#come talk to meeeee

[windienine]

YOU. Kicks my legs like we're at a sleepover. Who was the character u were posting about in the tags.. spill..

kicking my legs back, ready to paint your nails at any time soooooo

okay i already dedicated a whole 2k word post to his partner goddess weird animal who bites him sometimes personal jester friend (?) Ysmé, so this time I'm going to spill about Loïc Ard from Soul of Sovereignty (prelude), an hour-long adult fantasy visual novel preview (< link here) that arrived on itch late last year courtesy of webcomic artist GGDG (if you're familiar with Lady of the Shard or CQ, you know their work)

So. This idiot.

look at this character design. the people hunger for men with strong cheekbones and glasses. look at the robes that attach at the fucking fingertips to draw attention to the position of his hands.

He's very soft-spoken and sweet. He knows a lot about the history of his world, as well as the biology of what lives there. He's staggeringly generous to others, even complete strangers. He's good at cooking. He knows how to sing.

He's the viewpoint character for the lion's share of the story atm, we get to look into his brain a little more often than Ysmé's for reasons that Will Become Rapidly Apparent As You Play.

Loïc is a middle-aged guy (late 30s? early 40s?) who works in an unofficial capacity at an inn in bugfuck nowhere (Tarn, a northerly village miles from anywhere else and regularly frozen solid by blizzards, with a population of Not Enough To Maintain Infrastructure), helping to cook, clean, and care for its mostly non-paying clientele, who his friend Alma, the proprietress, is allowing to stay for free. It's become a glorified sickhouse and shelter. No one is paying to stay in Tarn, but Alma can't turn her back on what she considers her hometown and Loïc can't turn his back on Alma (and he's here for other reasons too) so the inn is just kind of slowly decaying as conditions get less and less profitable. This sucks.

Especially because Tarn was built less than a century ago as an adventurers' hub for treasure hunting squads looking to uncover temples and relics right nearby, and the inn used to be full of good people and good food and fire and light and Alma wants all that back so bad it hurts and she refuses to say it's cooked and move back to the big city (in this case, the Mosaic, an ark-like vertical metropolis that housed humanity for hundreds of years after their world's apocalypse. After the outside was deemed safe again a century back, many people wanted to try and make a living documenting and salvaging stuff... but most of it turned out to be decayed, empty, and/or worthless, after so much time had passed.) The Mosaic is bright and lively, but it's a restrictive place to live for a lot of people-- cultures outside the dominant (very fantasy-Catholic) one are suppressed and the focus on making money to survive is exhausting.

But Loïc makes things a little less miserable. He's got a calm and pleasant bearing, he brightens up the place with flowers and greenery he manages to get growing even in this climate (he's a florist), and he's someone to talk to. He's witty, he's thoughtful, and he's almost a little too willing to dedicate all of his time and energy to helping people, and overall he's this mundane nice fella... with one big caveat you learn real early on.

Loïc is a mage, and a really unique sort.

The floristry bit isn't just his job or a characterization quirk, it's the whole basis of his magic. Species of flowers in this world each hold a unique concept-- fire (pallisia), calm (lavender), light (white dawn's eye), mundanity (dandelion), memory (cloud sage), you name it, there's probably some obscure botanical species that represents something in the ballpark of it. A god of language (Fayim) allegedly imbued a meaning into each, and if you can commune and reflect and experiment around hard enough to unravel the concept of one, you can turn that concept into something real.

Think of it like magical linguistics -- [correct flower] + [expressed meaning] = [physical effect], like [correct phonetics] + [contextual meaning] = [language]. You can even chain a couple of them to make a more complex spell, like turning words into compounds, phrases, and sentences, but you do have to understand what it actually means to do so. You're forming a connection to Fayim's power by talking. This burns up the flower, but Loïc's extreme dedication to botany means that he's got a regular supply of the spells he uses most often.

