#fix the games that have been broken for the last decade first?

[strangefable]

can't decide if i want to cry or set someone on fire

[emotional-engine]

In case you missed - GREAT Neopets News!

I didn't see anybody talking about the news here, so I thought that I could share a summary.

The Neopets Team announced today that they're under new management. They're no longer affiliated with Jumpstart (which announced their closure back in June) or their parent company NetDragon.

In their blog post in the official Neopets Medium page, they confirm that they are now an independent company:

(Dominc Law, worked for NetDragon and was an old school Neopets player. He put together a team to work on saving the brand.)

Also in that blog post the team talks about how they are well aware of the problems the site has been through in the last decade, they acknowledge the lack of resources which resulted in the Neopets website being left broken.

Going ahead, they are going to focus on community requests, such as speeding up the process of Flash Games conversion, clearing up the page conversion backlog, bug fixes, mobile compatibility issues and improving customer support.

Most importantly, in my opinion, they clear up that they WILL NOT go forward with any Metaverse bullshit, and will instead work on creating a game that feels like Neopets:

At this point, they have secured $4M in funding from various (unnamed) investors with additional funding from the management buyout. For the first time in forever, it looks like TNT has the resources they need to move the brand forward. In the blog post, they mention they have already hired developers and artists to work on the fixes the site needs.

From what it looks like, the game will be a mobile social life-simulation, parallel to the current website. We don’t have to worry that neopets.com will be replaced by a mobile app.

As of now, they have announced:

A brand new plot, scheduled for early 2024

A 2 million(!) NeoCash giveaway

More transparency with monthly updates from the team, scheduled AMAs

Neopets will be under the control of a new, unified entity: World of Neopia, Inc - the website will remain the same (neopets.com)

A Brand Ambassador Program

No longer going forward with NFT/Metaverse stuff

At the end, they published a FAQ with some answers that I found to be good and very interesting:

You can read the entire blog post here.

Or watch the YouTube announcement (which is way shorter):

[sergeifyodorov]

would u do a little analysis of how each team has done so far this season … i trust ur opinions so much

EACH team okay... under the cut bc i am not subjecting the masses to 32 nasty little thots cody edition

Bruins: RIP patrice of course but the bruins are steamrolling as ever... i think that if there is any evidence of the universe simply not caring abt good things it is that the bruins slip and stumble and have some of their best players retired and still manage to put up a 50 win season every year. <- salty leafs fan but ANYHWAY the bruins are easily a Playoff Team. simply "there" 5v5, strong power play, they make their money off finishing (pastrnak you filthy animal) and goaltending (swaymark you filthy animals). they have been trending downwards of late so i'm not entirely sure of like their final standings place but with this kind of head start they're staying up.

Sabres: currently in what we the people call a "decade of darkness." might be a "two decades of darkness" if we're going to be honest. the active player with the most playoff points with the sabres is tyler myers. 7 points. yeah the tall one most famous for having a subreddit that posts the gamescore card every time he's on the bottom of the gamescore card. sabres are really hard to fix because their first real step to contention is "hoping devon levi turns out really good." not promising. bad enough that by selling a piece or two celebrini is in sight. maybe that'll help? a third 1OA?

Red Wings: presenting the mid-season Season Ruining Unforced Error Award early by saying: not that they were going to be as good as their first few games of sniping suggested, but signing patrick kane tanked any realistic hope they have of playoffs. is patrick kane good? he's actually alright. maybe this time the surgery worked. is the team made better by having him on it? it surely isn't! a few REALLY BADLY TIMED dylan larkin based misfortunes have made it go from bad to worse. they were in A2 like a month ago and now they're Out. strengths: finishing. weaknesses: everything else, including morale.

Panthers: okay you've probably clocked this by now but ive been Generally Salty so far and that is bc a) im easily tempted to haterhood and b) currently discussing each team in the atlantic which does nothing to make me less Tempted To Haterhood. that being said the panthers are Good and For Real About It. they can do everything except finish chances, which is fine when the other team has way fewer chances than you and your goalie doesn't let any of them in. fuck ALLL the way off. place your bets on these guys having a deep playoff run. cross your fingers for them not having a deep playoff run i can't stand chuckyposting again it's RAN ITS COURSE. (also: machuk is probably still injured and absolutely Not doing as well as he did the last few seasons. maybe because he's just not that kind of guy but it's probably at least mostly the broken chest thing)

Canadiens: they are bad EXCEPT when it comes to overtime + the shootout. also much like the sabres they're going nowhere fast. i expect at least one of their goalies to be gone at the deadline... furthermore i think ppl who are ragging on slaf's slow development are simply expecting all 1OAs to be like an auston or a connor type (pick your connor) where they come in and immediately adapt -- slaf rings very reminiscent of quinton byfield to me, who was picked 2OA in 2020 and is only now starting to break out. give him time he's a baby...

Senators: despite how much literally everyone talks up all their players constantly, they are not good either. like the sabres or the habs... atlantic is 4 teams in the genuine hunt, 3 teams who suck and have sucked forever and will suck forevermore, and the red wings who haven't made up their minds yet. the sens actually Do have a singular Biggest Problem though and that's goaltending, but they're not a good enough team otherwise that getting a quality goaltender is going to make them playoffs worthy, especially not in the very short (this-season) run.

Lightning: the lightning are weird to me because like i think they're still making up their mind as A People what they want to do. kucherov is the best player in the league rn, this is stamkos' ufa season and he hasn't been offered an extension, vasilevskiy is back and vasying his levskiy... i fully believe they have the capability of getting a playoff spot, maybe even A3 if they want. we've all seen them in the playoffs, we know how they can turn ~It~ on at will. as always they're a deeply mid 5v5 team powered by very strong special teams... the goaltending numbers say goaltending is shit but they've been playing in front of the genuinely unplayable jonas johansson most of the season so i think it'll be fine.

Maple Leafs: as the team ive watched the moast i can talk about these guys for evar so for all of our sanities i will be brief: Auston Matthews, Baby, Look At Him, That's Auston, Auston Motherfucking "Sexy Mustached Bitch" Matthews!!!!!!! powered by an extremely strong power play and very good offence, and defence and goaltending that is held together by Morgan Rielly and a dream. possibly the only reason they're in a playoff spot is the fact that martin jones didn't get claimed on waivers three months ago and i am being dead serious about that. for some reason they're at their best when they're down by two. they do really need both their #1 goalie to come back from injury and to make a splash for a genuine nhl-calibre defenceman, but they're stubbornly determined to win games even through nasty flu.

Hurricanes: their usual selves -- analytics darlings, can't buy a goal. this year they can't buy a save either -- Freddie is out with a medical condition, Raanta is straight up not good, and Kochetkov is... well, he's Kochetkov. they're not far out of a spot but they'll need a hot hand if they want to get comfy... which i don't expect, frankly. they're good enough to make the playoffs, but they're not really a team that goes on heaters, so they'll be bubble until the end.

Blue Jackets: genuinely not sure they know what they're doing like... okay. from an outside pov they are obviously Tanking. they're bad in every way that matters except for finishing and the standings show it. but also like... they're at the point in their development cycle where they shouldn't be tanking... or at least are on the verge of Shouldn't Be Tanking. and again, because they don't know what they're doing, they hired mike babcock for this... if they know what they're doing they'll toss kekalainen as soon as they can and, following this year's draft, start Fighting. but let's be real i doubt that. adam fantilli it's your time to shine... sorry sweetheart!

Devils: see Hurricanes. Great on paper, can't buy a save. They've obviously been stunted by Timo, J'accuse, and Nico all being injured at various points, but goaltending is their biggest and most solvable problem. Unlike the Hurricanes, though, the Devils are fully capable of going on a heater, so the gap between them and WC2 isn't as big as it looks (probably.) Luke Hughes is going to be something special.

Rangers: Looks like Lafreniere is finally getting his feet under him -- but the Rangers have always been far more about getting old, known players to get a second wind with them than they've been about prospect development, and Quick and Wheeler are both showing this pretty definitively. Another one of those teams that's run by special teams and finishing/goaltending. Easy playoff spot, likely solid run. Nothing too interesting here.

Islanders: On the other hand, the Isles are interesting because... like... how did they get There? They have a negative goal differential, for heaven's sake! Their special teams are godawful, their defence is a sieve, they blow leads like that's what actually gets you points in this league, and they're somehow second in the Metropolitan??????? Is it Horvat? Barzal? Sorokin? (It's probably Sorokin.) They'll make the playoffs but i doubt they'll succeed in them.

Flyers: This one's also weird. They have the power play and offence of a peewee team in the big leagues, but have become defensively Actually Super Competent and are somehow good because of this? I'm going to theorize -- because you've asked me to but also because I really want to -- that this is due, at least in part, to somewhat of an inverse Kane-on-the-Red-Wings effect from their offseason removal of Provorov and DeAngelo; without them, the team is now not only better defensively on paper but also better as a team in the locker room. They're [uncle voice] playing with heart now! I doubt they're a real contender, but I think they might actually make playoffs.

Penguins: ...this one's also weird. They're good on paper. Like, really good on paper? Defensively "just okay" but offensively great, goaltending is fantastic, special teams are shutdown. They just can't buy a goal and they can't buy a good sequence.

Capitals: This one's weird, too, but in the opposite way -- aside from the power-play, the Caps are actually godawful on paper, especially when it comes to finishing (because when Ovechkin takes such a high percentage of your shots but he isn't scoring, your team REALLY suffers) but somehow they've managed to pinpoint sequencing luck (win close, lose ugly) and are somehow in WC1. Do I think they'll make the playoffs? Absolutely not -- if either the Devils or Canes step up, the Caps are the odd man out -- but it might be fun to see them try. Or hell, I hope they win-close-lose-ugly their way to a goddamn Cup final. Would be funny as fuck for Ovi's second-longest ever playoff run to come at the fresh young age of thirty-eight. Dude looks ragged out there. I'm going to shut up now before I start talking about finding him sexy

Coyotes: Simple on paper: bad at running play, good goaltending and finishing. Essentially what the Canucks are doing at a smaller scale. The Leafs should never have let Kerfoot walk and I mean that unironically. Okay, anyway, the Yotes are a bubble team and won't make higher than WC1 because of the logjam at the top of the Central, but holy fuck do I want them to make WC1 (or a playoff spot in general.) People ask "how can we grow the game" a lot, and when it comes to what the NHL can do directly, the number one biggest thing is win in small markets. Arizona has already created one of the sports' biggest stars -- Auston! -- and it's an absolutely massive TV market and a potential hotbed of new fans and new, great players. Arizona making a playoff spot -- or even better, going on a run -- would be amazing for the NHL. And it would be funny. And I would like that.

Blackhawks: shoutout to dave !!! dave who works for the hawks!!! anyway the hawks are very obviously tanking and good at it. Their only real point of interest is their Sacred Child, and holy fuck is their Sacred Child going to absolutely fucking smash it when he's given a team that's not entirely made up of scrubs. i think his analytics, especially his defensive numbers, are, like, fine? but accounting for his leverage (all situations, especially the difficult ones), his teammates (his best linemate is Anthony Beauvillier, and tito... is a third liner), and the fact that he's all of eighteen, he's definitely on track to be a Real Force. i kinda love him... okay moving on.

Avalanche: All-over good: finishing their biggest obvious strength, but hockeywise they don't have any real weaknesses... although there is some serious Drama brewing in that locker room and i think it might just be getting started. with landeskog gone for at least until the end of this year (and possibly forever) and ej a sabre, there is absolutely no one in there capable of actually emotionally running a team: makar lacking in a leader's magnetism, rantanen an idiot, toews and mackinnon far too high-strung and competitive, and no one else with seniority. they're a good enough team that it's not really affecting them right now, but ... i don't know, i can kind of feel it coming. They'll make the playoffs, but when the pressure is on they'll either step up or completely fall apart.

Stars: See above: all-over good, but saving their biggest obvious weakness. I think most of this is spurred by Otter being out -- Wedgewood is a serviceable backup goaltender, but obviously not capable of being a real starter, and the team is stuttering because of it. I doubt it'll be for long or too much difficulty (they're a good defensive team, so it's not going to affect them a lot, but they might lose a game or two they might have won with Otter, especially if he's out for a while), but it's going to keep them from taking a step on top of the Central. Easy playoff team, probable contender.

Wild: They are bad! Penalty kill is their worst weakness, but they're not great in goal either and the combination is kicking their ass. As much as I respect how well they've done with that giant cap-space penalty from the Parise/Suter buyouts all those years ago, it's... kind of time to throw in the towel. Get Flower those final few wins, because by god are they devoid of much other success. Right at the tail of a competitive arc. RIP. Tank incoming.

Predators: Weirdly good, even though Saros hasn't been his usual self? O'Reilly esp has been an absolutely fantastic addition for the team over the offseason. No huge strengths, no significant weaknesses. Not an amazing offensive team, but it's Nashville so they were never going to be -- the place practically breeds defensive forwards and all-around dmen. I don't expect they'll seriously contend, but they'll make the playoffs (unless someone offers the farm for Saros).

Blues: I genuinely think so little about the Blues .... that whole thing with Jordan Kyrou has been the most I've thought about them for a bit. That and the fact that only three of their games haven't been decided by the first goal? They're not good and they're really boring. Yeehaw.

Jets: THE JETS let's get JUICY. Jets' biggest strengths by far are a) 5v5 defence and b) finishing/goaltending. Even with Kyle Connor out they're sniping and Hellebuyck and Brossoit are both absolutely on it. The Jets have always seemed to have this problem where on paper (take a shot every time I've written "on paper" in this post if you want to die of alcohol poisoning) they seem fantastic, then January onwards they absolutely plummet. And it's not January yet, so that might still happen, but that kind of thing tends to happen because of a dramatic morale shift, and now that Lowry's captain and Wheeler's left for New York... that might not happen? They've banked enough points that unless they're historically bad from here on out they're still a playoff team. If they keep up what they have going so far, they're a contender, but if it's the same Winnipeg with the same problems, then they're not.

Ducks: Taking a step in the right direction with Carlsson and Mintyukov, but still bad! I really hope Carlsson recovers well, he seems like a sweet boy. Also: what on Earth are they doing with Zegras. Is he a defenceman now? Are they making him play defence? Are he and Dixie D'Amelio still dating? I have many questions. I just hope whichever high draft pick they get is an idiot. I feel like they need another dumbass baby on the team.

Flames: The Flames also appear to have no idea what's going on. And frankly, neither do I! They're too good to be obviously tanking, but not near good enough to be a bubble team. They're definitely reluctant to sell, but their best hope to win soon absolutely should be selling. They have one of the worst contracts in the league on their payroll (wow... I hope the guy in charge of my favourite team didn't sign that!) and a bunch of really solid late-round picks and prospects cutting their teeth on the NHL. In short: they aren't going to make the playoffs and should be leaning into that, but they don't seem to have realized this yet.

