#i just really love the game. knowing what went into its development and what they were trying with it. what it did to the developers. wow.

[lapinposts]

how it feels to read people on this site criticize death of the outsider

[misctea]

thinking about that one post that's like. love it when voice actors are best i known for this goofy character and this really dark and broody character. this one

thinking about it bc Joey D'Auria has this portfolio of incredibly goofy characters with his best known role being Bozo the Clown from the 90s. he was puss in boots in that one 2011 cartoon no one talks about. this same man, of all VAs, was cast as this ornery veteran with a tragic and compelling story in Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time.

it's a testament to his range and skill, but i just find it so interesting. looking up his other reels and hearing him talk like a normal guy in a sitcom, versus the gruff persona he captures as Alister Azimuth.

there's little information this guy otherwise. his portfolio is available online but not much otherwise. nothing else is my business, he's a just a normal guy outside of his job.

anyway since i'm replaying ACiT again, and i like azimuth and the game a perfectly normal amount, i'm extremely tempted to write the guy a letter to let him know the positive impact his work had on the game and how much it means to me.

[dailyadventureprompts]

Monsters Reimagined: Yeenoghu, Demon Lord of Insatiable Hunger

It's been some years since I did my overhaul on the lore of the gnolls and how they embody the weird de/humanization that goes on with various monsters over d&d's history. Ever since I've had more than a few folks write in asking about how I would handle the default Gnoll God Yeenoghu, who exists in a similar state of "Kill everything that ever existed" to Orcus and a good portion of the game's other late game threats, thematically flat and not really useful for building stories around.

For a while I've avoided doing this post because I thought it might skew a little too close to my personal philosophy, and risk going from simply being influenced by my views to an outright soapbox. I personally hold that despite being part of our nature hunger is the source of the majority of human cruelty, and if society and cooperation are the tools we developed to best fight against the threat of famine, it is fear of that famine that allows the powerful to control society and secure their positions of privilege.

I've also dealt with disordered eating in a prior period of my life, alternating between neglecting my body's needs and punishing myself for needing in the first place. I'm well acquainted with hunger and the hollowing effect it can have, though I'd never claim to know it so well as someone who went hungry by anything other than choice and self hatred.

Learning to love food again saved saved my life. The joy of eating, of feeling whole and nourished, yes, but there was also the joy of making: of experimenting, improving, providing, being connected to a great tradition of cultivation which has guided our entire species.

If I was going to talk about an evil god of hunger, I was going to have to touch on all of that, and now that it's out in the open I can continue with a more thematic and narrative discussion on the beast of butchery below the cut.

What's wrong: Going by the default lore, there's not much that really separates Yeenoghu from any other chaotic evil mega-boss. He wants to kill everything in vicious ways, and encourages his followers to do the same. He's there so that the evil clerics can have someone to pray to because the objectively good gods are on the party's side and wouldn't help a bunch of cannibalistic slavers.

This is boring, we've done this song and dance before, and the only reason that there are so many demon lords/evil gods/archdevils like this is because the bioessentialism baked into the older editions of the game's lore was also a theological essentialism, and that every group had to have their own gods which perfectly embodied their ethos and there was no crossover whatsoever, themes be damned.

Normally I'd do a whole section about "what can be salvaged" from an old concept, but we're scraping the bottom of the barrel right from the inset. Likewise my trick of combining multiple bits of underwritten d&d mythology to make a sturdier concept isn't going to work as most of d&d's other gods of hunger or famine are similar levels of paper thin.

How do we fix it: I want Yeenoghu to be the opposite of the path I found myself on, a hunger so great and so painful that it percludes happiness, cooperation, or even rational thought. Hunger not as a sumptuous hedonistic gluttony but a hollowing emptiness that compels violence and desperation. More than just psychopathic slaughter and gore, it is becalmed sailors drinking seawater to quench their thirst, the urban poor mixing sawdust and plaster into their food because their wages are not enough to afford grain.

