#death to the qualifying stat

[cecoeur]

Yuki “out qualifying” Daniel today is case in point why that head to head stat is such a bullshit measure of teammate performance. The context of each qualifying matters so much and yet people look at it as such a black and white stat.

[stereax]

CapFriendly Alternative Sites MegaPost

(Last update: 07/27 - added CapSized.)

As we are all likely aware by now, the Washington Capitals have decided to ruin everyone's lives by purchasing and sunsetting CapFriendly. The site has gone dark as of July 10, 2024.

While the hockey community has experienced a similar loss before, with the death of Matthew Wuest and the subsequent loss of CapGeek, this is a markedly different situation that sets a troubling precedent - namely, that freely usable, public NHL data is now available to the highest bidder, who can then revoke access to the data at a minute's notice. Two things can coexist: we can be happy for the makers of CapFriendly that they are being compensated well for their services while also scorning the Washington Capitals organization for choosing to turn off CapFriendly entirely.

Under the cut, please find a list of free CapFriendly alternatives and other websites that contain NHL data. (In some cases, they are mostly free - however, most/all important information for lay analysis is available for free.) This list is dynamic and taking suggestions, so please feel free to send me any websites you find at @stereax and check the original post for updates!

PART 1: SALARY CAP TRACKERS

PuckPedia: The New CapFriendly

PuckPedia is the closest replacement to CapFriendly currently available. It contains salary cap information for all teams and players, draft pick information, several calculators including a buyout calculator and a pick value calculator, agent information, and more. They also run PuckDoku! The biggest strike against PuckPedia is its lack of simulators (Armchair GM, mock draft, or trade simulators); however, in the wake of the CapFriendly news, PuckPedia shared that an Armchair GM simulator is under active development. 07/05 Update: PuckGM is here! You can also react to prospective PuckGMs (thumbs up, thumbs down, laugh, think emojis).

CapSized: Labor of Love

Referred to me by @nonslipdoormat and billed as a "solo female developer's project" (nonslipdoormat IS said developer!), CapSized is a site that's designed similarly to CapFriendly. It has some features other sites lack, such as trade histories going back to 2003 (with some entries as old as 1964!) and a detailed transactions page again stretching YEARS into the past. The more you poke around, the more cool things you uncover. Its primary purpose is to be a "visual database", but calculators and an NHL GM mode are on the list of future additions. I'll be dead honest, I think this is my favorite cap-checker site because of all the extra utilities. Super excited to see where this project goes!

Referred to me by @reavenedges-lies. A "baby site" that has some of the basics of salary cap info, plus a buyout calculator, qualifying offer calculator, and trade proposal maker. The trade proposal maker is prone to error and seems to only be useful for graphics. It can be a useful site for some, but it would not be my first choice.

CapWages: CapFriendly Lite

Another alternative to PuckPedia that mimics CapFriendly in design and is more intuitive for users going directly from CapFriendly to an alternative site. Like PuckPedia, it now features a GM mode, but the GM mode is in beta and is not fully functional (it only shows contracts currently existing at the NHL level). Nevertheless, for checking salary cap info, it is very good and I recommend it. Also now has a buyout calculator.

CapSpace: Young Gun

BenchWarmers: Greenhorn

Similar to CapSpace but perhaps a little better in the design department. I like how, if you don't have an account, it acts like you're Kyle Dubas and has you watching Toronto and Carolina. Has a few neat stats (like "core four" which shows how much the four most expensive players are making) that I haven't seen easily replicated on other sites, but functionality is rather limited outside of that, which is why it's also not my first choice.

Spotrac: Another Salary Cap Checker

An alternative to PuckPedia for salary cap information. However, it lacks much of the information and functionality of PuckPedia or most other sites listed here.

PART 2: ADVANCED STATS

NaturalStatTrick: The Holy Grail of Stats

NaturalStatTrick, or NatStat for short, is a site that contains just about any stat you can think of for any team or player. It has a learning curve but is generally understood to be the most reliable stat tracker available for free. You can even view stats for individual games on it!

MoneyPuck: DTWoMeter and More

You know it from the Deserve-to-Win-o-Meter or its playoff odds rings, but MoneyPuck has a lot of useful data as well if you do a little browsing. Generally, I've heard that MoneyPuck is less accurate than NatStat, but is easier to use, especially on mobile.

HockeyViz: "If I Ever Sell, I Failed"

Home of the Simple Hockey Charts, HockeyViz has a visual for just about every stat out there. You've almost certainly seen some of them before. Most of them are completely free to the public! They're super useful for visualizing stats as more than "just numbers", allowing you to see exactly WHERE things are happening on the ice.

HockeyStatCards: GameScore Kings

Again, you've probably seen HockeyStatCards's GameScore charts. Using data from NatStat (see above) and an algorithm created by Dom Luszczyszyn, it provides a simple GameScore number that tells you whether a player is having a positive or negative impact on the ice for every game in the NHL.

PART 3: SPECIALIZED SITES

NHL Armchair GM: Building Rosters

This site allows you to Armchair GM a roster. Notably, it has a steeper learning curve than CapFriendly and does not have a forum or other way to easily save and publicize your Armchair GM moves. However, it can be useful to make Armchair GMs and have visuals for them.

NHL Entry Draft: With the First Overall Pick...

This site contains a ton of draft resources, from a mock draft simulator to scouting reports. Definitely a useful site for those who are interested in the entry draft. I've seen a couple of mock draft sites, but this one seems to have by far the easiest and arguably most expansive way to use it.

NHL Injury Viz: Rulers of LTIR

Here, you can explore the relationship between the injuries of players, their cap hits, and how teams did without them. Very useful when you're arguing that a certain player going down doomed the team.

PART 4: MORE TYPES OF DATA

HockeyReference: The Good Old Days

Hockey Reference is best used for surface level data about older players. It has some trivia sections as well, for if you ever wanted to know all players wearing certain jersey numbers, sharing a certain birthday, or hailing from Alaska.

EliteProspects: Every League Imaginable

Want to know the roster of a third-tier league in Quebec? EliteProspects has you covered. Literally every league on the face of the Earth, currently existing and not, EliteProspects has info on. Any player you can possibly name, EliteProspects has their stats from atom hockey all the way to the end of their career.

HockeyDB: Another Spot for Stats

HockeyDB, referred to me by @reavenedges-lies, is another solid site for looking up basic hockey stats. Also has a ton of leagues, similar to EliteProspects. Has a hockey card feature as well that shows you cards featuring the player you've looked up, which is neat!

PART 5: FORUMS

HFBoards: Hockey Forums

Probably the most well-known hockey forum out there. If you want to talk puck on a more forum-like site, similar to CapFriendly's forums, this is the one for you.

PART 6: CAPFRIENDLY ARCHIVES

SergeiFyodorov's CapFriendly FAQ Drive

Curated by @sergeifyodorov. Originally posted here and sent to me by @fellowshipofthegay. Archives of the CapFriendly FAQs!

Got a site that's not listed here? Let me know at @stereax and I'll add it! Remember: While CapFriendly may be going away, hockey analysis is here to stay!

[cheriladycl01]

The Rookie Prodigy - Carlos Sainz x Driver! Reader Part 6

Plot: You are a rookie coming into the 2022 season of Formula One into Alfa Romeo with team member Zhou Guanyu, being in a mid tier team can you help them rise up the ranks. What pressures occur for the only rookies within the 2022 line up!

'Where is Y/N Y/L/N' was the talk of the paddock on the coastline of Miami after you missed media day on Thursday. Zhou was there alone trying his best to make funny content but clearly the lack of you there was affecting him.

The presenters for Sky Sports also could tell there was a lack of you in the paddock. Obviously it was still loud thanks to Lando and those kinds of energies.

But where it was media day people didn't think too much of it, maybe you slept in and was too embarrassed to rock up late, or maybe you missed your Wednesday flight ... or maybe you'd been asked by your PR team not to show up because of everything with you and Lewis in the media right now.

There was a lot of noise around Lewis and you. A lot of it wasn't kind either, the worst being that people assumed you slept your way into your seat as the only woman in F1. This started a spiral of hate towards you, people had somehow doxed you and death threats had been sent to your home and you couldn't even log into your socials because it was so bad.

When you didn't arrive for the first free practice that's when more attention was brought to your absence.

"Have you guys seen Y/N?" Carlos asks the little group he was stood with, concerned he hadn't seen you.

"No, she wasn't here yesterday for media day and she didn't come out in FP1, her side of the garage was actually so slow and empty. Their main focus was on getting Zhou out!" Lando admitted having seen with his own eyes what your absence had done to the team.

"As a rookie it's risky missing free practice, maybe they'll announce a replacement for her tonight?" Charles offers sipping on his drink that he'd taken with him from their hospitality.

"I can't believe it, I wonder what's going on!" Daniel nods, wondering why the paddock princess wasn't here.

Things got stranger when you also didn't turn up for FP2 on the same day.

You also weren't there the next morning and everyone was thinking Alpha Romeo were going to have their first DNS of the season where you still weren't around.

It was around 20 minutes until qualifying was supposed to start when someone noticed your paddock pass had been scanned in. They sent someone from the FIA to search and see if it was a mistake or if you had in fact come in.

By the time someone reached the garage to ask you were already in your car waiting to come out for qualifying. You were nervous as hell, you'd missed out on all the free practices and never driven the Miami circuit.