Oilers: For the sake of not gloating, I'm going to sum this one up with a Marek quote: If you have a goalie, it's 70% of your team. If you don't, it's 100%. They've had finishing trouble, but considering they absolutely run the show at 5v5 AND special teams (they put nearly SIXTY SHOTS on Vasilevskiy the other day) a little finishing shouldn't be quite so dangerous if they didn't have two sieves minding the net. McDavid might hit 150 again and the Oil might still miss the playoffs. If they get in, they're going far, but at this point it'll be tough as fuck to make it in.

Kings: Average penalty kill. No other weaknesses. Kopitar 4 Selke.

Sharks: This is an absolutely glorious tankjob. No other way to put it. This is the pinnacle of tank design. This is the Wayne Gretzky of tankjobs. This is the Casablanca of tankjobs. This is the Saturn V of tankjobs. Nothing has been so beautifully engineered to suck since Sir James Dyson patented his vacuum or Nancy Reagan walked the earth. It's beautiful. It's gorgeous. I am in awe. They deserve Celebrini purely because of how flawless the tank is. I don't care if he has a warm undertone and would look pink in that fantastic teal. The boy needs San Jose.

Kraken: Good defensively at 5v5, bad pretty much everywhere else. I'm going to be honest with you all, last year was kind of a flash in the pan -- Seattle isn't great and they're neither headed upwards nor downwards. Not a bubble team, probably won't pick top ten. They haven't decided whether or not to build up or tank. Beyond the fantastic aesthetics and four-unranked-lines shtick, they don't really have a whole lot of competitive mojo: no star forwards, no goaltending. Wholeheartedly mid.

Canucks: oH BABY!!!!! The 23-24 Canucks made us all learn what PDO is. The 23-24 Canucks are first in the motherfucking league after being one spot out of being in the Bedard lottery. The 23-24 Canucks are on track to have the best shooting and saving percentage in league history. The 23-24 Canucks' leading goalscorer is Brock Boeser, the guy they've almost traded practically every year since they drafted him. The 23-24 Canucks started the season by naming the Wettest Little Man On The Planet captain and they haven't looked back since. I think they're an easy lock for a playoff spot -- but within the playoffs, do I know what they're going to do? I absolutely do not. They could PDO their way to a Cup or they could bow out in four games flat. Either is equally likely. They have thoroughly embraced Good Chaos. Quinn Hughes might win the Hart. Everything's coming up Vancouver.

Golden Knights: Not as good as they were last year. Ultimately still pretty good. Easy playoff spot. Definite contender. Jack Eichel is better than ever and I love him for it, the dickhead.

[faerievampling]

Killing Time

Chapter 17: Rogue

Pairing: Ascended Astarion x Vampire Tav (female reader)

word count: 5.5k

Summary: After their fight, Tav and Astarion spend some time apart.

warnings: 18+. Mention of SA. Graphic Violence. PiV. Vaginal Fingering.

Link to Ao3 | Killing Time Masterlist

A/N: Hope you guys enjoy the flashback scene here from Act 3 😆 I enjoyed writing them in game and fleshing them out a bit more. Next update will be within a week <3

Last Chapter | Next Chapter

It’s about a little after midday, and you’re fucking bored of being in the library. You’d been napping somewhat peacefully after getting out some of those pesky emotions, but now you find yourself without wine, blood, proper clothing, or servants at your disposal. Since you aren’t connected to Astarion anymore, how are you supposed to call on them? You find yourself antsy, your fingers twitching as you desperately need movement – you need to do something, lest you wallow away in your grief for eternity. 

You feel like striking something or someone as you exit the library – your nails are digging into your palm. You tentatively make your way through your palace, slowly walking through the corridors and hallways to soak it all in. Your home is colorful, decadent, tasteful, albeit eccentric; you and Astarion have many decorations collected from all over the realms, and countless portraits and paintings of your little family. Your palace isn’t as sprawling as some: more compacted to fit a man, his wife, and a few servants and spawn. This makes you wonder where exactly Astarion is keeping all of your new…children. Below. They must be below. 

As the admittedly petty (and very pretty) lady of the house, you think you should meet them. Before that, you need a wardrobe change. Truthfully, you huff and stomp to the servant's quarters, meaning to demand Bethild’s presence in accompanying you to your chambers. The servants’ quarters are reasonable, spacious, and clean, if a bit dull – only a few servants lived on the ground, Bethild unfortunately not being one of them. She had chosen her young child over serving you, which made you scoff when Astarion told you. 

‘It’s an honor for that young lady to even touch me, Astarion!’ You yelled at him through the expanse of your shared minds. 

“Of course! I know that, my treasure, but what else am I to do? She’s the one we want, isn’t she?” Astarion was always trying to reason with you. He always tries to fix all he can and you know this – but nonetheless, it makes you feel angry when he can’t. Even then, even when he couldn’t make your favorite (you wouldn’t ever admit this to her, of course) servant live on the grounds with you, to be at your disposal always, it made you irate. Astarion can always give you what you want, why is he acting like he can’t do it now? 

‘Compel her.’

Astarion paused for a beat. ‘Is that truly what you desire?’

Astarion talked you out of it. He would have done it upon your insistence, probably, but you ultimately trusted his opinion on the matter – and Bethild does annoy you. You start to think maybe you should ask Astarion what he thinks the two of you should do, to fix this brokenness in your relationship, but you guess you already know his answer; upon returning home after finding that stupid sword for Angel and defeating the beholder with your bare claws, Astarion’s first choice was to seduce you, to coax to bed so he could have your body, as if you were some…conquest. Maybe he thought it would help you; hells, Angel suggested the same thing. 

Angel. You can’t think about him for too long. It feels wrong because he’s stirring something inside you, and when you think of it, it makes you want to…run. It’s almost as if you, the ultimate predator, are starting to feel like the prey. This is unacceptable to you. 

“This is unacceptable, Bethild,” You find yourself saying as you find Bethild lounging on a settee, knitting up a project Astarion likely has her working for you, no doubt. Bethild is caught off guard, unsure of exactly what you mean; but you don’t know, either. Your clothing, your hair, your nails, your attitude: all of it was likely to be the source of your disturbance. 

“My lady?” Bethild moves to stand, but you click your tongue at her.

“Don’t act so unfamiliar with me, Bethild. I’ve known your mind almost your whole life,” You try to soften your voice, but you likely fail by the look on Bethild’s face: still, she hardly wavers. She’s handled you for some time now. You don’t need to hide from her. You feel a little lighter around her, you notice. She waits for you to speak. 

“I…” You begin, but you don’t know why your voice falters. 

“Do you need help getting dressed? Perhaps finding your room?”

“No! No…” You swallow. You look at Bethild intensely. She knows you won’t harm her, but she can’t help but feel just a little afraid, her heart beating a little faster by the second: it was only natural for the living to fear the bloodsucking dead. “W-well…”

She knows you’re upset. “Lady Ancunín, wouldn’t you like to wear something more substantial? The Master would be displeased to know you're walking around in your shift.”

Thinking about Astarion makes your chest ache, and hearing his mention hurts no less. You nod in agreement with Bethild – you like your freedom in your dress, hair, and general actions, but you draw a line at meeting a hundred spawn in nothing but a robe. “Please, yes. But…”

Bethild gives you a moment to think, but not too long – she’s quite used to your infamous long pauses and is known to move the conversation along if she feels she must. 

“Are you quite alright, mistress?”

You blink at her. You can’t help but wince in front of her, like a hurt puppy. You don’t think Bethild has seen you this vulnerable before. In your embarrassment, you quickly remind yourself that her demise will come so swiftly, her lifespan ticking before your immortal eyes, and who would she tell of your weakness? Does it even matter to you, anymore? Don’t you just want to be yourself? What does that even mean, to ‘be yourself’?

“How about you sit, dear. You don’t look very well, do you need something to eat?” 

You shake your head, but you sit across from her, entirely unaware of just how awkward you are being. 

“You have children, four of them, don’t you?” You ask; not thinking about how you probably shouldn’t mention her children just after she asked you if you need a snack. ‘A child would probably be just enough blood for a small meal,’ You silently jest to yourself. Astarion would appreciate your joke, you begrudgingly think.

This makes you wonder, for just a moment, about your parents – you don’t think of them often, now, being that you are Astarion’s offspring. In your regards, it was he who raised you; he’s taught you everything you know as a vampire. You’ve been with him since you were just a few years out of girlhood, and he’s been more to you than your parents ever were. It’s hard to remember their faces – for a moment, you think that since Astarion met them so many years ago, he could just show you again, before realizing he can’t, anymore. You don’t know if you’ll ever get used to the silence in your head. 

Many things have been forgotten by you, simply due to the passage of time; having that worm in your head could’nt have helped. Still, you’ve lived a long life filled with so many pleasures, with discomfort being something that you rarely ever experienced; until you met Geldon Moth, of course. Those painful memories seem to be the loudest, too, even if they are muddled for whatever reason. You don’t know, anymore, and you aren’t sure it matters. You’ve accepted your mess. Now you must figure out how to clean it up. 

But isn’t that what your husband and the servants are for? Aren’t they all here for you? To serve you? You don’t understand your place in the world anymore. 

“Yes, and a grandchild on the way.” When Bethild speaks, you’d nearly forgotten she was there. You smile. Bethild can’t help but remark on your frightening majesty in her head; she isn’t used to speaking with you so casually. At least she doesn’t think you’re ugly. 

“So you’ve spent a lot of time in your marital bed?” You ask, putting off just enough charm to make her agreeable. A blush rises to Bethild’s cheeks.

“My lady…if you must know, yes. My husband and I are quite close.” But her face drops once she seems to realize where you’re going with this. Bethild knows you were taken by an evil vampire lord, and she’s thinking about he probably raped you…

“He did.” You think this is the first time you may have said it explicitly. Your face is stone, your heart is void. Angel said your soul was pure, but you think he must be lying now; because you feel there isn’t anything but darkness inside of you anymore. “He raped me. And he had others do so, too. And now my husband wants my body, and I want to give it to him, but I can’t, and he’s…” You don’t want her knowing about you and Astarion’s other arguments: there is (albeit ancient) murder involved, and she shouldn't know any details. 

“Just being a…” You ponder this for a moment. “A k’chakhi. Is that…has that ever happened to you?” 

No. You and Bethild think this at the same time. Bethild’s had a fairly comfortable life for a peasant: she has a lovely husband, and Astarion pays her well to care for you: which is part of why she’s such a good servant. You know her mind enough to know she’s experienced little harm in her life. The next thing she thinks is how she hates hearing you use githyanki slander – ‘a waste of a perfectly good Lady.’ She doesn’t quite know what it means, only that it sounds vulgar coming from your lips. You can’t help but smile a little, despite the grim topic. 

“It hasn’t, dear. And I’m sorry it happened to you,” Bethild pauses, her plain face twisting in apprehension. “Might I speak freely, Lady Ancunín?”

“Don’t you always?”

“Hmph. As often as I need, darling.” Bethild says, her face softening as she does. Maybe she isn’t so plain as you first thought, the longer you look at her: her skin is clear and soft, and she looks younger than her years. Her rounded chin adds to her almost girlish look, and her eyes have a sparkle to them. You feel relief to see life in her eyes. You wonder if the drow was ever happy. When did he last have a sparkle in his eyes? When he was finally dancing with the maiden of death? Is that who you are, now?

For a moment, you wonder if you’re still charming her by accident: but maybe you’re just seeing her for the first time. Her heart rate is slowing down as she seems to soak you in, too: she wonders about your gold eye. She thinks it's strange but beautiful, and compliments the red one fairly well – but her mind focuses on this for only a second before she wonders if Astarion’s forced himself on you, or been cruel to you in some manner. She doesn’t expect this of him, but she thinks he hasn’t been himself since you disappeared, and even worse since you’ve been back…

“Worse?” You ask, reminding the woman that you’re in her head. Bethild knows this, of course, but it still freaks her out a little. “You think he’s been worse since I’ve returned?” 

Bethild blinks, and for a split second, thinks twice about speaking her thoughts aloud, but she continues. “Yes. He’s…I don’t know if your Master is taking care of himself properly.”

You recognize her words, thinking about how exhausted Astarion always looks, how clingy he’s been with you, and how his words sometimes feel procured, as if he’s only telling you what he wants you to hear. Now, you just feel antsy; this behavior is familiar to you, but in the past, it had always been more explicit. Does he mean to lock you away again? Surely he wouldn’t…

Bethild notices your runaway thoughts, quickly redirecting you. “Come, let’s get you into something decent.”

But Bethild’s thoughts linger: she doesn’t understand why you haven’t spoken to your master yourself – why you haven’t noticed his changes. But she suspects you’ve been far too wrapped up in yourself, as you always are. Bethild brings you something casual to wear from your bedroom, and you end up changing in the servants’ quarters for the first time in your whole life. There’s nothing special about it: merely prompting you to consider how you’ve ended up right here, right now, and how you are going to remedy it. 

~ ~ ~

Astarion can’t tell if it’s in his head or not, but he feels like his siblings – especially Petras and Leon, is targeting you as if they’re trying to kill you first to add insult to injury. Sure, Astarion knows his siblings are being compelled, but still…the look of envy is apparent in the eyes of the spawn. He’s fallen in love, he has friends, allies, and nearly his freedom. Astarion has it all, and the other six have clearly been subject to more torture, and more starvation. He pities them. 

Astarion hardly cares about this anymore. The sacrifice of his siblings was entirely worth it, even if you do hate him. After you left the boudoir, Astarion found himself scrambling around the bedroom, kicking and screaming and crying; once calm, he consulted with the palace wizards, librarians, and the other intellectuals still at the palace until there wasn’t anything else productive to do except try to finally rest. Although he keeps a protective eye on you, just to ensure your safety, he doesn’t bother you, despite how badly he wants to. No, Astarion hasn’t rested for some time – just a few hours of reverie would help, he thinks. He can be with you there; but the memories he lands on surprise him. Why did he go back so far?

Leon lunges at you, hissing and scratching at your armor – you move as if your body follows your arm, swinging your sword through to cut Leon. The feral spawn tries to dodge, but fails, disappearing to red mist just as your sword hits his body. Petras comes from behind you – Astarion is quick with his crossbows, filling his brother's chest with arrows, preventing him from getting another swing at you. Astarion can’t help but protect you in battle. As a rogue, he hides in the shadows, burying his arrows in anyone who dares try to attack you. At one point, Shadowheart even complains, saying Astarion needs to focus on other enemies, not just the ones attacking his girlfriend. He does better spray his arrows out, but he still keeps a close eye on you. You swing your sword with grace, your tactical moves and a body seemingly weightless; you just have a way about you when you fight. You look like a dancer, effortlessly seducing the blade and your foe. He admires it tenfold – and admires you more than anyone in this world. You’re beautiful, kind when life calls for it, brutal all the same. You are balanced – you are balance for Astarion. Watching his siblings hurt you solidified his decision: he would take the ritual from beneath Cazador’s feet, perform that lover's ritual he’s heard about, and the two of you could be safe: forever, for good. When the fight dies down, he immediately comes to you. Seeing that you’re visibly unharmed, Astarion cracks some joke about you finally meeting his family. You don't laugh – you can’t. The worry and fear are all over your beautiful face.

