#i am SO about the aesthetic lol my game has to LOOK pretty or it's no fun to me

[lovelash]

working on a park 2day

[kyuuppi]

Genshin men Instagram HCs

Ft. Xiao; Scaramouche; Zhongli; Childe; Alhaitham; Kaveh; Tighnari

(gender neutral reader but wears a dress in Scara & Zhongli's parts)

Xiao // @ a1atus

★ ★ pre-relationship ★ ★

Very rarely posts

Never pictures of himself, you’ll only see his face in tagged photos

If he does post, it’s probably a new album cover of a band he likes, a particularly good plate of almond tofu from his favorite café, or—if he’s in a particularly good mood—a cute stray cat that befriended him on the street

Never edits anything but still takes pretty decent photos because he understands basic composition rules

Never tags anything but will sometimes write simple captions like “new guitar”

His pfp has not changed since he made his account and its literally just the blandest selfie you’ve ever seen—but he’s effortlessly photogenic so even when he’s just staring at the camera with a blank expression he looks hot

★ ★ in a relationship ★ ★

Xiao will unintentionally do his loyal boyfriend duties and like all of your posts but he never actually leaves a comment unless you specifically ask him to but you have to tell him what to say or else you’ll just get something like “your hair is nice” LOL

Maybe makes one post related to you but it doesn’t have your face—just picture of your hands holding each other or a photo he secretly took of you from behind as you admire some paintings from when he took you on an art gallery date

Still doesn’t write much in captions but if the post includes you, he always adds a little black heart emoji 🖤

Scaramouche // @ balladeer

★ ★ pre-relationship ★ ★

Vehemently claims he’s not chronically online but he definitely is

Def has a dark / emo aesthetic profile and puts more effort into it than he’d ever admit

Uses stories pretty frequently

Usually to show off his game stats and victories or to vent about some annoying inconvenience that's just happened to him 

balladeer Jfc the train is late again I may as well just walk home everyday ffs

All his late night gaming photos are so highly saturated in his pitch black bedroom, the only source of light being his screen on max brightness and his violet RGB keyboard. If you raise the screen brightness on your phone you might be able to make out some empty Monster cans and ramen cups on his desk—he absolutely gives Discord / Reddit mod vibes 🤢

Definitely has a story archive just for Valorant 🤮

I wanna fuck him so bad it makes me look stupid—

Posts a few selfies to show a new piercing or the very rare occasion where he’s feeling really confident in his looks

unintentionally thirst traps the emo boy lovers; yes, I am talking about you and I—

Lightly edits photos or uses filters to make them look good but nothing extreme or super aesthetic, mostly just for decent contrast

Usually the first one to see any of his friends posts but never ‘likes’ them

Will leave snarky or sarcastic comments when the mood strikes tho

His pfp is a candid picture someone else took that he thinks he looks decent in—sticking his tongue out and giving double middle fingers to the camera

★ ★ in a relationship ★ ★

Makes a post or story for every date you guys have, even if it’s just a vague picture of your shoes together

He likes to show off that he has such an attractive s/o but also lowkey just wants to have a memory to look back on for the nights he feels lonely

Doesn’t post just you though, he’s always in frame holding you or touching you in some way—he feels the need to put some sort of claim cause he thinks people are gonna shoot their shot with you—he’s kinda paranoid and insecure, pls have patience w him

Likes and comments on all of your posts. Sometimes it's a snarky quip like if you post about you and your friends doing something funny he might comment “lmao ur so dumb” but if its a selfie or something you’re proud of, he leaves a little compliment and heart emoji.

YN0103 [bedroom mirror selfie of you shyly posing in a dress]

YN0103  Bought a new dress today…it’s not my usual style but I rlly like it 🥺

balladeer cute 💜

If anyone ever confronts him in person about his nice comments on your posts tho he’ll get flustered and claim his account was temporarily hacked LOL

His heart def flutters when you post a picture of him on your own account

He kinda can’t believe you’re proud enough of him to publicly post about him

Changes his pfp to the two of you together and, if you zoom in and squint, you can tell he’s kind of smiling <3

Zhongli // @ rex_lapis

★ ★ pre-relationship ★ ★

I’m sorry but I have to do it…

He has Facebook grandpa vibes

Like he has no idea how to use half of the features; stories are an absolute mystery to him. What is a reel?

But he tries to be supportive of his friends and will leave way-too eloquent comments with a Wikipedia levels of supplemental information

a1atus [ photo of a shiny Fender acoustic guitar laying on what seems to be a bed]

a1atus new guitar

rex_lapis Lovely new instrument, Xiao. You seem to have quite good tastes – that particular model is popular among many professional musicians. It is well renowned for its clear sound and beautiful mahogany exterior. If you wouldn’t mind, I would love to hear you play it someday over tea.

a1atus @ rex_lapis thanks

the way I cackled writing that exchange ygweyufgwyu Xiaos just like ��thanks for commenting dad’

His pfp is not him—it’s probably a famous painting he likes or a beautiful white flower from a garden he visited

★ ★ in a relationship ★ ★

If you want him to improve his Insta game, you’re going to have to teach him, I’m sorry

On the up side, Zhongli is a great student and is eager to learn anything you teach him

Will try to post pretty regularly; usually somewhat mediocre photos of beautiful scenery like sunsets and flowers

Like Scaramouche, he enjoys the idea of documentary your time together so he posts something at the end of each of your dates

Your heart lowkey melts when Zhongli, very earnestly, asks after dinner if you’ll allow him to take a selfie with you to post on his Instagram

Regularly asks for feedback on his posts to ensure he’s properly taking your advice and improving :,)

He even starts organizing and naming story archives on his profile—simple titles like “tea,” “nature,” “friends,” and “my dearest”

Likes and comments on every single one of your posts and replies to all of your stories, even if he was there with you

Usually just lathers you in compliments on your beauty or tastes but they’re so thoughtfully written that it’s obvious he’s not “just saying it” and genuinely believes all the kind things about you he writes

YN1231 [photo of you twirling in a summer dress amidst a colorful of bed of flowers in a botanical garden, take by your friend]

YN1231 It’s finally starting to feel like spring! 🌸🌼🌺

rex_lapis While the camelias are lovely, they pale in comparison to your radiance. Your yellow sundress is also quite lovely and compliments your complexion in the morning sunlight. Truly a divine sight. 

balladeer @ YN1231 @ rex_lapis ugh can you guys keep it in the DMs

- Changes his pfp to a selfie of himself smiling after you told him he should. The angle is a little odd but he’s so naturally attractive that he still manages to look good. 

Ajax // @ tartaglia_on_top 

★ ★ pre-relationship ★ ★

Doesn’t post too often but when he does, it kinda gives stereotypical frat boy

Like, lots of parties and shirtless beach photos with his friends

The surprise is the occasional posts of his little siblings and kids he volunteers with in between

He sometimes posts championship and practice photos from his martial arts competitions with captions thanking his team and mentors

Is pretty popular—has a few thousand followers, many are people he met just once or twice at parties or genuine friends and classmates, but the vast majority are online fans who just follow cause he’s hot LOL

Is the type of person you followed once after meeting a long time ago and never talk to again but you can’t bring yourself to unfollow cause he’s nice and his updates are kinda interesting and he’s hot

Isn’t online that much so he doesn’t like/comment on his friends’ every post but usually tries to leave congratulatory messages when someone accomplishes something or graduates

His pfp is a closeup of himself with a boyish grin he cropped from a group photo

★ ★ in a relationship ★ ★

It is super obvious when you guys start dating cause almost every post from that point is about you in some way LOL

tartaglia_on_top [photo of Ajax, sweaty and exhausted but clearly excited as he holds a trophy in one hand with the other wrapped around your waist while he presses a kiss to your cheek]

tartaglia_on_top Officially a 3 year championship winner! Thanks to my biggest supporter @ YN0720 😘

He’s not even consciously trying to post you all the time, it just happens because you are either always together or any memorable moment he thinks are worth an Insta post involve you in some way

You’re the only person, aside from his family - that he actually likes/comments on all posts for

Is the type of boyfriend to leave those super dramatic, embarrassing comments on your selfies like “DAAAMN BABE 🥵 finna make me act UP” and, in one particularly shameless case, “god youre so hot pls step on me queen 😍” 

Please block him

He shamelessly liked all your past posts from before you too met as well—you were kinda mortified to wake up one morning to a notification that just said “what a lil cutie ❤️” on a post of yourself from seventh grade. 

Changes his pfp to a couple selfie he took of the two of you kissing on a winter vacation in the mountains

Kaveh // @ kaveh.designs

★ ★ pre-relationship ★ ★

Obsessed with having an aesthetic profile

Like, the color palette of the background and clothing in his pfp selfie are carefully matched with the cover of each of his story archives, down to the hex code

He carefully edits every post and uses filters to make them all fit with his theme no matter how inaccurate to real life they may become

“Huh…I thought your bedroom wall was a bit more orange than this…” 

“Oh, that’s cause I use 30% Juno in all my bedroom photos for a warmer finish.”

“???”

