urge you to reread the series and actually pay attention to the way sanemi reacts to things vs how he reacts to genya.

Yes the eye poking incident happened and while I hate that sanemi attempted it, you have to realize this man reacts by attacking first and asking questions later, as clearly seen with Tanjirou AND in rengoku’s gaiden. He has no problem being rude and physically violent to teenagers and I’m assuming people of his own age and older.

And yet when he meets genya for the second time he’s verbal in his anger, yes he calls genya worthless, a scumbag and no brother of mine. But its a dramatic difference between flippantly telling him to leave because he has no talent instead of jumping the gun to physically harm him.

Which he only does when genya tells sanemi he has been eating demons, Sanemi’s worst fucking nightmare and the confirmation that’s he’s failing to keep genya safe, his only purpose of life and something that he says himself in the kny novels.

So he snaps, and while it’s not okay it’s still the quite the large difference between how he reacts when he just sees a stranger (rengoku in his gaiden) or giyuu or literally anyone else.

There’s also the fact that my good friend maple pointed out that in the Japanese text when genya is dying he’s essentially baby talking, “because my niichan is the nicest person in the world” — “don’t worry niichan will do something” which is going to be extremely strange for a 16 year old buff boy to be baby talking to his big brother and YET his big brother meets him halfway with “niichan will do something”

Oh and we can’t forget sanemi canonically coming to visit his brother in his sleep after ssv to make sure that genya is okay.

Basically, in a long winded way to say, Genya is the only person that sanemi ever shows any sign of actually caring about, beneath his cruel exterior he still cares enough about his baby brother to come visit him to make sure he’s safe and also to meet his baby talk halfway as genya is in an extremely vulnerable state and what I can assume very fearful too.

So when I see people making fanon sanemi enjoy when genya is physically harmed when sanemi dropped his “I have no brother” act the second genya was sliced and diced by kokushibou and also suffered at the abuse of their father, when I see people make sanemi a huge simp for kanae and giyuu to the point he ignores Genya, or calls genya a faggot and tells him to go kill himself in stupid fucking twitter aus, I get angry and I get hateful of sanemi ships.

No sanemi wouldn’t let his partner call him “nemi” or “niichan” which only genya calls him, no sanemi wouldn’t let someone harm Genya, no sanemi wouldn’t pick anyone whether he they were romantic or platonic to him over Genya his only purpose of living.

And I’m not saying you can’t enjoy sanegiyuu or sanekana or whatever sanemi ship you enjoy, im just saying there’s a way to enjoy it and I will be judging you if you’re ignoring Genya’s importance to sanemi and his character as a whole.

[yohohonabottle]

A "what-if" idea

So, in my convo with @meepinmeat-- I proposed the scenario where some timeline mix-up happens, and Celestino and Aelius meet regular Pirin + his Valen & Sinbad...But mistake them for the ones from their own universe for a short second/or are just messing with Pirin for some reason, and trying to rizz them up.

Except Pirin doesn't approve of having his partners casually stolen from him, and goes ferally territorial. (Night Nymphs are extremely territorial over their partner to begin with.. and males specifically are five times more so.) Just ''monkey-brain'' pure instinctual ire moment where he snaps at the two. Thankfully Cel and Ael would catch on that these Valen and Sinbad aren't their bfs, from the duo's reactions to their (unwanted) advances...

But what if for some reason, somehow, they don't catch on so quickly? What if it came to blows? ...Well it would be very ugly, very fast. It's basically what if Wriothesley fought Neuvillette, and we all know the Hydro reincarnated god-like dragon would win, Wrio's ice powers be damned. Man would get obliterated.

And that's what would happen to Pirin-- Yes, he'll give the scrap his 10000% all, no holding back at all. Curses, fire magic, clawing and slashing, biting and a barrage of attacks on the ground + aerial attacks/maneuvers with lightning-swift, agile movements without set patterns to them...Maybe ditch his mortal physical body and ''level out the playing-field'' by fighting in his true form. But let's be real, what's he --some fancy, fiery wyvern bat spirit, going to do to a Hypogean and a Celestial? Land a lot of good blows, cause damage for sure... But also get absolutely pummeled by just one of them alone. His regeneration won't be able to heal fast enough.