You drove out and ended Q3 in P14, one away from the cut off and it was on a lap where you'd only just managed to get passed the flag in time to get that vital last lap in. Zhou despite having been around the whole weekend and participating in all the free practice sessions didn't have as great a run as you coming P17 and being eliminated for Q2.

Come Q2 and the commentators were in shock with how quickly you were coming to grips with the track. You were only a few tenths of a second off Lando's time coming in P6, a drastic change from your previous result.

You stayed sat in the car in Q3, everyone in the garage knew you didn't really want to talk right now. So it was only you engineer talking to you every now and then telling you stats and times.

Q3 again was pretty good and you were managing to start P5. And considering the week you've had you felt really good about that result.

The rest of the weekend just had awkward vibes, you could tell in your post race interviews how much you didn't want to be there.

"Y/N, it's great to see you back around here and what a great result for you despite being absent for all your free practice sessions!" the interviewer says and you just nod, it wasn't a question. It was a statement so you didn't have to answer.

"How do you feel about that result?" they ask.

"Yeah, good. I think I got as much as I could out the car as I could!" you reply and the interviewer sighs knowing this would be a hard interviewer seeing as this was the first time they were experiencing icy and cold Y/N.

You ended up the interviews quickly, your PR apologizing to the last few saying you wouldn't be doing any more of them.

You went back to the hotel exhausted, just wanting to sleep and get this weekend over.

Twitter was going crazy over how you had been acting in your interviews, your fans specifically were really concerned and of course because it was brought up online all the other drivers saw their reactions and had to go look for themselves.

The ones who hadn't really interacted with you just put it down to an off day, which did happen with drivers particularly rookies who were being too hard on themselves which wasn't uncommon in the newbies.

But for those who did know you and had made the effort to welcome you to the sport, like Zhou, like Carlos, like Lewis, like Charles and Lando and George and Alex ...

They all could tell something was seriously wrong, but it seemed impossible for anyone to get hold of you.

Even the next day on race day, you showed up in the paddock for the national anthem of America, and were ushered straight to your car by your PR team, all the other drivers sharing a look of confusion.

You looked so exhausted and worn out, but they didn't know why.

The race wasnt good, as well as being tired from a severe lack of sleep, there was also your mental state affecting your drive. So you went from P5 down to P7, still in the points but it just didn't really feel ... good enough and you went back to the hotel disappointed.

Your PR team had refused you do any media after the shit show you caused with your bluntness yesterday and thoughts it's best to send you on your way to Switzerland to sort everything out that had been happening and get ready for Spain.

"Charles, she wont answer me..." Carlos had complained to Charles worried about the young driver.

"I don't know Carlos, we're all routing for her and hoping she's okay but maybe she just needs some time alone because of all the pressure. She the first in years to be here, as a woman you know... i cant imagine the pressure she's been feeling" Charles explains with a sigh.

"Mmmmm Toto have you heard anything about Y/N... she's well I don't think she's okay!" Lewis asked his boss in the Mercedes garage.

"Mmmm nothing, but i'll reach into my contacts. I knew her since she was 13 because she was the frist female Mercedes Development Driver/ Young Driver we sponsored. It's a shame really she isn't driving for one of our teams" Toto sighs, knowing Lewis wanted answers starting to tap away on his phone.

You knew these people cared about you, but right now... what you were dealing with and experiencing, you didn't want to drag any of them into.

Taglist:

@littlesatanicassholebitch @hockey-racing-fubol @laura-naruto-fan1998 @22yuki @simxican @sinofwriting @lewisroscoelove @cmleitora @daemyratwst @lauralarsen @the-untamed-soul @thewulf @itsjustkhaos @purplephantomwolf @chasing-liberosis @summissss @gulphulp @starfusionsworld @jspitwall @sierruhhhh @georgeparisole @youcannotcancelquidditch @tallbrownhairsarcastic @ourteenagetragedy @peachiicherries @formulas-bitch @cherry-piee @spilled-coffee-cup @mehrmonga @bigsimperika @blueberry64857959 @eiraethh @lilypadlover @curseofhecate @alliwantisadonut @dark-night-sky-99 @i-wish-this-was-me @tallrock35 @butterfly-lover @barnestatic @landossainz @darleneslane @barcelonaloverf1life @r0nnsblog @ilove-tswizzle @laneyspaulding19 @malynn @viennakarma @landosgirlxoxo @marie0v @yourbane @teamnovalak @nikfigueiredo @fionaschicken @0picels0 @seomako @urdad-hot @tinydeskwriter @ironmaiden1313 @splaterparty0-0 @formula1mount @styl1shl1v

[xf-cases-solved]

S1E14: Gender Bender

Case: In what is arguably one of the most "why did you write this??" plots so far, our dynamic duo (per Mulder's request, I might add) investigate the deaths of five victims who appear to have, like... been fucked to death? Or something?

Actually I have to interrupt my own summary here, bc I just looked up the Wikipedia page (yes, bc I was trying to remember the state, shut up), and Glen Morgan is apparently quoted as saying he wanted "an episode with more of a sexy edge." How that ended up being this particular episode, I cannot say. That is an X-File in and of itself.

But I digress. People are dying of mb really high levels of pheromones caused by super mind-blowing sex. Sure. Also no one is sure if this killer is male or female. (They somehow manage to not even entertain the idea that any of the victims might have been gay, which I thought was an impressive feat of elephant avoidance.)

ANYWAY. Their investigation leads them to Massachusetts, where a bunch of sci-fi not-Amish people are chilling out doing not-Amish people things. Stuff kind of just snowballs from there. Mulder jumps down into the not-Amish people's ritual cellar with no backup and then proceeds to reprimand Scully for being reckless; Scully (for the first, but unfortunately not last time) almost bangs someone bc she is being manipulated due to some supernatural phenomenon; I laugh A LOT alone in my work office bc I had forgotten the stupid twist ending; and Nicholas Lea is a starving artist who has to take the roles he's offered if he ever wants to be bumped up to recurring character status. Sigh. Hustling the club scene used to be so simple...

Does someone die in the cold open: Yes. He is fucked to death. Or something.

Does Mulder present a slideshow: Yes! Of dead people! Who were fucked to death! Or something!

Does the evidence survive the investigation: The evidence doesn't even stay on this planet.

Whodunit: A horny alien cosplaying as a gender fluid Amish person. No, seriously.

Convictions: Zip.

Did they solve it: No. This is my very first explicit no with no qualifiers. They 1. did not figure out the cause of death definitively, 2. did not apprehend the suspect, 3. lost literally all of their evidence, and 4. the government wasn't even hiding anything this time, they just got outsmarted by some horny aliens and were left with nothing. In fact, I bet they actually know less now than when they started. Failure from top to bottom, guys, good work.

[how do i determine if a case is solved? check the scale here: x]

THIS EPISODE IS SPONSORED BY: Anxiously clenching your butthole while crossing your fingers and praying that your faves don't say anything TOO problematic. Are you educated in the systematic inequalities facing minorities in the world? Are you aware of how socially accepted language and behaviors have evolved over time to become more inclusive and less prejudiced? Do you also happen to be watching a show that was made pre-21st century, and "oh god, are they doing an episode that revolves around *gender*? Oh Christ. Oh no. Oh God"? Never fear! Anxiously clenching your butthole while crossing your fingers and praying that your faves don't say anything TOO problematic is here!

*This product is versatile, and can also be used in a variety of situations, including, but not limited to: Seeing your favorite celebrity's name trending online and not being sure why; introducing your trans friend to your socially conservative grandma; or being forced to listen to your boss's opinions on "woke culture" after your coworker casually mentioned seeing a black person in a new TV show.

Get clenchin'!

***

General Total Stats:

(green means stat has changed since last ep; red means new stat added to list)

Total Cases *Definitively* Solved So Far: 6 (streak ended. brutally)

Total Number of "Mulder/Scully, it's me" phone calls: 1

Total Number of Times Scully Has Conveniently Not Seen Something Crucial: 4

Total Number of Times Mulder Has Been in Mortal Danger: 5

Total Number of Times Scully Has Been in Mortal Danger: 4 (upped it another half point, bc i don't thiiiink the guy coercing her intended to put her life in danger. he just ("just") wanted to sexually assault her, but also apparently fucking those guys kills you, so. another toss up)

Total Number of Sexually Charged, Uncomfortably intimate, and/or Flirty Moments Between Friendly Coworkers: 8 (for an episode that was meant to have a "sexy edge," it was deeply unhorny all around, even between our good good coworkers. they should have brought back that horny fire expert from episode 12 to bring up the heat, pun not intended)

Total Number of Autopsies Scully Has Performed On Screen: 1

Total Number of Times Scully Plays Doctor: 1

Total Number of Times Mulder Talks to an Informant: 5

Total Number of Times People Making Out in a Car Are Hurt or Killed: 2 (when i made that stat, part of me was like "mb i am misremembering how often that happens, and it won't even come up that much," and then it happened in the very next episode)

Total Number of Nosebleeds: 4

Total Number of Times Mulder Has Tasted/Sniffed/Touched Something Questionable Without Following Proper Safety Procedures: 2 (don't touch and sniff the weird alien goo wall??? i know for a FACT you keep rubber gloves in your pocket)

Total Number of Times Someone Says "Trust No One": 1

Total Number of Times Someone Says "I Want to Believe": 2

Total Number of Cigarettes Cigarette Smoking Man Has Smoked: 2

Total Number of Maggie Scully Sightings: 1

Total Number of Alex Krycek Sightings: still 0, but like, uh... definitely the closest we've come so far

Total Number of Times I Had to Look Up What State the Episode Takes Place in Even Though I Literally Just Watched It: 4 ½ (yeah i couldn't even pretend that i paid attention)

Total Number of Times I Had to Look at an Episode's Wikipedia Page to Fill This Out Because It Was Fucking Confusing and/or Too Boring for Me to Pay Attention: 2 (i didn't need to, but i did read the wikipedia page anyway just out of pure curiosity, bc why did they write that episode? i mean like, i was entertained, which ig makes it a win, but also just... why?)