Despite his aesthetic profile, he doesn’t come off as particularly vain or narcissistic—only posts selfies when he’s has a particularly good hair day or changed his accessories

Most of his posts are of places he travels to (museums and big cities with interesting architecture) or his own sketches and rendered design projects

Online pretty frequently, always checks insta when he wakes up, before bed, and during lunch breaks

His stories are often project updates, interesting things he encounters throughout the day, or food photos

Only likes posts he actually likes and sometimes comments with photography critiques

tighnar1 [photo of a cluster of three bright blue mushrooms clustered against vibrant green grass and patches of dark, wet soil]

tighnar1 Proof the forest is an amazing place: found this beautiful little cluster of juvenile Rakkhashava mushrooms on my hike today. Great spotting by @ colleeei. Check my story for some cool mushroom facts. 🍄

kaveh.designs great photo composition, Tigh, perfect golden ratio on the caps.

tighnar1 @ kaveh.designs Thanks I guess…

Has a decent number of followers, many of whom are also artists familiar with Kaveh’s reputation from the Kshahrewar. Others just like his OOTD stories and charming smile

★ ★ in a relationship ★ ★

Kaveh revamps his entire profile once you two become official

His pfp becomes a candid taken by a stranger of the two of you together at an aquarium, holding hands as you point something out to him through the glass

It was taken by a photographer working at the aquarium as part of a promotion—the photographer showed you two the photo and asked for permission to post it on their official website and Kaveh was absolutely obsessed with the photo—it’s still one of his favorite and it doesn’t even show your faces

He still matches his archived story covers to his new pfp but his actual feed had become a lot more relaxed and natural now

He still slightly edits photos so they look as good as possible, but he doesn’t like using filters on photos of you or the two of you together because he thinks it would be a disservice to your natural beauty

Like Ajax, his posts and stories naturally become mostly about you whether scenes from your dates—candid photos he takes of you where he insists you look like art even though you’re just in pajamas with an unmade face—or even photos of things he sees throughout the day that remind him of you

Sometimes he posts stories of funny reels or art pieces he knows you’d like and tags you in them with messages like “@YN0709 omg remember when we were talking abt this?” and “me & @ YN0709💕”

Similar to Childe, leaves the most downbad, dramatic comments on your posts

YN0709 [swimsuit selfie]

YN0709 happy summer! ☀️🌊

kaveh.designs Oh my god my heart– 💘 I cannot believe I get to come home to this every night 👅💦

YN0709 @ kaveh.designs omg kaveh pls 💀

al_haitham @ kaveh.designs Every time I see one of your comments I regret ever learning how to read.

Alhaitham // @ al_haitham  

★ ★ pre-relationship ★ ★

Only made an account so his friends would stop bothering him about not keeping up with things tbh

Checks his feed a few times a day but skips through stories if they’re too long/too many

Absolutely hates concert stories the most cause they’d loud, long, and filled with off-key drunken singing

Never likes or comments on anything unless it’s really interesting to him

Occasionally shares reels in his story that are like interesting history facts or official Akademiya announcements

Has a few posts (and only cause Kaveh would not shut up about it) but they’re mostly just pictures of book covers he’d just finished reading with a detailed review or literary analysis as the caption—but he’s mindful of avoiding spoilers for those who haven’t read it

However, he does have one post that stands out quite a bit

He posted an unintentional gym third trap because he just happened to be working out, as is routine, and thought it might be nice to share some tips on proper rope pushdown form 

If you’re not a gym babe and don’t know what this is, I beg of you, please look up a gif or video and imagine Alhaitham doing this, shirtless. You’re welcome.

It has become his most popular post by far

His pfp is probably taken straight from his faculty ID card: plain background, bright lighting, neutral facial expression

★ ★ in a relationship ★ ★

After you two have become official and are pretty comfortably established in your relationship, he’ll post a photo of the two of you—probably one you took - with a simple caption like “Late night at Puspa Café with my favorite person 💚”

Everyone who knows him freaks out in the comments with variations of “omg hathie got an s/o???” and “wow he finally posted a normal pic of himself, y/n is a good influence” but he doesn’t reply to any of them lmao

If you use Instagram a lot, he’ll naturally become more active too because he enjoys learning more about what you like through your posts and stories

He likes all of your posts but never comments—if one of your posts interests him, he’d prefer to wait until he sees you later to ask you about it in person 

He just wants an excuse to talk to you more

As he becomes more active, little bits and pieces of your relationship naturally infiltrate his feed

His latest book review post has your favorite mug in the background because the two of you had breakfast together

His informational story post of an antique Sumerian emerald he found at a street vendor is being modeled by your pretty hands because you were with him when he saw it and later given to you after the vendor insisted on Alhaitham gifting it to his “beautiful spouse”

He changes his profile picture to the two of you from one of your many reading dates, comfortably lounging on a loveseat in a quiet corner of the library—and this time, he’s softly smiling

Tighnari // @ t1ghnar1

Surprisingly active on social media

He thinks social media is a great way to share information about the importance of forest conservation and get people to appreciate the beauty of Avidya forest

Makes one post almost every day and multiple stories

Needless to say, 90% of his posts are of plants or small animals he finds on his hikes or while working

His most popular posts are those of cute squirrels and birds that are being nursed back to health after being found wounded—animals just seem to naturally love him so the pictures are usually taken by his coworkers because his arms are full with cuddly animals that refuse to move

The other 10% of his posts are from the occasional hang outs with friends or coworkers after work—snaps of iced fruit teas from Puspa café or colorful clay plates overflowing with Collei’s homemade pita pockets. 

He makes sure to reply to or at least like every comment, particularly those from people asking questions about the plants he posts or how to become a forest ranger. Even simple “wow that's so cool” comments often get at least a “thanks, glad you liked it” from Tighnari

He tends to use some cute forest or food emoji when they fit with his posts. For example, 🍄,🥙,🦊,🐦, etc.

Also tends to use “:)” when replying to his followers because he knows it can be difficult to read tone in text-based communications

Tigh is basically a social media manager at this point oops

Because he is online so much, he naturally keeps up with almost everything his friends post and will like or comment on things he finds interesting

His pfp is a selfie of himself with a small yellow bird perched on his shoulder from one of his patrols

★ ★ in a relationship ★ ★

All Tighnaris written by me WILL follow the “fennec foxes mate for life” trope regardless of AU, it is an indisputable law of the universe

If you’re in a relationship with Tighnari, you should be prepared for stability and commitment in general

While he doesn’t go out of his way to make an official announcement post or anything like that, you become a regular feature on his page

Will tag you in anything you’re related to, unless you specifically ask him not to

t1ghnar1 [photo of a small, cream-colored fox brushing itself against Tighnari’s leg and looking up at the camera with large eyes]

t1ghnar1 On a walk with @ YN1229 this morning we spotted this cute little kit without her mom. 🦊 While adorable, foxes - even kits - are wild animals and should never be approached unless by professionals. We have informed the local animal control where she will be taken care of until we can locate her family. Photo by @ YN1229

He never outright announces you as his lover but he seems to spend so much time with you and refer to you so casually that his followers who don’t know him just assume you’re his spouse LOL

He doesn’t bother to correct them either :,)

bennie_boy Wow, that mountain is so high up - wasn’t ur spouse scared to go up there?

t1ghnar1 @ bennie_boy Y/n has been on so many trips like this with me that they’re pretty used to it. :)

Likes your posts as he see them on his feed and occasionally leaves a short comment like, “beautiful <3”

[ohwolfling]

Gale’s evil ending is out on Youtube now! How do you feel about it and is there any analysis to it?

[goes to YouTube because I have Toy Story disease and know I will never do this myself]

Ooooh boy. The thing is, this is an RPG. If you played the game in such a way that Gale would get here, alright. I don’t wish to yuck anyone’s yum. But for me this feels nigh on impossible. 

-please not, I have not slept right in like a month, this is not as polished as I usually try to make my asks/meta-

Gale at his very worst wants to be worshiped, adored, and praised. He wants to be equal to gods because it’s gods who have made playthings of the little guys. I don’t think that this kind of submission would satisfy Gale, nor do I think that Gale is someone who does direct violence on purpose, even on his worst days. 

Choice One 

As for destroying the heavens, I don’t know, Gale seems aware that being a Chosen is a curse regardless of who the god is and I don’t see Gale focusing his ire on throwing his testament to Mystra and having a crowd beat up a Mystra statue that came from I am not sure where? Sort of echoes my sentiments that while BG3 is some of the best and most varied representation of abuse and trauma on personal and systemic levels I’ve ever seen, it still has it’s little flaws, both because of its commitment at times to DnD lore and the fact that I don’t think that survivors/advocates/educators were consulted so much as we got lucky. I’ve talked about this mostly in regards to how the narrative fails Wyll (not because Wyll should be more important than other companions because he’s literally from Baldur’s Gate, an argument that is just… so dumb, your hearts are in the right place but jfc). 

Choice Two 

I just don’t believe in any version of Gale that wants to lead an army. It made me laugh honestly. 

Choice Three

ILLUSION MAGIC, CONTENTMENT, LOVE (djinn, careful what you wish for, etc, so there’s like… existing lore and stuff for this in the greater pantheon of storytelling)... This one had such potential. Disappears immediately, however.

Does he need a big statue of himself? What is that meant to communicate? I don’t get this. Gale likes pretty things and this world is still hideous for himself. God Gale shows us that Gale’s “Bad” ending is leaning into aesthetics and power-posturing. This is… just not in character to me under any circumstances.

Choice Four

Killing everybody is just plain mean. Gale needs something to gaslight himself about. Frankly, this is too simple for the kind of mental illness this man holds within him. The line says, “this is mercy” but nothing around it actually implies that. Actually kinda pisses me off. A thing doesn’t need to look menacing to be evil and I expect Larian to know better. A power move here would’ve been Gale finding he still feels hopeless after all this and detonating himself against even the Orb’s will! 