(Not to mention his curses - See his retribution methods post- mean nothing to those two/will get tanked like it's nothing.)

Aelius and his fire ability (on top of all the other abilities this Hypogean/incubus) has will cause ridiculous damage. And the incubus powers will likely drive the bat into madness. Then there's Celestino backing up with his own set of skills --divinity aside but hugely into account-- landing even more brutal damage.

Admittedly, due to not being a mortal, Pirin would tank a considerable amount of that damage.... But he's still cooked. And if we really want shit to hit the fan and get the Meta-premise involved? Well, Pirin is the Moon of his Esperia and is an 'actor' with tiny overlap with Player status abilities, so he can also borrow Rila (the Sun)'s powers --use all of this stacked together on top of his abilities without calling upon this ''Avatar state''..... But so can Celestino and Aelius.

They too, are Moons to their Sun, have the same 'cheat state'. Unless the Sun decides not to give power boost which I don't see happening.

Once again, Pirin is likely to be heavily outclassed by them separately but even more so when in a death-brawl against both at once. And then we add in the fact Pirin literally has endless reincarnation... Well then it's just the equivalent of reloading a saved file in Skyrim where you're fighting a Sabertooth cat. (Source, me. I was into a fight with that damn tiger, blocking its attacks and accidentally hit save. And so I kept getting thrown into that loop.)

Worst part is... Pirin knows this, to it's fullest extent. Knows what he's up against and how stupidly, laughably puny he is compared to Cel and Aelius. He knows that he'll guaranteed die in beyond hellish agony over and over, getting razed to the ground pretty much effortlessly with his own attacks/retaliation strikes realistically meaning ZERO. ....But he'll still do it anyways. Just to at least put up a damn real good fight to protect his partners.

The only way out is for either one or both parties to disengage.

[rosegoldenatlas]

What its like being a tntduo fan

Imagine reading a tntduo fic right? Very simple. Then the author mentions wine. Suddenly, Everyone is going batshit crazy because OMG WINE STREAM.

Or imagine how good the enemies to lovers slowburns are. With both of them hating each other with a burning passion and there's a lot of manipulation going on until one o them starts to feel guilty for using underhanded tactics to get at each other.

(Skip next paragraph if uncomfortable w/ smut n shit)

Oh and if its a spicy fic even better because then we get the slow transition from rough hatesex to wow I feel kinda bad kicking you out after all that maybe aftercare should be a thing until suddenly its soft and its not described with physical feelings by instead they're slowing don't and everything is soft because it isn't about physical she anymore but instead about being close and then there's soft fucking cuddles or something similar. I'm rambling now wow.

But this in just a tntduo thing by I feel like the ideal tntduo dynamic for slowburn is always along the lines of- enemies, enemies with benifits, this weird I don't hate you exactly but we're not friends bit, friends but the trust isn't fully there, trust building moment, friends?, fuck a small misunderstanding turned fight, friends but actually this time(also with benefits), wait actually you're on of some he first people who accepts every fucked up piece of me and not just the fake me, wait actually what if I dropped sixty billion hints that I like you but you don't get it, oh fuck it we ball, lovers!

It looks complicated when I write it down but I swear I've seen a lot of tntduo fics written this way and I love it.

Also remember the clip where cc!Wilbur said that c! Wilbur and c!Quackith didn't have any romantic involvments? Well actually mr.'they ad a psychocompetitive relationship' Quackity said that he wanted them to kiss and married you on Qsmp so fuck you also if a rivalry lasts over seven years you are no longer rivals your gay is an extremely true statement an also you bet I saw how Tommy deflate when you denied that c!Wilbur and c!Quackity were gay for each other. So actually its Quackity an Tommy against you so Tntduo is real fuck you.

And that one clip where Phil called Wilbur a homosexual on Qsmp and when Wilbur asks for an example and Phil said 'you've been flirting with Quackity since you got here' and you Didn't Even Deny It.

Thankyou for listening to my ted talk.