[avesomnia-inhoramortis]

[ooc]

Very brief collection of headcanons I'm operating on, while I rush to work:

Trina first split off from Miquella as a spirit/dream/nonphysical entity, and the reason for the split was Miquella's desperation to cure his sister, as well as the perfumers giving up on her.

Trina/Miquella only has one body. Miquella's body is technically Trina's body, and she has inhabited him before. Miquella truly deeply dislikes that and does not want her doing it.

Under certain circumstances, Trina can grow herself a body in the waking world to use, but it's basically a complicated flower rather than true flesh. Like a more functional Miranda Sprout.

Miquella doesn't want anyone to know he and Trina are at all related. The less people know about his powers the better, plus Trina can be extremely impulsive and emotional- she's the more vulnerable of the two, in his mind, and no one but Malenia is allowed to see his vulnerability.

Trina loves Miquella the way only a self can love another, truly and deeply with infinite understanding. She's still hurt by him.

Trina could technically qualify as an Empyrean, if anyone knew who she really was, and Miquella is slightly worried that Trina's femininity could qualify her more than him. That's a risky complication.

An Empyrean is a potential vessel. An "outer god" is an elemental force capable of desires. Trina is not a vessel of sleep, she is Sleep Herself. Her inexperience, youth, and mortal attachments are the only things holding her back from being a full Outer God.

Sleep is influenced by the Arcane stat, which seems to be related to the body, visceral as opposed to faith or intelligence. I'm definitely going to play with what that could mean in terms of her powers and the expression of them.

Sleep as an eldritch force is elementally aligned with water and flowers. If she had proper Creatures and Things in her service, I'd expect kelpies and huldra and related water/plant entities.

Trina's sleep is a kind of death, which exists in contrast to Miquella's eternal abundance. The fall to his spring.

Particularly when she's in her flower-body, Trina is beholden to the instincts of it in the same way that people with their own flesh are beholden to their animal nature. This girl is a plant and she's weird about it sometimes, particularly since she doesn't socialize with anyone much.

Trina can, has, and will continue to enable euthanasia, as well as the generally addictive habits of her followers. It's the comfort they want, so it is the comfort she will give. At her most human she mourns them- at her most godlike she feels at most satisfied about it.

She hangs out with ghost jellyfish a lot, and feels a kinship with spirits in general.

She only has two "sacred sites": the Village of the Albinaurics, and the Apostate Derelict. I'll link a more thorough post on that.

This means that she has no home or bed. Technically, the only bed she "has" is whatever one Miquella owns, and it's arguable that she's rarely (if ever) actually slept in one. Somebody should fix that.

[evilwickedme]

Top 10 worst Bruce dad moments?

So here's the thing. I'm not actually like. That well versed in the comics yet? Again like. Only been here for about six months. But I'll do my best anyway

10. Firing Dick

HE FIRED DICK FROM BEING ROBIN. THE NICKNAME HIS MOTHER GAVE HIM. THEN GAVE SAID NICKNAME TO ANOTHER CHILD. WHAT THE FUCK.

9. Steph as Robin

Honestly everything about this is a mess. I've only read a few pages from this arc but Tim quitting being Robin was a really difficult decision and Bruce's response was to give the job to Tim's sort-of-ex girlfriend and then treat her like crap. I believe it's canonically cause she reminded him too much of Jason, but that might just be the fandom's reading of the subtext; either way, if the shoe fits...

8. Telling Damian if he was there, Alfred wouldn't have died

What the FUCK, Bruce, that is your SON. COMFORT HIM FOR THE LOSS OF HIS GRANDFATHER

7. Robin!Tim in general

Listen intentional or not Tim is written as a character that has very much internalized needing to be useful being more important than anything else. His parents simply prioritize work over him point blank - his dad doesn't even remember his birthday, for God's sake - and Bruce simply like. Does not help with this. If anything he takes advantage of it. Tim needs to be loved unconditionally, like, STAT, like, that would fix 70% of his identity issues kinda STAT, and I'm not sure he's ever felt that with Bruce

6. Free space: any time he's hit one of his children that I don't know about

I once reblogged a post that detailed every time he hit Dick but that's long gone into the ether now, I can't find it. Anyway there's no excuse to hit your child. Don't fucking do it. They shouldn't hit you, either, doesn't make it ok for you to do if they've done it fyi. Batman can do non violent solutions, we know this, so fucking use those on your children.

5. Reviving the joker

I believe Dick isn't necessarily mad about not having murdered a man basically in cold blood, but I am. What the fuck, Bruce. You tried to kill him twice, you really wanna tell me you don't understand the urge and NEED to kill him??? And then you BRING HIM BACK TO LIFE??? Again. As I've said. What the FUCK

4. Killing Dick and sending him off to Spyral

Actually Dick shouldn't ever forgive Bruce for anything he's ever done to him ever. Have you seen the panels where they have this argument? His family GRIEVES him and for what!!!! For WHAT

(I understand Grayson itself is actually great I wouldn't know I haven't read it. Doesn't make what Bruce did okay tho. I'm also not sure I trust the positive reviews it's written by Tim Seeley and Tom King like......)

3. RHatO Rebirth #25

Penguin didn't fucking die. He didn't get shot in the face with a real bullet. You don't beat your son half to death to the point where he needs to be RESCUED from you - actually no need to qualify that sentence with the intended "over something that didn't actually happen", you simply don't beat your son half to death, should be a no brainer and YET

2. UTRH end scene

Heartbreaking. We all know at this point. Batarang to the throat. Chooses the Joker over Jason. It's enough to make a fully grown (25 next month) man (eh) cry (I mean. Yeah)

1. INTENTIONALLY TRIGGERING JASON

See here for the ask where I talked about this (and which is presumably the ask that led to this anon). Taking Jason to Ethiopia with no warning when he's cooperating anyway just to intentionally trigger him in order to try to get Damian back to life when you never did anything like that for Jason? Holy fucking shit, you know? Just betrayal after betrayal after betrayal

Anyway I'm sure this list is missing some major moments and I'd love to know what I forgot about or, more likely, simply don't know about! I love a well written good dad!Bruce fic but lbr that's just not what he's like in canon. Calling him a mixed bag as a father figure is an understatement

[undertale-ost-tournament]

Stat post time.

The poll with the most votes was Group P (the Death By Glamour one) with 794 votes, followed by Group W (735, Metal Crusher) and Group T (Spear of Justice vs Bergentrückung, 601).

With the least votes is Group C (275), beaten out by Group N (282) and Group L (318).

The average turnout in a poll was about 438 votes.

None of the Uwa! tracks qualified, with none of them getting over 10% of their group's vote. Temperate was the most popular.

Oh! One True Love and Oh! Dungeon were also both eliminated, though Dungeon scored much higher than One True Love.

Death Report qualified, with almost 4x the proportion of votes than Live Report.

In a great injustice, Can You Really Call This A Hotel, I Didn't Receive A Mint On My Pillow Or Anything was eliminated, but Hotel was not.

Spooktune was the only one of Napstablook's house songs that qualified.

The most dominating performance was by Death By Glamour, which was over 615 votes over any other track in its group (77.5%).

The closest race (other than the two ties) was between Reunited and Snowdin Town, by 0.6% (2 votes). However, both qualified.

The closest race that actually resulted in one track qualifying and one not was between the tie of Good Night and Oh My..., and Long Elevator, which was kicked out by 2.5% (9 votes).

Speaking of the ties, there were two within groups, and two in the Danger Zone across multiple groups.

The aforementioned Good Night and Oh My... both got 68 votes or 15.4%. In Group F, It's Raining Somewhere Else and SAVE The World both got 182 votes (32.2%), both winning their group.

Interestingly, two strange occurrences happened. Groups M and U both got 329 votes, and their third place tracks, Reunited and Hotel, both got 53 votes (16.1%). Similarly, Groups B and Q both got 352 votes, and their third place tracks Oh! One True Love and Respite both got 46 votes (13.1%).

The highest-placing tracks by percentage that did not qualify were Spookwave, which got 17.3% but came 4th in its group, and Oh! Dungeon, likewise with 16.2%.

The lowest-placing tracks by percentage which still qualified were For The Fans, which got 6.8% yet still came 2nd, and Menu (Full), the same with 11.8%.

Which brings us to the final results. Here is a post with all the tracks ordered by how many votes they got, and this is a post with them ordered by proportion of votes (also this has that same one, but split by position within the groups).

And below the cut is the seeding of the 64 qualified tracks, and the 36 tracks that didn't make the cut below them.

