#didn't get to play with the snake :(

[gummi-ships]

Kingdom Hearts Union χ - Daybreak Town

[lizzybeeee]

The Lucanis vs Illario story would have had greater emotional depth/intrigue if the writers didn't water down how fucked up the Crows are as an organization.

Just some thoughts about how, out of all the side villains, Illario had some great potential to be a really interesting/tragic character in my opinion.

TL;DR: Zevran Aranai has a knife with Caterina's name on it for good reason and Lucanis/Illario need therapy...or whatever the Thedas equivalent is called...talking to Rook, I dunno

Going into DATV as a new player, or even as a returning one, the whitewashing of the Crows has a lot of the potential complexities of that life simply ignored or barely touched upon. The entire 'Illario vs Lucanis' boils down to: Illario seething in the shadows about Lucanis being the 'best boy'™ of the family while Illario is an after thought - which he is.

Let's be real, Illario is not subtle and immediately comes across as the Scar to Lucanis' 'Mufasa'. It's a questline with a very straightforward villain who has pretty lackluster motivations from what info we're provided - being 'I want power and to be the First Talon'. The game does very little explore what motivations he may have beyond being jealous of Lucanis/wanting more power.

However, if you play the quest line knowing what previous games have set up about the Crows - about how cutthroat and brutal the life is behind the glamour - then you can see that the entire Lucanis vs Illario conflict has amazing potential to be a dramatic tragedy.

We've seen how the life of Crow can affect Zevran - someone who was sold into the life through child-slavery. How interesting would it be to see how the life of a Crow can affect someone who was born into it? It's pretty clear in-game that Caterina intends for her grandchildren to carry on the family tradition - despite the fact that this 'family tradition' has likely led to the deaths of most of her grandchildren and however many children she had.

If there's banter about how Illario's/Lucanis' parents/cousins died specifically I haven't heard it, but the impression I got in-game was that it was likely linked to the Crows/politics in some way? Feel free to correct me! Still majorly fucked up that she pushes her grandsons into this life regardless!

Lucanis/Illario's situation was not like Zevran's - who was sold into the Crow's through slavery, with no one to speak up for him. Caterina was a woman who had power, who knew what the life of a Crow meant, and who still pushed those she 'loved' into it because is consolidated her place in the system. For all the Crows talk of 'family' Caterina doesn't seem to give a shit about them unless if they're contributing to the family business in some way - not to mention the whole 'you fail and we kill you' clause of being a Crow in the first place.

In the 'Wigmaker Job' from Tevinter Nights Lucanis talks about how Caterina hit him [also Illario] with her cane for mistakes and had him spend days without food/water. How he used to hate her but now 'realizes' that it was her way of ensuring he survived the life of being an Antivan Crow. Did it end up protecting them? It likely pushed them both to refine their skills out of fear. It's likely that simply by association with her they would be targets and thus needed to know how to take care of themselves and fight.

But why have him as a Crow in the first place? Why not simply train them well to defend themselves? You can't deny that she doesn't benefit from having her grandchildren in the family business - intentionally wanting Lucanis to take over her position as First Talon. The Antivan Crows are a force to be reckoned with and being one brings a whole lot of power in Antiva - being part of the elite of that group even more so.

If the game showed us the ugly reality of the Crows - the brutality of the lifestyle and how cutthroat the organization is, it could have really added some depth to Illario's betrayal - having it be more than "I want more power/respect" to "this is the result of what you taught me was valuable in life."

Warden: "Do you actually enjoy being an assassin?" Zevran: "And why not? There are many things to enjoy about being a Crow in Antiva. You are respected. You are feared. The authorities go out of their way to overlook your trespasses. Even the rewards are nothing to turn your nose up at."

Illario, bitter about Caterina favoring Lucanis - resentful of the fact that she has already decided that Lucanis will be her successor, being offered power by the Venatori (at the expense of the Crows) and accepting because why not? How different is it from what the Crows do? Isn't power and status the whole point of working yourself up in the Crows? Getting into a relationship with Zara because why not? Isn't sex part of the allure of being a Crow? Why can't he have this? Why shouldn't he have this?

Rook: "When we met, it didn't seem like Illario and Caterina were close." Lucanis: "It was hard to be close to her. Even for me. And...I was her favorite."