Loïc can hand you a golden pallisia blossom, start waxing poetic about the nature of warmth, and the firelight kept inside will radiate out and keep you comfortable even in Tarn's frigid weather. It's rare and potent stuff, doubly so because worship of Fayim is dwindling-to-nonexistent in the Mosaic, where the only faith and magic most people are familiar with at all are those revering the Builder, the creator deity who erected the Mosaic and saved humanity from the apocalypse in the first place. Everything else? False gods. Loïc himself doesn't worship Fayim or the Builder; he uses Fayimic magic but is pretty disconnected from his own background + faith in general. He's interested in the theology but doesn't use prayers in his invocation if he can help it.

Magic's not foreign to this world (most people in this world know at least a little artisanry, a more logical and physical approach to magic which lets you stitch together bespoke objects out of thin air, used heavily in both art and industry), but flower reading is a rare and dying language. Loïc's cute little flower shop back in the Mosaic was also a spell broker for people in need of small miracles. Given that the Mosaic worships a creator deity, I guess this implies that magic, generally, is something humans tap into extant divinity to borrow.

So, Loïc is holed up in Tarn studying magic and using mending spells (yellow rose) to cure people of minor injuries, but everything goes to hell when a certain sickly blonde washes up at the inn's doorstep begging for help escorting her to a nearby temple please please you gotta, she'll die from turbo tuberculosis otherwise, god (not the builder, some other guy, don't ask who) said so. Oh my gosh, you will? Thank you so muchhhhhh

[paraphrased very hard]

alma: this is definitely a scam of some kind. please just talk her out of this so she doesn't get eaten by mutant wolves.

loïc: oh for sure but you don't try for scam this obvious unless you're really desperate. idk what she even wants here, let me feel her out. i have nothing worth robbing. maybe this is a trauma thing or a money thing and i can talk to her about it.

alma: loïc, that's literally not your problem. loïc there's this weird pattern where you prioritize the hypothetical wants of strangers over your own proven needs. loïc no.

loïc: loïc yes

So, of course, it ends up coming out that Loïc is in Tarn specifically because he is a single father with a daughter named Lelia who is comatose from an unspecified illness. Her prognosis is extremely grim (low chance of survival that dwindles the longer she stays out, probably terminal.)

Specifically, he's on a hopeless little snipe hunt for a rumored species (the glass bell) that could act as a panacea for any illness, if harnessed correctly in a spell, and it might either be extinct or entirely fictitious.

He knows he can't find it alone. If it even exists, it is a needle in an impossibly massive haystack. He is consumed inside-out with a compulsive need to do something about it, and when that proves impossible, it starts spreading into a compulsive need to do something for anyone. The grief of admitting that Lia is already in a prolonged state of death would eat him alive, so if he can transfer that feeling of purpose onto anything else he can buoy himself. He is spinning his wheels because confronting the fact that he has outlived his own daughter and has to go on without her is impossible.

But like... he's dying slowly, too, in this state. Like Lia. Like Tarn. It's only a matter of time before there's nothing left of himself to give, and at the impetus of the story that's basically what he wants. There's nothing left for him.

... Unless...!!

OTHER THINGS:

would give blessings to his daughter every day before she went to school

apparently has a puppy and a kitty back home

loves lavender and sunflowers most

sometimes casts so hard he passes out

including other people and making his casting into a conversation is a quirk he does and that's just super cute

carries pictures of his daughter around in his spellbook maes hughes style

besides his suspiciously alb-and-chasuble looking mage robes, wears an apron and skirt around the house + gg regularly draws him in cute dresses. this is a known victor's weakness.

the in-game glossary has botany notes from him, usually paired with him waxing poetic about each species' meaning. this nerd shit is a known victor's weakness.

you see his general bearing and a lot of people assume he's kind of this easily-flustered anxious disaster type, but he's actually very serene and difficult to get a rise out of. he'll play along with most jokes you try to throw at him. if he does actually freak out at any point, you know something is up.

we don't know what happened between him and his ex, but there are dialogue clues that point to it being weird and messy. he's played very interestingly as far as divorcee characters go (conflict-avoidant rather than desperate for love, wants to be the better person at every opportunity), what with being a man who has primary custody of his kid (and a good relationship with her!) and taking on a position that the audience would probably identify as more motherly than fatherly, in terms of western gender roles. there's this fun contrast where he's very confident in his looks and presentation and bearing (very charismatic guy!!), but a lot of that is traditionally feminine. he's just very genderous.