“I’m doing this for you too, you know. So we’ll be safe. Forever, for good.” Astarion speaks with conviction, letting the smile drop from his face to convey how serious he is. He means this, and he wants you to know it. He doesn’t want to play games anymore – he’s tired of being hunted. Tired of fighting, tired of dragging you through this with him – unfortunately, he knows he needs you to defeat Cazador with him. That’s who you are, he begrudgingly thinks: his strong protector. 

“What are you saying, ‘Star?” You ask, eyes wide, reaching out to him; he takes your hands, which are surprisingly smooth despite your tactical abilities. That’s the thing – Astarion knows you don’t really need him to protect you, not physically. But you are a young, naive thing, one he doesn’t want getting hurt. His selfish desire for you is the one thing Astarion is allowing himself, and he needs you to just give it to him. 

“I think I hear wedding bells in your future, Tav,” Wyll teases as he hands his sword to Karlach, who’s promptly wiping off the blood, having been put on this duty after losing some silly bet to Gale that Astarion hadn’t been privy to. Wyll isn’t entirely wrong, but he knows they wouldn’t understand what Astarion wants with you is far more than a legally binding contract. 

Astarion shoots a grimace at Wyll, who does need to shut up. 

Ever since your arrival in Baldur’s Gate, Astarion’s felt both confident and horrifically terrified. Most days, he lands somewhere in between, his greatest comfort being you. The one comfort he wishes he could enjoy fully, despite the two of you sleeping together every night. You have ever since he confessed to you, that when your albeit enjoyable trysts ended, your intimacy and love began. Astarion loves nothing more than to hold you at night. It means so much to him to have someone to be with, someone he likes, someone he loves, and you’re so beautiful…so you. 

“Let me have you tonight,” Astarion whispers to you amidst the soft sounds of your sleeping companions. The commotion of the spawn attack finally dies down, leaving the two of you to the quiet of the suite. Halsin’s snores could be heard from around the room, and Jaheira and Minsc are known to kick in their sleep. Once, earlier in your adventure, you told Astarion you saw Minsc’s dreams one night: he was locked in a cage, tortured next to a far younger Jaheira, whose cries could be heard throughout whatever dark and dank prison they were in. Your psychic background was known to the whole party, but Astarion became privy to some of the finer details of your condition: strange ways you were able to unlock glimpses of the future, and sometimes even the past and present, it seems. You sometimes just knew things that Astarion didn’t know how to account for – to be fair, you’re rather observant, and you have a knack for connecting with others. Not to mention that pesky tadpole, which certainly complicates things, (you attested this to why you had been able to see Minsc’s dreams, but Astarion isn’t so sure) but it also gave you and Astarion insight into each other's minds, and you two became known to each other quickly once you truly bonded back in the Shadow Cursed Lands. 

Astarion uses the tadpole now, sharing his thoughts of burying his face between your thighs before sliding himself into you missionary style, kissing and sucking at your neck before easing his fangs into delicate flesh, your rapid heartbeat loud in his ears, your warm skin beneath his cold touch. Gods; his cock has been hard ever since the end of the battle – after your party had cleaned up, Astarion set his sights on passionately kissing you, grabbing at whatever curvature of your body he could. He quickly got you settled in bed, wrapping you in his arms and holding you tightly. 

You smile, but you look a little shy, a blush rising on your cheeks. You’re so cute like that, still so shy with him – he understands it. You hadn’t much experience when you met him, other than a few minor instances when you were a teen, when you shared a kiss with Wyll at the damned tiefling party, and the times you recently spent with Lae’zel in her tent, much to Astarion’s dismay. 

He hadn’t cared much about those things then, you being with others. It was more annoying to him than anything else, because it meant there was competition, and he needed you the most. No, Astarion tells himself he didn’t mind sharing your body (at least, for a handful of centuries) just like he didn't mind when you bled a little after he first entered you back in the clearing. He thought it was endearing, to be the first man to break through your walls, spearing through your hymen to reach your depths. When Astarion finally pulled himself out of you to clean you with his mouth, he swore that blood was sweeter than anything…

Not even your virginal blood tastes as good as you do now that you’re his. But when you were still alive, when your heart still beat, Astarion swore it was the taste of the heavens themselves. 

“Are you sure? Last time…” You begin, immediately making Astarion feel heavy in his gut. “I just don’t want you to push yourself, ‘Star. We don’t have to.”

Astarion furrows his brows, desperately wanting you to be quiet – to let him lead, to let him have you. He ignores you, brushing his lips to yours, tongue lazily teasing your bottom lip, using all his sweetest moves on you. 

Astarion doesn’t want to sit with this memory anymore. He wasn’t able to perform that night:

Astarion can’t stop looking at your face. You’re so pretty, such a stunning young woman, and yet, he feels worse and worse as his lips trail over your smooth skin, his fingers swirling inside you. Those same fingers have been inside countless other women and men, and he wants so desperately not to think of it: the sheer number of bodies that have touched him, that have now touched you. He imagines thousands of hands grabbing onto him, onto you, dragging you both below, right back down to the dungeons of Cazador’s estate. He pulls back again, fixing his eyes to yours. The flicker of the fireplace roars in the middle of the suite, giving you both just enough light to admire one another amidst darkness. Your naked figure is something out of a dream, yet it brings him back to the present: you lie on your back. Your naked breasts, your pert nipples, hardened from pleasure and the chill of the breeze from an open window, add only to your sex appeal. Your lips are parted, creating some strange, perverted desire within Astarion to see your tongue. 

You’re so comfortable with him. Him: he who is a monster, a stalker in the night. Astarion’s led hundreds to their deaths. Even just a few months ago, he was doing Cazador’s bidding, and yet here you are: the sweet, even-hearted leader, on her back for the monster. Your racing heartbeat, your utter vulnerability…it’s bringing out Astarion’s prey drive, and his fangs ache to be buried inside you. 

“Astarion…” You whisper, having noticed his absence. You half-heartedly try to pull his hand away from your sex, gripping at his wrist. In a few days, you will face Cazador. And if all goes horribly wrong, this may be one of the last times he could have you – and, truthfully, he thinks it would be a good distraction; he’s in no mood to rest, and watching you sleep is hardly exciting. And now, he’s feeling a bit peckish.

“Shh,” Astarion’s voice comes out in a seductive, hushed whisper. He kisses you again, capturing your protests in his mouth, curling his fingers inside of you to make you squirm. He remembers it’s you crying beneath him, the woman he loves, and not some stranger or friend of Cazador, or Cazador himself…it’s you. And he can bite you, and know all of you because you’ll do anything for him.

“You’re so beautiful,” He coos, unable to contain his praise for you. His nose trails along your jaw, down your collarbone; he can feel you shiver in his arms.

You chirp in pain when Astarion spears his fangs into you; he puts a hand over your mouth, continuing to push his fingers into you, slipping in a third when he feels your contraction die down, your body relaxing once again from your intense orgasm. His thumb gently works your clitoris – your body is so sensitive, and bringing you to ruin makes him feel so powerful. He believes with you by his side, anything is possible. 

Some things never change. 

Astarion can’t feed on you forever: the disgust usually comes back once he draws his fangs away from your neck. He’s already taken too much blood, he can tell just by the way you swoon, the way your hazy eyes slowly blink at him. He can’t deny he likes you this way: you’re weak. You probably couldn’t fight him off if you tried, as you’re naked, woozy from blood loss, and the monster's hands are inside you. 

He would kill to have that trust back. 

His cock is uncomfortably hard as he pulls his underclothes down, his member twitching as he rubs it against your hip. You don’t have much privacy at the elfsong – that’s part of the fun to Astarion – but the two of you have abandoned some caution along the way, ditching the blanket that once covered your forms. If anyone wakes up and sees you now, the shroud of a blanket won’t change a thing: the two of you are obviously making love. Still, you both move quickly and quietly, despite your brief protests when he starts to touch your sensitive bundle of nerves again, which you complain is too sensitive, so overwhelming…

“Y-you just like to play with me,” You cry, against Astarion’s lips, breaking your fervent kisses to take a breath. “Meanie…”

“Oh, I am quite mean, aren’t I, for playing with my food?” Astarion whispers, his voice teasing in your ear. He’s gently stroking his cock, his palm rising up and down on his shaft, squeezing before he starts to rub on your hip again. Bringing his hand to your jaw, he ensures you’re looking into his eyes. He wants you to get lost in him. But it is he who finds himself lost in you.

He wants to tell you he loves you. It pops into his mind quite suddenly, a voice in the back of his head whispering: I love you, Tav.  It makes him wonder why you haven’t said it to him first, though.

He still tastes your blood in his mouth when he brings his fingers away from you, popping them in his mouth, licking them clean. The taste of your blood and your come mix so perfectly.“You’re a feast for me. Don’t you know I survive entirely on the blood and intimate juices of very bad girls?”

Your eyes go wide like a child caught stealing sweets. “Bad? I’ve been bad?”

Astarion can’t help but chuckle, causing you to gasp, putting your hands over his mouth to muffle the noise. He could care less about what the others think: you’re going to be his, and he’s having fun. The two of you continue like this for some time, stifled moans, giggles, kisses and nips…

Astarion only realizes he can’t continue right before he pushes into you. It isn’t the worst kind of torture, not being able to make love to you, but it’s pretty damn bad. He just wants you both to feel good, to be close to each other; one moment, the both of you are stripped naked, hot and bothered, precum dripping from the tip of his cock, your core slick for him, all for him just to have to pull away. 

You hid your disappointment well: you coaxed Astarion back from the brink, making him feel more secure in your love and care. He wonders if your time of nursing and comforting him is over, now that you hate him. No matter, he tells himself, even though he knows very well it certainly does matter. Astarion falls back into reverie, to a slightly later memory:

Astarion has been traveling in the vaults under Sorcerous Sundries in the Gate, just two days after the spawn assault at the Elfsong. You lead the fray, as you always do, with Gale and Karlach in toe, looting the place high and low for supplies. Although the party is pretty rich, you insist on searching every nook and cranny. Astarion agrees with you, of course, because you’re right: he too feels the party needs more time and resources before they attack Cazador’s palace.

‘The Chronicles of Straud’ the title read; it was a thick book tucked away somewhere in Lorroakan's vault, and was making for an interesting read as Astarion occasionally sent glances your way, specifically when you would bend over to pick something up. Your ass just looks amazing in your new armor, and he catches the others checking you out, too. Annoying. 

“Karlach,” Astarion calls, the red tiefling quickly looking away from your round hips as her eyes meet Astarion’s. Gale also turns around, having been startled by Astarion’s voice. 

“What? I didn’t do anything wrong! I was just admiring the lovely armor you bought her,” Karlach chuckles, smoothing away her embarrassment as she wipes her hand across her forehead. You’ve caught on, now, turning around to give Astarion and Karlach a knowing, disapproving look, but you grin nonetheless, unable to hide your laughter. Astarion smiles at your smile. 

Gale and Karlach continue to scour the vault, Gale excitedly calling out every good find, Karlach cheering him on as he does so. You shoot Astarion a sultry smirk before doing a little waltz over to him, plopping down next to him on the steel floor of the vault. 

“What’s got your attention?” You ask, a curious smile on your pretty, smooth face. 

Astarion chuckles, his eyes flickering to your plush lips for only a moment before meeting your eyes. Astarion swiftly closes the book, losing his bookmark on the page titled: ‘The Dark Kiss’. It’s not that he means to be evasive, but he isn’t ready to share with you yet. Once he tells you he plans to make you his forever, that’s basically a love confession and a proposal in one – that’s way too much for Astarion in this state. His freedom isn’t even guaranteed, yet; not while Cazador still lives. 

“Ah, just some reading about the life of Straud. He was a formidable vampire in his day,” Astarion explains, handing the book over to you. You have no real interest in reading some random book, so Astarion knows he’s safe to show you. 

“Oh. I’ve never heard of him,” You say, turning the book over in your hand. He chuckles at this because he isn’t surprised: you knew nothing of vampires when he uh…accidentally revealed himself to you. 

Astarion can tell there’s something on your mind. When he asks you, you explain that you’ve been feeling antsy ever since the spawn attacked in the dead of night. “They tried to take you away – and now we know about the ritual…I just want you to be free. To have everything you want, that I know you deserve.”

Your words are sweet, and your lips are even sweeter. He hungrily kisses you, not caring if the others see. He knows you love him despite your lack of confession, and that you’ll do anything for him – hells, you’ve done everything he’s asked, and more. He just wants to give you so much more than what he can right now. And he should be able to give you something extraordinary once he ascends. ‘The Dark Kiss’: Astarion thinks it sounds sensual. And how lucky he is to have found the ritual hidden amongst Lorroakan’s valuables.  As the days go on, Astarion likes you more and more – and he likes the other less and less. Even he doesn’t want to admit to himself that he wants all your attention. But Astarion knows that wouldn’t be good for the party: there is too much at stake. The thought makes him pause, fluttering his eyes open as he tumbles that ancient thought around in his head: for the good of the party. But Astarion doesn’t care about the party, only the Ancuníns. So, your husband finds himself finally asking: what is best for the Ancuníns?

[aylish91]

Hey, if your ask game about your WIPs is still going on- can I ask about the Death god one?? 👀👀👀 you have grabbed my attention and strapped it down. I am feral at your gates for that rn. 😳 I loveeee your writing SO MUCH so scraps like these are AWESOME!! 💖💖💖

Thank you so much lylia!!! You chose a good one, this one also has multiple stories/ideas in it~ Hope you enjoy!!

The first is about how our dear reader has just lost their grandmother and older brother. Following one of their last requests, you travel to your grandmother's old village to give prayer at "the old gods shrines". However, you can't give a meaningful prayer, if the shrine is in disrepair, so you promise to fix that which is broken first.

Interesting things begin to happen from there~

The Second is "To Deal With Death". It begins with the near death of Reader. On the verge of dying, however, they try to barter with death. Not to let them live, but to allow them a couple more days, maybe a week at most to make sure things are alright with their loved ones.

Death at first, reassures you that everything will be fine, and that your time has come. Everything changes, however, once you manage to throw yourself into his embrace in your anguished pleading...

The last is "Death and Fate". You are Fate, a god who just want's to be left alone to your own devises. Death has made a sudden discovery of your presence by the way of Life. You are not sure you are too pleased by this. He has made it perfectly clear that he is unwilling to leave you alone.