Why would he have connections to his family? Why should he? Caterina certainly never seemed to value 'family' beyond what they could do for her and their family legacy. Most of his family is already dead, and of those that remain the only parental figure he has obviously favors Lucanis. We don't have a lot of evidence in-game to show that Illario ever really cared for Lucanis, but the prequel story 'The Wake' and Lucanis' own banter imply that they were practically brothers, best friends. Perhaps he did care and then ceased to at some point, perhaps he didn't at all, or perhaps he accepted that an early death for them both was inevitable like everyone else in their family. Dead now or later - what was the difference? At least if Illario sells him out now to the Venatori then he'll get something from it instead of another dead family member to bury.

It's the tragic result of raising a child in an environment where he was taught and experienced the need for self-preservation at all costs. Constantly threatened, punished, and made well aware of that fact that his life was an expendable commodity. Then, when things in the world went to shit he picked the only option that made sense to him. To save himself.

The irony of the potential fall of the Crows, the fall of House Dellamorte, coming at the hands of one of their own - not because he had a change of heart but because he was taught too well by them. The Crows view those that fail them as disposable, someone to be discarded - if the Crows fail Illario, what is to stop him from applying that mindset to them?

But this would require the writers to acknowledge how messed up the Crows are and we can't do that to our 'Noble Freedom Fighters'™. They'll also need to address Zevran's existence and what lore was established in past games...and we can't have that either lmao.

[prismaticsaltedink]

Scoria and Sakura are best friends! It's so cute when I see the things they do together, and it makes me so beyond happy that they both came to live with me so that they could share their lives with each other. They absolutely insist on it, and does so much good for the other.

I can't imagine how else they could have found happiness if things hadn't worked out exactly as they did. Scoria has basically been Sakura's "emotional support snake" while she worked through things from her past I'll never fully know that caused her a lot of issues with panic and fear. Sakura knows this too, and looks out for her sister, the only one she truly trusts and feels completely safe with.

The moment they wake up they both want each other to snuggle and play with. Scoria loves to be affectionate with both me and her sister who seems to have not had this earlier in her life- but Scoria is showing her how nice it is not only directly but demonstrating with me and Sakura also trying, copying what she has seen her sister do.

Sometimes when one goes to check on the other they'll join in on... I'm not even sure what they were doing. But they had a good time while taking a mandated union break from digging tunnels for the isopods.

So happy I get to share in the adventures of these two best friends! It makes me so happy to see them living their best lives together, and being beyond content snuggled together with their found family.

[fisheito]

*DEEP INHALE*

fine. whateever, . any other freaks wanna see an edit of yakumo in maid outfits? here

[memento-morri-writes]

More dnd writing because it's all I have but I here's a snippet from a vignette I did of Rook's past (from Zara's POV), because Rook and his mentors never fails to make me sick (/pos).

[transcript under the cut]

Taking a coin out of her pocket, she rolled it across her knuckles, back and forth. It gave her hands something to do, and prevented the urge to bite her nails, something she hadn’t done in years. Ten minutes passed, then twenty. Zara began to pace as Rook’s breathing grew shakier and the color drained from his skin. Where the hells is Jay? she wondered. The room was so quiet that she could hear every tick of the small clock on her bedside table, and each one echoed in her head. How many ticks does he have left? She didn’t want to think about it.  She’d had crew members die before, of course. You don’t go as many years as a captain as she had and never lose a soul. But all the others who had died had died quickly, in combat. She’d mourned for all of them, even shed tears in private, but there was something different about watching the life drain out of a person right in front of your eyes.

[nguyenfinity]

Put pepper on a snake call that a spicy noodle

EVERYONE GO READ BEAN’S AU AND LOOK AT HER ART FOR IT RIGHT NOW

@posebean thank u for being a creative genius mwah

[critterbutt]

[six-improbable-things]

Ended up accidentally quoting Inigo Montoya during today's session... I don't regret it at all.

Yes, this is the snake that kills you if you swear, so Rook swore at it a bunch on purpose to piss him off and draw his attention. Andrassi (the snake) had eaten Rook's dear friend Jay the night before, and Rook was um, more than a little mentally unstable going into this fight, plus extremely sleep-deprived. I was really happy with my improv here though. It felt badass.

Rook also ended up killing Andrassi himself, which was very fitting:

This was with a held action, too, so there's a giant snake's head barreling down on Rook, and he just stands his ground and sticks his entire fucking arm into the snake's mouth and just hopes he can kill it before it swallows him whole...