(all of this tragically forgoes the meat of his special connection to ysmé, but that is the core premise of the prelude and if i got into that here it would really and truly give away the whole plot. i need you to experience her for yourself. (for ten dollar.) if you do not have ten dollar i will stream the game for you and give GG an additional ten dollar. this is a threat.)

(what i WILL say is that if you read lady of the shard, looked at the "sexualized mind control" tw beforehand and went "well now i want to read it more and not less," there is a delicious taste of that here and it once again intersects heavily with themes of control and coercion over the self, skewed power dynamics, and the emotions that arise from them.)

whatever horseshit this confluence of circumstances makes you assume he will pull, i guarantee you it is not the full picture of what actually happens.

[ghosttownwherenoonegoes]

I LOVE horror films, they're all I watch (no exaggerations), but there are two things I cannot stand:

animals being harmed/killed

protag wakes up at night in a dark room to find a shadow at the foot of the bed

Everything else is fair game but those two 'small' things???? Eri out.

[keirawantstocry]

ooo you guys wanna send me asks so bad ooooo

[dylan-duke]

please come send in thoughts!!!

[misteria247]

Disco Girl plays in my head like a fucking broken record it's been 2 HOURS

[sweetnnaivete]

dare i say phone & snack after school time is better than phone in bed time

[waitingforminjae]

- Behave yourself when you reach Lanling. Don’t cause any trouble with Jin Zixuan, in particular. He is still the only direct line son of Jin Guangshan. He’s is the heir to the Lanling’s Jin Clan. If you two start fighting, how should I respond as the clan leader? Should I help you beat him up, or punish you?

- Isn’t there a Jin Guangyao, now? I haven’t had many interactions with him, but I find him more agreeable than that Flower Peacock.

[usertoxicyaoi]

okay @aejeonghae is TEMPTING me to it so i've started reading the summer hikaru died manga and literally 2 chapters in and -

OKAY. that 'i do.' being light and 'i'm crazy for you.' being dark??? the half and half contrast foreshadowing hikaru's light and dark sides????? OKAY. OKAY I GET YALL NOW. I DO.

[compressedrage]

*cracks knuckles* It's King time baby– Episode 30

This will be in two parts because I have much to cover. One part will be the backstory segment, and then the other will be the rest of the video.

OKAY PART 1

The opening to this video sets up the later tragedy so well. It introduces Gold, King's son, but we know something is going to happen. it hangs over every little wholesome thing we see.

And in terms of wholesome things, they chose amazing ones to show! We have King reminiscing over a younger Gold, before the Gold of the present gives him a corn dog. They share a cute bonding moment (can you hear my heart cracking) before going to the festival.

(I love the concept of the festival from a world-building perspective. is there a reason there's a festival? is it even a festival? it looks very fun)

Gold is drawn in by a booth advertising a virtual realty experience in the world of Minecraft. He excitedly brings King over, and King signs a waiver. King's body language during this scene is hesitant, and the tone is almost a little eery; there's no one else in the section for the Minecraft experience. They are more-or-less alone.

(I wonder if King thought something felt off. I wonder that made him blame himself even more since he did nothing to stop Gold from entering the experience)

Gold is so excited. The workers at the experience let Gold go in, and he enters. The door locks behind him, and he is integrated into the game. King watches as he happily runs around the game, collecting resources and making tools.

Suddenly an alarm sounds. Something is wrong. On the screen King can see a black void open up in the sky. It rapidly expands and spreads, threatening to swallow Gold whole. Gold runs, before opening the menu and exiting the game.

He bursts from the entrance, but he isn't safe. The void is emerging through the opening, and Gold begins to disintegrate. King bangs on the door; it's locked tight. Not even the workers who run over to help him can get it open.

Gold reaches for his dad, but collapses and is sucked back into the game. A "fatal error" show on the screen. Gold is gone.