Choice Five

Gale could never wish for chaos to rule. He would get IBS. I also don’t think “people are inherently bad” is a Gale thing. That might vibe with Shadowheart and Astarion before their healing journeys or if you play them that way, but even then there’s so much foundational wounding that gets them there. This is just… lol ok. Gale very clearly loves children, at least in the sense that he wants to protect them. If there’s an evil Gale who would turn a child into a little killer, it would be against an abuser of some kind, not a mother protecting them.

Generally,

Let him kill Mystra and have chaos ensue that way, cowards. 

A Gale who would control or limit you would do so leading with pleasure, not cruelty (maybe some Willow erasing Tara’s memories vibes) and even where they did play with this they ultimately failed. It doesn’t serve Gale in any way to create illusory magic for big statue. Some of the language around some of the choices feels… very insecure masculinity? And I don’t particularly associate that with Gale. His problems with Mystra are not based in not feeling like A Man™, but in not feeling enough as Merely A Mortal Man™. That’s a reading that people falsely make of Gale of Waterdeep™ throughout the game, which is good world building and makes sense, as he is a renowned wizard, was a child prodigy, and is a known paramor and Chosen of Mystra. That’s the social dig at his facade. Gale Dekarios, however, doesn’t demonstrate any issues in that flavor?

If you’ve played Gale as a man constantly on the cusp of evil, you may have an insight to this that I don’t. But for me, even where things feel somewhat possible, it’s giving Daenerys burns down King’s Landing because we forgot to write her for four seasons in the middle and are bored now. Which is to say that GRRM has a few books left to make Daenerys accelerate herself and could do it in a way that is beautiful and breaks my heart but that ain’t what happened here today, ya know? 

This is an observation no one asked for but I think part of the perfect storm that led to SO MUCH additional Astarion content (the obvious being casual hornies + Neil Newbon being as accommodating as he is passionate [affectionate][complimentary][in awe]) is that the default setting for how Larian Studios views evil, struggle, grief, trauma, abuse, etc is in these very flashy, edgy tropes of Hurt People Hurt People being very literal. And that is a genuine and beautiful load-bearing wall of Astarion’s belief system. But Hurt People Hurt People doesn’t apply to Gale, at least not in that way. Gale tries every other thing possible before he comes up with the idea to restore elements of the Weave to Mystra through relics and such. And when he gets the orb, he’s moving to be sure his own inevitable detonation doesn’t hurt anyone. Gale’s entire story is about the risk of reaching out, of trying to connect, you literally pull him out of a hole of unstable magic.

As a note - Nothing I say here is too critical of Larian studios. For me personally, multiple endings of the same flavor are not what fuels replayability but for most people who simply play this game and do not examine it as a piece of literature or find community around the discussion of it, it does. Studios are a business and they’ve been through it working on this with WotC/DnD. I totally get it. But I’d really rather more in world characterization than additional endings. 

[raguonmynieceandnephew]

I fucking love Shadowlands and I am tired of being silent

This is probably gonna be long. TL;DR at the end.

Look, Shadowlands is the second worst expansion this game has ever shipped, besides WoD. I know this is a WILD opening sentence for a defense argument, but I am a romantic, not fucking delusional. This is a fact. Point blank period. The content drought was absurd, the legendary system was completely fucked, the maw in general, the lore reduced Arthas and Garrosh quite literally to dust, The Jailer as the main villain and FUCKING THORGAST, the overall alt unfriendliness, borrowed power cranked to a million, and I have expressed how much of a fucking joke I think putting Pelagos as the new Arbriter was.

It was bad.

This has been stablished, not just by me, but by the entirety of the wow community.

But even though I agree, all these things made the game worse, I still enjoyed my experience, and I have a positive outlook on the expansion overall, which seems to be the greatest sin a World of Warcraft player can commit: I liked Shadowlands. I dare to say I liked it more than I did Dragonflight, if I think really hard about it.

You simply cannot say you liked Shadowlands in the any circle of the WoW community online, from what I have seen. I remember Kraken Latte put it in first place in a rank she made of all expansions and got shit on for days on twitter, with people failing to see what she saw in the game.

Now, I feel like I have pointlessly yapping till now, so without further ado, here are some of the Shadowlands features i like the most:

1 - THREADS OF FATE

I am a simple man, who likes to do 2 things in wow: Mythic+ and leveling. That is pretty much it. I don't PvP, I rarely raid and I occasionally indulge in RPing as a Tidesage on Moonguard. And let me tell you, this baby right here was lifechanging.

Threads of Fate is by far, the single best feature (before Warbands, lol) in my entire World of Warcraft experience. I loved it. I loved it dearly. I don't think I have ever had so much fun leveling 60-70 through Revendreth and Ardenweald with ToF. I still have the route I took memorized, it was SO good. So many bonus objectives back to back to back, world quests and that goddamn gorgeous blue forest had the FATTEST questing hubs in the game.

I was so excited to play this combined with Chromie Time, like IT WAS ON BETA, until it was ruthlessly taken away from me for no goddamn reason AT ALL. Like, what the actual fuck blizzard. Y'all don't understand how delightful it would have been to level like that in ardenweald in the mid thirty levels, right after clearing Loch Modan (or the Silverspine and Hillsbrad, for horde). I barely touched SL since it got removed.

BRING IT BACK BLIZZARD, I AM BEGGING YOU, JUST DO THIS ONE SOLID FOR ME.

2 - COVENANT CALLINGS

Speaking of features I thoroughly enjoyed that were pried from my hands, we have the best iteration of daily quests this game has ever had. They actually worked as good dailies that gave actual gold, was a good reliable source of reputation and was amazing for anima and cosmetics.

This + the recent nerfs to the Dragonracing WQs make me feel like blizzard doesn't like when players make their gold independently, like, jesus christ not all of us have time to be profession moguls.

3 - THE 4 ZONES

What inspired this post was the fact that SL raids are now on legacy loot (if you didn't know, now you do) and I had to go to Bastion to buy the weapons with the thingy that drops from Nathria and...look at this. Just look at this.

This place is one of the most beautiful things this game has to offer. Like, the entire zone is gorgeous byt seeing this for the first time since DF came out legit moved me bro, LOOK AT IT.

And while the covenants were kind of a shit show gameplay-wise, in EVERY SINGLE OTHER ASPECT, it was a 10/10 feature, argue with your mom. Aesthetics, themes, everything, simply gorgeous. Also, it got bonus points from me bcs i really do not like to use training dummies in current expansions because of the sheer amount of people blasting them at any given time, so each covenant having their own Dummy Room, was a ++++ for me.

4 - THE NECROLORDS OF MALDRAXXUS

The Necrolords were the best covenant, their campaign was the best and their characters were the best. Like, come on now.

Draka? Mother. Vashj? Mother. Emeni? Mother. Sin'dane? Mother Stradama? Grandmother. Like, are you kidding me? I know lore was one of the Weakest points of SL overall, but you are insane if you include anything involving these guys. Even the Korthia campaign was enjoyable when they had the spotlight. And I only listed the female characters lmao, don't forget The Primus, Krexus's meme death, the five houses, Morgraine, Grahmal, Marileth, like C'MON!

5 - THE DUNGEONS

Except for the Theater of Pain, and arguably the De Other Side (I personaly love it), Shadowlands has the best overall roster of dungeons in the entire game.

Sanguine Dephts is, in my opinion the second best dungeon in WoW, period, behind only Freehold, Tazavesh is the best Mega Dungeon they ever made. Mists is a banger, Plaguefall is a banger except for the tentacles, Halls of Atonement, Spires (controversial take, ik), Necrotic Wake is amazing, like, you can say whatever you want about SL, but you cannot talk shit about its dungeon design.

Except ToP.

Fuck ToP.

Now, it's getting late so imma speedrun the rest of the items:

6 - COSMETICS

SL changed the transmog game, and all cosmetics from it (all the mounts and sets from all sources) look phenomenal, and if you disagree you are simply lying to yourself.

7 - ZERETH MORTIS

The zone was good and had tons of stuff to do and collect, plus, the introduction to the Catalysts was a plus.

also, nothing will be funnier than Taelia fucking Fordragon being the talking quest bubble for WQs in THE REALM OF ULTRA DEATH

8 - RAIDS

CN: Vibes? Immaculate. SoD: Horrible systems, cool mechanics SoFO: Cool systems, mid mechanics overall a positive for me

9 - CHARACTERS

Already mentioned a lot of characters from Maldraxxus, here are my other faves: Lady Moonberry, the gay unicorm, Denathrius, Theothar, basically ever steward, The Accuser, Kael'thas, General Draven, Remornia and many more.

There are probably more reasons to list to justify my love for SL despite all the bad it has in it, but I simply do not have the mental fuel to keep going rn, i need sleep.

TL;DR: I like Shadowlands despite it being bad and would appreciate it if ppl didn't throw a fit everytime someone talks about it in any sort of positive light. I then listed Threads of Fate, Callings, the first 4 zones, dungeon design, the fuckton of collectibles, characters and the beginning of the shift in game philosophy as positive and valid reasons to be a SL enjoyer.