Honestly every single one of us was shocked that Rook didn't die this combat. And he honestly probably should have given that he got paralyzed via Hold Person, and took one auto-crit that took out 60 of his 63 max hp. Insanely, he never even went down. (Actually no one did?? We got SO lucky. Thank our cleric for a really clutch casting of Insect Plague, and some nice Mass Healing Words and a Mass Cure Wounds from the bard.)

[egglygreg]

...

[balkanradfem]

You're so brilliant! First time I see question about magic replied in such way, but you are totally right! The narrative about magic gone is prevalent about just anywhere, in any media or story, including lost Eden, lost Atlantis, Tolkien books etc etc. But you are right that it can't be lost! (I was not anon who asked)

Thank you for such a great message, I do feel like we have the narrative of everything ancient being lost to time but the source of it all has not been lost at all, we have what people back then used to have as well. We just ignore it and assume it's gone forever. I think as children, we pay much more attention to nature (or at least it's how my childhood was), and it's at that time of life that magic very much feels real. It's only when you turn your attention away that it feels gone.

Lately we have been looking away. But we can figure it out and look back.

[oveliagirlhaditright]

I forgot to mention that I saw the trailer for the new the The Hunger Games movie when I went and saw Blue Beetle (the prequel, you know?) and it does look really good (even though at first I was unsure about it). I'm probably for sure going to see it when it comes out. Though this will be the first time that I haven't read the book first... unless I do end up reading the book between now and then.

[awkward-teabag]

You know what, I'm going to add to this after all. Ray tracing is a gimmick and infamous for how intensive it is on hardware where it updates in real time, such as in video games. Before it was considered at all feasible outside rendering CGI, there were other methods of simulating light that were far easier for hardware to handle and, honestly, the difference between them (I can't remember what the name of the algorithm is) and ray tracing is minimal.

Adding to the problem is video card manufacturers pushing it while not increasing the VRAM on cards that are now expected to handle ray tracing, NPC scripts/AI, all other graphics, and stream encoding at the same time. GPUs have not seen a meaningful increase in VRAM in years despite the push of 4k graphics and ray tracing.

Oh and handling generating in-between frames to increase FPS/hide poor optimisation and up-scaling from 1080p to 4k or 8k. Sometimes both at the same time (in addition to the rest).

Further compounding it is consoles using stripped down versions of GPUs but not allowing users to upgrade them or other hardware. At least not in an easy way that doesn't void the warranty.

There's only so much that can be off-loaded to other components and it is a Choice™ to decide not to include an option to disable features that minimally improve the graphics (I specify graphics since more than one game has been released where turning off ray tracing wasn't the first thing recommended to turn off if you wanted to hit 30+ FPS) but can and do overwhelm GPUs.

Mandatory Ray Tracing should be banned in games. Genuinely absurd to think the majority of consumers are running high performing RTX graphics cards.

[damnibreathealot]

simon 'ghost' riley with a dick piercing!

✎ | dick piercing. gn!reader, but the reader has female genitals. overstimulation at the end! a shitty proof read... heh.

✎ | happy new year!!!

simon got his dick pierced long before you two met, and honestly, when you two first had sex, you weren't shocked at all when you saw the piercing in his tip. you were more shocked at how good it felt. you figured that it would be more painful than pleasurable and that all the girls online who talked about how good it felt when they were getting fucked by a guy with a dick piercing were just straight up talking bullshit.

but boy, were you wrong.

he was gentle, at first, to say least. he teased you for a bit – rubbing his cock up and down your folds, causing you to let out a mewl from the pleasure everytime time his smooth, cold piercings nudges against your clit. in reality though, he was tryna get you nice and wet for you to take his cock. he didn't want it to hurt, considering his ridiculous cock size.

when he switched positions, bending you over and then slowly sinked his length inside of you, you swear you were seeing stars. you begging him was worth it. his cock stretched you deliciously and when his tip finally kissed your cervix. that's when realised how good dick piercings actually feel. the piercing pressed against your g-spot. the smooth metal rubbing against it perfectly.

fuck, you were screaming for him and he just started.

when he started to move, your mind went numb. all you could feel and think about is how his cock was dragging in and out of you. he picked the pace where it was slow but he made sure to fuck his cock deep into you. he chose to go slow so you could feel every detail of his cock inside of you.

you could've sworn you were beginning to drool. your pussy was already clenching hard around him. no fucking way. you were already close? he took notice of how trembled. he guessed you were close so he decided to move one of his hands of your waist to snake around to play with the little nub that hid behind your soaked folds.