Your powers are quite interesting after all~

~~~

1.

As you wondered through, the darkening sky forced you to rest for the night. The obvious choice would have been to stay in either Life’s or The King’s shrines, those being the biggest and in the best shape. Instead, you found yourself curling up in a smaller humbler shrine in the most disrepair. It’s black marble steps and alter had lost its shine, the roof on the verge of caving in. What few pots and idols had long since broken as the webs and dust from decades clung to the shabby space. But it was dry enough, and a small fire in the one remaining brazier gave you enough warmth to last the night. Giving prayer, you gave thanks for the sanctuary and promised to fix that which was broken, quickly settling in for sleep. You tried not to dwell on how the shadows seemed to shift and settle during the night

2.

You were “suppose to go”. “It was time”. “You had done your part...” But you couldn’t. Not yet. Even as Death, in all his mysterious glory, stood before your hospital bed you plead for just a little more time. Not much, you knew it was selfish to even ask, but a few more days. A couple weeks tops. Just enough to make sure. Make sure your sister would be okay.

3.

“It’s you.” “My Goddess, you wound me. Do you think so poorly of me that my presence alone would cause such impolite greeting?” Death, slunk into a chair across from you as you worked at your table, placing his head in his hand to watch you. It was a bold move. You both knew it. You were already vexed with him over the incident regarding the fate of a new hero. If you hadn’t interfered directly, you weren’t sure if Lord Death would have left the mortal alone, balancing the soul between life and death as he had. It was even more frustrating for you by the fact he shouldn’t have been there to begin with. The hero was never meant to die. Death merely wanted to tease you, forcing you to interact instead of merely observe. You took a deep breath and sighed, putting your unfinished threads away and out of sight.

[whiskeyworen]

Secrets of the Obscure: Lost Commander

Playing through the first sections of Secrets of the Obscure, it got me thinking.

The Commander is lost.

Since the beginning of the game, when we take hold of them, they've had some kind of mission, some kind of goal. It started out small; help out in Shaemoor when things go bad. Or end a nasty Inquest prank/assault by destroying their cube golem. Or help put down Lord Barradine's ghost (again). Or literally defend the Dream from the psychic marring the Nightmare Court are trying to inflict on it in the hopes of spoiling the Dream into the Nightmare. Or taking part in a celebratory hunt and taking down the biggest Ice wurm to date.

From there it just snowballed for them with the Personal story, leading up to joining an Order, meeting their mentor… losing their mentor… Creating the pact and eventually bringing down Zhaitan.

And it kept going from there. One crisis after another. One war after another. Friends gained. Friends lost. Enemies found. Enemies ended. World saved, again, and again, and again.

Finally, things are falling into a nominal peace. Oh there's skirmishes and stuff. There will always be strife. But the big stuff? The world is starting to slowly move past it.

Human and Charr not only have a tenuous peace treaty; the heads behind the resistance to that treaty are GONE. Almost every main legion is headed by someone ameniable to peace, to a new way of life.

The Nightmare Court, while not gone, doesn't seem to have the violence they used to. Oh they still tempt the new sprouts to join them, to indulge in pain and decadence and rebellion… but with Faolain dead, the guiding source for their brutality is gone. Maybe they'll be trouble in the future, but not nearly to the degree Faolain turned them into.

The Inquest have lost base after base, including a Rata. It's unknown what their command structure is like now, or where other bases are, but they seem to at least be keeping their heads down. And with the Arcane Eye taken down, they don't have anyone on the inside anymore, to cover up their misdeeds.

The White Mantle are dead or badly scattered, with no real hope of reforming.

The Svanir have lost their totem beast, if not their lives. If they still linger on, they're no longer the power they tried to be.

Even Joko is finally dead. One of the biggest damned threats to the world, someone who would have killed and turned everyone if given a chance, is now Elder Dragon burps.

The Gods are gone, never to return. The one that tried to is dead.

Through all this, the Commander struggled, trying to save as many as they could. Eventually rising to become the Symbol of the desire for peace and stability.

And it finally happened.

But what do we find? The Commander is… lost. Everyone they knew is either dead, retired, has moved on to positions where they can no longer 'go on adventures'. The threats that brought them all together are gone. Now it's just the wind-down. Fix broken things, find the lives they left behind to fight their fight.

Except the Commander.

They don't have anything else. Their whole existence for the last 10 years has been nigh-constant fighting, threat, intrigue, near-dying, and ACTUAL dying.

Everyone else has moved on. But the Commander can't. What can they do?

It's so terribly sad. I listened to my Commander, Cyrus. My own self-insert. Walking around Salma district. He was relieved that things were peaceful, but you could tell he didn't feel at home. He didn't feel at home, at HOME. Because it wasn't home anymore. It was just a place he protected for a long time.

When he was trying out Taimi's new phone system (I just think of it as the smartphone system), with each call, it was clear that everyone had moved on but him. They'd all found lives to life, new purposes, new loves…. old loves…

And here you have him, standing alone in the street, unnoticed by everyone but a nosey reporter from Cantha. At a loss for what to do with himself.

Going back a step, even the triple-'date' Taimi set up to help Rama was awkward as hell. It wasn't the Commander's idea; they got hijacked into it. Even had their date pretty much picked out for them. As pleasant as it was, and as relaxed as it made them in the end, it was an oddity in their life. When was the last time they'd had a date? Before the Personal Story, somewhere? Maybe never? Was that the FIRST date the Commander had ever had?

It just kinda made me sad that, they knew they were basically going through the motions of 'normal life', because it wasn't normal to THEM. Trying to fit in to a world that no longer needed them.

If it wasn't for accidentally stumbling onto the Astral Ward, I don't think they would have been able to settle into a normal life.

But it still doesn't end there; accidentally brought into association with the Ward, they run into perhaps the ONE other person who might understand that sense of emptiness, that loss of the sense of home. Zojja.

And in her usual faintly self-centered way, you find out she blames the Commander partly for not being there when she needed someone. The one person who not only would have been there if contacted, but ALSO needed someone to confide in, to take some of the weight off them…

It hurt to hear Cyrus very slowly say "We would have come. I know I would've." There was pain there. Like 'You really thought we'd abandon you, so you immediately discounted us.'

So here's Zojja, the last of the people he knew from being the Commander who hasn't yet disappeared… and she's telling him that if she Ascends to Wizard, she'll lose memories, or they'll be come dull and unimportant. That the Zojja that comes out the other side might not even view him as a friend anymore.

And the Commander, already knowing he's probably going to lose his last friend, can only offer an understanding, painful smile and tell her that no matter what, he'll support her, even if she doesn't recognize him anymore.

They'll call him Wayfinder in the Ward… but it's just a new war front. A new rank. A new title. And he'll have to start over again.

At least he'll have R'tchikk to remind him of a past that's already starting to fade away in Tyria.

Everyone in the Ward knows of the Commander; they've been watching through their crystal balls, wondering if the Commander was a big enough threat that they'd need to quietly eliminate them. But now that the Commander is right there, the Ward is going to use them as a new weapon.

And we all know the Commander is just going to accept that this is what they're gonna have to do because… what's the alternative? At least they know how to fight.

[aquato-family-circus]

Building on this point I made way back in last year December, it's interesting just how much the shaky situation of the Psychonauts organization could be read as a direct parallel to the Fall of Grulovia. Both of them involve groups/societies losing their "heart", so to speak, as a result of horrors caused by a Grulovian driven over the edge.

In the Psychonauts' case, it was losing Lucrecia, Ford, and Helmut that lead to the Psychonauts' foundation effectively without the soul that made the Psychonauts what it was meant to be (to expand the frontiers of knowledge regarding the human mind). Thus, all that remained was the shell and whatever fragments remained of the Psychic Seven with Otto, Compton, Cassie, and Bob. Once they began to fall apart, the Psychonauts was only a fraction of what it used to be despite the changes.

In the case of Grulovia, it'd be easy to claim that the Maliks were the "heart" of Grulovia, but I'd argue that it'd be more accurate to say that it was the regular citizens, the people who Grulovia's royal family should have nurtured and prospered. But the Maliks had been leeching them dry for years, and Theodore's decision to manipulate Lucrecia only lead to the final nail in the coffin with the Deluge of Grulovia.

In both cases, the birth of Maligula was both the "birth" of the Psychonauts as an organization, but the death of the Psychonauts as a group of friends and people driven by their heart towards a noble goal, replaced by an effectively broken shell that was held together by forward momentum and talented people who tried to keep things going. And likewise, the birth of Maligula heralded the death of Grulovia, with the leeches (Maliks) who caused the whole mess scurrying away into hiding.

And then it's telling that what began the process of healing that heart involved another Grulovian playing a part to make things right.

Raz and Gristol in this regards parallel each other, as they both narratively play a role in trying to save the heart of their respective groups. But whereas Raz ultimately achieves this by helping to heal the original wound both in the Aquato family and the Psychic Six, Gristol did not and could not do so.

This is because Gristol foolishly imposes himself as being the "heart" of Grulovia, much like the rest of his family. Lacking any self-awareness and introspection, he thus only ensured that he'd be doomed to make the same devastating mistakes that led to Grulovia falling in the first place, and nearly dooming the remnants of the Psychonauts as well.

Ford in many ways factors into this as well, as while the Maliks certainly played a part in the devastation, he basically tried to "fix" the heart of the Psychonauts and bring back Lucrecia at any cost, only for the costly nature of his mistakes leading to his own mind being shattered, Lucrecia stuck in a false identity, and Helmut trapped for 2 decades as a brain in a jar.

And the end results speak for themselves. The Psychonauts and Grulovia being seen as shadows of their former selves. The Psychonauts unable to help its own agents in mental crises, Whispering Rock's children suffering from their own troubles that go unaddressed in the first game, etc. And Grulovia a frozen wasteland whose only chance of being "fixed" lies in the hands of the very people who leeched and drained it dry, before condemning it to a watery and frozen grave while fleeing from their costly mistakes.

I find Gristol's fixation on Ford especially fascinating in this regard bc you can draw parallels between the two as trying to fix these dire straights in ways that involve a lot of mental manipulation, whether it's Gristol's more real-world manipulative tactics or it's Ford's use of the astralathe. While Ford has much more well meaning intentions it can't be denied that he pulled a lot of selfish moves in the process, like not going to get his friends' help since he must've assumed they'd never agree to such a wildly unsafe solution to the problem.

For some reason the image that always flashes in my mind when these parallels between the Psychonauts (org) and Grulovia are drawn is whenever you go to Fatherland Follies and see that show room where Ford is like on the front lines doing his EVIL psychonauts treachary on top of his Ford Plane. Like it or not once Ford and friends agreed to stop Maligula they entered the World Stage and they have lasting world-wide images built up around them afterward for better or worse.

I've always liked that in the end the thing that saved Lucy and brought her back/allowed her to snip Maligula back into the subconcious of her mind, it was Raz, it was the family she wanted so much to protect but got maniupulated into hurting by the Maliks.

The Psychonauts (org) being set on the path to hopefully saving themselves from becoming even worse than that shell of their former selves fascinates me because despite how hyped up it is, they're honestly pretty early on into their life as an organization. Like, taking everything at face value, the Psychonauts are only a 20 year old organization, that's like, nothing in the grand scheme of things so far. They've definitely already been making their mark but now I think they have the next generation of agents in a good place to eventually take things over, because the old guard of the Psychic 7 has their heads on more straight and can guide the growth/rebuilding/restructuring a lot more before they're gone in like another 20-30 years.

[wakraya]

My Experience With Roblox

Hey! Hi! Hello! I have just gone through some pretty frustrating stuff and I wanted to share some experiences I've had with the Scam Formerly Known As Roblox.

So let me tell you a little bit of a story.

Back in the day I used to be a small Roblox Creator. And when I say 'back in the day', I mean like a decade ago, before a lot of the current extremely shady monetization and exploitation practices weren't implemented yet. And mind you, there WAS the 'Builder's Club' and there was Buying Robux, but it wasn't as blatant, and you still had Tix as the Free Currency.

Roblox was a place where I found quite the community. I was still not all that good at English, and it was through interacting with others that I pretty much taught myself to speak English. I met some of my longest-lasting friendships, I had my first Hyperfixation... Hell- It even introduced me to Homestuck!

But then everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked.

And by the Fire Nation, I mean that Roblox updated something that broke several of the scripts inside of my game. It dropped without warning, without a Legacy option, and forced Creators to simply adapt and update. Now, it wasn't even anything too big- I believe all I had to do was add 2 lines of code to my scripts, and they'd be fixed.

But, you see. I was inspired to make my own place, because of the work of other Creators. A major inspiration, in fact, was a pretty legendary Bleach Fighting Game, whose... Maker hadn't been on in years.

That was the day I learned the words 'Backwards Compatibility' and realized that Roblox had unceremoniously broken a lot of classic things that now had no repair. Alongside security concerns and the increasing monetization of the place, I decided to simply leave and never look back.

... A few years back, I got an email, telling me that there'd been a successful login to my account.

I quickly got in, changed my password to complete nonsense, reiterated my distaste for the state of the site, and left.

I didn't think much of this event for half a decade, but today. Today I was trying to see if I'd gotten a verification email from a different thing, and I ended up rummaging my Spam Folder, only to find someone writing an email... Asking, politely, for trading of some of the limited items left on my archaic account.

Unsure if this was a scam or not, and wondering what 'cool' items I even could've had in my inventory (Apparently I've got some unique octopus that sells for 22K Robux or something? Shrug-) I decided to log into the site, and... Just on a whim, I checked my messages.

Every single message for the last several years going back were just scams, which truly speaks volumes to how the site had developed. But, more importantly. Going further back, I found people asking me to please come back, and fix the game... Or. 'Make it free'.

...

Apparently. Apparently. In the time I got hacked years ago. Before whoever did it changed my email or password. They had, effectively. Updated my old game, with a message that 'it was back', and monetized it.

Apparently for the past few years I've gotten an insignificant but existent stream of Robux from some poor kids or nostalgic people trying to get back into my game.

I immediately went to try and fix things, only to realize there were no Options to remove the 'pass', and I couldn't find a way to remove the monetization, either.

Now. Mind you. I was doing this on the Browser. Maybe from the client it would've been better, easier, and clearer, but let me tell you- I have not. Seen. SUCH a Hostile UI in my entire life trying to just. FIND what to do to stop this from happening, and eventually I just. Opted for privating and taking down the game entirely. It's broken anyway, after all.

Following that I tried to make a statement on the description of my account, only to see, in horror, that my 1000 word message turned entirely into ####### because apparently I'd written one too many banned terms, because I was, in fact, talking about my account getting hacked, and monetization.

I tried writing a few other messages, and I swear, that was one of the most aggressive content filters I've seen in my ENTIRE life. 'Consent', 'Whole', and several other completely innocent terms just constantly eaten by the censorship algorithm, making writing a new description one of the genuinely most frustrating experiences I've ever had with any website online.

So. I guess. There's not much I want to say here. I am mostly venting about what an awful, awful experience this whole thing is, but like... Seriously. The hacking and security was rampant back then, and I doubt it's any better now. Even if it was, the sheer scope of the scams and exploitation that this... Service is even allowed, is genuinely a Late-Capitalism Nightmare.

