#especially with all the magic stuff

[suggsnkisses]

pat bev mad that ben ate him uppp

[gingermintpepper]

Writing Apollo-as-a-young-deity is fun because sometimes it involves completely making shit up based on the loose outline of a story told through old poems, prayers and plays and other times it involves researching the totally legit and well documented ancient art of studying sheep livers to make sure your statesmen don't accidentally piss off Jupiter.

In completely unrelated news, if anyone has any recommendations for books about bird augury, that'd be wonderful.

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

Our Lady Of Mysterious Ailments & The Mystery at Dunvegan Castle

books 2 & 3 in the Edinburgh Nights series

paranormal mystery set in a climate-ravaged future Scotland, plagued by ghosts and magic

follows a 15yo Black girl who’s finally gotten an in to learn scientific magic properly - but it turns out to be an unpaid internship, so she has to take more jobs delivering ghost messages and investigating mysteries to take care of her gran and little sister

in book 2 she’s investigating a strange illness centred on a magic school for boys

and in book 3 she’s attending a global magician conference held in a creepy castle - when someone’s murdered, and they’re locked in until she figures out the culprit

Zimbabwean magic, friendship, disabled characters, no romance (so far)

[cyanide-sippy-cup]

Video by shesasolarbeing on Insta cause apparently unlike TikTok they don't like putting watermarks for their creators. Go check them out!

Friend sent me this and my first thought was @kianamaiart 's magical girl series. Or rather, AIKA REAL??!?1?!1

[hows-itgoagain]

i like to talk abt how annoying i’ll be when the episode that animates ch 122 drops but like. actually i won’t be annoying when it drops. i’ll be annoying when it gets dubbed. i watch mashle dubbed bc i watch it w my brother and he wanted it dubbed bc there’s a lot of va’s he likes. so likely when it’s reaching the point in time when that episode drops i will probably just. not check the mashle tag until i get to watch it bc i want absolutely zero spoilers for how the anime does that scene

[theprincessandthepie]

replaying dragon age inquisition is just an exercise in “the rebel mages would not fucking do that”

[noirandchocolate]

(Whatever they want, Riju, don’t be a hater.)

But anyway, headcanon that during this DLC mission (Liberate the Ancient Tech Lab), the Clan was there for more than just an opportunistic attempt on the Thunder Helm.

All we’re told at the start of the mission is that the Lab was ‘captured by monsters,’ forcing the researchers to flee, and that Urbosa and Riju took troops there to retake it. And that ‘more than just a monster horde [lay] in wait for them.’

What if! The Yiga weren’t JUST setting up an ambush for any heroes who might’ve come to take out the monsters at the lab. What if (in addition) they were there to steal ancient tech from the lab themselves? And figured the monster onslaught would be a good cover?

I headcanon that the Yiga are less alienated in general from many parts of their ancient Sheikah heritage than the Kakariko Sheikah and that that’s a big reason why they take to using Zonai stuff in TotK so readily: they’ve got access to super old records of Sheikah tech rescued and hoarded during and after the genocide 10,000 years ago, so tinkering and figuring out magitech is in their culture. (There’s at least one turn-in quest in AoC where Kohga gives a Clan member some kinda ‘oldfangled’ bit of tech, for example.) In the current era they don’t get a whole lot of opportunities to mess with actual working Sheikah tech beyond what bits they’ve dug up for themselves over the years though. So I feel like in AoC timeline, taking advantage of a monster attack on the Royal Lab to liberate a whole bunch of tech stuff and more documents would be right up their alley.

Meanwhile THIS ^^^ is a lil’ more fodder for my previously stated view that the Yiga/monster ‘alliance’ (this mission takes place pre-Astor betrayal, obviously) is not exactly great. The Clan clearly hasn’t ‘tamed’ the monsters like Urbosa claimed in Destroy the Yiga Clan! since Kohga is surprised that so many are around. So it doesn’t seem like he has control over the monster side of the attack on the Lab, but more like the ‘situation’ is advantageous for some theft and hero-smacking. Regardless, the fact that not only is Kohga surprised at the number of monsters, but cites that as a reason to pull back from battle (it’s definitely not cause Riju kicked his butt, no no never that definitely didn’t happen), tells me that monsters are as much of a danger to Clan members as to anyone else. Why leave the field and hang back til the heroes have repelled the horde to make a play for the Helm, if that horde is your true ally you could safely fight alongside?

Anyway I’m rambling at this point, so I’ll leave y’all with this picture of Master Kohga’s cool new hat:

Stunning. Fashion icon. No notes.

[kanerallels]

oooooooOOOOOooooooOoooh trick or treat!

*takes your hands* read this book. Please

Also have this:

The ballroom was crowded, filled with hundreds of partygoers, all clad in glittering costumes and fantastic masks. But Kanan only had eyes for one woman.

Closing the distance between them, he adjusted his mask, then stepped up behind her. She tensed a little, and he knew she sensed him behind her. "Fancy meeting you here, milady," he murmured.

Letting out an irritated huff, Hera muttered, "Will you stop messing around? We're trying to find a killer in a room full of rich sycophants."

"I'm as focused as can be..." Kanan trailed off as she turned to face him. Instead of her usual musketeer's gear, she wore a deep orange gown, the skirt trimmed with fluttering panels of orange and red. Her pendant sleeves were embroidered in gold thread like feathers, and her mask was gold and red with fiery patterns etched across it.

Okay, he thought. Maybe I'm not that focused.

"What are you supposed to be?" She asked, taking in his simple black and red outfit.