[crowroboros]

Lucky Seven is a very cool sword, both in lore, theming, and design

~~Massive Xenoblade 1 and 3 spoilers under the cut~~

Fiora's soul and will being stored within the Origin Metal used to craft Lucky Seven is so cool to me for so many reasons:

With Aionios being a creation of Origin under the influence of Moebius, it's entire existence is thus directly under the influence of whoever is in control of Origin itself. The Origin supercomputer is based upon Ontos's core and architecture (which we know from Future Redeemed), making Ontos the prime administrator of Origin. Thus Ontos, and anyone tied to that core, carries special privileges within Aionios and Origin. (ex. Shulk carried the Monado in XB1, and the Monado IS Ontos. Rex's life was tied to the Pneuma core, one part of the Trinity Processor which was also under the jurisdiction of Ontos, A just straight up IS Ontos, etc.)

So Fiora, who ALSO was a Monado wielder (via her being Meyneth's vessel and Meyneth too having a Monado of her own as one of the two gods of the Xenoblade 1 world), too has an innate connection to Ontos and the Trinity Processor. Which is why Lucky Seven is so strong within Aionios. She (as the sword) is able to completely override Moebius's control; allowing her (the sword) to shatter the Flame Clocks, obliterate Moebius, and cut through literally anything within Aionios. Lucky Seven, which is Fiora, is essentially part of Ontos and thus can rewrite the "code" of Aionios (yes, Aionios isn't a digital world but that's the easiest way to explain how Origin and Aionios works.) That is such a cool way to explain the extreme strength of the blade.

Furthermore, it means that Fiora is still carrying on Meyneth's wish to give the people of the world a choice of how to live their lives. In Xenoblade 1, Meyneth's whole thing was acting as opposition to Zanza. She wished for an ever changing world in which its inhabitants could live and choose for themselves, whereas Zanza wished for a stagnant world bound by fate. He wanted complete and utter control over those who lived "beneath him", as he saw it. Fiora came to embody these desires and values of Meyneth after Meyneth's death at Mechonis Core, and idk it's just really cool to me that her influence on both the Xenoblade 1 party (especially Fiora) and the Xenoblade universe as a whole is still as strong as ever within Aionios.

Moebius is the embodiment of the fear of change in an unstable world. And after seizing control of Origin, Z created a world in which nothing changes and it's inhabitants serve as fuel to keep Moebius alive. Nothing within Aionios progresses. It persists for eternity, those living within stuck in an endless cycle of bloodshed and hatred.

So to have the one thing capable of combatting Moebius being a weapon that is the physical manifestation of the willpower and motivation of Fiora is just really cool to me, especially given how important Fiora and Meyneth are to Xenoblade 1 and how their entire thing in that game was giving the people of the world the ability to choose for themselves and defy fate. Fiora, as Lucky Seven, is giving the people of Aionios a real second chance at life unshackled by Moebius and their control. Just as Meyneth gave Fiora a second chance at life after Fiora was killed at the beginning of Xenoblade 1.

The way the lore, function, and theming of Lucky Seven is all tied together is good shit.

It also being why the sword is called "Lucky Seven" is very funny. (Fiora is Xenoblade 1's seventh party member, and she IS the sword.)

It could also be why the sword looks so much like a Monado. The soul within is that of someone with a connection to the Monado/Ontos.

[mr-aftons-rotting-pussy]

FIFI I WAS LITERALLY DOING POWER SCALING ALL THE CANON AFTONS YESTERDAY WITH SOME FRIENDS

Let's say canon is: Silver eyes (Dave Miller), Gameverse (OG William Afton) and FNAF Movie (Steve Raglan)

Steve Raglan literally sweeps.

Because rewatching the Springbonnie scene, the suit sound s HEAVY. You can hear it in his fucking thumps of him walking that thing is very Weighted

HE COULD FULL TILT RUN AT A GROWN MAN AND THROW HIM ACROSS THE FUCKING ROOM. And the way he walks around in the suit like it was nothing just meandering around and circling, taunting Mike like okay?

And not to mentioned he KICKED HIM and it KNOCKED MIKE OUT FOR LIKE A GOOD FEW MINUTES. And the fact he could just take off and toss the mask to the ground one handed, that thing sounds like it has a weight too!

And when he got Springlocked in the movie he DIDN'T just die. Like he didn't just keel over and die he was TANKING that shit. Yeah it hurt A LOT getting stabbed I imagine but he was still a little bit alive at the end scene, managing to bounce his leg from the pain.