Anyway, that was a wretched experience, and as nostalgic as I am for Those Days, and as sure as I am that there's people who still love Roblox and who have made incredible friends through it...

That... Thing... Is a monument to Humanity's Hubris, and shouldn't exist-

[badwitch-if]

What is the difference between OG demo and AU demo?

honestly, not much right now. hence my lovely Skeletor gif, hahah 💜

but I've gotten a few versions of this ask over the last few days and first of all, welcome new anon Witxhes! sooo it's been about a month now since I first released the initial demos, and I was having a really difficult time deciding between two different versions of what are essentially the same story.

the OG DEMO was the original story I'd written about a super close-knit coven and all the intimate, over-the-top magic they'd concocted together. Both stories catch up with the coven a decade after graduation but...

the AU DEMO follows a broken up coven where MC intentionally left them because of reasons. there was a vote to see which demo people liked more but it ended up being pretty split, so neither OG or AU is the real successor.

right now I'm working on taking the elements that did work from both versions and weaving it into the NEW demo, which I'm still aiming to release mid-May. both demos will remain up until I post the shiny new one, but I also won't be fixing any bugs for the old games. and for the kind anon who reported the RO gender bugs, that is appreciated! (=

[miximagic256]

Points of Interest 4

Hi friends! This POI has been overdue for months I'm so sorry! One thing you may have noticed is there's a number attached to the title now. This titling scheme will follow for every POI post from here on out because it's honestly way more convenient especially with how some months there's little I want to type about while other months have lots I want to type about (although if you're really curious what's below occurred from January - February, I wasn't kidding when I said this was well overdue!)

But enough of the foreword, let's get into it!

Portal 2

So interesting thing, I got Portal 2 around 2013 when I first got my PS3, I never played the first Portal game as I didn’t have Steam and I never played The Orange Box which is where Portal debuted in 2007. Portal 2 was a game I played because I remember at the time hearing about how good the game was and while I did play it I never actually finished it.

Late last year I remembered I never finished the game so I started again from the beginning and finally beat it in January, and I can safely say that over a decade after the game’s release that Portal 2 is a fantastic experience from beginning to end and deserves all the praise people give it.

There is so much I could gush about with the characters, worldbuilding, storytelling, etc. But as a first for this series of mine I won’t go into detail because Portal 2 is one of those games that’s best to be played with as little knowledge as possible (in my case there were some things I knew about prior unfortunately, but luckily a lot of what I experienced was new to me).

One thing I will do though is share a link to this playlist of Portal 2 animations by Harry101UK which look, sound and feel so close to the game that you'd be amazed Valve had nothing to do with them! In particular I absolutely love his remake of his first ever Portal animation based on the song This Is Halloween from The Nightmare Before Christmas, you have no idea how many times I've listened to it! (Don't worry there's no spoilers for the game so if you've not played it you can still watch his videos without worry of that)

If you’re like me and have never played Portal 2 after all this time I highly recommend you do so if you get the chance (in fact you can even skip the first Portal game since outside of some backstory it doesn’t affect the sequel much), you won’t regret it!

The Repair That Never Was

I realise that with all the talk I’ve done about appliances and fixing things that it may give the impression that this is something I normally do, but in reality this is very rare and it’s a big coincidence that two appliance fiascos happened close together (although pre-teen me would have been ecstatic at the knowledge they’d eventually get to do something they always wanted - fixing a broken appliance).

So context, back in 2016 we brought a second-hand tumble dryer, it worked fine but some years ago I started to suspect that something was off because there would be rumbling noises every so often (bear in mind the type of noise a dryer can make can point to different types of faults like bad roller bearings, bad rear bearings, etc.) So after trying to figure out what type of noise it was I thought it was a result of a bad dryer fan (which is what takes the air from the drum through the vent and out the back) As sometimes they can “warp” due to the heat and not spin evenly causing it to be noisy when in use.

I was so confident that this was the issue I brought the part for it in advance for the time where there would be a good opportunity to open the machine up (although buying the part online was tricky as the dryer was made in the late 90s and sometimes machines that old can be hard to find parts for). Cut to January where one day it’s drying as normal only for me to notice that at some point the machine was running but the drum wasn’t turning, which suggested one thing, the belt had snapped (what sits around the motor that causes the drum to turn).

Now that the dryer was broken I took the opportunity I had been waiting for and opened it up, but I discovered that the rumbling noise wasn’t actually caused by a warped dryer fan at all but rather a loose jockey wheel (the part that’s on the end of the motor which the belt fits on) what a plot twist! Honestly considering it was loose for goodness knows how long it’s no wonder that eventually caused the belt to snap, not only that but I have an unopened dryer fan part on my desk I can't do anything with so it makes some pretty unconventional decoration hehe.

Because of this and the fact it was deemed easier to just get a new dryer, the old one was sent to its final resting place in the scrapyard (which considering it was at least 25 years old, I’d say it did its job well). But it doesn’t end there. I felt the best thing to do was to buy a washer dryer (because it would be more convenient for my small kitchen) which meant it would also replace our washing machine at the same time which I wrote about replacing the door seal a year ago, so despite me doing that repair it ended up being too little too late ironically.

One final thing to note: The washer dryer bought was the same manufacture as the one before our machine which I repaired, of which the former machine lasted 13-14 years. No Pressure!

Video Game Museum Trip Feat. @Klonoamiyumi

Video game museums are somewhat uncommon throughout the world but in recent times more and more have been opening up, and a year or two ago I discovered one myself but it was a far away from where I’m located so I never visited it. As my birthday was approaching and there was a holiday I was going to go on soon I decided just before that would happen that I would finally visit the museum alongside two IRL friends (including @klonoamiyumi!).

Due to the distance I decided for us to get there by train which was honestly nerve wracking as I normally don’t take the train (not only that but add on to the fact I was taking the train while organising the trip in the first place), but outside of one slip up (which I’ll get into later) we all got our tickets and away we went!

On the train itself we sat together and talked about our video game history along with some general topics as well, bear in mind the three of us up to this point hadn’t met up much together so it was an interesting experience being able to talk among ourselves. After around an hour on the train we arrived at our destination and stepped out, I had researched directions on where to go to the museum beforehand however actually exploring around the city was tricky because I had never been to that location before, luckily I was able to rely on Google Maps to figure out where to go and after accidentally going in a circle (oops!) We did eventually find the building we were looking for: The National Video Game Museum!

For most of the year this specific museum is only open Thursday – Sunday except for the UK summer holidays where it’s open everyday, there were a wide array of both arcade machines and video game consoles to play on, anecdotes from past and present video game developers (including a small tribute to the late Masayuki Uemura who supported the museum), signs describing various bits of history along with glass cases including important related material, etc. Despite not being the largest of museums for what’s there it should satisfy the curiosity of any video game fan of any era not only because of what’s on display but also because there’s so many things to interact with and discover that there's bound to be something you didn't know of beforehand, plus because it's not that large of a museum there's no worry of getting lost or overwhelmed but it doesn't feel underwhelming either. The place is ideal for a day out even if it was just yourself going there.

There was another thing that happened as well while we were there, by complete chance an online friend of both @klonoamiyumi and I (who has her own Tumblr blog @janeypoodle) was at the event, not only was this meetup not planned at all but they were planning to go to the museum the day before but couldn’t as the train got cancelled. What a plot twist! Janey is someone me and Klonoamiyumi have known about for a long time and while a potential visit did sometimes cross our minds for one reason or another it never took off. So to actually meet them in an unexpected place was such a wonderful surprise and a bonus to add to our day out, we all talked for a while and then we took a photo of us three to remember :>

Throughout the museum for the most part we all split up when going around what video games were available, but just before the museum closed Klonoamiyumi wanted me and our other IRL friend to play a game with him called Buzz! Junior: Jungle Party as it served a particular importance, he recalls this game was one of the only video games he played with family and not just by himself (which I can relate because I myself had Buzz! Junior: Rino Rumble which plays identically to Jungle Party, and that was a game I played with my family as well).

After that session together we quickly looked at the shop section and then left the museum, we decided to have food since it was late in the afternoon by that point (we went to McDonald’s specifically) and then we went back to the train station, however… Remember when I said there was one slip up that happened? Well while we managed to get back to train station, we narrowly missed our train (it was late in the evening as well), so I had to think quick and look up another train to the same destination on my phone and after some wondering around and last minute changes (because the train we needed to take ended up being on a different platform then announced). We got on and despite it being late in the evening we all got home safe and sound!

This trip was notable not just because of where we went but also because I've never organised anything like this before, but now that I have I can arrange a meetup of any kind again because starting something is always the hardest part, after that you start to get the hang of what you're doing and you get better every time! I think I speak for all of us when we all had a great experience!

Topic End: Epilogue

Again I'm really sorry for how overdue this is, I think you can tell the most significant thing included in this post hehe. I will say though this might be the last Points of Interest post for a while due to things that aren't really appropriate for this series, such as:

Events that are too negative to include (I intend this series to be positive and I don't want to bring myself or other people down reading the post)

Events that are positive but are too personal to include, this one is important to mention because truth be told I didn't really want to include topics relating to IRL events with family (like the cruise ship holiday) because while this series is a semi-dairy of sorts at the same time I only want to talk about things I'm comfortable being public online.

With that said, I hope you all enjoyed this POI and I'll see you next time!

[consularmain]

I should be doing nanowrimo but I rewrote the prologue for my revalek story instead. I'll post it here for now and add it to ao3 when I have all the other chapters fixed :)

Broken Chain

Revan was dead.

There was a time when a galaxy without her in it would have been unthinkable for Malak. But he was a different man then; content to live in her shadow, to hang on her every word, to follow her lead as he had since they were children. Whether it was to the war or beyond the edge of known space, wherever Revan led, Malak would follow.

He would have done anything for her. And she knew it. But that was long ago — before she started them on the path that led them here.

The Leviathan’s laser cannons rained fire on Revan’s flagship. Malak watched from the safety of the Leviathan’s bridge, his arms crossed over his chest and his gray eyes staring unblinkingly as he watched Revan’s ship buckle under the onslaught.

His master’s cold rage at his betrayal sent a tremor through the Force so strong even those with the weakest of connections would have sensed it and fear for their lives. It was made only stronger for Malak through the bond that once flowed so naturally between them. He felt it as Revan turned her rage onto the strike team of Jedi sent to capture both Sith Lords.

Among the Jedi, Malak was surprised to sense Bastila Shan.

The Council must be truly desperate to risk losing their most precious pawn and her Battle Meditation.

If Malak could still smile, he would.

After a lifetime of losing every game of strategy, he had finally outsmarted Revan.

A well-aimed shot from the Leviathan exposed the bridge of Revan’s ship to the vacuum of space for a split second before the ray shields flickered on. In that same instant, Malak felt the echo of a brutal blow to the back of his head. He grunted under his mask, digging his nails into his bicep. The pain was only a shadow of what Revan must have felt, but it was enough to force him to concentrate on breathing through it until it passed. And when it did, he realized their connection was weakening.

Revan was dying.

Her presence, always lingering like a whisper in his thoughts, had finally gone silent. Malak was suddenly the only person in his own mind for the first time in decades. What remained of her that he could sense was slipping away — an eerily quiet death for one who had burned so bright in the Force.

The bond strained, struggling to hold onto his other half, until it snapped.

Something between his ribs echoed that break. It almost brought him to his knees, but he stayed on his feet through sheer willpower, clenching his fists so tight his blunt nails drew blood.

This was his moment of triumph — he would not give her the satisfaction of humiliating him one last time.

Malak slowly opened his eyes, the black spots in his vision fading. He looked out to the black of space to see Revan’s ship being pulled into the gravity of the planet below. Fire and smoke billowed out from the decimated vessel as it hurtled through the atmosphere, disappearing into the clouds without a sound.

Soon, it would crash into the planet’s surface, the last remnant of Revan gone forever.

Malak waited to feel something. The apprentice had finally usurped the master. He would never be second to anyone ever again — the galaxy was his for the taking.

But there was only the deafening silence where she used to be.

“Lord Malak.”

The Lord of the Sith startled in a way very unbecoming of his new title. He could sense Admiral Kareth standing at attention behind him. If he noticed Malak’s blunder, he hid it well, but Malak considered cutting the old man in half anyway just to save himself the embarrassment. But he quickly dismissed the thought. Kareth was far too competent to do away with on a whim.

Malak fixed his gaze back to the stars and answered the Admiral’s unasked question, “Revan is dead.”

Kareth bowed his head and stepped back. In the reflection of the viewport’s glass, Malak saw the Admiral gesture to the other officers to follow him off the bridge and Malak realized he must not have been as composed as he thought if Kareth deemed it prudent to remove the crew. They all moved silently and efficiently, the door closing behind them with a soft hiss and for the first time since he was a child, Malak was truly alone.

Revan was dead.

Nothing could have prepared him for the emptiness that would come after.

He lifted his hand to rub his brow but realized his hand was covered in his own blood from how tightly he had clenched his fist. Malak held his hand up to his face, watching the blood collect in his palm and drip to the floor.

“What have you done, Alek?”

Malak turned on his heel, her name escaping his vocalizer in a gasp, but he was met with empty space on an empty bridge. He looked around in total confusion before steeling his gaze.

He hadn’t imagined it — it had been nothing more than a whisper, but it was unmistakably Revan’s voice; softer than he had heard it in years. Could it have been some forgotten memory brought to the surface by their broken bond or Revan herself punishing him for his betrayal by tethering her spirit to his?

It would be just like her — clinging to life any way she could just to spite him.

But the apparition or whatever it was didn’t show itself again and Malak closed his eyes, the long breath he took rattling through his prosthetic vocal cords.

Revan is dead. I am the Lord of the Sith now.

And suddenly, the loss of someone who had once made him whole became very real. The girl he had followed to war was forever beyond his reach.

A small part of him, buried deep and rarely paid any attention, wondered who he would be now without Revan.

[dreamingwithneopets]

Greetings, Neopians!

The Neopets Team (TNT) has ground-breaking news to share that’s even more exciting than a Hidden Tower clearance sale! We are delighted to announce a phenomenal change that we are confident will usher in an incredible new era to Neopets. Drum roll please…

TNT is thrilled to be operating under the guidance of a brand new leadership team! With the support of this new leadership, TNT now has access to assets that will empower us to breathe fresh life into Neopia.