Clearing his throat, Kanan managed to regain his voice. "Uh, Scarlet Pimpernel. You gotta read more old books, Captain Hera. You're a phoenix?"

She smiled, and it set his heart aflame. "How'd you guess?"

[holland-vosijk-antari]

i was just reading kell's pov in acol where he goes down to see holland in the cells, how he feels hollands eyes scraping against his own, and back in adsom where its described as two stones sparking together. not only does that make me want to go insane, it also makes me wonder if holland feels that too or if its just kell? its not mentioned as far as i can remember in any of hollands pov and not even in their first meeting flashback. the absence of it from holland's pov is a bit of a shame really though it does suggest that its just kell and the effect holland has on him... its also mentioned briefly when lila gets her antari prosthetic eye (in the sense that kell feels glad that he can look her in the eyes without that friction) which makes me wonder, if lila had both eyes would there be that sparking sensation between her and kell? would it not as their black eyes are on the same side? why would that sensation be only due to the presence of the marked eye? it's clear that kell and lila DO have a connection but then again so would most people who went through what they did together (especially as kell is quite dramatic about what he cares about). it would just be a shame to have this connection between antari be a real thing and it not be developed past a couple of brief mentions one of which to enhance a ship. the antari could be endlessly more strange so it's a shame that, even when bonded with the rings, they are essentially just very powerful magic users and not something altogether else...

[lucalicatteart]

-- Poorly Constructed Enchanted Tool --

A small tool carved from a fruit tree seed. Energy to power the enchantment has seemingly run-out long ago, and the method of recharging is unknown - but, based on the appearance, it's very likely that this was once used for detecting magic. Usually, looking through the glass center would highlight areas of higher magical energy concentration present in the viewer's environment, even if they were otherwise obscured to the naked eye. While this form of enchantment itself is highly advanced, the craftsmanship of the item is far less neat or complex than what might be typically seen in similar devices. It may have been made as part of training/practice, or as a hasty replacement for a previous tool that had broken.

[takethistoyourstardust]

i’ve never watched the descendants movies but sometimes i wonder if you could do a twst and descendants crossover. PROBABLY not but i think if riddle interacted with princess red his head would fucking explode and i would like to witness that.

[ananinidraws]

Well, we've reached the point, lads. The hyperfixation has been so strong that i'm actually drafting an animation for them. So while i (try to) do that, have some test frames <3

[figofswords]

I want to know which octopath developer woke up and chose violence

[probablygayattorneys]

Okay, now that I've had time to get my bearings and sit with Another Code and really think about what I want to say about it, I am prepared to do so.

First off, the Switch remake is not Trace Memory. In fact, if you were like me and played Trace Memory as a kid but then it kind of fell off your radar and you didn't buy a used copy on eBay to replay it before you replayed the remake, you would be forgiven if you had a little niggling feeling that you couldn't place that you had seen all of this somewhere before, but not where. Ashley's name isn't even the same - Robbins is spelled with only one b, which I do understand is the same as in the original UK version, but was still quite jarring to someone who's only played the US version.

I didn't feel like I was playing the same game. There's not a single puzzle that I remember as being the game, and where the original made use of it's hardware, so too does this game, having puzzles that depend on the gyroscope, which might be frustrating if you're playing in docked mode and the controller you tend to use doesn't have gyroscope controls.

It is certainly more fleshed out. There are more parts of the map that you get to visit, and you learn more about the Edwards family, though it also felt like it unraveled more threads than it was willing to wrap up, which is peculiar because it also got rid of one of the most interesting aspects of the original game, which is the multiple endings. No matter what you do, the game funnels you into the "good" ending, which I won't say more details about, just in case anyone reading this hasn't played it. This is a little annoying, because it feels like it's taking away one of the things about the game that made it so special, that the choices you make ultimately matter, but is also overshadowed by the fact that I suck at this game and always have, so I never got the good ending on my own, so now knowing why what happened had to happen and how things ended up the way they did... it's nice to have the closure I was never skilled enough to achieve on my own.

Another cool aspect of this game is that Sayoko being Japanese is not incidental - they actually spend time explaining various aspects of Japanese culture, instead of DTS cards Richard's diary is left on origami cranes, and there's a sweet moment where they talk about the meaning of the name Mizuki. As well, there's actually more depth given to Sayoko's character, even though she was still fridged.

So ultimately... Is it a faithful 1:1 recreation of the source material? No. In fact, you might feel frustrated because it feels like the game is treating you with kid gloves - from things like the forced good ending to the fact that anytime you're working on a puzzle, you just have to press a button to get hints and if you go through all of them it basically just tells you the answer straight out - which, in all fairness, it is.

But is it still worth playing? Yes. It's still a good game, even with the oversexualization of Ashley and the fact that with the camera, you spend most of the game looking directly at her ass and she's 13 years old. If you like puzzle games, which if you don't why are you even following me, it's definitely a worthy entry into that catalogue, which does seem to have been drying up lately.

Now, do I want them to make a remake of Hotel Dusk in the same style?

Hell fucking no. The game was good, but not "I trust you with my baby" good.

[ravencromwell]

Immensely a Holland/his first and most beloved Makt vibe.

[jewelsli]

I was thinking about how, I’m general, you don’t really see magic in the DC universe outside of Earth(maybe it’s just me but I’ve only seen like one reference towards it) and how on Earth we have Fawcett(idk if it’s canon but I say that it’s where all key lines intersect so it’s… something). It got me thinking that maybe Earth is like Space Fawcett(yes I do love the Earth is space Australia posts) and maybe it’s where all the universal ley lines intersect or something??? Idk just something I was thinking about