And we haven't even see how Remnant-Pilled Raglan could look

Dave gets springlocked three times, and his third time he dies. He gets points for that but he's literally skin and bones. I think a vegetable could kill him

Games Afton gets springlocked once and he dies. Though he is definitely more healthier than Dave was and he also pranced around the Springbonnie suit fit a good bit. Enough for him to at least feel powerful in the suit. But he did only got locked once and dies. And then gets revived as Springtrap.

That's the gist of my argument that Steve Raglan is not only the strongest Afton, but he could demolish the other canon Aftons in a fight. The other two could team up against him and they'd still lose.

*coughs** OKAY. i see what you are saying, and i get it a little bit buttttt ☝️ i actually think steve and games!will are probably pretty evenly matched.

ill start w dave tho, dave miller i think is probably the least capable out of all of them. he does get the point for durability like you said, but that was also years before his Dave Era. he does also get a little point because he can still operate spring bonnie, tho all of them can do that so its like bare minimum lol. i do think dave would most likely have his ass handed to him, theres just no way id believe he could beat himself in his 'prime' so to speak,,

that just leaves games!Afton and mr Raglan.......... i think mentioning how heavy the suit seemed in the movie as a plus for steve doesnt really work because theres no real way to tell if the movie suit is actually more physically taxing to perform in than the games suits. but also historically the fnaf endos have always been really bulky and heavy looking for ex. fnaf 2 endo

and even in springtraps model though heavily damaged the endo underneath still has this type of... whatever yknow?? and lastly theres no meaningful difference between movie spring bonnie and games spring bonnie, theyre both made and used the exact same way so i think that its safer to say that theyre extremely similar if not the exact same.

and about the springlock thing ermm..... chgjhfgj i mean theres obv theres going to be a difference between how the springlocking is portrayed in a 8-bit minigame vs a whole ass film. and i just dont believe there is a like........ like its a bit of a stretch to me if im being honest, to say steve is technically stronger because he Technically Survived longer than games will...... i guess?????? i mean......... im just not convinced. like they both went down pretty fast, and id even argue that games Will had it worse because like when we see him being springlocked and how that was shown then we see springtraps model like his entire head and everything was stabbed/crushed so it actually makes MORE sense for games will to MAYBE go down slightly faster. compared to steves slow and steady wins the race version lmao..... but also in general the springlocking in both are literally like 1 for 1 of each other, like even to the posing its like one of The Things from the movie thats actually pretty accurate to how it was shown exactly in the games. like its silly but if anything steve is probably more of a little bitch than games will cause he was knocked down completely before his face n everything even had the chance to be mashed potatoes. soooo...... 🤷‍♂️ lmao

and thats why i think Steve and Og William are pretty even matched. Dave Miller is probably going down first, but games n movie r cutting it pretty close.. 😳 dare i say games William probably has a better chance at beating Steve even considering The Lore.

and that last bit...... fhghfhgh im SORRY but i have to disagree 100% 🙈 games will could hold steve to a line in which Dave would have an opening to shank his ass and hed be done for, and then games Will could dispatch Dave from there. in my humble onion 🧅

[wyrm-in-a-closet]

Science fact of the day- Earth!

We're probably all fairly familiar with Earth. I hope. While Earth seems like a fairly typical planet, for our solar system it's actually fairly unique. It's the most massive rocky planet, and also the densest, it's the only one with a reasonable thickness atmosphere, and it's the only one with a strong magnetic field. The last two are actually connected, because the magnetic field deflects high energy particles that would otherwise contribute to atmospheric evaporation. Since yall are probably pretty familiar with the Earth in its current state, I'll go through a bit of history.