[downtroddendeity]

@turnkeyassurance saw your tags and figured I'd take the opportunity to pause my descent into madness to give my more sober opinions on the Ni no Kuni franchise, lol. (Warning: I am a humongous JRPG nerd)

The NNK games are really odd ducks, quality-wise. You can call either one a good game or a bad game and call either one better than the other, and any combination of those opinions can be something I think is entirely justified. Both of them have things they do remarkably well and also serious, profound, deal-breaking flaws, and the really weird thing is that there's almost no overlap between those two lists for the two games. What clicks and doesn't about both of them is going to be deeply individual.

What Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch does, with resounding success, is Vibes. It sets out at every single step with the goal of being a playable Ghibli movie, and it sticks to that principle. It's all about beautiful, cel-shaded whimsy. It's a game for people who want to feel like they're wandering through the meadows in the movie version of Howl's Moving Castle. There are lots of puns, and you can befriend all the random encounter monsters and feed them ice cream.

But that's also its Achilles' heel: because it's dedicated entirely to imitation, it has trouble bringing things to the table that are really its own. It has the visual and narrative aesthetics of Hayao Miyazaki's films, but it doesn't have the raw emotion at the heart of them. And as a game, its mechanics combine the clunkiest features of menu-based combat and action RPGs, and while everything about the Pokemon-esque mechanics seems designed to encourage players to collect and experiment with them, the balancing turns attempting to do that into a miserable grindy nightmare.

The other problem is that it... isn't actually the first Ni no Kuni game. Wrath of the White Witch is, in fact, a remake of the Nintendo DS game Ni no Kuni: Dominion of the Dark Djinn, which was never released outside Japan. The reason for this is pretty easy to explain, because DDD had another gimmick besides its aesthetics: it came with a real-life physical copy of the wizard spellbook, and the player had to look things up in it and draw sigils on the DS touchscreen to cast spells. So, we've got a high-effort remake that had to completely cut the central mechanic... and which also expanded the plot so that the original main villain was no longer the primary antagonist. This results in a game with what is very clearly a final dungeon and very clearly a final boss and very clearly a resolution to the story, which suddenly has a completely different plot dropped on it like a fucking anvil that it expects you to be just as invested in even though it hasn't had anything like the same level of buildup.

And ironically, this is almost the exact opposite of the biggest problem with Ni no Kuni 2: Revenant Kingdom, a.k.a. the one with my new blorbo, the President of the United Union of Eagleland. 2 is an effort to try to cement an identity for the series that can be its own, rather than requiring them to depend indefinitely on borrowed Miyazaki nostalgia. It just has the teeny-tiny, itsy-bitsy problem that at some point in development it had a budget shortfall so bad that you can finish the game without ever realizing that there is a continent-sized crashed interdimensional spaceship on the world map.

This game has had a machete taken to it. Don't get me wrong, I genuinely respect the work they did to make what they could with what they had, but you can see the signs of massive scope cuts to literally every aspect of the game. The back half of the game has almost exclusively recycled enemy and environment assets; voice acting has been trimmed down to canned voice clips; the catboy protagonist's ears and tail are barely animated; one minigame was so inadequately playtested that a level 16 mission is massively harder than level 50 ones; and while whatever restructuring they had to do to the main plot still left the final version with a more solid and coherent central arc than WWW in my opinion, it also left a lot of truly gaping plot holes, like oh, I don't know, why the President of the United States got turned into a 19-year-old.

Literally, they just. Entirely forgot to explain that. Half the DLC is just the writers scrambling to fix stuff like that and add a bunch of character development that should have been in the base game.

However, despite all this, I personally enjoyed NNK2 more than NNK1 unironically, not just for Rolandposting reasons. Compared to the first one, it plays much more smoothly as a straight action RPG, and while it can't provide the same knock-your-socks-off aesthetic cohesion, to me it seemed a lot more heartfelt- that is, like a game that was made because people had a story they wanted to tell.

But, well, we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the non-unironic reasons, because the story they really, genuinely wanted to tell was about a magical catboy growing up and learning to become a leader, and somehow, miraculously, they really thought that was the story I was here for too when they opened the game with the President of the United States being isekaied by Nuke-kun.

Sorry, guys, I have a crippling addiction to dramatic irony and my day job is tech work in local politics, you could not have more laser-targeted this at making me specifically laugh my ass off if you tried.

[artsyhamster]

And we've reached the end! I cannot believe we made it but here are the final four. :)

You know the drill by now, explanations and ramblings underneath the cut :D

(1) THE FOOL / THE MAGICIAN / THE HIGH PRIESTESS |

(2) THE EMPRESS / THE EMPEROR / THE HIEROPHANT |

(3) THE LOVERS / THE CHARIOT / STRENGTH |

(4) THE HERMIT / WHEEL OF FORTUNE / JUSTICE |

(5) THE HANGED MAND | DEATH | TEMPERANCE |

(6) THE DEVIL / THE TOWER / THE STAR |

(7) THE MOON / THE SUN / JUDGEMENT / THE WORLD

THE MOON - As I mentioned in the previous set, I had The Star and The Moon exchanged at first. Colorwise I found the Balcony Smoker to be more fitting but descriptionwise.... "[The fool's] bliss (...) makes him vulnerable to the illusions of the Moon" fit Klaasje more. I feel like Harry related to her on a level and of course was drawn to her beauty, and fell for her deception. Or well at least I did lol. Although I don't even want to call it deception, more like...obfuscation in self-defense. Klaasje on the rooftop staring at a moon seemed like a nice visual image too.

THE SUN - I had. So much trouble. Filling this role. Since The sun stands for everything warm and joyous. "It enlightens, so the Fool both feels and understands the goodness of the world." And it's pretty hard to find something joyous in Revachol. I almost chose Ruby just for the orange aesthetics and the sort of... enlightenment. But considering she might shoot herself in the head, I refused to put her in the role of the sun. I wanted to save the Insulidan phasmid for THE WORLD at first, but I am damn happy I let go of that thought. Especially since the story starts and begins with the fool anyway. SO YEAH. I love this stick bug.... I cannot describe it. After you go through this whole bleak game, filled with death, misery, failure and coldness you find this...walking wonder. And the soundtrack to this encapsulates it so well, too. The phasmid scene always fills me with so much happiness T_T

JUDGEMENT - Also one of the the cards that were pretty clear to me from the beginning. Trant looks pretty menacing here but I love it lol. I added a small Harry, because under the judging eyes of his colleagues, everyone would feel small. "The Fool has been reborn. His false, ego-self has been shed, allowing his radiant, true self to manifest." The radiance is debatable, but Harry definitely went through a lot of development in the past few days and hopefully he came out a better person. He isn't absolved of his past mistakes and further judged on those, rather he is judged on the things he did right. And I don't know, what I like about Harry in general is that he is an absolute fuckup but if you give a person the right support and faith in them to be better, they can. If you keep reminding people only of the things they've done wrong, you are taking their room to grow, by defining them as an irredeemable failure.

THE WORLD - "The Fool reenters the World, but this time with a more complete understanding. He has integrated all the disparate parts of himself and achieved wholeness. He has reached a new level of happiness and fulfillment." Well, what can I say. Our fool Harry started this journey full of ignorance but he opened his eyes to the mistakes of the past and learned from them, and is now hopefully ready to tackle life anew. And I love the last sentence of The Fool's story: This cycle is over, but, the Fool will never stop growing. Soon he will be ready to begin a new journey that will lead him to ever greater levels of understanding. While this chapter of his life is over, there'll be new stories to be told. Setbacks and more opportunities to grow, and only time will tell where his journey will lead him this time.

Thanks to everyone who followed me and Harry on this journey and read through my ramblings. Also thanks for all the lovely tags & comments, it was an absolute pleasure reading through these. <3 Much Love!

[zookacestance]

My First Thoughts on Life is Strange: Double Exposure

(these are my opinions from the 1st Trailer, Reveal Stream, and clips they've posted)

1. The Style Swap:

I personally prefer the original, less realistic, style to the game. I think it sets Life is Strange apart and makes it look more unique than other games. I understand why they’re changing it up, and I don’t necessarily think it’s bad, it’s just that I prefer the original game style and visuals so far.

I'm also not a big fan of the clothing/styles they've given the new characters, especially Max. Each character in the first game had a unique style I felt suited them well, now everyone's clothing seems pretty bland and standard. I especially wish they had kept some of Max's original aesthetic, It feels really boring and plain now. Maybe that's not a popular opion, I'm not sure, but it's a first impression of mine so I'm writting it! (Also I am aware there are going to be outfit packs, but I don't any of them look like anything Max would've originally wore, or really even look good... personally I don't like them).

2. Game Play:

I like the sneak peak they gave us in the Reveal Stream, it looks fun! I think at the very least I’ll enjoy playing through the game even if I don’t enjoy the story. The university they made looks fun to explore and the concept of two parallel universes with two different versions of everyone you meet is extremely interesting!! ALTHOUGH I really dislike that they took away Max's rewind power, that was a big reason why I enjoyed the first game (getting to rewind and see all the diffrent options and dialoge) so I'm defenitly not a fan of that being taken.

3. Life is Strange Comics:

(Spoiler warning for the comics) One thing that confuses me is that the comics are known as non-canonical in the Life is Strange storyline, however will this game change that?? Max seems to have the same (or very similar) powers that she has in the comics in Double Exposure. Dose this mean the comics will be reconized as semi-canon or even fully canon for the first game now? Maybe Double Exposure will even connect the storyline of the comics and first game togther. Although personally, I hope not, while I enjoy the comics I think I'd enjoy them a lot less if they were canon lol.