This is where we get the idea of Yeenoghu as an enemy of society, not because violence is antithical to society ( I think we've learned by now how structured violence can really be) but because society fundamentally breaks down when it can't take care of the people who provide its foundations. Contrast the Beast of Butchery with one of my other favourite villainous famine spirits: Caracalla the grim trader, who embodies scarcity as a form of profit and control in to Yeenoghu's scarcity as suffering.

Into this we can also add the idea of the hungry dead, ghouls yes but also vampires, anything cursed with an eternal existence and appetites it no longer has the ability to sate. A large number of cultures across the world share the idea that the dead cannot rest while they are starving, which is why we leave offerings of food by their graves or pour out a glass to the ones we lost along the way.

On that topic, there's also a scrap of lore involving Doresain god of ghouls, who has been depicted as an on and off servant of Yeenoghu. Since I'm already remaking the mythology, I'd have Doresain act as a sort of saint or herald for the demon lord, the wicked but still partially reasonable entity who can villain monolog before the feral and all consuming demon god shows up.

Summing it all up: Yeenoghu isn't a demon you wittingly worship, it's a demon that claims you, marks you as its mouthpiece and through you seeks to consume more of the world. It gives you just enough strength to keep on living, keep on suffering, keep on filling that hole in your belly and feed it in turn.

The greatest of these mouthpieces is Doresain, an elf of ancient times who's unearthly hungers elevated him to demigod status. Known as the knawbone king, he dwells within a dread domain of the shadowfell, and is sought out only for his ability to intercede with the maw-fiend's rampages.

Signs: Unnaturally persistent hunger pangs, excessive drool and gurgling stomach noises, the growth of extra teeth in the mouth, stomachs splitting open into mouths.

Symbols: An animal with three jaws, a three tailed flail or spiked whip. A crown of knawed bones (Doresain)

Titles: Beast of butchery, the maw fiend, the knawing god

Artist

[felassan]

What's all this about Solas speaking in iambic pentameter? English isn't my first language so I never noticed anything odd about the way he talks, but your blog is the first time I've seen it mentioned by anyone

hello! ◕‿◕ Solas sometimes speaks in a specific pattern or rhythm. It sometimes gets described as or compared by people to iambic pentameter. (which is a type of rhythm common in traditional English poetry. Shakespeare used it in his sonnets and plays.) Though, I'm not sure that it's actually literally that or always that. The main point is that at those times, he's speaking particularly poetically, with a specific poetic rhythm in his speech. (Like where the stress on syllables is and the 'beats' in his speech.) Occasionally, the Inquisitor's dialogue line[s] in response to him are the same.

When Trick Weekes wrote Solas in DA:I, they wrote some of his key scenes to KD Lang's cover of the song Hallelujah on a loop. They talked about some of their process and the reasons for the use of this technique in terms of Solas' characterization in this DA:I-era blog post:

Trick Weekes: "When Solas talks about things that he saw in the Fade, things that speak to a distant past, I needed him to sound ever so slightly otherworldly and wistful – someone remembering a dream with a sense of both sadness and inevitability. If you follow [that link] and look at some of Solas’s lines, you may notice a familiar rhythm come out. It would have been forcing it to give lines the same rhyme scheme, but giving the words the meter captured some of that wistfulness and made Solas sound ever so slightly otherworldly. (In the rare cases the player got into the same rhythm, there was always an approval bump from Solas. For that brief period, it was like the player was thinking like he did.) I used this a few times over the game, and I love what it did to his voice. Also, Cori (who edited Solas) is exceedingly kind for putting up with my request that changes to those lines keep this surreptitious rhythm."

[source]

An example of when it happens in DA:I is:

"I've journeyed deep into the Fade // in ancient ruins and battlefields // to see the dreams of lost civilizations. I've watched as hosts of spirits clash // to reenact the bloody past // in ancient wars both famous and forgotten. Every great war // has its heroes. // I'm just curious // what kind you'll be."