The Earth was formed about 4.5 billion years ago, although it forming was actually a long process of it gradually gaining mass. Pretty soon, it had been impacted by Theia, leading to the formation of the moon, as I've discussed before. When the Moon first formed, it would've been many times larger than it is now, but you mightve been lucky to see it. Earth's atmosphere was originally more rich in CO2 and methane, which are both incredibly strong greenhouse gases- and so although the sun was only at 70% of its current brightness, it still would've been hotter than it is today. During this time, it's believed that it was hit by a good deal of meteors, infered through moon Craters of a similar age. This asteroids are probably what brought water to Earth, and with it, life soon appeared. After some 1.5-2 billions years of life growing and evolving, it figured out photosynthesis using the CO2 in the atmosphere. Great! But, uh, now the atmosphere is filled with a super toxic fuck you kill everything gas called oxygen, and so almost everything died. But at least the sky is blue now!. Anyways now it's cold. Really cold. The Earth is a snowball. Actually it was a snowball like 4 different times. But hey that oxygen can also turn into O3 (ozone) which is great for the sun not killing us. So now shit is on land now and then stuff gets big then it dies like 5 times, last time it was because of a meteorite. Now mammals go everywhere and before long they got smart enough to make weird devices where nerds can send cool science facts to fans of the same comic. Isn't that cool!. But the earth isn't done it's gonna keep on trucking with or without us. Pretty soon it's gonna slam some tectonic plates together again and we'll have a new awesome supercontinent! …which will be mostly massive desert far from the ocean that'll get so hot most mammals are going to die, probably. The sun is also still getting hotter. Eventually it'll get so hot that certain process just won't work, then it'll get so hot the oceans will boil. Then it'll get extremely hot because the sun will get big, but it'll also lose mass, so Earth will go further away so we might be fine. Nobody knows for sure though. Then we don't really know what will happen if do survive, but probably some star or something will eventually fly too close and screw up the orbits. But it's fairly unlikely the earth would actually get destroyed, the planet might be able to physically exist for a very very very large number of years.

I hope it doesn't get to lonely here when that day comes.

[dumdeeedum]

How is an eighteen year old hooking up with a nineteen year old that he was previously worried was younger in any way rape? they are both older teenagers please be serious. baby faced nineteen year olds exist in the world it's not rape when they date their literal peers. i do kind of take your point about aging up claudia- it doesn't always work for me either but they really couldn't have cast a kid and done two seasons even if the ethics of that situation wasn't extremely dodgy. at a certain point you have to treat it like a mid special effect or stop watching.

I'm gonna go ahead and keep watching and commenting on what I'd like, thanks. I find it very strange that that's everyone's go-to when it comes to everything now. Are adaptations just whatever people want them to be now and if you expected to AT LEAST recognize the characters that's your bad and you're an idiot? I'm honestly still here because I love the book series, have been waiting for an adaptation for DECADES (was SO EXCITED for the Fuller adaptation that fell through) and now I'm waiting for the "Interview" part, the most boring but necessary foundational part for me, to end and to get to the good stuff. The problem is that the changes have been so great that I'm concerned and I'm allowed to feel that.

I feel like y'all want to be intentionally stubborn and weird about this which is part of the point and reason why aging up Claudia was a bad idea. She's MENTALLY 18 but she's physically meant to be a child. If we're having to have it so we're all just splitting hairs about how old she actually is/looks/is meant to look like in the show or having to suspend utter disbelief for it to work then it doesn't work. It also takes away from the visceral reaction we get from Claudia in the book, the utter sense of wrongness and pity we have for her and her situation. And how utterly wrong and fucked up it was of Lestat and Louis to make her.

Even Armand says as much and thinks of himself as having been too young at 17 in retrospect in the books. He's also angry at Marius in the books for turning Sybelle and Benji, the latter of whom is only 12. It's a big thing in the book series.

Claudia being unambiguously young allows the story to convey its idea in no uncertain terms: she'll be a child forever. She can't simply explain away her situation to her contemporaries whom are human because she can't tell them she's a vampire. She can't have sex with someone because she's a child and only a pervert would want to fuck her. She has all these adult feelings and sensibilities and she's not taken seriously and can't act on many of them because of that. Even her fathers, who know her the best and know she's mentally old as fuck still see her as a child. In her diary in "Queen of the Damned" she describes how cruel it is that Lestat gives her a DOLL every year on her birthday just to fuck with her because Lestat is a bitch.

When you not only age the character up to 14 but then cast someone who is an adult and then IN THE SHOW tell us that it's easy enough for her to just go "no, I'm an adult I just look young" then you take away pretty much all the angst of the character and she loses what makes her such a horrific element.

In fact, in season 2 she's so out of character for me because book Claudia, as an adult, is very smart and dignified and SEEMS old, which this actress does well but doesn't fit with an adult body. Book Claudia would not allow herself to be treated the way this Claudia allows herself to be treated and it's part of why book Claudia finds Madeline and starts to pull away even from Louis whom she knows is about to leave her for Armand. She also knows that the theater troupe suspect she killed Lestat and dislike her and want her dead. She's not even trying to make nice with them.