Seed:

Death By Glamour

Hopes and Dreams

ASGORE

Spider Dance

Finale

Heartache

Waterfall

CORE

Bonetrousle

Battle Against A True Hero

His Theme

Ghost Fight

Undertale

NGAHHH!!

Your Best Nightmare

Spear of Justice

Last Goodbye

Bergentrückung

Determination

Metal Crusher

Song That Might Play When You Fight Sans

Another Medium

Fallen Down (Reprise)

Nyeh Heh Heh!

Bird That Carries You Over A Disproportionately Small Gap

Ruins

Here We Are

sans.

It's Raining Somewhere Else

SAVE The World

Fallen Down

Spooktune

Dogsong

Alphys

Dummy!

CORE Approach

Memory

Home

An Ending

Dating Start!

Power of "NEO"

Stronger Monsters

It's Showtime

But The Earth Refused To Die

Small Shock

Once Upon A Time

Amalgam

Tem Shop

Your Best Friend

Death Report

Bring It In, Guys!

Temmie Village

Thundersnail

Shop

Snowy

Final Power

Snowdin Town

Reunited

Hotel

Home (Music Box)

Good Night

Oh My…

Menu (Full)

For The Fans

Eliminated, in order of proportion of votes:

Spookwave

Oh! Dungeon

Quiet Water

Undyne

Dating Tense!

She's Playing Piano

Don't Give Up

Oh! One True Love

Respite

Long Elevator

Premonition

Start Menu

Can You Really Call This A Hotel, I Didn't Receive A Mint On My Pillow Or Anything

Last Episode!

Uwa!! So Temperate♫

Mysterious Place

Uwa!! So HEATS!!♫

The Choice

Uwa!! So Holiday♫

Enemy Approaching

Chill

Dating Fight!

Ghouliday

You Idiot

Live Report

Ooo

Wrong Enemy !?

Confession

Run!

Barrier

Anticipation

Pathetic House

Danger Mystery

Dogbass

Burn In Despair!

Unnecessary Tension

[hot-take-tournament]

My hot take is you could make a permanent blog concept out of this. Continuous hot take submissions. Crown a hottest take of the month. New Years special with stats like Most Votes or Most Divisive

i was definitely considering it! but there is also another tournament i really want to run (provided it doesn't exist already)

i actually wanted to get everyone's feedback on it, to see if would be something you guys might be interested in

if you guys like the idea, i was thinking of trying to run both blogs at the same time, with the other one being a tournament and then this one regularly posting hot takes and letting me chat to you guys

here's the tournament idea:

this was something i thought of while i was creating this tournament - i was thinking of calling it guiltypleasureplaylist

the idea is you guys submit songs that you secretly love but would never suggest to a stranger - nightcore versions of niche anime OPs, vocaloid tracks, ultra experimental Scandinavian death metal, etc. - as long as you genuinely think it's good, but also super embarassing, it would qualify for the bracket

i might just be projecting, but i think everyone has at least one song they love to listen to in private, but if their headphones weren't in properly and it played at full volume in a public library, they would die of embarassment

the tracks would be chosen based on their embarassment factor to unironic quality ratio, but then, everyone votes solely on unironic quality, so we can find the best song!

i did make the blog page so it would be ready in case i did ever decide to start it, so i can give you a chance to look at it if you want!

also, if this exists already PLEASE let me know - i scoured the tournament poll tag before and couldn't find it, but there's every chance it does exist by now, or it did before and i just missed it

thanks guys <3

let me know what you think!

[dystini]

Indycar Driver Lore

Indycar Driver Lore Masterlist

James Douglas Meredith Hinchcliffe

aka: Hinch

Birthdate: December 5, 1986 Hometown: North York, Ontario, Canada (raised in Oakville) Residence: Indianapolis/Bahamas Height/Weight: 5’8”/156 lbs

Rookie Year: 2011

Team: NBC Broadcast

Follow him on: Instagram Twitter

Career Stats 2011: Newman/Hass Racing - 12th Overall (missed the first race, last race, Las Vegas, was abandoned after Dan Wheldon's death) 2012: Andretti Autosport - 8th Overall 2013: Andretti Autosport - 8th Overall 2014: Andretti Autosport - 12th Overall 2015: Schmidt Peterson Motorsports - 23rd Overall (5 races completed before being injured) 2016: Schmidt Peterson Motorsports - 13th Overall 2017: Schmidt Peterson Motorsports - 13th Overall 2018: Schmidt Peterson Motorsports - 10th Overall 2019: Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports - 12th Overall 2020: 6 races w/ Andretti Autosport - 23rd Overall 2021: Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport - 20th Overall

Podcast: Off Track with Hinch and Rossi Ask Off Track Twitter Off Track with Hinch and Rossi on YouTube

IMSA 2014 SpeedSource Starworks Motorsport 2015 SpeedSource 2017 Mazda Motorsports 2024 Pfaff Motorsports

2019 Supercars Bathurst 1000 18th

-Likes a protein shake in the morning before the gym -Does not drink coffee -Likes Diet Coke and Peanut M&Ms -Doesn't like to ride a bike -Scars: Back of right thigh just below his butt (entry), Above left hip (exit), several on stomach. -Years ago, Conor broke Hinch's hottub at his house. Hinch complains about this at least once a year but NO ONE will give details as to how. -season 23 of Dancing with the Stars, partnered with professional dancer Sharna Burgess, finished in second place -Currently an Indycar broadcaster with NBC -Self-proclaimed mayor of fictional Internet city “Hinchtown.” -Has microbrew beer named for him: Hinchtown Hammer Down brewed by Flat12 Bierwerks in Indianapolis. The golden ale is now available seasonally across Indiana, Kentucky and Hinchcliffe’s native Ontario. -Collects guitars and antique lighters, counts Eric Clapton, Joe Walsh, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Buddy Guy among his favorite guitarists. A fan of contemporary artists, too, he listens to Twenty One Pilots, The Chainsmokers, Drake, Justin Timberlake, The Weeknd, Skrillex and Diplo. -Ambassador for New Era; Certified SCUBA diver.

Iconic/memorable moments

Dale Jr. Download: James Hinchcliffe "I Was Quite Literally Shish-Kebabed" (viewer discretion advised) Meet The Stars: James Hinchcliffe - Dancing With the Stars James Hinchcliffe - All Dancing With The Stars Performances James Hinchcliffe from Race of Champions 2017 in Miami – Part.1 James Hinchcliffe from Race of Champions 2017 in Miami – Part.2 James Hinchcliffe from Race of Champions 2017 in Miami – Part.3 2016 Indy 500 Qualifying James Hinchcliffe Pole Run Inside IndyCar with James Hinchcliffe James Hinchcliffe Discusses Getting Bumped from 102nd Indianapolis 500 James Hinchcliffe's Trophy Handling 101 IndyCar Series 2017. Texas Motor Speedway. Big One/Red Flag (All Angles & All Interview) James Hinchcliffe's 'Wet' NBCSN Interview During Red Flag at Barber Motorsports Park Andretti IndyCar Drivers Test Their Pit Stop Skills | #AllAndretti | Indy 500 The INDYCAR Off-Season with Marco Andretti, James Hinchcliffe, Josef Newgarden and Conor Daly HONDA PACE CAR // JAMES HINCHCLIFFE AND BECKY DALTON IndyCar Chronicles: James Hinchcliffe The Return of James Hinchcliffe James Hinchcliffe's NBC Sports Network Feature: Phoenix 2016 Screaming Meals - Dancing with James Hinchcliffe Alex's Aliens Butt Chugging Sunlight Mind of a Motorhead: IndyCar's James Hinchcliffe goes under the microscope | Motorsports on NBC James Hinchcliffe Accepts the Ice Bucket Challenge 2 Josef Newgarden and James Hinchcliffe Visit Space Camp INDYCAR Test Drive Episode 3: James Hinchcliffe Behind the CSN Scenes with James HinchCliffe • Full Video James Hinchcliffe in the Body Issue: Behind the scenes | Body Issue 2019 INDYCAR FANswers: James Hinchcliffe RACER: Who Gave James Hinchcliffe the Microphone? Driver James Hinchcliffe Red Carpet Interview from the INDYCAR Championship Celebration Meet the Mayor, James Hinchcliffe The Mayor On Air With James Hinchcliffe & Special Guests James Hinchcliffe's Indy 500 Race Bathroom Tip for Drivers James explaining Hinchtown James Hinchcliffe and Alexander Rossi: sharing a car at Daytona 24 Off Track with Hinch and Rossi – The Papaya One

While technically no longer a driver, James Hinchcliffe, known as Hinch, is still an integral part of the field. He remains friends with most of the drivers and serves as an informal liaison between them and the series, emailing drivers after each race asking for their concerns and forwarding them on to those in charge. Now in a broadcast role at NBC for Indycar and select IMSA races, Hinch does not rule out racing again, should the right opportunity arise. As of 2023, he has become a 'big F1 guy' commentating on select F1 races for F1TV

2019 ESPN Body Issue Controversy? Rumor has it that Arrow disapproved of James baring it all and this contributed to him being 'relieved of his duties.' James remained under contract for 2020, under which he was required to be with the team on race weekends and make sponsor appearances, but was free to pursue other opportunities. In 2020, Hinchcliffe joined NBC Sports as analyst for IndyCar races and select IMSA races when he did not enter as a driver. Read the ESPN article and view the pictures.