4. Chloe:

So we know it follows either endings of the 1st game. Dose that mean Chloe is either dead or alive and broken up/no contact with Max (the girl that sacrificed a entire town for her)?? So far I’m confused on how that will work. As much as I've wanted Max and Chloe to get another game, if you’re just going to give Max one why not just have it take place in the bay over bae ending?? I think they can make this “both endings are canon” work, but the question is will they?

5. Can it Really Be a Standalone Game?:

When they revealed Double Exposure to be a standalone game I was honestly really disapointed because why even make a game with Max, and possibly Chloe, just to have it not connect with their original game and story that's already beloved by fans?? To me this is a big mistake when their original story is still so loved, unique, and respected, and I think alot of fans would've liked to see a sequel or continuation of their story. I honestly think this is what's going to make me dislike the game, we'll just have to wait and see, I'm optimistic for now, but I have a feeling the story and characters will seem disconnected from the original game because they want the game to be a standalone and not refer to the original. So I personally predict that this choice alone will really negativly effect what the game has to offer, but we'll just have to wait and see! Hopefully I'm wrong about this.

[archivalofsins]

I'm glad I don't look in the tag like the shit that passes my dash is like stuff I know, and then Mikoto being hypersexualized on a bimonthly basis with the implied impression that it's fine as long as it's a male being sexualized. I have no stake in it one way or the other. If that's fun to some, it's just fun, and I'm certain other characters are sexualized just as much in different circles. Maybe I'm just lucky enough not to have seen that.

Yet that again would be due to people recognizing subconsciously or not that hypersexualizing certain characters of the cast is problematic on some level. I don't see this sort of discussion as often around Yuno despite the content within her music videos. I don't see it around Mahiru or Kotoko as much either. This is excluding every other character that was a child when Milgram started all together.

This may sound like a complaint or a dig at this fandoms ethics, but it isn't because literally most fandoms treat male characters like this. This isn't something the Milgram fanbase created or anything it's quite common.

It's why Persona 5 wrote those story beats around Ryuji how they did- Because when sexual harrassment happens to a man in fiction it's comedy when it happens to a woman in fiction it's either horror or very notably a moral failing on the one doing it. Or maybe again I've just gotten lucky and haven't read a lot of egregious shit in that regard.

The way all fandom tends to hypersexualize men in general is a byproduct of how the sexual issues of men are discussed in media and ignorance. The same as it is when it comes to hypersexualization and caricaturing of female characters past and present as well. I don't want this to come off as me saying being overly sexualized is a male issue alone. Because it's not. This is a very reductionist explanation of sexualization in media, something that affects all genders differently.

There's much more to it than what I'm saying here. Plus, not everyone does this with the intent of demeaning a character or reducing them to their sexual appeal alone. Some people just find a design sexy or aesthetically appealing that's pretty reasonable. Displaying why that is- is reasonable as well.

However, when that is put alongside comments like "I'd never judge a female character like this, of course, I have some class." It starts to make me raise an eyebrow just a bit. Like, I end up wondering like um why not though?

Hate to be openly pansexual (no i don't this is hyperbole) but um, women are hot, lol. What does no one else think so? Is it bad to point out the features of the Milgram women too. I'm sorry but Mahiru is hot she dresses well and homely she has a decent figure and she is not lacking in the chest department.

It really comes down to preference at the end of the day. Am i going to sit here and say Mikoto looks average? No, like Mikoto, Kazui, Mahiru, and Shidou are all genuinely attractive and can be somewhat charismatic people. Ya know something that a good few murderers are. That's kind of the point of them being the adults of the group.

They are the end result of everyone here younger than them and are more than likely the best at what they do.

Outside of that, it would be weird of me to hold anybody to a certain standard when it comes to what they're attracted to in fiction. Unless they are romanticizing a criminal act or a child. Gotta make that really clear. Since that isn't really occurring here, it is kind of free game. Go nuts, really.

I just find it interesting that everything a person would ethically have an issue with someone doing to a character that's a woman has been done to Mikoto with reckless abandon.

From hyperfocusing on the measurements of his body, overtly sexualizing him regardless of how covered up he is, making assumptions about his romantic or sexual preferences. It's like everything that would make anyone rightfully a creep if they did it to a woman whether that be in real life or in fiction has been done to this one fictional dude to the point it technically happens in cycles. I can tell when a month has ended based on if this man's body is being talked about sometimes, and I shouldn't be able to do that at any time.

It's impressive. I need to note again that I'm not saying this because I'm a prude or to protect Mikoto's very nonexistent innocence. It's just a funny and interesting double standard to look into within any fandom, not just this one. I know it's all in good fun, and this isn't meant to call it out or anybody in any way.

It's just meant to be me going,

"Hey, this is a funny thing that hasn't really been questioned that much that actually ties into other writing tropes in media that are pretty bad. Let's talk about it."

Even if it is not that deep.

Personally, I've always found it interesting as daughter of a guy that suffered interpersonal partner violence and being raised in a community where the sexual assault of both men and women is prominently discussed to see how men and women are sexualized not only in media but by fanbases. Of course, I'm way more interested in this when it comes to black people. However, when a good example of the differences is sitting right in front of me, it's hard to overlook it.

Better excuse, though- Mahiru is hot, too! Maybe stop talking about how she's delusional and instead discuss how she had low confidence and rejection sensitivity. Causing her to not understand what she was doing was too much for the situation as well as made it difficult for her to let the fact that she was not accepted by someone she liked go. Similarly to Mu.

Like maybe this line from This Is How To Be In Love With You deserves a bit more focus,

"What do you think? I know it's not the type of question you want to be asked."

A common question for one to ask their partner about the outfits they put on.

Or this one in I Love You,

"Sigh... No appetite, I can’t sleep, my hair’s a mess. What am I supposed to do now? If you won’t tell me, I can’t be me."

I'm not hungry, I can't sleep, and worst of all- I'm not even looking good right now. Yeah fuck it actually this is a Mahiru appreciation post now that woman served this community several different outfits and this bastard only gave two fuck Mikoto stop complimenting this man for his cycling body.

Yeah, he's fit. We know! The man bikes to work to stay in shape and practices swinging a bat when angry.

But guess what-

Mahiru jogs, and she even has a cute jogging outfit. We've never even seen this man on a bike. Let alone in a cycling outfit.

Q.04 Are you picky when it comes to fashion?

Mikoto: Of course I am. Nobody would want to ask for anything from an unfashionable designer, right?

Oh, you're picky huh. People wouldn't ask for anything from an unfashionable designer, yeah... So, why does Mahiru Shiina's first music video look like a fashion catalogue-

While all we see from you is you putting your clothes where they belong,

Sorry, I got heated there. It's not a fashion competition because we clearly know who would win that. Long story short, Mahiru has a cute design too.

[toeridiaorbust]

2024 Tumblr Top 10

1. 301 notes - Apr 8 2024 — “I Just Realized the Paper in the Radial Charts Are Visually Unique Too”

[NGL I am a little bit surprised this got that much traction. Thank you for enjoying my thoughts, guys!]

[More under the cut]

✏️✏️✏️

2. 136 notes - Apr 19 2024 — “Devs, You’re Hilarious For This”: I looked up what Lovent could possibly mean, and Wikitionary came through...

[I’m so happy this made it into the TOP 5! Lol, no one can’t help but love Mhin~]

✏️✏️✏️

3. 110 notes - Aug 4 2024 — “It's August”: None of us are gonna be ready for what Vere’s gonna draw for Ais’s birthday.

[boy howdy we were NOT]

✏️✏️✏️

4. 90 notes - Mar 5 2024

[Pretty self explanatory. Even if the small update was the addition of a heads-up about the music for streamers, it’s very much appreciated that y’all were excited alongside me].

✏️✏️✏️

5. 79 notes - Jul 30 2024 — Wait. Wait wait waitwaitwaitwait. Does. Does this raise the possibility Kuras—whether BIOLOGICALLY OR NOT—actually has/had kids...

[I am mildly expecting for a long list of Kuras’s past lovers being referenced in some old history/folklore hidden within the Senobium’s walls LOL].

✏️✏️✏️

6. 38 notes - Apr 10 2024

[Mhin’s birthday moodboard from earlier on in the year. I’m still in love with the aesthetic I have going on in this].

✏️✏️✏️

7. 38 notes - Jan 2 2024

[This is Kuras’s birthday moodboard! It’s a bit darker than Kuras’s seemingly typical aesthetic, but for a first go at it overall, I’m really proud of it].

✏️✏️✏️

8. 36 notes - Dec 28 2024 — 2025 on the horizon

[This was answered recently! BIRTHDAY CARDS!!]

✏️✏️✏️

9. 33 notes - Jul 30 2024 — Q: the "he looked after Leander when he was young" when we also know Leander wasn't an orphan . . . hints more at his job as a doctor than . . .”: Mun: Oooh, good point raised, anon!… I half wonder if once upon a time Kuras was a private doctor for Leander’s family?

[For some reason this is only my top 9 instead of 10, but I’ll take it!]

[Here’s to 2025, everyone! May game development go as smoothly as possible for the devs, and may all creatives have minimal artist’s/writer’s block!]