In this she's allowing them to dress her up like a child and make her a servant and humiliate her. I know they needed to expand on shit to make a season of television instead of a shorter book but I think it only ends up showing us that the show is floundering on how to convey its idea that Claudia is a child without actually having a child. They could have put more time into her relationship with Madeline which they only sort of did. Have Madeline treat her different and show her spending time with Madeline instead of prostrating herself for these people who disrespect her.

It's especially poorly done when a 14-year-old isn't even a child the way they want to depict her in the stupid waste of my life play they have her in by the standards of THAT TIME. The conceit of that idea would have worked better if the actress had been much younger and may even have served as a surrogate for Lestat and the doll. Unfortunately here it just doesn't work because she's already too old for the Shirley Temple shtick.

They could have gotten a teenager who perhaps looks like they're pre-teen Disney channel aged or whatever. I know that Kirsten Dunst was 12 when she filmed the movie and that's young enough to get a couple of seasons in before they get too old looking. Again, Disney channel aged (I'm too old to know where the kids are these days). Especially when Claudia reasonably should only be there until the end of this season even if they don't mean to continue past "Interview with the Vampire." Ideally they'd have made "Interview" into a miniseries and moved on because the entire thing is too long-winded and different.

Children do horror all the time. You don't have to have anything explicitly sexual for the character to work and that's another reason why the age up bothers me. Kirsten Dunst didn't HAVE to kiss Brad Pitt either, they added that to the movie so making that some sort of bar a young actress would have to meet is nonsense.

It feels like they ONLY aged her up TO put the actress in sexual situations and make it acceptable. But then they ALSO decided to age up Armand, presumably because it would be weird to put him in a sexual relationship with Louis if he's meant to be 17. So which is it? Can we have mentally young characters in sexual situations with adults or not? After all, mentally Armand is over 500 years old and Louis is much younger.

How much more impactful would it have been for us to see Claudia spending time with a boy she likes, a boy her "mental" age, to have him shoot her down and treat her like a child and even perhaps laugh at her? And for that to happen to her over and over again if need be. Instead she can just explain it away and it's fine if the guy she likes sees a teenager and still wants to fuck her, it's all fine?

It was a bizarre decision and as good as the actresses are and I wish them incredible success in their careers, it doesn't work for this show. A LOT doesn't work for this with the age changes as far as I'm concerned.

[ethankyou]

Last year I had a chance to play Mörk Borg, which is the bleakest fantasy RPG I've ever played and I haven't stopped thinking about it since.

So how'd it go?

Mörk Borg was probably one of the easiest games to learn. I made the joke at the table, if you've ever played D&D you are overqualified to play MB. It uses the D&D OGL, loosely, and is technically compatible with it, but this is not that kind of game. That's just all so you can roll your little d20.

The rules are free in the "bare bones" edition but trust me, you'll want to own the full art edition, get a physical copy and put it on your shelf. It is a gorgeous book and has a style that a lot of games lack. If I could distill about 10% of the style into my own games I would be extremely satisfied with my work.

Seriously like. Go to their website. Experience this. Do it now (or don't, I'm not your mom. But you should though).

This game feels in line with the perceived brutality of first edition d&d and its ilk. You may name your character if you like but don't get attached. You can have as little as 1 hit point and nothing pulls its punches here. Deaths are common, and expected and add to the feel of the world. You're not trying to save the world, not really. You're on the precipice of doom and you're just scavengers picking over the bones of the preeminent corpse of the world.

But you can also generate a new character very quickly with SCVMBIRTHER. Don't like your new one? Kill them and make a new one. As many as you like. It's a riot just generating these wretches and seeing what could be in store for you.

But while it is fun and also sometimes necessary to generate characters quickly like this, doing so misses out on one of my favorite parts of any RPG. The Character Sheet!

To me a good character sheet is like a window into the soul of the game.

The game has this whole, doodled in the margins of your math homework, zine you found in a dirty puddle, graphited in a bathroom stall at a crust punk show ass aesthetic and the whole book is just like this. And I am eating this shit up! Here's the alternate character sheet provided:

This soul appears to be a little scrunkled, can I get a new one?