Hinch often referred to himself as the class clown of Indycar while he was a driver, bringing his slightly irreverent sense of humor out as often as he could. He’s a natural in front of a camera, entertaining fans throughout his whole career. He’s very intelligent and capable of explaining complex concepts in an easy to understand way. He’s got a sunny personality, is very personable and is almost always full of good humor and enthusiasm.

Fanfic Lore

Good friends with Conor Daly, Alexander Rossi and Marco Andretti. The four could be considered a 'band of brothers'

Often paired with one of the others of the band.

Alex Rossi’s emotional support Canadian

[saintadeline]

Here’s a little text (would barely qualify as an essay) about saint Adeline and sister Adella and their parallels :) excuse the way it looks I’m really not feeling like making it read like a proper essay but either way it’s something I have a lot of thoughts about. Also talks about oedon and kos a bit as well as obvioulsy blood saints as a whole.

The parallels between adeline and adella is something ive written about many times before, but i thought it would be interesting to see how much that train of thought has evolved since the last few times.

Both being the only known blood saints that we get to speak to, they’ve already got a lot in common by simply juxtaposing them in their role. It is mentionned adeline was one of the very first of their kind, which along with her relationship to maria helps us situate her in the vague timeline of events. thus it seems this practice started “with her” and has carried on throughout the years, perhaps perfected until now. not much is explicitly stated about blood saints and the meaning of this title, but we can theorize a few things. firstly, we know saints are chosen for their potential as vessels before actively undergoing some kind of blood treatment, i usually take their “merit as vessels” to be akin to choosing them for their blood type (O), since their blood needs to be universally compatible with all followers and hunters of the church. however, more factors may very much play into this as the worldbuilding of bloodborne puts a lot of attention in showing how blood differs, from “tainted” villagers close to beasthood, to pure enlightened kin (interestingly, adeline’s blood vial is much clearer than adella’s. this could be due to taking the blood directly from her arm, but since it is also clearer than arianna’s, who we see directly drawing it, i believe it is a nod to her state of almost ascension, kin having transparent fluid as blood). thus there is a possibility the healing church seeks an inherent ability to be swayed by the will of great ones. indeed, our two blood saints have had that very thing happen to them, in perfectly opposite ways; adeline ascends through contact with a great one, most likely kos, and adella succumbs to blooddrunkenness under oedon’s influence. There is more however to this, as oedon itself is said to be found in blood; it is formless and exists only in voice, but blood is said to be seen as its essence and thus inherently linked to it. oedon’s worshippers are described as “inadvertent”, more haunted by it than worshipping it, and adella is no exception. perhaps her predisposition to being swayed to the will of great ones is what drew oedon to her, as well as her indoctrination to the church’s propaganda against vilebloods; indeed, oedon seeks precious blood and seems to be particularly fond of the cainhurst bloodline: all oedon runes are mechanically based on increasing your means of using quicksilver, said to be imbued in blood and linked to the bloodtinge stat. Cainhurst descendants and vilebloods all have greatly increased bloodtinge, leading to their control over it. what is worth noting in this is that quicksilver is actually mercury, so vilebloods would have “naturally” high levels of mercury poisoning in their system, what oedon seems to be seeking and what its runes turn into bullets. interestingly, high mercury levels in a person leads to pregnancy complications and endangers the life of children, often leading to their death before or soon after birth, which can be linked to many things, oedon’s interest in it, arianna bearing its child despite being a cainhurst descendant, as well as annalise’s obsession with birthing her child of blood, which she requires other hunters’ blood in order to do. i am of the opinion that by branding “followers”, oedon is overseeing their blood itself, seeking the perfect kind it needs to reproduce. however, those who did not meet its requirements end up falling prey to that growing desire to seek that very same blood subconsciously, which led adella to killing arianna.

To go back on a previous statement, most sources of mercury poisoning in humans can be traced to fish and seafood consumption; infime traces of mercury, occurring naturally or though man made waste, finds its way up the ocean’s food chain, resulting in very high concentrations in bigger fish and predators. for instance, whales are one of the biggest sources of mercury ingestion, which we can link to the fishing hamlet itself and in particular kos. mercury accumulates in particular in viscera, and kos’ beaching after the endless farming of phantasms and parasites by the hamlet may have parallels to this, as well as the fishing hamlet’s transformation. the fishing hamlet is actually quite reminiscent of the minamata case, in the 1950s, where a fisherman village was slowly consumed by a strange and somewhat offputting disease, until it was found out to be caused by mercury poisoning from consumption of the local fish after a local factory dumped waste in the ocean. i’ve also found one of the primary sources of oxidized mercury finding itself in the ocean to be incinerators, and as we know, yharnam is quite familiar with that practice, hemwick being a town sized crematorium right on the coast. it is also worth of note that mercury poisoning in fish leads to several issues in their systems, specifically reproductive, which once again can be linked to kos in some way and her inability to have successful offspring, as any great one. in this way, it almost seems like oedon seeking mercury would be an affront or rivalry to kos, but there is no way of knowing anything more of this, as well as the fact that great ones may not even have the same concepts of hostility as humans. either way, it places them both at opposite ends of a spectrum, and with them come their worshippers, adella and adeline.

Adella and Adeline are regional variants of the same name, often seen as stemming from old german “adal”, meaning “noble”. it could very well be a coincidence or a simple nod on the writers’ part, however there is also an interesting theory i’d like to posit. the timeline in bloodborne is quite confusing, events of the old hunters might have happened 3 years ago just as they might have been a century before the game starts. if we were to assume adeline lived decades before adella, it would be quite possible that adella was indeed named after her. i do not think adeline was ever viewed a success as a research hall experiment, since she would have died or been sent to the nightmare before ever getting to the same heights we see her as, the nightmare’s proximity to kos helping her ascension, however her blood vial’s item description mentions that she was the first success as a blood saint, and looking at how important blood saints are to the church’s entire basis, it is quite possible that this elevated her to rank of actual Saint after her death, almost a martyr to the research hall, dying for scientific advancements which resulted over the years as what we know as the celestial emmissaries. my only other argument for this idea of sainthood is another theory of mine, which is in no way perfectly “canon” but one i quite appreciate, that the blood starved beasts are blood saints. it would make quite a lot of sense for a blood saint to turn into a beast starved for blood, its entire skin flailed like a punishment or a means to draw blood. there is in old yharnam a dead blood starved beast hung above the ground in a church, in a position quite reminiscent of the way scourge beasts are crucified in central yharnam: its arms are extended and it is held by the wrists by ropes, but its entire body is torn to shreds, suggesting a bloodletting, perhaps to get rid of impure beast blood, yes, but also perhaps as a way to drink of their blood, worshippers enraptured by the idea of blood and turning on their saint, its hung position almost reminiscent of worship, the way beast patients stand under and stare at it in a pool of its blood.

Blood saints have a complicated position in the church, they are essentially the face of the healing church for commoners and simple worshippers, being the church’s link to the people, acting as nuns and vessels for blood healing, therefore it is not unlinkely that they are seen as holy and an extension of the vicars by yharnamites. however, it seems they are treated quite terribly by the church itself, said to be “groomed” as saints, perhaps psychologically as well as their treatment for worthy blood healing. indeed, both adella and adeline seem to have a lot in common in terms of personal issues, they both suffer from extreme self doubt and have this idea that they are lower, not worthy of any attention given to them. it manifest in two very separate ways for them; as they are terrified of the idea of the hunter leaving them, adella grows an unhealthy obsession for them and becomes terribly jealous of anyone else they interact with, trying her best to feel useful to them while harboring hatred to the point that odeon’s influence on her made her act out on her inner feelings and kill the object of her jealousy (although church feelings and propaganda on cainhurst also played a major role in this.) whereas adeline panics and tries to constantly assure the hunter that she can be of help, practically begging them to stay and not leave her. we can assume these behaviors are not a coincidence and are brought on by their healing church “training”, forcing them to see themselves as lesser in order to control them more easily. indeed, if blood saints were to feel pride and ego as the commonfolk worshipped them, who’s to say how easily the church would still have a grasp over them. i would consider adella to be a very recent blood saint, freshly out of her “training” (thus why she is called Sister rather than Saint. but this could also be linked to the theory of Adeline having genuine Sainthood).

Something interesting as well is that the only person adeline feels more comfortable with is someone she met long before becoming a saint, lady maria, a cainhurst noble she possibly met before cainhurst even happened to be considered impure, thus she has not been swayed by the church’s disdain of them (which was most likely brought upon for purely political reasons rather than a genuine idea of purity as they would like to enforce). adeline and adella’s very own timelines and storylines are perfect parallels to each other; bloodborne seems to follow the old theory of humanism, in which man is created as neutral by god and through its actions, may fall down to the depths and become beast-like, or climb up and ascend as godlike, posing beasts and gods are opposite ends of humanity’s spectrum. in this way, adeline and adella both start on the same path, but adella is swayed by the church and oedon, sent to a state considered as the closest thing to beasthood, before inevitably dying, whereas adeline stayed true to her failing sense of self and ended up ascending to kin, granted an audience with kos and branded a rune, the highest possible honor, before succumbing as well. in that way, they are almost a study of how the context in which you evolve and live influences you as a person and the path you take, even if it was heavily swayed by great ones in ths scenario. however, did their paths simply diverge because great ones took an interest in them, or did the great ones touch them because of the way they were predisposed to be in the first place. i’d be more inclined to believe the latter, like i said earlier, i believe saints to be more easily prone to celestial influence, and the paths they were already on is what drove those gods to them, even if it was a simple passing-by of oedon that made adella falter, rather than adeline’s most genuine contact with kos.