For most of the last decade, the The Neopets Team has been under the management of JumpStart Games, which, over time, has struggled to find success for Neopets. Beset by ageing site features, a waning user base, and a lack of resources, TNT had to work tirelessly just to barely keep the site afloat. The resources available to us simply weren’t substantial enough to sustain the level of growth and development that the site needed to keep up with the times, resulting in bugs, unconverted pages, broken games, and a lack of new content. Despite these challenges, TNT pushed onward, guided by an unwavering belief that this iconic brand that has meant so much to so many truly deserved better.

Enter the new leadership team, headed by Dominic Law. A fan himself, Dom spent hours on Neopets.com in the early 2000s earning Neopoints to care for his beloved Shoyru. He became reacquainted with the brand in 2020 after joining Jumpstart’s parent company, Netdragon. Eager to revisit his old digital stomping grounds, Dom put together a team of passionate and like-minded individuals to help NetDragon strategize on the best way forward to revitalise the Neopets brand.

As many of you may have seen, Jumpstart was shut down on June 30th, 2023. Prior to this shutdown, Dom pushed NetDragon to save Neopets. A management buyout deal was struck, allowing the two Neopets teams to combine forces and become an independent company. Free from the corporate baggage that existed in the past, the newly united TNT has now been entrusted with the decision-making and overall brand strategy of Neopets, enabling them to work solely on the betterment of the entire Neopets game and community.

Until this point, Neopets has been running at a loss for over a decade, making it hard to enact any major overhaul; however, in early 2023 Neopets raised $4M in funding from various investors with plans to nurture a shared dream of an immersive, community-driven gaming experience. In tandem with additional funding from the management buyout, TNT has been primed to enact real, actionable change for Neopets. We truly want more for Neopians! This magical community deserves to thrive, not just survive. Thanks to our new leadership direction and the fresh source of funding, it finally can. The Neopets Team is, for the first time in over a decade, equipped to make meaningful changes in pursuit of a Neopian renaissance.

The funding raised from our management team and external investors will allow us to revive the brand as a whole. We’ve already hired a handful of new developers and artists. From fixing the many issues on the classic site to reevaluating the direction of mobile games like Island Builders, these skilled new additions to TNT are already working hard to show Neopia the same devoted care our players have shown to their beloved Neopets over the years.

So, what’s next for Neopets?

The first thing we did was review the most pressing community requests. We have begun exploring the use of Ruffle to resolve the issues caused by the end of Flash in hopes of speeding up the process of bringing functionality back to our beloved games. We’re also working our way through numerous page conversions and bug fixes, tackling the mobile browser compatibility issues, and making improvements to our customer support protocol.

We also took a long, hard look at community feedback on Neopets Metaverse, and it quickly became clear that the game just didn’t line up with everything that made Neopets… well… Neopets! We constantly see references to KeyQuest, NeoQuest, and Habitarium (see, we do read your comments!) and we want to design a game that’s more in line with what the community has been asking for. Taking all of this into account, our new leadership made it their priority to listen to TNT on how to move forward into the future with Neopians in mind, so together we went back to the drawing board.

The Neopets Team rolled up their sleeves and set out to foundationally transform the project into something entirely different by bringing on additional designers, developers, and writers to help craft a game that the Neopian community would embrace. Most recently, the decision was made to transition to a mobile app and rebuild from the ground up as World of Neopets, a social life-simulation game in which you live your ideal Neopian life from the perspective of a Neopet! Decorate your Neohome, explore iconic Neopian lands in 3D, discover secret treasures and knowledge, or play mini-games while you party with your Neofriends — all while you interact and quest with a collection of your favourite Neopian characters!

But these aren’t the only changes we have in store!

Going forward, Neopets will be under the control of a new, unified entity: World of Neopia, Inc. Don’t worry, the Neopets.com that you know and love isn’t going anywhere; in fact, there are great things on the horizon for the classic virtual pet site that started it all. Bringing all of the Neopets products under the direction of one company will allow the different departments of The Neopets Team to communicate more effectively about how to best serve users and realign Neopets with the core values of the Neopets community.

We are thrilled to be working together as one unified team guided by principles of transparent communication and community-centric product development. We want to create games that the Neopets community will love, and that means listening closely to what users have to say. In fact, we already are — we want to bring Neopets back to its glory days as much as all of you, and we’re committed to making it happen.

We have already seen early successes: our customer support ticket backlog has decreased by more than 80% and our work on the roadmap put forward at the end of last year has begun to accelerate. From cleaning up the Neoboards to lowering the Altador Cup threshold by 25%, TNT is committed to continuing a two-sided conversation with the community that addresses user concerns head-on. Moving forward, TNT will begin releasing monthly updates, hosting regularly scheduled AMAs, and launch an exciting new brand ambassador program. This brand ambassador program in particular will help to bridge the gap by enabling key members of the Neopets community to serve as liaisons to TNT, helping make Neopets better for everyone by advocating for the wants and needs of players. To learn more about all of our plans, check out our newly updated roadmap.

Where can you see this roadmap? We are thrilled to announce that, on July 20th, 2023, we are launching our unified Neopets homepage! This central hub for Neopets will serve as a one stop shop for all brand announcements, links to our different games and products, a repository of Neopets articles and related links, and anything else Neopian you can think of!

Fellow Neopians, we are on the precipice of a new era. With the 25th anniversary of Neopets approaching next year, we have snowager-sized plans up our sleeves to celebrate. A relaunch of Island Builders, an exclusive virtual concert, and a brand new plot (yes, you read that correctly) are just a few of the exciting plans we have for the near future! However, we aren’t out of the (haunted) woods just yet. To make all this happen, we need your support — log into the site and play, follow us on socials, download one of our mobile games, and tell your friends to join. Please! We want to bring as much awareness to these fabulous new changes coming to Neopets as possible, so we’re launching a contest to encourage user engagement.

Starting today, new and existing Neopets players can enter our 2,000,000 Neocash giveaway contest. To participate, users can complete tasks like logging into the site, following our socials, and referring friends to Neopets. The more tasks you complete, the more NC you might win! This is one contest you won’t want to miss, and it’s what we hope is just the tip of the iceberg for the many ways we plan to give back to the loyal players who have stuck by Neopets for so long. The contest ends on August 6th, 2023, so act fast!

Well, Neopians, thanks for listening to our (slightly lengthy) tale. We hope that you feel as optimistic as we do, and, as always, we hope to see you in Neopia.

Signed,

The Neopets Team

[xb-squaredx]

The Avengers Game: The Surefire Hit That Misfired

With the stronghold that the Marvel Cinematic Universe had on pop culture for the past decade, it was all the more puzzling that they didn’t capitalize on that in the realm of video games. Superhero video games have been a thing since the medium began, but for the longest time Marvel’s gaming efforts were few and far between, outside of the rare Spider-Man title. But in 2017 a collaboration between Square Enix and Marvel was announced, with a variety of game products teased, among them being a project centered on Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. On paper, this seemed like a complete slam dunk. A prolific AAA game developer, a hot IP that hadn’t had a lot of game action in a while, and it would be landing right when the MCU hype was at its peak with the back-to-back hits of Infinity War and Endgame. But that wasn’t what happened. Something went wrong, and the surefire hit….misfired. Just before the game’s delisting at the end of September 2023, I ended up purchasing the game on a deep discount, curious at what all the fuss was about. So let’s talk about how this game ended up the way it did.

A FALSE START

Marvel’s Avengers launched in September of 2020, and to say the launch was rough would be an understatement. Broken matchmaking, a litany of bugs and performance issues, and a deeply unsatisfied fanbase. While it’s clear the pandemic had played a huge part in the game’s lackluster release state, the fact it was allowed to release like this at all was worrying. Only a month later player numbers on PC had dropped significantly and the game seemingly was in its death throes. In March of 2021 the next-gen console versions of the game released, and with it a multitude of fixes and additional content. It was clear this was an attempted re-launch of the game, but you know what they say about first impressions…

Now, to give the developers some credit, there were legitimate attempts to improve the game and add more worthwhile content. They didn’t just cut and run and leave players holding the bag. Effort was put in to making the game better and trying to right the ship, though the damage had already been done with the game’s reputation. Even as someone who got the game far after every patch and fix went out, I still encountered a ton of issues and on my last-gen PS4 console the overall experience was still rough. It feels like a game that really should have been next-gen only, but was pushed out to the last-gen systems to get as much profit as possible, in a manner similar to the ill-fated launch of Cyberpunk 2077. The sad truth here is that regardless of patches and additions to the game, no matter how many bugs they fixed and feedback they implemented, there were problems with the very core of the game, and in order to properly address these issues…they would have been better off making a new game from scratch.

THE GEAR SCORE MAKES THE HERO

One of the most hotly debated aspects of Marvel’s Avengers was its status as a live-service game. At a time when the “games as a service” bubble was about to burst, fans had largely grown intolerant of more games coming out competing for their time and money, and if you are going to market yourself as a “forever game” with tons of ways to spend money and get players to log in every day, you have to make it worth it for them and…well, I think the game’s overall reception and failure speaks for itself.

So much of Marvel’s Avengers is grinding for grinding’s sake. Everything takes longer to unlock and build up than it should, clearly designed in such a way to squeeze money out of the playerbase. After a certain point, the goal is no longer to make a satisfying game for players and instead to make it into an infinite revenue machine. At the game’s launch you had TONS of cosmetics that could only be gotten through a tedious grind of in-game currency….or you just pay up with real money. At one point the developers even tried to market an experience boosting item for players, before it was removed due to protest. Keep in mind this was a full-price game. Just a few years prior we had Marvel’s Spider-Man as a solid single-player game that had NO microtransactions at all, and a TON of costumes you could unlock by…playing the game. How novel! Speaking of Spider-Man, let’s not forget that one of the most popular superheroes of all time was made into a PlayStation exclusive for no other reason than greed. Now, I’ve played the game long after the final update just unlocked all cosmetics for players to enjoy for free, and what few things I have to unlock from in-game vendors shows me that this grind must have been awful to live through, and it must be even worse if you HAD paid for stuff without knowing that one day it would be made free with the flip of a switch.

On top of all of this, there was also artificial bloat inserted into the game’s progression systems with the focus on loot and raising your player’s Power Level. Over the last few years I’ve seen a lot of games worship at the altar of “gear score” and I hate it every time. They completely miss the forest for the trees regarding what makes loot and loadouts work in other games. Often times your own abilities as a player are downplayed in favor of forcing you to micromanage your gear, and it unfortunately infects the Avengers experience. Despite the fact that you’re playing as Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, you don’t feel all that powerful unless you have the right arbitrary number attached to the endless loot you sift through during missions. Hulk Smash….but only if you put on the wrist guards that give him plus 5% damage when it’s raining outside. Remember how in Spiderman: Homecoming Peter has to grapple with being a hero despite Tony taking away his fancy suit with all those gadgets? Or how this game’s own campaign is constantly touting the platitude that “Good isn’t a thing you are, it’s a thing you do?” Yeah well actually the gear makes the hero, so get to grinding if you want to actually embody these characters!

You constantly have to deal with gear you get from enemy drops, finding them in strong boxes, or completing missions. While you do on occasion find some gear with some tangible effects that you can tuck away for a specific mission, the bulk of gear is garbage and exists almost purely just to sell off to get a pittance of currency in exchange, or later on to feed existing gear and make it stronger. But with each mission you’ll get better and better gear, constantly having to replace what you already had, so don’t get attached. So many of the modifiers and stat bonuses to gear are so minor they don’t even feel noticeable, and what’s more, it’s all there to keep up the illusion of progression.

There’s no actual progression from the gear system; the game automatically scales to whatever your Power Level is when selecting most missions. There are SOME missions that have a higher Power Level by default that you can’t take on until you’re at that level, but they didn’t feel noticeably more challenging than other missions. Now, I never hit the Power Level cap with any character, and I’ve seen evidence that some missions are hidden from view unless your Power Level is high enough, so I can’t quite speak for the pure endgame content, but the bulk of the game showcases just how horrible the gear system is as a progression system. It’s worth noting that there’s also individual levels for each character, which actually works FAR better as a real progression system. Each level up gets you a skill point that can be put towards multiple skill tress that further expand each character’s moveset and allows for experimentation to suit different playstyles and strategies. Gear systems CAN be down well, but it doesn’t work in this game, and I can say with confidence the entire experience would have been better without its inclusion. Getting off of my soapbox then, we should probably discuss the actual contents of the game itself, starting with what many touted as the best part of the whole game….the single-player campaign.

AN INHUMAN CAMPAIGN

A fair bit of the pre-release coverage of this game was focused around the story. Well before we saw any gameplay or even know what type of game Marvel’s Avengers was going to be, they were hyping up the voice cast as if it was a movie. Despite all of that focus, the single-player campaign didn’t exactly live up to my expectations for more than a few reasons, despite a decent start.

The premise is an interesting one for starters. The Avengers are blamed for a tragic accident and forcefully disbanded but years later a superhero fangirl, Kamala Khan, sets out on a journey to help clear their names and get the gang back together. Kamala is one of a few newer Marvel characters that has gotten a fair amount of buzz, similar to the likes of Miles Morales, and it’s undoubtedly great to see her take on a major role in a game like this. The early bits of the game put you in her shoes as she struggles to come to grips with her new found super powers, and the dynamic she has with the Avengers is endearing. That said, over time it started to feel like the story was being stretched thinner and thinner, and more problems started to emerge that sadly weren’t solved by the ending.

For starters, Kamala takes up the bulk of screen time. I don’t mind her being the main focus of the narrative, but for a game named after the Avengers…the team itself actually doesn’t do as much as you’d think. While we get to Hulk and Iron Man early enough, and Black Widow has a decent behind-the-scenes impact on the plot, I really feel like the narrative didn’t know what to do for Thor or Captain America. By the time the whole team is back together the game is about over, and any fun banter or moments they could have had together was mostly relegated to how they all feel about Kamala. There are times when the game’s narrative almost feels like it was written like Kamala’s fan fiction, where she is the center of everything and the other Avengers seem far too trusting and supportive of her right away, not to mention she faces little to no consequences for her actions at times. I want to stress I DO like Kamala and I think Sandra Saad does a good job portraying her, but the game gets awfully close to being a game about Ms. Marvel, featuring the Avengers, and that’s not exactly how the game was advertised.