Now I haven't talked about how the game plays yet or anything but just drink this in for a minute. If looking at this character sheet does not make you want to try this game then I don't know what else would!

I mean I guess knowing how the game plays would but like... Okay.

The game itself uses d20 rules, but much lighter. You have small stats, and add them to a d20 roll. No skills no proficiency bonus. You'll eat your 1's and you'll like it. The target numbers are usually pretty low, floating around 10-ish, unless you're dealing with something nasty.

You may have powers, but they seem to be pretty limited in their availability and uses. The game itself plays like D&D-lite, in that you are probably doing a dungeon crawl, or other dirty work you do as an adventurer. But you are not an adventurer, you are lowly scum just trying to make a quick buck. There's no heroics going on here. If your d&d group already plays like a bunch of murder hobos then you're basically already playing mork borg in spirit but just cosplaying as a bunch of heroes. This is the game you should be playing if you want to be a cutthroat little bastard.

The game uses Omens, a limited resource that you can use to improve what you're doing; deal max damage, lower damage taken, reroll a die (or someone else's) that kind of thing. You only get them back after a rest though so if you blow through them quickly you're at the mercy of fate (and fate is not merciful here).

Our group played Rotblack Sludge which is the introductory game from the main book. We did it in a single session pretty easily, even between doing food and a fair bit of goofing off. I imagine your group could do it in 1 as well, but 2 sessions tops for sure. There are a bunch of free adventures available on their website too if you wanted to get a little deeper! That link is to their "content" part of their site which is just an endless slew of free stuff. They really just want you to play their game. And quality enough that they know enough folks will buy it.

My main criticism of the game is that I'm not sure how this plays out in the long term. I think that narratively and thematically, the game is crushing it. But mechanically, the game is light. This is by design but I can see this turning away people looking for a long term replacement for d&d. I mean some committed groups will enjoy this forever regardless, but I feel like this has the legs for a few decent adventures before you'd wrap up and move on.

But a big part of long term games is character advancement. My understanding was that the levelling system in the game is pretty light to non-existent. It didn't come up in a one shot for obvious reasons. I'll admit I only own the free rules at this time, I'm still waiting for my copy of the actual book itself. So I had to go to my friend who ran the game to understand how the leveling system works. There's no experience points, so the group levels together. You check to see if you gain some hit points, you check to see if your stats increase, and you get a random piece of gear.

And when I say check I mean you roll some dice and compare to current. For hit points you roll 6d10. If the result is higher than your current max HP then you gain 1d6 max HP. Roll under and you lose 1 max HP. This choice frustrates me. I actually like that there's a chance to lose HP, but is this really the best way we could do this?

Okay that's not fair that's a knee jerk response. Let's talk about why it might work this way. This is a bleak world so it doesn't make sense for your characters to be able to heroically weather any storm. They're just people who got lucky and survived. So we want the ceiling for how many hit points a character can have to be on the low side. The system does do that, but it takes a weird path to get there, which feels out of place considering this is otherwise a very light game. I'm gonna talk about dice math for a bit so feel free to skip ahead to the next orange part if you feel sleepy.

The average of 6d10 is 33 (5.5x6), which means that characters who managed to level up multiple times are at much higher risk of losing a hit point. Average result of +1d6HP means about 3 hit points a level on average (accounting for the fact that you still could lose some along the way instead of gaining them). Assuming you start with 5 hit points (you might have 1-10 depending on your class), you're looking at 9 level ups before the odds are against you to gain HP. You might think damn. That's a long time. And assuming a character even lives to see level 10. And I agree.

So why does it need to be so convoluted along the way?

To replicate this system without the cumbersome dice roll comparisons you could have players roll 1d8-2: there's always a chance you'll get -1 HP, even 0 HP. After a character has 20+ HP it could change to 1d8-3, then 1d8-4 at 30 and so on. If you don't like the idea of players losing multiple HP then just have it be that any resulting negative is only -1 hp. But this way you're making 1 roll and decreasing the gain over time, while still gaining. You could also just roll a flat die every level, but I think in Mork Borg it is very thematic to have something like leveling up, which is normally comforting, be cause for fear.