[intoevernightfanfic]

For the writers truth and date game 😁

🧸,🔪,🏜️,🎱,🪐

Hello! 😊 Thank you so much for the ask! 💕

🧸 ⇢ What's the fastest way to become your mutual? Being regularly involved in the KH fandom! Whether that's creating or engaging with others in the fandom, it doesn't matter. It's all a two-way street, to me!

🔪 ⇢ What's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project? That's a tough call, haha. I've done a lot of injury/medical research (including details research into how one would remove an arrow in medieval times), or research about advanced sex positions. I don't think those qualify as "weird," and I can't really think about anything I've looked up that would get me on some watchlist 🤣

🏜️ ⇢ What's your favourite type of comment to receive on your work? I enjoy getting any type of comment, but I absolutely love the ones that are long, unhinged, and riddled with uncommon metaphors / humor. Those are the ones that make me shriek and want to hang on my wall 🤣 I also love analytical comments too!

🎱 ⇢ Post your AO3 total stats 

As of right now, totals are:

User Subscriptions: 190

Kudos: 8,607

Comment Threads: 2,555

Bookmarks: 2,307

Subscriptions: 881

Word Count: 2,397,885

Hits: 232,138

Top 5 by hits are:

The Arranged Marriage of a Tochigami and a Wild Fox (39,185)

Twenty First Times (28,372)

Arranged Marriage: 'Til Death Do Us Part (18,943)

Courtesans (16,328)

Arranged Marriage: Into the Past (13,895)

🪐 ⇢ Name three good things going on in your life right now

I'm really close to finishing After the Spring Has Come!

I've finally gotten around to furnishing and building out the spare room that's gonna be my manga library

I have the most wonderful fandom friends (Kiki, I'll see you soooon ;A; )

[skiesofaquaria]

Fear & Hunger: Finished!

23.6 hours and 30% of the wiki later and alas, here we are Fear and Hunger was kinda intimidating at first, but most of it came down the to publicity of it. I don't think I could call it "cruel" or "brutal", it just has a different gameplay loop than the games most usually play. Hell, I don't wanna speak too soon but it really feels like Dark Souls all over again, except in this case F&H is good. What I'm saying is that if you make YouTube essays you should die

To make it simple: the game's core philosophy is "bash your head against a ball until it cracks before your heads does". Death does not matter much as runs (to Le'garde) aren't supposed to last more than half an hour, and each death does not reward you with any items or permanent progression stuff but knowledge, which sounds corny as shit and I hate agreeing with youtubers but it's true. Died to a certain enemy? Avoid them next time. Fell down a toilet and had to commit suicide? Don't!. Pulled off a sword from some rubble and got crushed by debree? Avoid it or try something else! Slowly but surely you start developing your own route, you can get to places that took you an hour in mere minutes, you know what areas to visit and which aren't worth it, which items you want, and most importantly: How to cheese every encounter and every moment of the game

On a lore level I still don't think I'm qualified to talk, I've read as many books as possible but I still have some doubts here and there. What I can say however is that, as a sucker of Lovecraftian horror, the way the dungeon works, look, and feels was, put simply, my shit, same thing applies to most inhabitants of the dungeon as well

And that's the real golden detail of Fear & Hunger, the "feel". I hate words because I really don't know how to describe a "feel" other than by just, idk shove an electric rod in my brain and analyze the neuron connections to see what I mean. To put it as best as I can: The mechanics of the game really feel "fitting" to the atmosphere. Even when you're overpowered you still don't have fights guaranteed, you can always lose a limb or fail a cointoss and guess what no amount of Eastern Sword crits are gonna save you now. The dungeons feel heavy and dark, every new enemy is a terrifying learning experience, a question of "is he just a normal grunt or does he-" and the Lizardman raises his shield and now D'arce killer herself like an idiot; and once again, it's your knowledge that will defeat the dungeons, not your Strength stat

There's only one moment where I feel the game was bullshit and that was the room right before the very final boss, there's a mage there that constantly casts hurting and tears your limbs, and there's a good chance you won't find him in time before both your arms and legs are gone, so yea that's a good 15 minutes of progress lost to pretty much a quicktime event where you have to guess the inputs, now you need another 15 minutes of walking and avoiding stuff just for another chance of finding that fucker. It's less than 1% of the game but when everything else felt near perfect it really annoyed me that it was at the very last moment where something had to go wrong

But other than that, game's good, gave me a type of brainrot I haven't felt in a long long while. Would recommend if you thought Saya from Saya no Uta was cute (this post was written in a notepad and proofread exactly 0 times)

[monstersdownthepath]

Scourge Spotlight: Inkariax, the White Death

CR 26

Lawful Evil Colossal Outsider

Adventure Path: Return of the Runelords: The City Outside of Time, pg. 86-87

Surprise! Happy Holidays, everyone! I wasn’t going to wait until the end of the month to talk about this tall drink of ice water. The season of giving prompts me to give you something special, and what’s more special than a unique gift? Inkariax here is the first and, sadly, only Velstrac Demagogue to get stats, something that will likely remain true for the foreseeable future. I, for one, wish that he didn’t look like... well, just a Blue Dude with some added bits.

A 70-foot tall Blue Dude, mind, but a Blue Dude nonetheless. Yes, the ‘Colossal’ wasn’t a typo; this guy stands taller than most houses. The average human would be lucky to stand past his ankles. It’s easy for Inkariax to treat most other creatures as below him because, in a very literal sense, it’s true. It’s also true metaphorically, if you believe his origin story: it’s said than when the velstrac were first freed from Hell and migrated to the Plane of Shadow, their essence mingled with the frigid expanse of the plane to birth Inkariax, fully-formed. While other velstrac strive for perfection, he believes himself to already be perfect, and is so secure in his belief that he doesn’t even bother speaking to correct anyone else. There are few creatures in existence that can claim to have ever heard the White Death say even a single word, the titan usually communicating entirely through minor gestures or changes in his facial expression. Though he can understand any language and use telepathy if needed, he never does so except to give vague orders to his greatest minions. The most straightforward communion one can hope to get from him are the extremely rare occasions where he writes something down, which is why anyone at all knows why his desolate domain is called the Frozen Tears, and his personal frigid fortress the White Death’s Diadem.

Due to the lack of need he feels in communicating anything, his goals and desires are an utter mystery, perfectly moldable into any existing campaign a DM feels like having him show up in. However, his primary desire is easy enough to use without changing much: Inkariax desires perfection. Absolute perfection and absolute order. As a perfect being himself, the White Death is uniquely qualified to judge what is and isn’t perfect, and if there’s one thing he despises more than anything else, it’s time’s tendency to ruin perfection. He gets around time’s grinding wheel by capturing moments in amber, arranging the targets of his admiration into exact poses, then freezing them in unbreakable, glass-clear ice so he may admire their magnificence until existence itself comes to an end.

Inkariax embodies the absolute worst, most hostile form of Law there is, the dislike of even casual forms of chaos. Not moral or conceptual chaos, but physical chaos; entropy itself grates against his aesthetic, time spoiling all he deems beautiful. Were it not for his strange fondness for the Lady of Pain, Doloras, inspiring him to attempt to impress her with an ever-growing macabre gallery, Inkariax may be moved to freeze the entirety of creation in a single, exquisite moment, eradicating the possibility of imperfection altogether.

What chance does a party have of stopping him from his strange goals, whatever they may be? Let’s find out...

Well, let’s get something out of the way first: 70ft tall. This gives the mountainous Demagogue a space and reach of 30ft, and with the power to conjure Walls of Ice 3/day, there is likely little the party can do to stay out of his reach, giving him Full-Attack after Full-Attack. Perhaps fitting for such a refined being, his Bloody Icicles can be drawn from his flesh and wielded as elegant rapiers. +5 Wounding Rapiers, to be exact, sized for his massive form and thus capable of dealing 4d6+17 damage (+1 stacking bleed) up to four times each round. Worse still, his specific weapon selection means he critically hits on a 15-20, giving him a 1/4 chance to double his output for the attack... or, to put it in a worse way, it’s likely he may critically strike once a round, possibly even twice a round!

Those Bloody Icicles make for powerful ranged attacks as well, as he’s able to fling up to four a round as if they were +3 Daggers, each dealing 3d6+15 damage and critically striking on a still-high-but-more-reasonable 17-20. Unlike his servitors, who specialize in attacking from afar, Inkariax’s sheer size makes attacking from a range for him less than useful; he can pretty easily be fired on in retaliation because, unless he wants to take increasingly ridiculous penalties due to a dagger’s pitiful 10ft range increment, he has to stay relatively close anyway, and he’s a huge target. Also like the Libitinarii, he has both Point-Black Shot and Precise Shot, but PBS only works if the target is within 30ft... and if he’s within 30ft, then why not simply stab them with his significantly more dangerous rapier? It feels like his threat could be vastly ramped up if his ranged attack feats were traded out with Two-Weapon Fighting and its offshoots to let him dual-wield his icy rapiers without penalty.