Created by TumblrTop10

[savebatsfromscratch]

HI for the character bingo thing....ymmumymymmmmm um hehe maybe sshhhadow the hedgehog :3 if u want lol xp

AHHh okay I can do this! :D

I'm gonna, like, preface this by saying that I'm talking completely from the heart and also (despite everything and my various stints into this fandom) I don't actually understand the lore of the Sonic series, let alone Shadow. I've also only ever played four games in the series, besides the occasional scratch level copy, I haven't finished any of them, and they are Sonic Colors, Sonic and the Secret Rings, The Murder of Sonic The Hedgehog, and this one weird handheld Olympics thing which I WISH I still had or at least wish I knew the name of.

Anywho :D

I'm gonna explain myself though!!!!

I am so normal about them: I really really like this color scheme, as anyone who sees my blog theme (or watched any of my old map parts) would clearly know. As a result. I am normal.

[Person holding little thing in hand, hearts around their head]: I used to have two really cute pet rodents and I just like that he is a rodent. I would hold him in one hand, like I did with my smaller pet rodent, and as the little guy is doing in the picture.

A Beast Unleashed: He kinda kills people, so I guess that counts. Especially since he is a beast.

My friend's favorite, my blorbo by proxy: I think her favorite is technically Metal Sonic but, like, very close second. Even though I go in and out of this fandom Shadow is always in my life.

*puts them in a salad spinner*: I really like whump!!!!

[half circle] Cannon isn't real if I don't look at it: My favorite Sonic media is Sonic Boom and my other favorite are the movies. I don't know what is going on.

That's a solid design right there: FAVOIRTE DESIGN IN THE SERIES! (Mostly the color scheme, but the shape of his gloves in Boom (not pictured) are also super cool.)

They didn't get bullied enough: I REALLY LIKE WHUMP!!!

[person squeaking the thing like a squeak toy]: Yeah. I like whump... I'm a broken record of some kind...

[Half circle] Literally I would kiss them: Well. Not literally* but....

I want to BITE them: This little creature deserves pain. /pos I can cause it. It will be fun.

I fuck with this aesthetic so hard: HE IS MY AESTHETIC!!! HE TOOK IT!!!

Basically, I really like the storyline shadow has in Adventure Two (at least from what I understand of it), and though I get really lost lore wise in the main games after that, I still like most of what I've heard. Also, I really love his gun and motorcycle, they are so funny and also so cool and I love him.

I don't really like him that much in boom, but I really love his design, and tbh I've only watched the first season of Boom so far and he only shows up once, so I don't really know much about differences there yet. I liked his animation really well though!

He's probably my second or third favorite movie character (battling for Sonic, as always. heh), with Knuckles in first, but I really liked him in the new movie! I love his design, and even though I'm low key not a super fan of his voice acting there, I still think it sounds pretty good and suits him well! I LOVED his design in the movie, literally squeaking and rocking back in forth in the theater, I'm afraid. XD

*This card isn't QUITE a bingo due to a half circle on the kissing one, but because the idea of myself kissing anything kinda freaks me out, that was the best I could do, so I would call it one anyway. :3

[crusherthedoctor]

Top 5 Underappreciated Sonic levels, in your opinion

I was holding off on this one because being the weirdo that I am, there's a lot that come to mind, which is what happens when a fandom seems to only care about three or four locations in the whole series. So since I can do what I want with my lists, I'll instead list one per game. :] Not every game, just whichever ones that I can think of an example for.

Marble: the level design is blocky, but I dig the lava ruins aesthetic

Crystal Egg: really unique final zone, I'd love to see another stab at this concept

Hill Top: seems to get more love nowadays, but used to be widely considered the weakest Sonic 2 zone for being Emerald Hill 2: This Time It's Blue, I like it for being another unique take on a lava zone, very proto-Red Mountain

Quartz Quadrant: favourite zone (sorry, round) in CD, and not just cause it reminds me of @greenyvertekins' OC Verte Sinople, though that helps :>

Gigalopolis: an eye-catching city zone, even in 8-bit

Marble Garden: memorable Eggman fight with Tails, also has my favourite music in the Sonic 3 half next to Launch Base

Sandopolis: Act 2 might be a little slow, but I really like the Act 1 aesthetic, so there >:[

Marina Madness: level design is certified Knuckles Chaotix, but at least it looks pretty

Spring Stadium: I could really say any zone in 3D Blast because it's 3D Blast (Rusty Ruin <3, Volcano Valley <3), but I've really grown fond of the funhouse aesthetic here, shame about all the spears and spikes though :P

Radiant Emerald: glad they brought it back in Super Circuit, Double Dash, DS, Wii, this is a funny joke, pls laugh

Final Egg: picking one for SA1 is difficult because I think all of them are liked well enough, but Final Egg tends to get mentioned less frequently than other final levels in the series, and I won't stand for that

Pyramid Cave: probably the least discussed Sonic stage in SA2... well I like it (ghosts touching you inappropriately aside)

Ice Mountain: one of my favourite ice zones and Act 1 tracks

Techno Base: just as great as Music Plant

Egg Fleet: tends to get overshadowed by Final Fortress, I love how with this airship level in particular, the lack of clouds in the upper half of the skybox make it feel as though you're REALLY high up

Twinkle Snow: another favourite ice zone and music, even if the level design is one of the more... yeah

Digital Circuit: better cyberspace than the one in Frontiers (I would like to say Lost Impact for the atmosphere, but the tedium of the actual gameplay overwrites it for me unfortunately)

Mirage Road: underrated banger

Dark Desert: I know I keep mentioning desert levels lol, but a desert town during an eclipse is very striking

Aquatic Base: level itself is certified '06, but the music is S-tier and it paves the way for the greatest Eggman defeated cutscene in all of fiction

Night Palace: see Crystal Egg

Pirates' Island: interesting final zone, also leads up to TE DAVY JOOONES WITH YE

Aquatic Capital: includes Tempest Waterway as well

Jungle Joyride: despite the framerate's spirited efforts to drag it down

Misty Lake: I don't care too much for most of the levels in Black Knight, but Not Kingdom Valley looks nice

Sylvania Castle: aesthetically at least, it's a cool take on an Aquatic Ruin-type area

Dolphin Resort: cool aquarium/shopping mall combo, just a shame it was trapped in Free Riders

Aquarium Park: this has always been my favourite zone in Colours... between this and Dolphin Resort, clearly I enjoy me some underwater tubes

Titanic Monarch: dark and colorful simultaneously, and I don't struggle with it as much as most fans seem to

Mortar Canyon: its biggest crime is how short it is, cause then I can't hear the music :(

Egg Fortress: it might start off as a standard Not Death Egg, but I love the reverse gimmick in Act 2, and I actually like the final boss' brutality because it's Eggman punishing fans for portraying him as a dad ack ack ack ack ack

[majachee]

I am so tempted to make an entire post about my design decisions for the MMPC cast... Do not tempt me....

{*poke*} [I do like to hear monologues about design choices.]

GRINS... ALRIGHT... LET'S START!!

Some are more coherent than others, but these are most of the Thoughts I've had when designing... will be continued later....

Noah's Design Notes and Rambles

Both for his upcoming redesign, and his current design.

His hairstyle is a choppy, layered mullet with sideswept bangs, the bangs being exaggerated to the MAX. Mainly to give him an interesting silhouette and because I thought the bangs would look cute. He has thick hair, imo, and based on my experience layers help A LOT. His hair is pretty heavy, that's why he chopped it off. Easier to maintain when you have less to work with!

His eyes are very, VERY dark, almost black, brown. In the show, they're the same color as his hair iirc, but I decided to darken them dramatically to enhance the bored/smug look he has. Also as an added contrast to Alejandro and Justin, who I draw with much more noticable pupils!

In art, people tend to put focus on the eyes when demonstrating that a character is looking intensely at an item/person, typically with a noticable glint or the pupil changing dramatically in size... Noah doesn't get that. He furrows his brows, puts a hand on his hip, widens or squints his eyes, but no matter what the pupils are indiscernable.

His outer layers are quite loose on his body. Adds bulk to his silhouette without changing his body-type, in my opinion. He's got a slight frame, not helped by his aversion to fitness, so I'd imagine sweaters and such would hang off him a bit. This also allows me to introduce more squares into his design!

OH YEAH, SQUARES. He's a pretty neutral character in the show, and I like adding in his canonical blockiness to other aspects of his design.

Bulky, woolly socks, blocky shoes. Again, square motif and loose clothing. He wears like 3 layers of shirts, one being a DAMN SWEATER VEST, so why not go all out with the more "warmer" clothes, yeah?

I also extended his shorts into capris. I'm pretty sure they're meant to be capris in the show itself, but most people call them shorts. But yeah, he wears bulky cargo capris that — you guessed it! Hang fairly loose off his legs but are tight and secure around the waist.

He's pretty covered up! Not a lot of skin showing! This is because I think he likes to feel a bit toasty. Not warm, exactly, but he's definitely not prone to mid-Autumn chills when dressed up. The cold, northern breeze nips at his exposed ears and shins a comfortable amount and that's how he likes it! Hopefully I can successfully portray that through vibes lol

90s prep influence... sorry... 💔

Due to his interest in planes in Dramarama and interest in Kosmic Kaos in the main series, I plan on giving him an aviator jacket that he wears during the colder months.

And since I HC that Kosmic Kaos is a multiplayer sci-fi/fantasy game that takes place in space (I mean... come on... KOSMIC...), he has a simple yet baggy backpack with a pixel art-styled airship pin on the main flap. The pin is IMPORTANT to ME. We must acknowledge the fact that he is a GAMER.

