#dirge of the desert

[emmasmoke8]

I was deleting photos from my camera roll when I found this one, and I feel like nobody is talking about this nearly enough. I can’t remember which quest this is exactly, but it’s one of the Jeht world quests. An earlier one, I believe, when we hadn’t found the oasis yet

[coneheadseekers]

omg a conehead-focused account, am I dreaming??

I was STARVING through Tumblr searching for content of my fav little conical blue guy who can't catch a break and then, out of nowhere, I see this account, and I'm dazzled- Are you even real? Please tell me you are and confirm the existence of conehead enjoyers.

Believe it or not, fellow conefan, you're not dreaming. You've simply left behind the unconely transformer rabble and entered into...

✈🍧The Cone Zone 🍧✈

Please enjoy your stay.

[sparknightdaily]

[stygiansauce]

OKAY. It's time to yap about Dealing In Dispair. This is my Ranchers Wild west Au that I've been cooking since I read Dirges in The Dark back in January.

Jimmy is the sheriff of a small town. He loves this town. He cares for this town. It's only standing because he's put his entire heart and soul into the this town.

A man comes. He infects the town with a sickness of some kind. Jimmy very quickly blames himself for letting the man stay because whatever he had is making people crazy.

They start killing eachother. He can't stop them. Something is incredibly wrong with his people, his home, and they won't stop killing. It's like the devil himself has crested the canyon and brought hell to the earth.

it ends with the school house burning.

Jimmy stands over the remains of his town, the last remaining resident. and he swears, he promises He's going to find the man that started this sickness, and he's going to kill him.

A bloodlust itches under his skin. Nothing seems to quench it.

Tango is a bandit.

he wasn't always a bandit, He used to be ranger actually.

While he and his crew tracked a man with a bounty, they learned quickly why the bounty had been placed.

A boogey man. A curse that can only be lifted by another curse.

his crew dies. Tango finds himself infected. Cursed to pass this sickness onto the next town, or die of withering rot.

Tango doesn't really like the idea of dying, and he certainly isn't in the business of killing innocents either. So he takes the logical step, and finds a cross roads.

After a quick deal with the devil, Tango now bares a mark like cain. He will kill the man of sickness, or the devil can have his soul.

It's almost funny when he finds a sheriff in a similar predicament.

"I know the path you're on, it ain't a pretty one." "You don't know anything." "you'd be surprised Sheriff. Now, about this guy we're after." "we?"

Jimmy hates the bandit he's stuck with, but it's been too long since he's been in the open desert and it only makes sense they team up, consdering they're after the same man.

But he swears, if this red-eyed son of a gun does't shut up the crawling under his skin is gonna pop out, and he'll kill this bandit in his sleep.

He's never killed anyone before, why is he suddenly daydreaming about it?

It doesn't matter. He has more things to worry about, like how they both want to kill one man and there is obviously a problem with that considering two people cant claim the same kill, not according to Tango's contract.

oh and the time limit, because the longer they take the more this mysterious rot starts to take over his body.

Enemies to lovees wild west au where they hate each other and reguarly try to kill eachother because if they don't kill this freaking guy then one of them is gonna die (If jimmy would just spread the sickness to the next town he'd be fine but of course he won't do that). It's gonna be so funny I promise. it's gonna be great to play the "I'll kill you" "not if I kill you first" (then they kiss) game :D yes this is named after a Billy Strings song....

[bogleech]

bog please help me which specific book is this i'm interested

It's Dirge, the second book in a trilogy about how humans and thranx came to form a single integrated civilization, though technically there are four books about this history; one standalone novel about first contact, and the trilogy that begins 20 years later. I'm gonna quote their wikipedia synopses:

Nor Crystal Tears: "The story follows a Thranx, Ryozenzuzex (i.e. Ryo, of Family Zen, clan Zu, Hive Zex) who came from an odd-numbered hatching (thranx offspring almost always come in multiples of two) immediately making him somewhat different from his brethren. Setting himself aside as different Ryo decides that he has to know what is the secret of the new space-faring race that supposedly wear "their skeletons inside".