While his skill with a rapier is usually enough to carry him, this is only if the White Death’s attention has been sufficiently stirred enough by the attacks of insects. His Unnerving Gaze completely stuns anyone who meets it for 1d4+1 rounds unless they succeed a DC 32 Will save, and unlike most velstrac, it has an effective range of 120ft, letting his dispassionate gaze take enemies out of the fight before he needs to bother drawing a weapon. For those who power through his gaze, his Regeneration 30 can only be shut down by a deific or Mythic source, and his DR 20 can only be penetrated by a weapon that’s Epic, Good, and silver. Rather notably, while he maintains immunity to charms, compulsions, fear, poison, and petrification, he is not immune to ability score damage, drain, energy drain, or death effects, making him one of the rare campaign final bosses that can potentially be weakened with Energy Drain or Enervation, harmed by Destruction, Finger of Death, or Slay Living, or even outright killed with Power Word Kill or even the humble Death Knell if the party has no other way to bypass his Regeneration... you know, if you can get past his 37 SR, but still. It’s interesting that such an angle of attack is left open. The party may not even realize it’s an option, given how death protection is so pervasive at high levels, especially with divine targets! It certainly takes a lot of bite away from the Demagogue.

Also interesting, Inkariax has no protection against Fire damage. Not even any Resistance! He’s got a hell of a lot of protection from Cold, though; not only is he immune to Cold damage, but he’s utterly immune to the effects of ANY spell with the [Cold] descriptor, no matter what it may be. He can move through snow and ice without difficulty, and use his Icy Logic to immediately and unavoidably end ANY ongoing effect with the [Cold] descriptor whether it be a spell, item effect, or even an alchemical item, with nothing more than a standard action. Why are you even wasting your time trying to use cold magic against him, though?! You fool!

The only master of cold here is him! Though he lacks the penetrating Hellfrost of fellow snow enthusiast Baalzebul, he often doesn’t need it, his spells damaging enough to surpass most Cold Resistance anyway. Like I mentioned before he has Cone of Cold and Wall of Ice 5/day, but he ALSO has Freezing Sphere and Ice Storm at 5/day as well, the inconvenient Chill Metal available at will, and the Dex-draining Polar Ray at 3/day. With so much AoE available to him, he’ll probably hit someone who isn’t fully protected from his cold, provided he’s not using his turn to disassemble nearby targets with his icy rapiers (which average out to considerably more damage to single targets than even Polar Ray). If you ARE immune to Cold damage, or perhaps you seem like something he may wish to add to his collection, he has Imprisonment 3/day as a terrifyingly powerful Save-Or-Suck, a single Will save standing between you and being sealed in his collection for eternity.

In a similar vein to that, though, there is one last gimmick he has: As he’s mostly a larger and more powerful Libitinarii, and they’re known to freeze targets they touch in ice to preserve them forever, you’d expect Inkariax to be able to do the same, right? Wrong! He actually freezes everything around him at once in a single go to save time. Upwards to five times a day, he can force all creatures within 30ft of him to make a DC 28 Fortitude save or take 6d6 Cold damage and 6d6 evil piercing damage... and anyone who fails must make a second, DC 29 Will save or be turned into deathless ice. Any victim who isn’t subject to Break Enchantment or similar within 1 hour per HD they have? They’re gone. Permanently. The book plainly and simply states that only the will of a deity can release someone frozen by Inkariax’s magic, making this one of the few abilities in existence that can’t be undone by Wish or Miracle, something that off the top of my head only the incarnates of Abaddon’s will have been able to do before.

Two failed saves standing between you and losing half your party to an ability from which there is no recovering, which you may have to succeed five separate times against. Between that and his Imprisonment, you may begin to WISH he’d stick to his damaging spells.

You can read more about him here.

[theotanaka]

[cismale and he/him] Welcome to Aurora Bay, [THEODORE TANAKA]! I couldn’t help but notice you look an awful lot like [DARREN BARNET]. You must be the [THIRTY-TWO] year old [BARTENDER AT THE REEF BAR]. Word is you’re [RELAXED] but can also be a bit [STUBBORN] and your favorite song is [UP ALL NIGHT BY KHALID]. I also heard you’ll be staying in [SEABROOK QUARTER]. I’m sure you’ll love it! @aurorabayaesthetic

pinterest + spotify

tw: drugs, fire, bipolar, death

stats

name: theodore tanaka

nicknames: theo, teddy (by family)

age: thirty-one

faceclaim: darren barnet

occupation: bartender @ the reef

gender: cis male

pronouns: he/him

sexuality: straight

birthday:  may 16 1992

sign: taurus sun, scorpio moon, gemini rising

ethnicity: japanese, cherokee, german

hometown: aurora bay

eye color: green/hazel

hair color: black

height: 5'10"

tattoos: coming soon

piercings: coming soon

likes-

dislikes-

headcanons-

biography:

Chaotic and huge is one way to describe Theo’s family life. His mother having bipolar disorder and his father being an alcoholic, left Theo to pick up the pieces most of the time especially when he was the eldest, but unfortunately for him, it seemed his mother was always pregnant, and always popping out children for him to look after. He loved his siblings, he truly did but the older he got the more he began to resent Aurora Bay. He craved a normal life, a normal childhood but he never got it. 

Without the structure he needed, his teen years were spent following in his parent's footsteps, he was just lucky enough to not get anyone pregnant while he indulged. His siblings followed suit, making it frustrating when he was trying to give everyone a good life. Theo was naturally good at everything, you name it he could ease through it, even if he’d never done it before. He quickly learned he could do anything, so he was never held back by anything aside from his home life. 

He didn’t qualify for college, and although he was good at most things, his grades were terrible due to endless family dramas. He spent most of his time working retail and hospitality jobs around town to keep himself and his family afloat, but this soon became tiring. At twenty-five, he decided everyone was old enough to look after themselves. He decided to move to LA. Somehow he wound himself up doing volunteer firefighting, it suited him well - it allowed him to feel like he was doing good again, without the pressure of it being his family.

Nine months after a one-night stand with some girl he met at a bar, he became a dad. Neither of them were ready and Theo didn't want to raise another child, but he had no choice. He wasn't going to abandon his child. They both spent their lives dedicated. to their child, but one night when he arrived to pick up his Amelie, he found her mother high as a kite. He tried to fix her, but she was just not interested. So he took Amalie and lost contact.

Things didn't end there for Theo, only a few months later he caught himself in another traumatic situation at work. After losing a best friend and co-worker in a bush fire, he lost his passion for it. He didn't want to go through that so he quit and started working at one of the local bars whilst he raised his daughter. Until he got the phone call to hear one of his sisters had been diagnosed with cancer at only 28. He knew he had to come home and care for her, so he did. He then picked up a job at The Reef Bar, juggling his time between his sister and Amalie, as well as the rest of his family who are older now so they could look after themselves. He found himself a place in Seabrook Quarter, something perfect for the three of them.

[onceuponaswanqueen]

Reading stats for 2023 & favorite reads of the year - Fanfiction Editon

This is the first year I have tracked my fanfiction reading, which I started in June, which means it’s not one 100% but I think still pretty good due to the fact that I mostly read on ao3 and the history feature is great! This is because I discovered the fanfiction challenge! And I am looking forward to the 2023 challenge and follow it from the start. 

Some stats to start off:

I read 11,931,924 words! 422 different fics, 67 fandoms and 173 unique ships!

Read on for my favorite fics of the year, and more statistics about type of fics, most popular fics and fandom and other fun facts!

By number of fics read my most popular fandom was Harry Potter. I read 41 different Harry Potter fics last year, and my most popular pairing for that fandom was Harry/Ginny. 9 of the fics had Harry & Ginny as the main pairing. 

Second most read by according to number of fics was Glee, with 39 total fics, and Rachel/Quinn being my most popular pairing, with 21 fics where that was the main pairing as well as being a secondary pairing in another 4 fics. 

In third place we have Critical Role, which means that I do atleast have one fandom that is still producing new content that I consume (sorry HP but fantastic beast is not my canon!). I read 35 different Critical Role fics, mainly campaign one and two. My main pairing I read was essek/caleb, with 4 fics, as well as 4 fics without romantic pairings. 

Overall by most fics read, my most popular pairing was a tie between regina/emma (once upon a time) and rachel/quinn with 21 fics each!

If we look at by number of words read, my most popular fandom was Harry Potter with 1 836 237 words read. Second most, accord to words, was Glee, with 1 637 214 words. And in third place, we have The 100, with 1 046 514 words read. 

In terms of ships, quinn/rachel win out by a fairly large margin. Nearly 10 percent of all words read was quinn/rachel, with a total of 1 14 9513 words total read. Jess/Rory (Gilmore Girls) comes in second with 990 554 words read. In third place is Harry/Ginny with 736 903 words.  I also read 799 501 words of fics without a romantic pairing. 

Longest fic read was of queens, kings and pawns by chancecraz which is a star wars time travel fix it fic, which focuses on a post-the force awakens leia being sent back to the day she woke on the death star. 

When it comes to type of fic, i mostly read canon divergence, with 143 fics qualifying under this type. When it comes to number of words, the most popular type of fic was still canon divergence, but followed very closely by time travel fix its and modern aus.

23 percent of all fics were re-reads of old(er) favorites, aka fics that I had read prior to this year.