King drops to his knees. The workers approach him nervously, and one reaches out to touch his shoulder. King whirls around and grabs them by the throat, slamming them onto the ground. He does the same to the other workers who try to stop him before stopping and staring into the Minecraft experience. (In one of the most beautiful shots I've ever seen, the red glow is so ominous)

Back at his house King is in shambles. He lashes out at a poster he took of the experience, punching the wall as if it were the glass doors separating him from his son. He wilts against the wall for a moment, before getting up with new resolve. He will find a way to destroy Minecraft and avenge his son.

He is obsessed with this goal for an unknown amount of time; it could be months, could stretch into a few years, who knows. he researches everything he could ever find about Minecraft. He learns about its mechanics, its blocks. He learns of the command block, and acquires one from a shady figure in an alley. (such a smart move my dude)

The staff doesn't work. He tries several different versions, but even when he does manage to get it to work he still doesn't quite understand its mechanics. Maybe there was another way.

He delves into Minecraft's myths and mysteries. There he finds a description of the Minecraft Game Icon: "The most powerful item in Minecraft". The location is unknown. He tears the page from the book and walks around town, showing it to people. I honestly don't know what he expected but props to him for showing initiative I guess.

He stops outside a tech store. There, showing on one of the televisions, is a group of young sticks playing with an icon. Playing with it. King now as proof such an item exists, even if he has no idea how to get it. But he has a goal now.

Find those sticks.

He hangs up wanted posters all over town. And by a crazy stoke of fate a purple stick finds them and takes one.

Purple shows up at King's house with the poster and appears to explain the he knows the CG and how to find them. King doesn't seem to respond, or at least respond positively. (King's vibe in that scene was one of "I just woke up and I don't want to talk to people", which... mood, I guess that comes with the depression)

Purple jumps to prove himself, displaying how he is agile and can fight. When that doesn't get a reaction he pulls out his elytra and show off his flight skills instead. Lots of flips. King gestures for him to come inside.

King's house is a mess. Purple looks around a bit, finding a picture of King and Gold. King takes it out of Purple's hands and Purple backs away. They make their way down to the basement, where it is clear King has been working on the parkour trap idea for a very long time. And he has a Nether portal. He lights it up with his staff (which he now knows how to wield) and they enter Minecraft.

In the Nether they find a bastion. They defeat its inhabitants, and King offers them gold in exchange for their allegiance. (I'm pretty sure they might think he's a god of some kind because he can technically create gold from nothing, and remember how he disabled the AI of that one Piglin? Dude's terrifying)

With the Piglins now under his command, King builds himself a throne of quartz and gold. Purple kneels and hands him a golden crown. King takes it and gives Purple a head rub. I'm pretty sure that head rub won him Purple's undying loyalty tbh.

_._._

This section of the episode is so good. It sets up everything we need to know, and portals King perfectly. We can see and understand how he got to this place of extreme grief and obsessive vengeance.

We also see Purple, whose motivations we now understand from the last episode. He seems so upbeat here, so happy to help. It's devastating that he was so willing to betray his new friends for the validation of a father figure. My poor boy.

[sneeg-snag]

i looovveeee impulse purchases <3 (<- has been ruminating on the purchace for 5-7 business days to make sure they Really Want It)

[crossbackpoke-check]

find a blorbo (nhl tag game)

RULES: Go through the roster of each NHL team and find at least one player that you can root for.

tagged by @bondedpairs!! when i say too many teams to count and here for the narrative um. i may not have lied. this is not an extensive list of my blorbos but in order to make it not ten thousand years long i made up the rule that i had to do it straight from memory :)

anaheim ducks: as evidenced by recent events i DO like mason mctavish and trevor zegras but i have to honor laura and mention troy terry and beloved goalie gibbie*

boston bruins: oh for sure brad marchand… can i say patrice? one of the charlies got traded but i think mcavoy is still there because gryz is gone, brandon carlo is there still i think

buffalo sabres: cozens & thompson, owen power, rasmus dahlin, ukko pekka luukkonen

calgary flames: is chris tanev still here? is markstrom still here?? noah hanifin?? as a last resort i’ll say blasty

carolina hurricanes: aho & jarvy & teuvo teravainen & brent burns is still playing maybe? i know sepe got traded

chicago hockey: the bedsy narrative is compelling but ANDREAS ATHANASIOU MY BELOVED reunited with tyler bertuzzi… that’s the real story. also i like foligno

colorado avalanche: gabe landeskog, whatever ross colton & miles wood have going on, natemac + jo, mikko

columbus blue jackets: have long been on the merzlikins train, have been swayed to the darkside of umich boys (brindley, kent johnson, fantilli, blankenburg who is now on nsh)

dallas stars: seggy! mush! roope + miro and otter and robo and wyjo (rip ty dellandrea) and harls! etc.