Phylogenesis: "Desvendapur is an anti-social Thranx poet native to the colony on Willow-Wane who believes he can find new inspiration for his poetry by coming in contact with the physically repulsive humans, an intelligent mammal race that is unlike the insectoid thranx."

Dirge: "The Pitar are a close human analog to humans, appearing to be perfectly human except for a wider variety of hair and eye colors (including blue and violet among them) along with nearly god-like physiques. Most humans almost immediately view the Pitar as perfect. This complicated matters for the insectoid Thranx who wish to form a closer alliance with the humans. Some xenophobic humans go so far as to invade the small Thranx colony in the Amazon, killing many of the insect colonists. While this causes a political nightmare for both humans and Thranx, it also brings together the human chaplain and Thranx spiritual advisor who form the United Church."

Diuturnity's Dawn: "In the third and concluding novel of this trilogy, an uncomfortable archaeological alliance of Thranx, humans, and AAnn, explores the well-kept secrets of the lost civilization of the Sauun on the frontier world Comagrave. After a series of accidents that occur where the AAnn are convenient for helping an injured or stranded human, the chief Thranx scientist starts suspecting an anti-Thranx conspiracy." The AAnn are major antagonists throughout this continuity; they're its "war-loving" race ala the Klingons but they're desert dwelling flesh eating "reptiles" (it IS acknowledged that things like mammal, insect, bird etc. are just human colloquialisms for convergently evolved aliens, though) who look down humans and thranx in part because we both look like and taste like their favorite staple prey. For some reason however an AAnn has never been officially illustrated outside an RPG module:

In case you want to know going in what the lovable bastard asshole dinosaur people look like.

[applepixls]

hey guys. have you heard of hadestown.

(its a musical that meshes the myths of orpheus & eurydice and hades & persephone)

orpheus is a naive (sorta sheltered?) bard who acts on his whims while eurydice is a realistic and tough girl who's doing all she can to survive

hades is king of the underworld and keeps persephone there a lot of the year meaning there's a lot of winter up above

now hear me out.

3rd life.

scar as orpheus, grian as eurydice.

wedding song as scar proposing they take over the desert, the second verse being grian suggesting they take the dark oak. now, imagine all I've ever known as a dark night dancing in the desert not to mention, "its a sad tale, its a tragedy" (bonus: in a gathering storm eurydice calls for orpheus and he isn't there because he's off writing his song, narratively similar to grian calling for scar in double life when everyone was digging around for their sugar cane while scar was off accidentally lighting the place on fire and petting the jellie pandas)

extra bonus ideas:

persephone sounds like bdubs? like, listen to livin' it up on top. the gritty voice/singing and all her attitude (/pos) and some of the lyrics "who makes the summer sun shine bright?/thats right! persephone!" (he was the esmp2 sun god!) she sort of reminds me of the vibe bdubs gave off when he was ren the king's guy in s9 (my impression was he was kinda frantically running around at ren's whim, its not at all the same with hades and persephone but there's the sort of obeying a king thing)

leading me to my next thought of ren as hades. someone i was listening with said "winter has come" which made me think of "red winter is coming" dfhj

but another thought is just the last life ethubs divorce? seems very relevant with bdubs persephone parallels

also in hey little song bird hades refers to eurydice as a canary and we all know whos a canary

hermes (conductor of the train on the road to hell) and the fates play a narrator type role except hermes is more explicit while the fates are the humming in the back of your head they weave the path of how everything goes and you cant defy them

martyn throughout all the series is a sort of nomadic no solid home kinda guy and always self aware (he makes the lore-) which connects him to hermes for me but at the same time the fates are very much watcher/listener things so like bigb and martyn? (i don't know the lore sorry lol) i'd also say that somehow impulse's littlefinger flip floppy triple double agent character in third life gives a vibe like he knows whats going on in all the groups also connecting him to them for me

(i will say scar could fit hermes as well in being a sort of travelling sales person in last life and a bit in double life? also I've read dirges in the dark which means i see him and the devil and making deals with complicated clauses as very interconnected)

my final note (and being a devils advocate)

scar could also parallel hades.

if you watch his perspective he's very happygolucky and doesn't seem to get the real weight of the situation and such but from other perspectives his and grians deal seems kinda like he's had grian sign away his soul or he's kidnapped grian and there's some stockholm syndrome happening (its actually grians guilt but i digress)

hades convinces eurydice (scar is a silver tongued man) to sign away her soul to him and also the story of hades and persephone is that he kidnaps her and she eats some pomegranite and has to stay in the underworld for part of the year

sooo yeah. paralells between hadestown and 3rd life/life series. enjoy.