Also, KK is OBVIOUSLY an MMORPG, fight me on this. I'm thinking World of Warcraft mechanics but with sci-fi alien aesthetics. RuneScape Classic aura.

Short. In Gen 1, he's one of the shortest males on the Island (Cody and Ezekiel being shorter than him), so I made him shorter than he realistically is in canon to make that height difference more obvious. Also as a way to contrast Harold's "gangly nerd" schtick.

Speaking of Harold...!

Harold's Design Notes and Rambles!

His body is the hardest for me to draw, but I am dedicated to the tall, gangly nerd thing he's got going on! I think it's charming! Especially in contrast with Noah.

I HATE his outfit in the main series, specifically because of his T-shirt.

I DETEST that stupid hamburger design. I'm sorry, but genuinely what the fuck is that?? It feels so random, so incoherent. I changed it to an alien to tie back to that one schtick in World Tour, and to also mesh better with his green-tinted glasses and shoes. I also added orange to his pink undershirt, not only to give it a more 90s vibe, but also to tie it back to his orange hair.

Also overalls because cute! ... What? It's a thing in 90's shows, and it's cute! What more reasoning do you want from me? 😈

Gave him more stubble, and I plan on going back and adding freckles and faint acne scars. Due to the wonky colors, my electronics tend to make his canonical freckles fade into nonexistence 😭😭😭 I'm so sorry Harry Styles.....

Elaborating on the stubble: it's very much meant to be patchy, like it's just growing in. When it comes to facial hair, I'm digging through my memories of highschool for reference, mostly. The classes I shared with juniors and seniors during my senior year had kids with barely there/patchy stubble like Harold's to full on thick beards.

ELABORATING ON THE ELABORATION... It comes down to genetics and hair thickness, and Harold has thinner hair methinks. The lighter color would also make his facial hair seem thinner than it actually is.

His eyes were directly inspired by this little cutie from Little Witch Academia!

Along with vague memories of "Doraemon" ... back when the English dub was on DisneyXD or smth. <- only saw clips of it fyi 💀

Despite Noah being the Blue Ranger in this AU, Harold takes the most inspiration from the character Billy Cranston in the OG 1993 show.

Billy, for those unaware, is the Blue Ranger's real name/identity. While he does participate in martial arts like the rest of the PR friend group and is quite fit, he's also the nerdiest. He uses long, complicated words and likes explaining things using very technical/scientific terms, to the point where he's sometimes asked to rephrase what he just said. Though, unlike Harold, this quirk of his isn't really treated negatively. Billy's friends find this charming, and so do the people who interact with him for the most part! (Exception of Skull and Bulk, obv.) You can see where I drew the similarities, lol ... I also find this trait charming in a majority of fictional characters... 😭 is it obvious Billy is my second favorite male power ranger

I made his face more round, to better contrast with Noah and Duncan's faces. It's also rounded out a bit with stylized sideburns.

I plan on adding scrapes and bandages to his arms and legs sporadically. He's pretty accident-prone... and "accident"-prone.

I like to think his bangs are really light compared to the rest of his (already pretty light) hair. Very easy to get them all tossled up!

Had the most fun stylizing his nose tbh. Just a general fun fact.

He has some muscle in there! Mainly in his abdomen and biceps. It's subtle, but there. He's a pretty active guy, and nunchucks can build up decent arm muscle and grip strength! Maja lore, I used to take martial art classes as a kid lmao

Fair bit of lore behind this guy!

Anyways!

Heather's Design Notes and Rambles!

Saw a lot of fanartists giving Heather a jacket, so I did that. Thought it looked cute, and added to her silhouette.

I changed her wedged sandals to simple slip-ons for convenience sake. Since I'll likely be drawing her a lot, especially in group pics, I wanted to make her shoes easier to draw.

As you may already know, due to being subjected to my ramblings, Heather had a Carrie moment in late Sophomore year that lead to her Baldening. Tis why her hair is short.

The scrunchie in her hair is a direct reference to Heathers.

I also gave her some hella subtle muscle! You can see it because she's showing a lot more skin than the rest of the cast.

I added tears and such to her shorts, giving them the distressed denim look. I remember them being trendy for, like, my entire life, and I think the less clean look also reflects her personality. She is, quite literally, rough around the edges.

I gave her scrapes and such on her legs for the same reason. Also to add more "clutter" to her design. She owns a cat as well, and my cat always bites my legs after I shave them. Projecting that onto her.

Inspired by Buffy and Cordelia from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I DO want to change her outfit a bit, though, and give her a more 90s style crop-top and a higher waist on her shorts. And a belt.

Rather than taking inspo from a specific niche, trope, or subculture, I'm looking at trendy/pop-culture fits to reflect her "Queen Bee" title.

... wow not a lot for Heather... Sorry! She's easy for me, tbh.

Duncan's Design Notes and Rambles!

Leaned towards 90's grunge rather than 90's punk, but with obvious punk influences thrown in there.

The stains I gave him on his black skull tee are meant to be bleach stains. I wanted his outershirt to look abused like his HELLA distressed jeans!

His hair is yet another nod to punk culture! Thick, long mohawks and dyed hair were part of more loud/rebellious scenes, and I can imagine Duncan absolutely VIBING with that aesthetic and appropriating it.

The mix of aesthetics is intentional, he uses them to feed into his tough-guy persona but doesn't really embrace the themes/values/beliefs both aesthetics carried. I mean, he's a bully, and punk is all about non-conformity. Bullying people who don't fit the "status quo" is the opposite of punk.

I gave him more piercings because I love drawing piercings and I think they look cool. He says he did them himself, but that's not true at all.

The hems of his pantlegs are also all stained and distressed, due to natural corrosion. This is the grunge inspo talking!

His jaw structure is meant to be a lot sharper than Noah's and Harold's, he's also the most muscular of the entire group.

He's often chewing on gum, an edible plant stalk, lolly stick, etc. He feels very fidget-y to me, and I want to portray that.

It's 11pm... I grow tired...

I believe I rambled on about Courtney's design elsewhere... remind me tomorrow tho! Xoxo

[pink-vacancy]

who's in the vacancy supergroup line up the people must know

Ok so this ask has put me into a group building spiral. I have chosen my roster and drafted a logo and I'm building the debut concept

PVE (Pink Vacancy Entertainment) presents:

I want to add a music note icon and sword icon with similar styling to the text so the icons combined can also be like a little mini logo.

The visual concept is y2k armored gals with colored transparent 2000's technology weapons and armor. Like the transparent mac book type look except cool armor outfits. Pretty ladies with sword.

I'd also want to do a winter sports videogame concept like 1080 avalanche or SSX Tricky as the concept B for the album.

Soundwise, I'd want to replicate the fast pace beats of those video game soundtracks with some Jungle Beat/Hip-Hop and Pink Pantheress type songs. I'd also want some early '00s sounds like Britney and NSYNC lol.

Here is our 10 gal roster. I stole six of JYP's girls (basically my 2 bias lines lol) and I broke it down into 3 medieval military themed sub units:

The Command Unit

2. The Artillery Unit

3. The Melee Unit

Park Jihyo - The hardest part about making the group was choosing a leader and I realized I'd be so nervous if anybody but Jihyo was the leader. Also I want to hear her on a Britney Spears type track!

Myoui Mina - Wow! A huge surprise right? But honestly Mina brings everything to a group. Vocals, dancing, elegance, humor, Minecraft. So choosing her is a real no brainer even besides the fact that she is the love of my life. She's the face of the group for sure! I didn't make her leader cause she needs her gaming laptop time.

Minatozaki Sana - Sana is another obvious choice to me, bias aside. She has such mass appeal and talent for entertainment that she would create so much success for the group just by existing. And girl groups gotta have someone who will just full on smooch the other members.

Hwang Yeji - The second in command. I imagine her as being in charge of the younger half of the group. JYP holds this gal back possibly most of all. Here at PVE, we are giving her all those louis vuitton deals and what not, cause that will translate to bigger success for her and the group (JYP is certified big dumb). Plus she is an S tier performer, leader and visual.

Shin Yuna - Yuna is obviously another of my all-time favorite gals but hear me out. After seeing her live I know now she is an all around ace. She can sing, dance, and you can tell when she is on stage she is loving life! Also her rap from 'Twenty' is one of the few K-Pop raps that i actually enjoy and doesn't make me wanna kms lol.

Lee Chaeryeong - Chaeryeong is honestly such a talented singer and dancer. She’s super sweet and charismatic interacting with the crowd! And she is so funny just by being herself in the ITZY reality content. One of my all time fave idols and a must have for the group.

Miyawaki Sakura - Sakura would be the leader of the third unit. She's an incredible multi talented idol and her vibes are immaculate. She's super funny and beautiful and sweet. Plus she and Mina could be gamer friends together. I feel like she would really kill they2k aesthetic with like some cat ear headphones like she likes.

Jeong JinSoul - Jinsoul's voice has always been really soothing to me. Like it always sits very nicely within the melody of the song. I want that kind of sound for choruses on softer and popier songs. And she is a visual queen so she is a lock for the group.

Cho Miyeon - I wanted a group with two ultra feminine gals in it. Plus her and Sana are already friends so it works out very nicely. She has an amazing voice and is one of the prettiest idols out there!