And now, my top ten fics I read last year, (in no particular order and also some of these are series because this is my list and i make the rules and sometimes its just two unconnected series because i wanted to)!

1.  of queens, kings and pawns by chancecraz

I went to sleep on the worst day of my life and woke to find myself in the past on the second worst day of my life. As experiences go, I don’t recommend it. (leia-centric, han/leia)

This fic is INCREDIBLE. The world building is spot on, the character voices are spot on, leia being a reluctant force user, and the darth vader of it all is so good. It’s a WIP and might never be finished, but still totally worth it. It’s a long one tho.

2. The Changeling + The Armistice Series by  Annerb

Ginny is sorted into Slytherin. It takes her seven years to figure out why. (ginny centric, hints of harry/ginny) 

+  The thing about war is that it never ends. Not really. The battlefields just change locations. Harry and Ginny after the war. (harry/ginny)

The redemption of slytherin, the power of female friendship and also this is just such an incredible character study for ginny. The sequels are also fantastic, and the way the ginny & harry relationship unfolds is worth it alone. 

3. lux et veritas and distilla trust by peterstank

He stops, so she does too, albeit with a bit less grace. Then he grabs the sleeve of her coat and gently tugs her toward a bench with a quiet, “C’mere,” and it’s stupid, it’s ridiculous, but it gives her goosebumps. “Sit down, it’s gonna snow.”

Rory’s breath catches in her throat. Absurdly, ridiculously, she thinks: oh no. Dares to ask, “How can you tell?” and sincerely hopes his answer is something sarcastic and obvious like I checked the forecast this morning, how else?

Instead: “I can smell it. Sit.”

or: the one where jess goes to yale

+

“You brought a book?”

“Like you didn’t.”

She concedes the point and digs a paperback out of her clutch—Austen’s Persuasion, a good choice. Jess displays his own masticated copy of Tobias Wolff’s Old School, which feels like a consistently fitting read when encased within the two-hundred year old hallowed halls of Chilton Preparatory. The book’s cover is hanging on by Scotch tape and a prayer, and half the pages are creased with undone dog ears.

“Man, we’re a couple of anti-social freaks,” Rory declares.

Jess grins. “Just call me Thomas Pynchon.”

or: the one where jess goes to chilton.

First of all, all of peterstanks jess/rory stuff is AMAZING. Like out of this world, maybe some of the best stuff I’ve ever read amazing. But I am super weak for these two AUs and how Jess’s character elvoves in these two very different circumstances. I change my mind about which of these two are my favorite every single time I reread any of them, and like if you ship Literati, these are a MUST. 

4. Quality Ingredients by HurricaneJane

Executive Chef Lexa "The Commander" Woods is working in her latest establishment in her home town of Portland, Maine. She is about to start conceptualizing her next restaurant and only has one rule for herself during the process: No more girls. When an accident at the restaurant lands her in Dr. Clarke Griffin's ER, she second guesses why she ever had that rule in the first place. Lexa's head bartender, Lincoln, is obsessed with a divey restaurant on the other side of town run by Octavia. It doesn't take long for the small town to get even smaller when Lexa starts running into Clarke everywhere. Maybe rules were meant to be broken. (Clarke/Lexa, side Lincoln/Octavia)

This is my all time favorite the 100 fic, and I honestly can’t really put my finger on why. It has pretty much zero angst, so much good food, the characters feels right even in this setting, and just this fic gives me so many happy feelings.

5. Take these broken wings (series) by celaenos

Begins in Season one and follows Quinn through her life should she have chosen to keep Beth, realize she is gay, and fall in love with Rachel Berry.

I read a lot of Faberry, like a lot, and this is one of two fics (the other one reccomended below) that I constantly return to. It has everything I want from my faberry fic, with the added benefit of quinn/sam friendship and an absolutely adorable beth. it’s a very interesting look at quinn and how keeping beth would have changed her experiences and choices in the show. just give it a try, you won’t regret it.

6. the art of boxes by possibilist 

'Quinn thinks of gardenias growing through her eyes, and she thinks thinks of her childhood jewelry box: open it slowly enough, and the ballerina would spin for what seemed like forever.' College!Faberry as promised. Follows canon up through s3

First of all, all of possibilists writing is gorgeous, and if you don’t hate reading seccond person pov stories, i also highly recommend all of her one shots in her series where quinn is diagnosed with bipolar disorder, which can be found on ffnet. But art of boxes if just so beautiful, written in third person, and is such a beautiful interpretation of a post-season 3 faberry. like quinn makes so much sense, their relationship develops so naturally, and quinn’s relationship with both her mom and franny in this one makes my heart sing. 

7. the leftover you by beatperfume

Isabelle Lightwood is having a rough start to her senior year. Her brothers have moved out, leaving her alone with her parents as their relationship falls apart. She’s questioning her commitment to ballet just as she’s supposed to be preparing her auditions for ballet academies. She doesn’t need beautiful and talented Clary Fray making her life even more complicated. (izzy/clary)

i’ve never read much shadowhunter fanfiction before, but this one just stole my heart completely. i am a sucker for ballet!aus, and this one is just so beautiful. izzy feels so right and her friendship then romance with clary is just everything. also has great izzy/alec feels. (trigger warning for eating disorders/disordered eating, abusive parents and drug abuse)

8. after laughter (series) by palaces_outofparagraphs

the girls in the years after the finale, dealing with the inevitable trauma after being stalked and tortured on and off for ten years. starts off at age 26, 3 years post-finale; will probably skip around. probably aria- and spencer-centric; a lot of spoby; absolutely no ezria.

this fic series is everything that i wanted the post time jump to be even if it’s set after the finale. it’s all about the girls (focusing on spencer) healing from their trauma and what that means for them, and how to exist in the world after all of it. and like it’s so good. my favorites are “half-empty girl” which deals with spencer & alison and is really really good and “aria.” in which aria realizes that stalking isn’t romance, and seducing a sixteen year old can never be a good thing. but the whole series is worth it. 

9. met you at the right time by bookglue

Rory Gilmore—single, unemployed, technically homeless, and pregnant—comes unstuck in time. Bouncing between significant and not-so-significant moments in her life, she tries to determine when and how her careful plans went wrong. With some help from an ex-boyfriend. (jess/rory)

I am a sucker for time travel fix its, but this is one of the more unique ones i have ever read, not as much fix it, but still in the same vein. mostly, it’s just really good and i don’t want to spoil anything because the journey is everything in this fic, so just read it please.

10. done with my graceless heart by prettypony

After seven year old Henry starts asking one too many questions, Regina realizes the only way forward is to find Emma Swan and break the curse over Storybrooke. The town’s clock will start, everyone will wake up, and perhaps they’ll be so grateful for her change of heart that they’ll decide not to execute her right away.

And if not, at least her son will have a mother. Even if it isn’t her.

[or: regina and henry go on a road trip to find henry's birth mom. true love ensues.] Season 1 AU - Canon Divergence (emma/regina)¨

this fic was so surprising and at the same time just made so much sense, because really how did henry make it to ten without realizing none of his friends aged? it’s really beautiful, it’s wonderful redemption story for regina, and the romance between emma and regina happens really naturally. just a wonderful fic. 

[anxiousparadoxx]

SARAH JEFFERY // have you seen BROOKE JENKINS around the crash site? we’re trying to make sure they’re still alive after the crash! according to the manifesto SHE/THEY/HE (ANY) is a 27 year old NONBINARY PERSON. i hear they’re known being a NURSE. BROOKE is also known to be DEDICATED yet also NERVOUS at times. we have a couple questions for BROOKE when we find HER, we heard something about a secret they might have? such as HE’S THE SECRET GRAFITTI ARTIST IN HER HOMETOWN! (Kevin, 31, GMT (Cardiff), he/him)

TW: parental death

STATS:

Full Name: Brooke Claire Jenkins Age: 27 Pronouns: She/He/They (any) Hometown: Calgary, Alberta, Canada Lives In: San Francisco, California, USA (pre-crash) Birthday: 5th December

THE PAST:

Born in Calgary, Brooke was raised by their mother mainly. Their father, a student from Texas, having passed away when Brooke was only very small.

Brooke had an interest in art since she was very little but never really found an outlet for it until a "mysterious" person started putting up graffiti in her hometown.

While he spent most of his life immediately before the crash in San Francisco, spending time with his mother's family is very important to him, and he misses them immensely when it's been a while since he's visited.

Despite their connections to home they decided to move further away in order to have a bit of adventure for college.

Brooke got a degree in nursing while at college in San Francisco and minored in Psychology.

THE PRESENT & SURVIVIAL SKILLS:

He decided to take a holiday away after a particularly stressful year of work, having rarely taken time off his supervisor allowed it and he bought a ticket for the fated flight.

They don't have much in the way of traditional survival skills, unfortunately.

Luckily, due to her medical training she's good at treating injuries and looking after the sick. If something terrible happens to you, she's the one you want there looking after you.

Also, due to his minor in psychology he's, while not a trained therapist, certainly a qualified listener.

SOCIAL:

Brooke is determined when it comes to their work, but can be rather anxious when it comes to people, some of her colleagues misinterpret this as standoffishness.

He's more scared of you than you are of him.

They love to paint, back home (during their rebellious stage) they liked to graffiti, but in their later years they took to safer mediums.

In this locale, however, if anyone finds her a set of paints she'll absolutely liven some of the building up with some murals if anyone's interested.