[arisewanekosuki]

Traveler's little helper -Extra-: Aether x Fem!Reader

[Small spoiler from World Quest Series The Dirge of Bilqis.]

… - “Mmm... The scent of unknown spices from afar... A servant girl of the desert-kin, and a flying pet... You must be a Prince in exile, are you not?” the Jinn said, ‘looking’ at Aether, then she turned to you. You were ready to be called a servant too by her. -“And you must be then the Prince’s lover!” you didn’t respond from the shock,  Aether was the one to reply with a smile on his face. -“You’re right with that.” After that you come back to your senses and lightly slapped his arm. -“It’s not time to joke like that! And no, I’m not his lover! We all friends with each other!” you said to Jinn, not noticing the pout on Aether's face. Jeht and Paimon were standing there wondering, why you were called something better than servant and pet… and how you still didn’t notice Aether's feelings towards you.

[joffyworld]

JOFFYYYY ur shamura lore is so interesting 👀 so theyre like descended from some sort of sun deity? ALSO what does "Šamaš" mean? thank u for always sending my wig into orbit 🌌

DIRGE HIIIII

Okay so,

Šamaš is the name of an ancient Akkadian God and that's where the name "Shamura" actually comes from. I did a slight etymological dive into it before but Šamaš was then the root for words like "Shams" (Arabic for Sun). Interestingly, Šamaš was both the God of Sun, but also the God of Justice, and was known to have many siblings (sound familiar)

So, as the lore kind of implies, Shamura and Šamaš here are the same person! Šamaš mentions in their reflections that "nobody remembers One (Shamura)" because they were the oldest. They were left to die in the desert by whatever family they had and left to die under the sun that "seeps into their skin"

Šamaš is Shamura, one is pre-deal with whatever figure extended their hand at the end of that stanza, and Shamura is who they become. They go from the Shunned Son of the Sun (Šamaš) to being They of War and Knowledge (Shamura).

I wanted to tie in some irl references to how the Devs came up with the names, hence why the poems are all in the native languages those names derive from (Heket's Egyptian, Leshy is Russian, Kallamar was Greek and Narinder was Indian but he's an exception as per usual).

Thanks for the ask Dirge, hope you like whatever comes next when it's all ready. Time for me to start actually writing all the lore in my brainhole so it makes sense because from here is the tough bit <3

[sillyguysss]

thinking about post dirge of Cerberus Genesis again and ughhhhghh. By the time this man wakes up the entire world has changed, most of everyone he was close with is dead and Shinra isn't even really anymore. How do you even start to connect back to society? Because I can't imagine Genesis would be okay with just existing at the edge of society, he isn't like Vincent or even maybe Sephiroth in that way. In my mind Genesis needs people, sure his time in his cave™ gave him time to think and reflect and maybe learn his hunger for fame isn't healthy, but he still would need people. And there's also the guilt! This man has probably marinated in his guilt for years and now needs to live with the fact he's the only one who survived, despite being the one who, arguably, started to whole mess with his desertion.

Just imagine him travelling to the place where Banora was and Nibelheim, thinking about the people he lost and mistakes he made. Think about him looking at the ruins of Midgar and playing a thousand what if's in his head where they could've been happy.

[sparknightdaily]

[focsle]

Re-recording! Tho...idk how I feel about this mic. Whatever.

Poem written by Henry Glover, a former schoolmate of Samuel Comstock who orchestrated the mutiny on the whaleship Globe in 1824. And I put it TO MUSIC because I’m partial to bloody boat songs.

Stanzas under readmore.