Lee Saerom - I am honestly just starting to get into Fromis 9. But I have watched enough performances to understand the Saerom has incredible stage presence and has an awesome physique! Her muscles and her charisma will add to the groups flavor for sure ^^.

Maybe i'll do some concept art later to illustrate some ideas. If you read this far you are allowed to be a hater on the group. It will help me prepare for the debut.

[urlocalnonbinarybastardwrites]

hi!!!!!!!!! i am loving the fandom ships sosososososo much!!!!!!!! your hcs are actually the best too and im just so happy ur sharing ur wonderful writing w us:D

no pressure at all too but i would love a fandom ship for the outsiders too:D!! boy or girl is good!

im about 5'4, light brown hair, dark blue eyes, my eyes r like bigg like OwO irl LOL

my hair goes down to the middle of my back, and its like 2a curls i think?

also im white lol so the things that go with that, and i have freckles! and my cheeks are always pink no matter what i do bro (i get accused of blushing at everything BUT ITS JUST MY FACE HFSLDKJKS)

my personality is very talkative, outgoing, blabbermouth esque, and the typical girly i think? like i like doing my makeup and dressing up and stuffs

i think im an optimist too, i dont get angry or upset at people very often

im always really interested in learning about people so i love listening to what they want to talk about!

my hobbies are all the artsy crafty stuff,(writing, reading, painting, drawing, yarn crafts, sewing, decor, music, instrumentsssz) but thats when im not studying:P i spend soooo much time on school and i take it really serious, and im always happy to help my friends w their work too so that may b what keeps me occupied a lot loll

but i also love being outside! that counts as a hobby i think- stuff like just walking, or biking or skating !

Because you’re one of my favorites and a loyal mutual I’m giving you a guy and a girl!!!!

Your outsiders ship: Cherry Valance and Sodapop Curtis!

Explanation: you guys are so pretty together like you’re just such pretty queens. I just wanna say that like Dallas Winston can go cry himself a hole because you have cherry valance cherry valance has you and you guys look so freaking good together just aesthetically pleasing because you guys are both so beautiful. I love the way that you both contrast each other. You with your light brown hair her with her red hair you with your blue eyes and her with her brown eyes. I just think you guys would be beautiful in different ways that really come together for a very neat image you guys are literally the “it”lesbian couple. She thinks you’re natural blush, and freckles are really cute and she has a bit of a natural blush herself so she totally understands whenever people think that you’re blushing at things when you’re actually not you just have a little bit of a pink face. as for your personality I think you would get along really well together because she’s also pretty talkative and bubbly most of the time and I think that U2 would just be really nice popular girls at your school that people look up to and I think she would appreciate your optimism and a lot of situations and truth be told kind of wishes that she did have optimism because she loves your mindset and I honestly think that you would be such a healthy and cute relationship because you guys are so uplifting to each each other she build you up and you build her up. I feel like she’s not very much of an artsy person or a skater, but she absolutely supports all of your hobbies and I feel like she would watch you do art and just ask a ton of questions and if you drew a portrait of her and did anything like that just or made like a keychain for her or something like that I think she keep it forever and just be so proud of it and probably like put it on a bracelet or something and try and keep it with her at all times, I think you’re the type of person that would go to her cheerleading games like just go to the football games to watch her cheer and I think she’d be forever grateful for that and honestly, you guys are just so cute and supportive of each other I 100% ship!!💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚

Explanation: he really loves your big eyes and you’re curly hair that almost give you kind of a doll like appearance and I also think that he loves how short you are because I don’t know everything about you’re just reminds him of a doll and I think that is what made you kind of stand out to him in the first place besides of course, being drop dead gorgeous honey because that’s what you are!!! But he also gets the natural blush thing a lot, and I think that because of his charming personality, he comes off as flirting when he really just means to be friendly quite a lot so I think the natural blush doesn’t really help that much with that, but I think as for talkativeness, you guys would be a great pair.  I see him as easily socializing and being more of an extrovert so if you’re more of a talkative person, I think you guys would go great together and could definitely have laughs  and good times together just enjoying each other‘s company. He’s also like you an optimist and a people pleaser as well so I think that you guys some time would have a hard time choosing who’s going to have to be the bad cop you know. He also appreciates deeply that you embrace your femininity, and I think out of all the greasers he’s the greaser that embraces his own femininity the most, and I think he just really appreciates anyone else who does that because it’s just aesthetically pleasing let’s be so for real. Since you like asking about other people and what they’re into I think he would absolutely love that because as the middle Curtis sibling, he’s often used to getting ignored or only seen for his looks and when you ask him about himself, it pretty much just melt him because he’s so happy that someone finally cares about him beyond just how he looks or You know being the hot middle Curtis sibling and nothing else. I don’t think he’s very artsy but he absolutely supports you and probably would be a little bit annoying if I’m going to be honest, but he really tries his best to understand it and I also think that he would love doing outdoorsy things with you. You guys would be cute together. 💚

[confessions-official]

I don't feel shit for fictional characters. I love fiction and i am perfectly capable of becoming obsessed with a work of fiction and analyzing it and discussing it 1000000 times. But i am pretty much unable to get attached to characters in the "blorbo from my shows" way. To me my "favorite character" in a show or video game is just the one that makes me smile when they're on screen. But i don't read fanfic. I don't make fanart and i don't consume a lot of it too, and when i share fanart, it's more to value the artist's effort and skill than because i actually enjoy fanart. I don't overanalyze *characters*, I'm more obsessed with plots/subtext/symbolism/etc. But i kinda play it up like i do have a "blorbo from my shows" sensibility in my blog bc.... idk? I guess I've always been like that, just trying to do what i felt was socially expected of me, but it's kinda funny bc I'm realizing now it's not genuine LOL.

On the other hand, I DO get obsessed with real people 💀. Yeah I'm the kind of music fan specifically that will read every biography and look for any (consensually published) detail of an artist's personal life, analyaze their music style amd aesthetics, try to understand their personality and taste from the glimpses of it they give to the public, etc. So it's not like I'm well-adjusted, im fact I'm much worse off than if I'd just become obsessed with a blorbo from my shows or games :( because i do feel guilty sometimes that I am basically self-soothing through a rando that doesn't know me, and yes I get "crushes" on famous ppl the way ppl do with blorbos. On one hand i feel bad, on the other hand I'm like, eh, I think I have a pretty clear grasp of boundaries and I remind myself often that my whole image of these people is literally just in my head. I don't feel particularly possessive about any of them despite how obsessed i get and if i do, it's usually fleeting bc my obsessions change from one person to the next one all the time. Except this one person I've been obsessed with for over a year bc i marked the date in my calendar 😔 but it already has become sooo much less intense, i just really love their music tbh

 

[centrally-unplanned]

I played silly 90's eroge game VR-DATE Simulator May-Club, which some lunatics made a browser port of, as I saw people mentioning it on the dash. First off, these old eroges occasionally get remasters, and I just don't understand why they toss out the aesthetic of these things when they do:

You got rid of all the bold pixelation highlights! My dithering! You got rid of the framing box UI!? Look at how they massacred my boy -_-

Seriously those UIs are one of the greatest legacies of the PC-98 era, I am curious as to why they were so common (probably due to limitations on resolution flexibility, so they wanted to keep the main screen defined in scale, but I am just guessing). All ports should preserve them, but I do think there is a development limitations there; modern VN engines aren't quite built for it.

I found the game charming because it is a very comedic game - the main dude wants to bone before starting his corporate wagecuck conglomerate job, and finds a VR world where people date anonymously. So hijinks ensue and you spend tickets to go spin some plates, but half the time you meet up with girls you talk about gender discrimination in the corporate workplace? The difficulties of work-life balance? Handy tips on how to double-tap your company expense accounts for some light financial fraud at hostess bars? And those things are also played for laughs, it just isn't what I expected to find given the tone.

Early dating sim games are often funny this way because they were incredibly expensive - I don't have a price source for this one specifically, but they could approach ~$100 USD and that is in 1990's dollars. Which meant that their market was mainly just working adults, this wasn't primarily teens slipping lunch money over the counter. So the work is full otaku, but a niche of otaku such that you get a certain kind of blend of silly tropes and more adult jabs.

By the way, the game was actually localized to the US, in the 90's? I don't have a rock-solid source but apparently the explicit scenes for two of the routes were removed due to the designs of the characters in question. Which uh:

Yeah, not shocked at that choice.

I found it weird that this "VR world" just looks like the regular world?

Explicitly so, our main dude comments on it. Which you would think, okay, its a budget thing right? This way you get to portray the real world and the VR world with the same assets as you walk through both. But you pretty-much never do that; 99% of the game is in the VR world. So why have that plot detail at all? It made me notice it, and now I am questioning why they went with something so un-VR-like for the setting.

It really doesn't do much with the VR setting alas, though I didn't do all the routes. I love 90's era "the future will be virtual" stuff, but this one didn't deliver on much of any vision for what that would be.

I also can't check out all the routes quickly as I could not find any cohesive Let's Plays of the game. Normally that is how you experience all of these games these days, given their propensity for padding and difficulties in emulating. Maybe I should solve that problem myself lol. Since I did have to play it, shoutouts to Ben Woodhouse from 2003 for your GameFAQs guide and beautiful ASCII calendar of appearance times for helping me get through it

Anyway Akiho is best girl fuck your sexist bosses and get 👏that 👏bread👏; she absolutely has the best collection of facial expressions and her ending has a real touch of heart to it, respect.