Outside of that, I take issue with the game’s focus on the Inhumans, or rather, the lack of focus. In the comics, Inhumans are descendants of humans experimented on by the alien race known as the Kree. When exposed to “Terrigen Mist” they develop superhuman abilities, and there’s also a lot of political stuff with a royal family of Inhumans that live on the moon. In this game however, the alien aspects of Inhumans are severely downplayed, and the event that ends up releasing the Terrigen Mist and creating Inhumans here is more or less implied to be completely manmade, with no mentions of the royal family either. While it’s possible the game would have delved into the Inhuman’s alien origins later on (as certain missions do tease the Kree quite a bit in the postgame), all we’re left with in the base game is…effectively bootleg X-Men. There’s this guy, Theo, who can teleport people here and there, and he’s also bright blue…and he kind of just comes across as a less-cool Nightcrawler in every way. When you meet the Inhuman resistance later in the game, they end up being led by…Ant-Man? Because I guess they couldn’t think of or use any other prominent Inhuman character aside from Kamala. For the last few years, as Marvel began really pushing the Inhumans in the comics, TV shows and now games, it was largely as a response to not having the X-Men film rights and not wanting to promote them once the MCU took off. Many fans likewise dislike the Inhumans and view them as poor replacements for the X-Men .While I think both could have their place in the Marvel world and the premise does have potential, this particular game doesn’t really do ANYTHING of note with them.

Then there’s the lack of notable villains. While on the one hand I appreciate that the developers weren’t just reusing villains already seen in the MCU like Loki, Ultron or Thanos, their use of A.I.M. and M.O.D.O.K. leaves a lot to be desired. I’m sorry, but M.O.D.O.K. isn’t a strong enough villain to carry the rest of the game, and while there are a FEW other notable Marvel villains in here, I find they’re not used well. Taskmaster is a tutorial boss fight, and Abomination is fought early on…and then that’s about it in the base game. With both of them copy and pasted into post-game missions with a vague “oh, they’re just clones” justification. It wouldn’t be until the other story expansions that we’d get a few more villains like Maestro, an evil version of the Hulk from the future, or Ulysses Klaue, a notable Black Panther villain, but at that point it felt like too little too late. And that’s not to mention that most of the basic enemies in the game are just robots with no real personality or designs that really pop, or else fighting waves and waves of “guy with gun.” What a notable roster we’re working with here.

For all of the potential that the early hours of the campaign showcased, the cracks started to form quickly and my opinion of the story only went down with time. We started with nice cinematics and character banter, some intrigue with how it was all going to come together…but steadily it became apparent that most of the Avengers were being sidelined, the villains were weak, and the emphasis on hand-crafted single-player levels and setpieces would dwindle with time, revealing the game’s true colors.

AVENGERS: AGE OF REPETITON

For as negative as I’ve been so far, I do want to stress that I DID enjoy the moment-to-moment playing of the game and it’s clear a lot of time and effort was put into making a fun action game with Marvel characters. Now, there IS a certain level of balance here to make sure everyone is equally viable, which leads to some characters not quite living up to the power fantasy. Black Widow can take on enemies just as effectively as Hulk can, while Thor and Iron Man’s flight is slow to keep them from leaving everyone in the dust. Despite that, every character has enough tools to make them pop. Hulk can grab minor enemies and use them as weapons. Kamala’s stretchy attacks let her be a menace from any range. Smacking enemies with Thor’s hammer, or flinging Captain America’s shield at multiple opponents never got old. Even the non-powered characters like both of the Hawkeyes or Black Widow were plenty fun to use, armed with a lot of tools to take on enemies and get around the giant levels. From the intricate takedown animations for each character (Thor having a penchant for wrestling, while Kate Bishop uses teleporting to take out enemies in style) to the heavy amount of customization with everyone’s skill trees, there was a lot to like about the combat…but that can’t save a game that is so dull and repetitive elsewhere.

After the first few hours of the campaign I was suddenly forced to start selecting missions on the War Table and saw the game for what it truly was; the same handful of maps, enemies and objectives repeated over and over and over again. Compared to the curated single-player levels, the main missions, designed around multiplayer, are filled with massive maps that honestly felt way too big for their own good. You have to wander about as you look for small enemy outposts dotted here and there, fighting a pretty pathetic roster of enemies along the way. Not only are most enemies rather uninspired robots, but so many of them are just annoying to fight. Snipers that teleport away from you the instant you get close, endless turrets and drones that are always picking at you from far away, and more “elite” enemies that have tons of health to chew through in lieu of being more challenging to fight most of the time. Bosses are especially bad about this; most are huge damage sponges and play similarly to each other, completely shrugging off any attacks you land and taking forever to take out. I understand they’re balanced around four players but even so they would take so long to defeat and required barely any real engagement. Just dodge the big telegraphed attacks, sneak a few hits in and run, then rinse and repeat for several minutes.

Outside of just fighting enemies, your main mission objectives rarely change up in a meaningful way and just a few hours in I had seen most of what the game had to offer with objectives. Save some Inhuman hostages by opening up their cages, or defend some allies from waves of enemies. Maybe you need to use JARVIS to hack into A.I.M.’s database, so defend those computers from enemy hackers! There is on occasion some “puzzles” that would require a BIT of coordination, hitting switches or stepping on pressure plates to open doors for more loot but ultimately that was about as advanced as it got. Most level design would vary from gigantic open environments to linear corridors that are repeated so often I knew them like the back of my hand after just a handful of missions. Now, again, maybe that endgame stuff does change things up, but I’d rather not wade through so much of the same content over and over to see for myself.

And that’s the real shame here…for all the potential I see in this game, it gets exhausting quickly. It takes so long to actually flesh out your character movesets and try everyone out, but by that point you’ll have done the same handful of missions to the point of getting sick of them. Even with the expansions there just isn’t enough meat here to justify the grind. Sad as it is to say, it was painfully clear just why this game failed after just a few hours of playing.

AN UNENVIABLE LEGACY

The domino effect of Marvel’s Avengers’ failure is arguably just as interesting as the game itself. The poor showing for the game cost Square Enix a LOT of money, and was likely a factor in their decision to sell off their Western developers, including the developers of this game, Crystal Dynamics. The year after this game’s launch, Eidos Montreal’s Guardians of the Galaxy game ended up getting the cold shoulder from fans…despite the fact that it was exactly what many fans had wanted; a solid single-player experience with a great story that had a lot of love for the source material. But fans saw a Marvel game with Square Enix publishing it and assumed it would follow in Avengers’ footsteps. Elsewhere, the frosty reception to DC’s live-service superhero efforts with Gotham Knights and the yet-to-be-released Suicide Squad game can be at least partially attributed to this game’s poor performance. While Gotham Knight’s full release was devoid of microtransactions, the grindy nature of player progression and multiple in-game currencies to juggle points to it possibly being removed later in development. Meanwhile, the instant the word “gear score” was uttered at the gameplay reveal for Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League the game was attacked by fans and the game has suffered multiple delays and as of now, it’s not clear what state that game will release in. All due to one poorly-received game!

(One screenshot was all it took for people to turn on this game)

It’s clear that the live service bubble has burst; you can only get so many people to sign up for so many “forever games” before something gives. While your mega hits like Fortnite might continue on, it’s clear by now that you can’t quite compete with that and I wouldn’t be shocked if major game releases start to pivot away from this model. It’s also been argued that the superhero bubble might have burst in mainstream pop culture. Several superhero films over the last few years have not done particularly well with fans OR at the box office. From MCU misses like the third Ant-Man movie, or the latest Thor release, to DC’s extremely costly failure with The Flash, it’s possible that superhero games might also be on the way out. That being said, Marvel does still have SEVERAL other games in the pipeline, such as the next game from Insomniac, Spider-Man 2, so it’s possible this game’s failure wasn’t enough to scare them off.

It’s sad to see how poorly this game performed in the end, even if it’s easy to see why things went this way. In another world, this game could have been a smash hit, creating a platform filled with fun things to do and multiple Marvel heroes added over a very long life. I can only imagine how they might have made certain characters work if they had only gotten the chance. Had the game launched in a better state, or hadn’t gone the live-service route, things might have been very different, but regardless the damage has been done. With Square selling off Crystal Dynamics and Eidos to Embracer, and mass layoffs hitting multiple Embracer entities, Crystal Dynamics included, there’s no hope of a second chance with this title. I can only hope the best for the people involved that they can use their talents on a better game down the line

With Marvel’s Avengers officially delisted from all major storefronts and the future of the game’s online services somewhat uncertain, I thought it important to talk about this game before it is lost to the annals of history. For all the problems I had with the game, I was happy to at least play it before it was too late. I can see that this was far from a cheap cash-in title, and a lot of talented people gave their all on a game that just didn’t work out for a multitude of reasons. I can only hope that someday we can get a more successful spin on Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, and game developers can look at this game as a cautionary tale for how to somehow ruin what should have been a guaranteed success.

Excelsior!

-B

[thedragonagelesbian]

The Long Way Home

You watch the fire in the rearview mirror. There is a comfort in losing sight of the specifics of your mistakes: the decimated house, the buckling grain silo, the flaming wreckage of a truck, the jagged maw of split earth like Harborview itself had been trying to reach up and swallow you.

The broader picture remains, though, as a stubborn orange haze still smoldering on the horizon, streaked through with the blue and red of emergency response vehicles. It’s clinging to you too, in the ash and soil and tiny flecks of blood still caked under your fingertips. Not your blood, of course, but Gwendolynn’s, a lingering remnant from when you tried to heal her bullet wounds because that too would have been a comfort, apology and recompense all in one. To touch her there, grazing metal and copper, meant you would not have had to acknowledge the other wound.

You would not have had to acknowledge that you nearly lost control of your magic. That you would have, had she not touched you, one hand on your back to settle you and one hand on your outstretched arm to guide you. That you lost control anyway, so Gwendolynn had to take your sputtering failure into herself.

You would not have had to acknowledge any of that, were it not for the way your magic made the smear of burns along her forearm blossom into a gnarled, flame-licked scar.

Ultimately, then, the receding optics of the farm can only bring you so much comfort. For as far as you may drive, there is no distance you can put between yourself and what you’ve done. Eventually, you will have to go through it.

Knowing this, you’re ready with your response by the time that your driver, Moony, clears his throat.

“That was…” Morgen ‘Moony’ Roonie is as unlikely an acquaintance and amateur monster hunter as they come, decades older than you and constantly filtering the world, magical or otherwise, through the lens of his bizarre but harmless conspiracy theories about disappearing lawn statues. You can handle that, though, more than you’re equipped to handle Gwendolynn right now. “That was something…”

“I ought to be the first to apologize for how I behaved back there,” you reply, referring not to the fires but everything that came after. The obsidian monolith with its tendrils in everyone’s minds. The shouting as you and Moony squabbled about what to do with it. Your flailing, feeble efforts to justify preserving it without revealing that the Daybreak Corporation had asked you to. Gwendolynn throwing herself in front of the stone to keep Moony from destroying it— why she cared so damn much, you still don’t know, but she was willing to die for that stupid thing, and it was fixing to drag her into oblivion with it, so you stepped in. Saved her. Shattered it like you had broken so much else with just a touch and a thought of spark and ruin as the whole world shook above you.

Then, you pocketed that last sliver of hued rock to deliver to your betters, but you’re not apologizing for that right now.

“Things like that,” with a sower’s expertise, you weave between truth and obfuscation, “things that old and powerful, fixtures of Harborview, like the church… they give me all sorts of funny mixed up feelings. Makes it hard to know what I want.”

Attachment is a hard thing to throw away. You know because you’ve tried plenty hard. For years, you’ve nourished and cultivated the resentment inside of you until it festered into the rotted purity of hatred toward every inch of Harborview. 

But the attachment lingers. Nat reminded you of that. You spent the last three, blissful weeks with her salvaging those memories that had remained unspoiled: the store at the Docks where you bought her that big floppy sun hat she loves so much, the lighthouse the two of you used to break into with your best friend Zak, the Waffle House where the cheerleaders, the band, and the baseball team congregated after games, and the jukebox at its front where Nat used to belt rock standards and shake her hips and look oh so terribly good.

You don’t know what you want.

“Well, I still think we did the right thing, in the end,” Moony replies, and you savor the certainty of his long, slow drawl. “Still, that don’t much excuse yelling at you while waving a pickaxe in your face.”

The pickaxe did not unsettle you nearly as much as Moony shouting over and over again “there’s something you’re not telling me” or Gwendolynn spitting “is there something you’d like to share with us, Adelaide?”

You coax a smile from yourself all the same.

“Fair enough, though you’ve seen what I’m capable of. I can hold my own in a fight.”

“That you can,” he says with a chuckle. “I wouldn’t want to go up against you.”

“You handled that pickaxe pretty well, though. You really did a number on that rock.”

“We did the right thing. Trust me.”

“I do trust you, Moony.”

It almost passes for normal conversation, and not the musings of two would-be monster hunters who were at each other’s throats just minutes ago debating whether they should, in fact, be hunting this particular monster. You are inclined to crack a joke about just how bad you are at this. It is, after all, pretty fucking funny how many lives have depended on the three of you despite the group’s obvious dysfunction: your repeated defiance of Gwendolynn’s insistence that fire not be your first resort, Moony’s penchant for wandering directly into danger against express instructions, Gwendolynn’s caginess and her dogged, unerring commitment to her own martyrdom.

But for all your many crossed wires, you do trust Moony and Gwendolynn. You would never dare undermine the weight of that. You’ve not trusted anyone but yourself in a very long time. Even that trust was recently earned and hardwon: you forgot it for a bit, how to have faith in your breath, your body, your mind.

You once told Moony you got your start practicing magic with bindings and barriers. That was the first magic you encountered, yes, but it wasn’t the first you did yourself. Your real start was a trick you taught yourself to keep from drowning when the fear and loneliness and grief caught you like the undertow: how to forge a life raft of silver and blood. 

You’ve held yourself together for so many years with just the scar tissue on your thighs, and it wasn’t until you met Moony and Gwendolynn that you realized how much strength that took.

Trust means that that strength doesn’t have to be all your own anymore.

And as the faint lights of Harborview emerge from the darkness, demarcating a horizon you cannot otherwise see, it is that trust that compels you to say, “Moony, you mind if I ask you something? It doesn’t really have much of anything to do with what just happened, but… it’s been on my mind for a bit.”

“Oh? Sure. I actually got something I want to ask you too. But, you go first.”

“You went to school with my dad, right?”

“Yeah, yeah, ’course I did. Harborview High Class of… eh, gosh, what year was it again?”

“What was he…” The question starts fast, but just as soon as you begin it, you watch its end stretch out in front of you, and suddenly you cannot get your mouth around it anymore than you can keep the tide from receding. Rather, it is the question that finishes you, coming back in as the undertow wrapped around your throat and choking out your last breath as a quiet prayer: “…like?”

Who was Wyatt Dellouise before becoming the man who ruined your life?

You have the mythos you’ve built in your head. In those early days when you barely ever left your bedroom, you had little else to do but string together half-remembered anecdotes and wishful fantasies until they took the form of your infidelity. You thought he might have been awkward and gangly. Or else stoic and obnoxious, preaching to any peer unlucky enough to find themself caught in his orbit. Maybe he was even a bully and a nark who rattled off sermons for every slight transgression.