His sun rose unclouded and brightly it shone In the pride of the morning and promised a noon Of glory and gladness; it sank to the flood In blackness and blindness, and tarnished by blood. Disowned and dishonored its last gloomy glare Was shed on the grave of young mutineer

Tho’ beardless his cheek, yet his was a soul That knew not a master, that brooked no control; Tho’ beardless his cheeks, yet his was a hand Acquainted with daggers; a voice to command, An eye that wept, a heart without fear, Were the pride and the boast of the young mutineer.

He lies on the beach of a lone desert isle, His dirge the green billows are chanting the while, As they in wild tumult, roll over his head, And wash the high rock, that marks out his wet bed; There lies with a heart that ne’er knew a fear, The mangled remains of the young mutineer.

He lies on the beach, the cold waters beside, And dreadful and dark was the death that he died No mother mourns o’er him, no fond fair one weeps Where far from the land of his father he sleeps. But the rude swelling waves, and the sea birds career On the wet sandy grave of the young mutineer.

He lies on the beach by a comrade in guilt, His forehead was cloven, his best blood spilt. The cries of his victims have risen to God, And their wailings were quenched in the murderer’s blood. He fell without mourners, for none dropped a tear O’er the mangled remains of the young mutineer.

He lies on the beach, where the weeds and the shells, Mark the bounds of the sea, where in tumult it swells They scooped him a grave, and there laid him at rest And heaped the wet sand on his bare, bloody breast. And they rolled a huge rock and planted it there To mark the lone grave of the young mutineer.

In the years that are coming the seamen will tell Of murders and murdered, and murderer’s yells. The tale, the lone watch of night will beguile When they sail by the shores of that desolate isle. And their beacon shall be, as they thitherward steer, The black rock on the grave of the young mutineer.

[randomwriteronline]

One night, when all is over, when all can rest; when Kiina sleeps listening to the waves, Berix nursing the newest still unfinished project, Gresh not having any new scars to count, Click barely batting a wing; Ackar hears the voice of Mata Nui smile with such infinite love, and wakes up.

He sits up and listens again: if he strains his ears, if he forces himself to shut down the frantic beating of his heart, he thinks he can hear that voice again. He could swear he is talking, maybe humming, so close and yet so impossibly far away, even further than the resting place of the Ignika but somehow right next to him, tone filled with mournful joy, with an affection that brings one to tears.

Someone is out there, outside.

Someone is singing, outside.

He leaves.

One night, when all is over, Ackar forces himself to stumble out of town and into the cold, into the slowly receding desert which is giving way to life once more; he follows beneath the starlit sky barren of blue or green moons the sound, the song, the voice, an enthralled sleepwalker chasing desperately after a lucid dream he knows cannot be and yet so desperately wants to find, a spellbound seaman bewitched by a cannibal siren's serenade dragging his ship against the jagged cliffs upon which the object of his desire perches with monstrous arms outstretched so lovingly towards him.

He chases after the sound, the song, the voice: he could swear it's the same, the same deep and comforting sound upon whom he once laid his hand on to call 'friend'; he could swear it's the same, so sweet and so heartbroken, and his throat twists tight into a knot as he knows he will not see what he wants, yet he wants so badly.

He chases after the sound, the song, the voice: it splits but does not shatter. Like the hairs of a braid its pieces join together, tangle gently, form a harmony that no mouth can replicate.

He stops.

He looks.

One night, when all is over, Ackar watches and listens.

He knows them, he recognizes them: the twelve of them arranged in two concentric circles, only six of them singing, only six of them silent, their language so far beyond what his anatomy could comprehend or hope to produce, and yet he understands.

He understands from the inner circle's tight fists, their shaking shoulders, their shuddering chests as they struggle to breathe. He understands from the outer circle's solemn pronounciation, the anguish in their shining eyes, their longing and trembling voices.

He understands and hushes, and listens to their mourning song.

One night, when all is over, the Toa Mata mourn who they were fated to protect and instead failed.

One night, when all is over, the Toa Mahri mourn who they could not hold back from the choice of fate.

One night, when all is over, Toa Takanuva mourns all who he will never accept he could not die in the stead of.