detroit red wings: MOST players. dilly larks, moritz seider, jv, raymond, rasmussen, kitty, lyon, etc except for k*ne

edmonton oilers: mcdrai, ofc. nugent-hopkins, nursey, rip vinny & skinny

florida panthers: tkachuk, reinhardt, sasha barkov, verhaeghe (is there still?)

los angeles kings: adrian kempe… kevin fiala… danault… quinton byfield & alex turcotte

minnesota wild: kirill, marat, fleury, brodes, fabes, boldy, moose, middsy, spurge… god’s perfect idiots

montreal canadiens: going out on a limb here to say martin st. louis but also xhekaj (both), slafkovský, suzuki, my austrian reinbacher, yes fine cole caufield

nashville predators: MOST BEAUTIFUL D PAIR IN THE WORLD GRADY SKJEI AND ROMAN JOSI!! juuse, evangelista, isn’t stamkos there and also someone else who absolutely should not be

new jersey devils: nico… tuna (tatar), dawson mercer, siegenthaler, dougie hamilton, yes the hugheses whatever

new york islanders: barzy, zeeker & marty, anders lee, noah dobson lol

new york rangers: mika & chris, lafrenière & k’andre, shesterkin

philadelphia flyers: frosty & beezer and tk and sanny and the new baby michkov and coots and scooty loots and foerster etc etc. you know the Guys

pittsburgh penguins: the two headed monster but also compelled by rutger mcgroarty, and kevin hayes was there!!!

ottawa senators: timmy stü & brady! josh norris! the evolution of shane pinto! ullmark now and brännström and claude giroux and chabot

san jose sharks: ekky, thrun, mario, borde, logan couture, shakir, that other vaguely blond rookie

seattle kraken: brandon tanev, andre burakovsky! grubauer & d’accord also

st. louis blues: jordan kyrou, nathan walker (is still there?), rob thomas? is parayako still there?

tampa bay lightning: hedman, point, they dumped so many guys after the cup run… is kucherov still there or is he in nashville?? anthony cirelli (notable for being made out with by pat maroon)

toronto maple leafs: mitch, jt, willy, alex nylander, kniesy, dewar, et

utah hockey: crouse, keller, tuba

vancouver canucks: quinn, brock, petey, jt, garly, höggy, i want to say dakota johnson, elias lindholm?

vegas golden knights: brandon montour is here now… alex pietrangelo, so sorry to one i can’t remember who loves the lions it will come back to me

washington capitals: full of love and stupidity. oshie, nicke/ovi, pierre-luc dubois, dowd, vrána, milano

winnipeg jets: adam lowry!! josh morissey and kc and morgan barron, also vladdy my beloved

tagging @stillfertile + @colap1nto + @songsandswords + @moregraceful if they haven’t done it yet, i know they follow at least a couple teams. if anybody else wants to play i love adopting blorbos!!

[brandycranby]

💕jakey💕

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

god. rip parker. good man better friend nosy bitch who sees a guy trying to drink himself to death and goes "i can should must and will fix him" goes by an alias at all times and would beat the shit out of people as a work strategy. an icon from beyond the grave

[pcrfectcrime]

if u have plots with my kehlani oc….it will be paused for now cause i’m mad at kehlani ashley parrish

[ninja-knox-ur-sox-off]

I love Monkie kid and the way they tell stories but oh my GODS this unreliable narrator stuff starting to stress me out

(Note: i've only seen up to ses 4 ep 8 no spoilers in the tags please)

[dogmouthhorse]

god im so tired of people making boring ai arguments. stop fightinggggg look at pictures with meeee.. like ultimately someone can have an idea + show it to me and it makes me feel things. bada bing bada boom get fucking real.