The specifics don’t matter: you’re just hoping Moony will sanctify your blasphemy.

Instead, he says, “Popular.”

You blink, hard.

“Yeah, yeah, you know,” Moony continues, “he was real popular. Wasn’t the star football player or nothing, but he was the jock everyone knew. And, y’know, he was nice enough to me and Tubbs. We didn’t interact all that much, but we got on alright whenever we did get to talking. He didn’t bully us or nothing, wasn’t an asshole athlete like some of the others.”

You are staring up at the night sky. Faint pinpricks of starlight fight to shine through wisps of smoke still curling from the fires— some of which you started, all of which somehow feel like your fault. Most nights, though, the whole Milky Way opens up above you. When it isn’t cloudy or storming, a crack runs through the universe itself, silver and blue and purple and reaching.

Back when your dad still thought he could just talk you into staying, he would take you stargazing. He once rented a boat and took you out on the ocean in the calm summer twilight to watch the sea and sky blur together.

He told you, in that soft stupid apologetic mumble, like he had never once himself enjoyed that same natural splendor he was leveraging against you, “they don’t have stars like this anywhere else, Addie.”

You can’t breathe.

How could he have ever been anything else?

“Did you—?”

“I was wondering—”

You both stumble to a stop, and you feel the pressure building in your chest, warming your cheeks and tightening your throat.

“Sorry,” you say quickly, “sorry, I suppose it ain’t fair if I get to ask you two questions and you only get the one.” And it is a stupid question anyway, with an answer you’re not sure you’re ready to hear.

“No,” Moony assures you, “no, it’s okay, you go ahead.”

You swallow, and now you cannot avoid it.

“Did you know my mom too?” When you blink, you see the smiling statue built over her grave. You’ve never been able to remember much else: the hem of a long jacket, a sly laugh, a wordless voice full of vigor. “Melanie?”

“Oh, sure! Melanie. Yeah, she was about the smartest woman I ever met. Y’know, only time Harborview High ever made it to the state quiz bowl was ’cause of her. She and Wy, well, they put up a good act, playing like they hated each other, but we all suspected something. Y’know, she used to tell him he was all brawn and no brain, and he’d call her bookworm and the like, but it weren’t much of a surprise to anyone when they got hitched.”

“That… that sounds about right.”

You say it because you don’t know what else to say. Because it sounds like the kind of thing you’re supposed to say, like the throughline should have been so obvious as to be self-evident. Of course this was who he was, who they were, of course they never hated each other the way you told yourself they did, of course he was just a boy once, and a young man in love after that.

So why can’t you see it? If the line between past and present is so neat and clean and obvious and right, why are you trembling trying to keep it straight in your head?

Is it you? Maybe it’s you who’s wrong. Maybe it’s always been you, something about you that changed him, made him do what he did to you.

Your mind flashes to that statue in the cemetery: its chiseled benevolence and granite serenity, its hands sculpted into a perpetual fold of piety. If you die here, is this how your daddy will memorialize you too? Sand down the rough edges until all that’s left is the placid smile of a dutiful daughter already six years in the ground?

Moony is driving slow now, the car trundling past the gold neons and sleek flashing signs of Daybreak’s corporate cathedral which marks the outskirts of Harborview proper.

“Now, Adelaide, I gotta ask you…” he says, just as slow as the vehicle. “You keep mentioning… barriers and binding and the like, this kinda magic that keeps folks stuck somewhere. I know you said that’s how you got your start with the whole…” He makes a low whistling sound, followed by a bassy boom imitating an explosion. He smiles at his impression of your powers, but the joy fades fast as his brows furrow and his mouth tightens. “Is there… is there something else going on that I should know about?”

“You wanna know the truth, Moony?” You don’t want to give it, but you think you can still spin this, towing the line between soul-bearing and obfuscation like you did with your motivations for destroying the rock. “When I was eighteen, just a bit after my birthday, I got in my car and I drove up this very road, got a little bit past the Madison’s farm back there, and crashed into…” you pause like you don’t know how to describe it, like you haven’t spent the last six years throwing yourself against it, “something. Some kinda magic barrier.” You shrug like you don’t know anything else, like the story ends here. “And I haven’t been able to leave Harborview ever since.”

The car rolls to a stop at the first stoplight in town, sandwiched between suburban housing and Moony’s place of work, the Yard and Sale lawn emporium. When the light flicks green, though, Moony doesn’t take his foot off the break. The car hums in place through another light cycle. When you glance at him, you see his knuckles have blanched white around the steering wheel.

“Did…?” His voice comes out phantasmal and quiet. “No… Did he…? Was it…? Was it Wyatt? Did he do this to you?”

You feel your heart like a rabid dog. It is still tethered to your chest by a fraying string, but it snarls against your throat, desperate to sink its teeth into your jugular.

What else are you supposed to say?

“Yeah.”

“Shit…”

“Yeah.”

Tears burn your eyes as you pull your knees up and curl in on yourself. You’ve held this truth so close to your chest for so long you feel something tear inside your ribcage as you loosen your grip on it. It is one thing to go through your life as a ghost, walking through hollowed-out ruins that others insist are whole, beautiful structures. It is another to finally see someone else standing with you in the debris, and that recognition still hurts. Not like drowning, not like burning, but like ripping away a band-aid while the wound underneath is still bleeding.

Your world has already ended once. This is not the end of a world but rather the impression of one, the end of a story you could once tell others about the kind of man your father is not because it’s true but because no one has ever believed anything else.

And sometimes, on your worst days, during your absolute bedridden nadirs wasted wondering if it would be easier to just give up, you tricked yourself into believing it too.

Behind you, the wail of sirens announce the ambulances that have followed you back to Harborview. Moony runs the red light and pulls over to let them stream pass, but even as the blaring recedes through the darkness, he lingers there, letting the car idle.

“I’m sorry,” he says at last. “Adelaide, I’m so, so sorry…”

What else is he supposed to say? There are no words, magical or otherwise, powerful enough to pull the glass and metal out of your eighteen year-old corpse— Wyatt already tried that trick in the hospital after the car accident. The apology can’t fix anything, not really, but it can soothe your frantic, feral heart. It can wrap itself around you and hold you tight as the tears start to fall from your eyes.

“It feels good to say it out loud,” you mumble at last. “Nice to tell someone… I’ve never told anyone… I spent so many years watching half the town show up to listen to him every week that I…” Your voice cracks with the weight of something it cannot hold as you think of them, your so-called family friends who knew you and Wyatt had been fighting, who knew how excited you were to go off to college, who didn’t so much as bat an eyelid when you didn’t. “I got so used to thinking no one else would care…”

Moony is silent as he eases back onto the road, following Main Street down toward the Docks, toward home, which currently takes the form of Gwendolynn’s inn, the Cuddly Rockfish. You don’t expect him to say anything else, though, and you don’t need him to either. It’s enough to have finally unshouldered some of the burden you’ve been carrying for so, so long. Even if it’s left your sternum popped open and your heart raw and exposed and aching in the salty sea breeze, you know that Moony cares.

You know that Gwendolynn will care too.

It is a new thing for you, to be loved without being smothered.

Or, so you thought.

“Is that what you meant by April? You wanna get out of here by April?”

At first, there is a wash of relief. You can finally admit that you have been trying to get out, and more than that, you can get Gwendolynn and Moony’s help.

And then, the fullness of Moony’s words slam into you, and the light in your stomach goes out like a blown match, all curling smoke and hard wax and cold, coiling dread.

“What do you mean by April?”

April is what Nat told you. April is when she comes back for good, when you have to be good too because you cannot get her involved in this. She can’t see the truth of this world, magic and monsters alike lurking in the shadows and you more monstrous and magical than most. April is when you have to escape because she can’t see what you do to get there.

Moony stares at you with a frown.

“It’s okay—”

“How do you know about April, Moony?!”

April is what Nat told you when you were alone with her in her old bedroom, drunk and taciturn as she pleaded with you to talk to her, clamped up around precisely this truth because you did not trust yourself not to break down and bleed out like open floodgates.

“Well, Gwendolynn told me all about—”

“She what?!”

The tether breaks. Your heart scrabbles over your lungs and up your throat, clawing at your windpipe and slicing through your tongue and pressing against your clenched jaw like it wants to pop it out of its socket and suck the marrow of your mandible.

“She let me know everything, y’know, about her listening in on that conversation you had with that old friend of yours on New Year’s Eve and…” Moony trails off, his voice growing quieter with every word until you hit the intersection where you should turn right onto the Docks. “And Gwen never told you…” 

No, you would have remembered Gwendolynn mentioning she had been spying on you. Watching you. 

You’re quaking now. 

You brought her to that party because you needed her help, because you couldn’t trust yourself but you could trust her to take care of you, and she didn’t say anything. Didn’t follow up. She saw you in Nat’s bedroom fighting not to fall apart right then and there.

And she didn’t care. Doesn’t care.

“She promised…” Moony whispers, so soft you think he’s more talking to himself. “She promised me she’d tell you… Damn it, Gwen…”

You stare out the window down the stretch of shoreside road that is the Docks. In the faint glow of a streetlamp, you can just make out the Cuddly Rockfish’s storefront, slanted and distorted at this angle, its awning casting a warped shadow across the concrete of the sidewalk. It reaches toward you, and your chest tightens.

This, this does feel like drowning.

But you’ve swallowed your fair share of salt water over the years, so you swallow another and clear your throat and say, “I think… I think I could use another place to stay the night.”

“Yeah…” Moony is turning the car around even before you finish your request, “yeah, you can come back home with me. You stay as long as you need.”

“Thank you…”

Neither of you say anything on the drive back through town. The sky is clearing up. The streets are quiet. No ambulances, no fire trucks, no fires, no nothing.

Mercy be, you hate this town.

But for the first time in six years, as you’re pulling into Moony’s driveway, someone tells you exactly what you’ve been needing to hear:

“We’re gonna get you out of here, I promise you, Adelaide, we’re gonna get you out.”

[anxiousxdreamer]

I'm pretty sure at the start of this year I said I'd make original posts more. Talk more, here. I think I said something about every day, but that certainly didn't happen. I do know that i DID talk more. I still won't implement a tagging system and I'm still more prone to keeping my- mouth? fingers? shut, but I did talk more. And I'm proud of myself for that. I think I've made a friend even, kinda, possibly. I'll be anxious about defining it that way forever don't mind me. And today I saw an old friend in person for the first time in years. (Her niece is taller than her now, when last i saw her she was probably hip-height on me, which was a HOLY SHIT moment)

I've played more games, I've talked more with my friends, I've wiggled and sang and attended two weddings. One of which I was in the party of, and the bride was an hour late (and in the building itself the whole time too). I'm stimming more, I'm trying to get shit solved with my doctor, I scheduled my top surgery. I still desperately need therapy and all I want is to move out of this damn house, but I guess I didn't sit around doing nothing even if it feels like I'm the same dumb fuck I've always been.

I still feel like a broken, pointless shell of a person. That something is deeply, intrinsically wrong with me and that it'll never be fixed. But I did talk more on tumblr, whatever that means for me lol

I'm ending this year with "The Last Goodbye" from In Space with Markiplier, which was also a thing that happened and it was fantastic and broke my heart.

I'm making my way backwards through the Elder Scrolls games. I finally finished Oblivion and I intend to tackle Morrowind next. Idk how I'm gonna force Daggerfall to work but I will! I have a feeling for both I will be using the Elder Scrolls wiki a LOT

The new year bites me in the ass harder than I think it would if my birthday wasn't the immediate following day. Every new years day is, quite literally, the day of impending "one year older" for me. I don't want to be scared of getting older. Actually I'm not scared of like, aging itself. I think I'll make a funky old man one day. (NOT to say I think I'm getting close to that. I'm turning 24, not 54 XD) I'll have creaky bones and wrinkly skin and hopefully a dick by then but that is still decades away lol and i get so annoyed when people my age are like "i'm so OLD" no tf you're not shut up. anyway-

I'm just... afraid that I'm not changing fast enough. I'm an adult but I'm stuck. I've always been stuck because I keep making stupid fucking choices. At this point it's nobody's fault but my own and I don't know how to fix it because I can't muster the energy to work hard enough to make like, more money. Idk. I'm very tired

Anyway, happy new year, happy almost-birthday to me, I'm off to get "drunk" and eat shrimp

[musicinstrumentsins]

How to Care for Your Flute?

People have been enthralled with the flute for generations because of its elegant look and beautiful melodies. Owning a flute is a unique pleasure. Therefore, you must take proper care of it to ensure it makes adorable melodies for decades. Regardless of your level of enjoyment as a musician or your level of interest, properly caring for your flute is critical for retaining its condition and maximizing its performance.

Daily Care

Swab the interior: Use a cleaning rod with an accessible substance to remove moisture from the foot, body, and pinnacle joints. Remove the foot and upper joints cautiously before doing the swab. Then, cautiously and carefully slip the rod through every starting point without applying undue stress.

Establish a cleansing routine: One by one, gently clean the keys and crucial rods with a mild substance to make them easier to address. Solvents and other abrasive substances must no longer be used, as they can harm the thin layer of prevention.

Empty the condensation cup: This cup gathers moisture that condenses at the same rate as gaming. Thus, it's vital to empty it regularly to prevent mold from growing. Some flutes have a condensation cup associated with the foot joint.

Weekly Care

Clean the pads: These pads are hooked up on the give-up of the keyhole and are crucial in acquiring the proper seal when pressed. The flute pads are susceptible and must be cautiously cleaned with unique pad paper to eliminate dirt or particles.

Inspect the instrument: Regularly check the flute for cracks, loose parts, or wear and tear. Fixing minor issues as they occur can prevent them from growing into massive ones later on.

Seasonal Care

Seasonal changes: Due to your climate, you must recognize how humidity modifications during the season can affect the flute's tuning and overall performance. Consider sending your flute to a professional who can modify it for you at least once a year, specifically if you stay in a location with many humidity adjustments.

Deep cleaning: Take your flute to a qualified instrument repair technician for a deep cleaning and maintenance inspection every two or three months. This professional cleaning clears up the dirt, grease, and moisture that the regular cleaning might miss, ensuring that the equipment performs at its best and lasts longer.

Safeguarding Your Investment

Although there are numerous approaches to protecting your flute from viable problems, a few unpredictable occasions can be a danger. This is where flute insurance must be considered vital. If your flute is stolen or broken by chance or something else occurs unexpectedly, flute coverage offers you the economic protection you need to shield your funding.

Additional Tips

Use caution while handling your flute: Don't drop or divulge it to excessive warmth. When you're not gambling, store it in its case in a calm, dry area at some distance from the sunlight.

Invest in first-rate accessories: A cleaning package and case will help ensure proper care and prevent damage to your flute.

Think About Insurance: Although receiving the proper remedy lowers the hazard of damage, unplanned accidents can still occur. For expensive flutes, flute insurance can offer financial security against loss, robbery, or unintentional harm, offering proprietors peace of mind.

Adhering to these few essential preservation suggestions will help you keep your flute in the most beneficial playing situations and keep gambling on track for years. An adequately maintained flute maintains its fee and performs better, so give your musical corporation the desired attention and resources.

Conclusion

Maintaining your flute combines environmental hobbies, careful control, and ordinary safety. By adopting such routines into your gambling, you retain your flute's durability and beautify the splendor of your performance. Remember that, much like your flute's delicate melodies, its maintenance must be done with accuracy and precision. Regarding monetary assistance for your music, flute protection reverberates for the duration of information, providing comforting thoughts as you preserve and craft endearing tunes.