the dual sensation of his cock and his fingers rubbing at your clit was enough to make you cum. your pussy clamping down on him like a vice and your pussy coating his cock with your clear fluids.

he wasn't done though. he needed to cum and he was close too! your pussy felt like fucking heaven. his eyes follow down to the white ring that formed at the base of his cock. he groaned at that. his thumb swiped your clit faster and faster. he was too pussy drunk to even here your cries about you being too sensitive and for him to slow down.

your clench of your pussy and the sight of it taking his cock so well was enough to cum, flooding your pussy with his cum before pulling out with a lewd squelch...

[ace-fender-bender]

My stepdad always hinted at having had a lot of dogs in the past and I thought sure he's lived a ling life, he's seen a lot of pets come and go but the more he talks about it the more I come to realise that he's just a wildly irresponsible pet owner who has killed many dogs through negligence

[g-k444]

POV it's your turn to host game night with all your boys so they come around to our place and you get the TV on whilst i get beers for all your friends before everyone gets between tipsy-drunk on their beverage

we start with drunk jenga where i lose and the best punishment that all your male friends can come up with in their drunken fervour is to each spank my ass once

my thighs are clenched tight around pussy which begins pulsing with ancticipation as I'm bent over onto your lap with my ass in the air, recieving a slap from each of your mates that gets more confident by member - the last on going as far as to lift my skirt and expose the thin lacy thong that doesn't cover much, as his hand leaves a red print over my delicate skin

then the next game is snakes and ladders - but instead of choosing to fall down the snake - it's decided that the men can get their cocks out, and I can take off an item of clothing for each time i land on a snake.

it feels almost suspicious how every dice roll seems to lead me to a snake - and how by the end of a short, fifteen minute game, the men end it early, just when i take off my skirt and wear nothing but my lacy bra and sheer panties...

and they move onto twister.

but in this version of twister, they decide that I am the subject - the only one to play... And someone spins for me for each turn, and then have a minute to fuck me in x position to try and make me cum.

I wanted to protest and look to you to tell them no, but the rowdy, drunken men put the mat out and had made the decision before i could protest - spinning the hand so that it was "left hand on red"

I got onto my knees to put my hand there - not wanting to bend over and leave my posterior vulnerable to the men that had no regard for how i felt about the crude game, yet as my knees hit the floor and hand attached onto the mat, I heard metal clinking for just a moment before there was a cock pressed into my behind, penetrating my hole and making a gasp exit my throat as someone pushed their cock into my pussy, slipping in all too easily and snapping their hips against mine rabidly

"so fucken wet, such a good pussy - you hearin' that?"

my cheeks were red with shame that despite my lack of want to be in this situation, my pussy was dripping with slick, wet with subconsious want to be fucked by all these men, in front of all these men.

"that's time. next spin... left foot on blue."

They each fucked me. one by one as i moved my body into different positions and had they come between my legs whilst i cried at the force they hammered themselves into me, simply using me as a vessel to chase their own pleasure.

i didn't cum, but they did - many of them did - shooting them cum into me and laughing as it dribbled back out of my pussy.

they guffawed and took great pleasure when i had to split my legs open from one side of the mat to the other and a fat glob of hot white cum spilled from my pussy and onto the mat, my cheeks burning red as i felt my pussy throbbing at how much i enjoyed the humiliation.

round after round - some chose to use fingers instead, not wanting to get their cocks leaked on my other men's seed - some used a vibrator instead, pressing the vibrating head against my clit and watching as my body shook with overstimulated pleasure, my pussy clenching and opening sporadically and making more cum gush from the creamy white hole, showing what a mess you'd made of my body

at the end of the night when the men zip their pants up and leave, you turn to me and ask whether we could host games night again sometime

despite how broken my body is and how tears stain my cheeks from how much i cried...

i cant help but nod that yes i want that to happen again.

[writingfromasgard]

Simon gets frustrated that his dick won't get hard after drinking too much.

He's got you straddling his lap and nibbling on his jaw, grinding down on him. You're half dressed, letting his hand snake down the back of your underwear to play with your ass.

Your moans are killing him. The needy rocking you're doing making him want to shove you down and leave your ass filled.

His cock? His cock won't rise. He didn't know you'd be coming over. He drank one too many bourbons. Now he's got to listen to you cum on his fingers while he waits out the alcohol.