Anyway this is easy enough to home brew out and it seems like a lot of folks do that. But I'm judging the game based on how it is not how I could change it.

The hit point math is done... FOR NOW.

The way stats level up is simpler. Roll a d6 for each stat. If the die is equal to or higher, gain +1 in that stat (max 6). If it's less, subtract 1 (max -3), a 1 is always a -1. I like the idea that your stats could fluctuate and that high stats are not safe bets. A few levels and weird rolls later and your worst stat could end up being your best. I think this part could be controversial but I like it and I like how they do it!

But there's not really much more to advancement than that. This is fine if you're just playing a short game. But you hear stories about people running campaigns for years on end and I guess... I just don't see that happening with Mork Borg. I might say it's not that kind of game but it actually kinda is though? They have rules for long term games.

The Calender of Nerthrubel fortells the end of the world. When 7 miseries have been accumulated, the world ends. At the start of the game you choose a die to roll for Miseries; as little as 1d2, as high as 1d100. The game master rolls the die and on a 1, the world gains a misery. So the size of the die does determine the upper limit of the game, but it is possible for the game to be over in as little as 7 in-game days regardless of the die type chosen. This is a very interesting mechanic! In fact I think it's one of the most interesting parts of the game! Most games struggle with a sense of urgency. Short of "you have 48 hours to save this prince" or "if you don't return with 25 wolf noses tomorrow you don't get paid", it can be hard to wrastle the players together to try and save the world in a timely manner. Meanwhile in Mork Borg your days are literally numbered. I can't imagine the tension that would come from being on your 6th misery knowing that every single day could be the last. That is truly bleak.

The role-playing opportunities in this setting for someone trying to grasp at the last ray of hope in the darkness, to fight against fate, or to battle the darkness within is truly incredible. The Dark Souls series has already probably come to mind by now for you and it's hard not to see that as an influence or at least a spiritual contender. There is something to be said about overcoming the odds and surviving in a bleak world. The Dark Souls franchise and periphery games have thrived on that for years. But when you die in that game, you come back you just lost some progress.

You don't come back when you die in Mork Borg, you just die.

So with no significant character advancement in the game, how do you meaningfully advance a character in a game like this? The game literally urges you not to get attached to your character. It's a bit tongue in cheek about it but it's not wrong.

At our table I was the only one who survived start to finish with the same character. And that wasn't from skill on my part i got a lot of dumb luck! We had 6 players and I think we had about 10 deaths? One player was on their like 4th wretch by the end of it! This seems excessive and I don't know if this is a standard experience, but we understood that's kind how it would go beforehand so our expectations were pretty set.

While I am sort of criticising this aspect, there is something pretty thrilling about going into a game without being too committed to your character. It makes those moments where you do realize them as a character in the narrative all the more meaningful, and more tragic when they die a terrible meaningless death. Nothing is precious in Mork Borg not even your life. So make the best of what you've got while you still have it.

Mork Borg is definitely not a perfect game.

But I cannot stop thinking about it and would drop any game to play it again, or even run it.

(and that's not even to speak of all the Borg spin offs like Pirate Borg, Orc Borg or CY_BORG!!!).

If you already play D&D or Pathfinder, Mork Borg is definitely worth your time to try, because you already know how to play it. It might not be for you, but if you go with the free rules and play a free adventure the only thing you're out is your time.

If you play other RPGs and enjoy dungeon crawls or hack and slash game play, this is still a great choice and will be easy to pick up and try.

If you're new to RPGs, Mork Borg is maybe a pretty weird one to start with, but is a really polished experience to try and a really easy game to cut your teeth on, so still not bad!

If you're more interested in character role playing, then Mork Borg might not be what you're looking for, but there are so many interesting narratives that can be explored here that I think would be really interesting and hard to replicate in other games!

If you're a power fantasy gamer, then I think Mork Borg might be a skip for you. Unless your power fantasy is to be a lobotomized mouse in Alley Cat Alley. No judgment, you do you.

If you took one look at the characters sheets up top and said "oh hell yeah I'm gonna play that!" and didn't read the rest of this lengthy text then we are already best friends but alas you'll never know it because you didn't read to the end... Oh well.

Now excuse me, I'm gonna dream about being ripped apart by a skeletal ooze and dying a painful death tonight (affectionate)!