Six voices raise, six lights like an aurora across the sky - two figures, mighty and wise and yet so powerless, dancing in their dirge with bodies composed of mourning songs harmonizing together - warriors burying a king, a peer, a friend, a stranger. Six more join, louder to the point of wailing, no composure, burning stars bursting as violently as their destructive end allows, children crying inconsolable the death of a hero, a peer, a friend, a sibling.

The Toa howl like wild hounds into the empty desert night in which no bloody star shines, in the heartbroken artificial language of their manufactured living people.

One night, when all is over, Ackar looks and listens.

In their twelve voices he hears yet another, at once earth and sky, enormously strong yet as light as the birdsong.

In their thirteen voices he hears Mata Nui.

In their thirteen voices Mata Nui smiles.

He smiles with such infinite love.

One night, when all is over, Ackar whispers: I love you.

One night, when all is over, the Toa scream: I love you.

One night, when all is over, Matoro booms: I love you.

One night, when all is over, Mata Nui smiles: I love you.

Ackar cries.

[asthmaticbee]

WIP Title Game

Rules: In a new post, post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it!

Tagged by @theliteraryluggage!

Published WIPs

and i come full circle; a leviathan reborn; palingenesis made flesh

when all my debts are paid and the score's been all tallied up

aria of pride and deceit

where daylight shatters and worthy perish (you alone endure the night)

The Truth Will Out (and you will pay your dues)

Death Eater Edward Elric, Spy Extraordinare, at your service

gloria of rubies and gold

vermillion dawns the day (of remembrance bittersweet)

and you crashed into my life (please won't you stay by my side)

dirge for the innocence lost

A Flame in the Flood

Published but on Hiatus/Discontinued

You wanted a nail? You get a whole fucking hardware store!

Dark Nebula

the blood of the covenant

Unpublished WIPs and Ideas

moving on from this liminal world

The Butterflywasp Effect

Pyrpolanthropy

and i will sail the savage seas to find you

moonlight pale; a speckle of sunlight

Ed and Sirius Azkaban Prison Break

spider lillies' serenade

oh death, dearest mine, will ye spare me yet again?

EdWin kids are classmates with the Golden Trio

Men in Black AU

Ed is Zuko's impulse control

For the Dancing and the Dreaming (and all life's sorrows and delights

so we step into war with blood on our hands

How Todoroki Became a Quirkless Rights Activist

follow me into the dark (to stand before the gates of hell)

of rivers and crossroads

threnody of a lost wanderer

hymn to alkahestry

ode to the desert sands

Pride takes over Ed the day before the finale

The Once and Future Morgen

TodoDeku childhood friends

Shouto's Diaries

A Day Early and Two Kids Short

Ageswap AU

you've seen the worst of me (and yet none of it matters to you)

Atlantis AU

Vampire RomCom

Soulmates AU

The other soulmates AU

a dead man's war report

golden lights and wild hunts

[the-quicksilver-diary]

The Archive

Thunder rolls far beyond, resounding across an endless sea. The ocean crashes upon an island's sheer and jagged cliffs. And on this island, that forsaken hunk of ancient stone cradled in boundless sea and thundering sky, sits the Archive.

The Archive contains mathematical theorems written by the first scholars of the desert lands, and blueprints for vast machines dreamt by visionary artificers. It is a library of genius. The Archive contains forbidden esoterica, and secrets whispered to mad prophets in twilight hours. It is a vault of arcane power. The Archive contains maps of all the stars ever born, all the lands ever roamed, all the children of creation. It is a store of wonder.

For all it contains, the Archive serves as a bastion of memory. Its bricks, whose clay was made wet by tears and made stone by hellfire, were laid by the tireless constructs of yore. Each brick remembers the life cut down to make it, each cry of a widow or whimper of her young. And within those walls, anything known by man, beast, or god is recorded in a book for future retrieval.

The Archive, its name long dead with the poor soul who drafted its layout, is a structure erected aeons ago by sleepless builders, housing all the knowledge ever conceived. Its spires reach tall into the terrible night, grasping for a semblance of starlight unreachable by mortal-laid stone. Along the outer walls of the Archive, facing forever to the moon, are cast a row of stained-glass windows depicting strange geometries.

The moon, in accordance with her cyclical temperament, shines angles of light that refract through these geometries. While within her candle-wax humours, the windows filter light such to display small creatures of the pasture, mirages of wonder and fondness. And while the moon is within her waning and hollow humors, the glass bends to a crueler will and spawns countenances of nightmare and shadow.

These monsters blur the quality of their own outline, substance uncertain against the aether of being, demeanor hostile to the concept of life. Countless visitors to the Archive have become lost in its labyrinthine halls, devoured by phantoms whose rasping bellows call to mind a place that never was.

There once was a Librarian who lived within this grand and damnable Archive. None knew his name, even if such a thing could ever have been important. The Librarian was brilliant, he knew the home and content of every book in his domain. The Archive, as a result, was kept in impeccable and pristine condition. It was a monument of glory and brilliance sought by all in the kingdom of men, holding texts on still-fresh vellum and ink retrieved with lightning swiftness. That is, until came the inexorable end of the Librarian.

The Librarian, alone in his keep, was driven mad by visions of shadows that stalked the Archive's halls. Stalked by shadows that never were, he sought the cold embrace of the deep below. His fall was unremarkable, the splash of his body upon the water unseen among the havoc of the waves. Only the tide mourned for him.

And once the Librarian was gone, the shelves grew angry and afraid. They lost their cohesion, books dissolving through higher dimensions and rotating themselves to opposite ends of the complex. No-one can recall the order or material within these texts. Curious men still search the Archive, some to find wisdom of decaying sages, others to map its Escherian routes. Books open, and their pages bleed, their words illegible to the conscious mind. The Archive has lost its glory, containing still all the knowledge there ever was. And all the same, the hallowed sea sings a dirge for the corpse she cradled, and so sway shadows dreamt by glass.

[sdmsims]

so here’s hoping i can get the alpha for testing out tomorrow, but im the meantime…

been watching a bunch of CAW tutorials and am feeling a lil zesty. obviously making my whole entire headworld into one world wouldn’t be a good idea (unless i wanted my game to explode), but thankfully areas are pretty cleanly seperated into biomes

infodumping ahead! at the end of it, there’s a poll for yall to sway me. i think it’d be fun to make the empty worlds public anyways (though releasing them WITH my ocs in them is just outside of my comfort zone)

ultra (space) station — a space station city that floats high above the ruins of its past incarnation. magenta and black cyberpunk-y color scheme, divided into the surface (which is relatively normal and presentable) and the underdeck, a winding maze and a den of crime, hedonism, and general debauchery

definitely one of the less practical options, but it’s one of my fave locations and think it may be a fun challenge

ultra dirge — a prairie that’s sparsely populated and tinged a purple hue after fallout from the apocalypse that happened 3000 years ago. dated vibes, long roadways, and population clusters are bundled together.

ultra crater — a dusty outback, with a robust agricultural industry as well as a space program thanks to the celestial soup in the large craters there. sort of vaguely space race / 60s inspired?

borderbeach + ultra forest + ultra jungle — could likely be bundled together. ultra jungle is a society built on the canopies, ultra forest is a cozy, heavily wooded area, and border beach is on the border between them.

i feel like this one could have the most ‘bang for my buck’ potential, but could also inevitably end up very large/bloated. but jungle encompasses nature, forest has that mysterious supernaturalish vibe, and borderbeach could be for IP stuff?

waterfall — it’s literally just waterfall from undertale. a sleepy area known to be a place where criminals go to lay low, due to being dark and marshy. dated buildings covered in moss, and a rather tight knit community despite everything

megalopolis/highlands — so like. we know ultra megalopolis right. major huge city, surrounded by highlands and a power plant in those highlands. the highlands are built extremely dense, and are a hotspot for street racing

no ultra desert bc i’m actively overhauling it a bit oops

[wishing-stones]

WOULD THE BOYS™️ PLAY FFVII? WHO WOULD BE THEIR FAVORITE CHARACTER? (this is coming from a place of adoration- i’ve found another creator i like who also likes ffvii this means everything to me)

Oh my god hahaha, no, I have to do this one

I'm pulling from the expanded FFVII universe for all games up through Rebirth, and assuming everyone has played the various compilations and seen Advent Children (Complete) since they're a bunch of fuckin nerds

Just so everyone's aware, possible spoilers for Rebirth (through chapter 12ish) ahead

Killer is a hopeless Sephiroth stan, don't tell me you didn't see this coming. All that edge and charm, he's a hopeless fanboy. (And as much as he likes Villain Sephiroth, he also vibes hard with Sephiroth Pre-Nibelheim Incident, too. He knows what it's like to snap, even if you have a support system in place, and people who care about you.) He's actually awful about it. The man would be a member of Silver Elite if he could be.

Dust loves Barret, and even more so after Rebirth. He's the one piloting every game while everyone watches, so he's the nerd most invested in the story. Barret's fierce, family-driven nature and unabashed love for those close to him (and willingness to let people see how deeply he feels those emotions, if they're close enough to him,) resonates hard with Dust. After the scene in the desert in Rebirth, he had to set the controller down for a moment (and me too, tbh, his actor killed the emotion in that scene, I was crying hard.)

Axe really likes Tifa. She's a boss bitch who is strong not in spite of her insecurities and weaknesses, but because of them. She's aware of them, but doesn't let them bother her friends if she can help it, and he feels that deeply. She's doing her best, trying her hardest to protect what little she has left, and wow, if he doesn't understand that. She also happens to be pretty passionate about cooking and mixology, and he also greatly enjoys that.

Cross is a huge fan of Zack. He's energetic, he's upbeat and optimistic, and it's infectious. He's a very easy character to like, but what endeared Cross to him is his his drive to do everything in his power to save and protect his friends, and how, when he failed with Angeal, he wasn't afraid to let his grief show, doubly so around the person arguably most important to him. Zack's story is a tragic one, though, so he was a wreck at the end of Crisis Core (and then again at the end of Remake when it doesn't end quite the same way)

Baggs only pays attention to dialogue and cutscenes, but he's managed to follow the story enough to understand what's going on and who's who. He likes Vincent the most. His deep guilt and trauma are an intriguing story to him, although he's not quite sure how to feel about the ending of Dirge of Cerberus. He's enjoying Vincent a lot in Rebirth as well, and is amused at the sort of 'crotchety old fuddy-duddy' vibes he's giving off. Wonder why.

Nightmare, unsurprisingly, likes Rufus. He's also only paid partial attention to the games, mostly tuning in for cutscenes and important dialogue, but Rufus is a very intriguing villain for him, especially in Remake and Rebirth. Nightmare found himself nodding along to what was being said a lot of the time, and what really sold him was Rufus' interaction with Lodbrok in his office, where he proudly took the insult of being a lonely, selfish man who hated his father and wore it like armor. He owned up to his insecurities and weaknesses and defied they be used against him. Nightmare was sold.

And since Blue is a JRPG guy, he's played them with the stars, too;

Dream is naturally drawn to Aerith, and is gutted when she dies. He was inconsolable for the original, and was anxious watching Blue play Rebirth. He adores her, how gentle she remains no matter the adversity, how, in spite of that, she doesn't take anyone's guff, either, and how she's willing to maybe twist her words up a bit to get someone to do what she wants. No one quite expects someone so sweet to be able to manipulate like she can, and it's just a facet of her personality he enjoys.

Ink likes Reeve and Cait Sith, by extension. The one guy in the evil megacorp who wants to do good, who cares about the people, and who, despite having to occasionally follow orders or else, he really wants to help fix things. He just... can't directly intervene sometimes. Hm. That's a familiar story. He also enjoys the dichotomy of proper, upright, sensible man in a suit, and a reliable department head.... to... well, Cait Sith.

Blue, similar to Cross, loves Zack. He doesn't quit, no matter the adversity, and smiles through it all. He's proud, he's honorable, and he's just an upstanding guy all around. blue was devastated at the end of Crisis Core, but every moment that he was in Remake and Rebirth, he was over the moon.

All of them, all of them absolutely detest Hojo. It's actually one of Dust's "Don't Get Me Started" subjects, he will go on at length and in-depth about how everything wrong in the world of FFVII circles back to him (he isn't wrong).