Compare this with the song's lyrics:

"I heard there was a secret chord // That David played, and it pleased the Lord // You don't really care for music, do ya? Well it goes like this: The fourth, the fifth // The minor fall, the major lift // The baffled king composing Hallelujah Hallelujah // Hallelujah // Hallelujah // Hallelujah"

An example from Trespasser is:

"I lay in dark and dreaming sleep [I heard there was a secret chord] while countless wars and ages passed [That David played, and it pleased the Lord] I woke still weak a year before I joined you. [You don't really care for music, do ya?]" etc.

Recent mentions of this are:

Q. Will Solas still occasionally or dramatically speak in iambic pentameter? A. “Massive kudos to Patrick, who always writes Solas so well. Again, Solas is a returning character. It’s the same Solas you know and love (or hate depending on who you are). The same writer. So I think the answer is yeah, it’s Solas.” – John Epler

[source: BioWare dev Discord Q&A on June 14th]

User: "you really went off with solas. but the iambic pentameter makes writing fanfic dialogue for him so treacherous..." Trick Weekes: "It doesn't always have to be in the cadence! Just when he's deeply feeling The Old Days! He's written in standard prose 99% of the time!"

[source]

I think he does it a bit in the gameplay reveal video [Veil ripping scene with Varric] too. hope this helps :>

[msg refs this post]

[For the developer Q&A from June 14th on Discord: Notes are here, re-watch link is here]

[tnt-kokoo]

Best friend

Alexis Ness × fem!reader

summary: After befriending Ness even after getting warned that he was 'weird', he started to develop feelings and a slight obsession.

warnings: a little stalking, obsession, bullying, MANGA SPOILER (kinda but still), No kaiser in this

"Leave him alone?!" A small spoke as the German boy got bullied by his classmates again. The voice belonged to the new girl in school, you. You were around 6 and yet so brave.

Ness looked up and saw you walking towards the little group that formed around the poor boy. He was amazed by how fearless you were. While you were arguing to the bullys his eyes couldn't help but widen as they finally decided to leave Ness alone to avoid having to argue further.

The boy was looking at you like you were his hero, what you clearly were. He really wanted to repay your kindness to help him. So that's why, after all these years after you saved him, he stood by your side.

Ness liked to look back at the day you two met. He thought of it as some sort of fate. And you saving him bonded your twos souls together, so how could he ever leave you after that? It's not like he ever thought of leaving either. He enjoyed his life to the fullest with you. You were always there to listen to his problems about his strict family and how he should stop liking all that 'childish fantasy stuff'. He was alwady there for you, as you were for him and nothing could change that and even when the two of you parted, Ness somehow managed to convince (threatened) people to either change with him to partner with you, or just simply went to you before anyone else could.

He was always with you.

Growing up you came to see how much football means for Ness and that it's something that his family can't take away from him. You couldn't help but feel sad when he was doubting himself, but after you looked into his eyes and told him that you'd be his number one fan he was over the moon and felt his heart beat faster (something he only ever experienced with you).

Today was the day where his school football team went against another school. You could feel how anxious Ness got. He didn't wanted to disappoint his team, school and especially not you. So when the students were all seated down and the players got changed into their school match uniform, you went down to where your best friend hid.

Putting a hand on top of his shoulder pulled the purple eyed boy out of his self doubt as he looked up into your warm eyes. He could feel himself fall for you every time he looked into your eyes whole you gave him that smile that said 'don't worry, I will be here'. Oh man, he loved you.

With new motivation he stood up and walked towards the field.

____________________________________________

After the game, Ness couldn't wait to talk to you again, maybe you woudk hug him, maybe even kiss. He was so sure you were proud of him. After all, all the goals he made were only for you.

You must know that, right?

Ofcourse he couldn't go back to his beloved still smelling like sweat so he choose to take a quick shower.

After getting out of the shower, he practically ran to find you like a dog searching its owner and when he did find you, he saw a player from the other school trying to flirt with you.

'Who does he think he is??'

Walking closer he started to hear him talk to you.

"....honestly think you deserve better." The guy said smirking when he felt a hand on his shoulder. Turning around he saw the German boy and his smirk grew, "Just who I was talking about. Why would you willingly stay with that lose-" Ness pushed him away and he stumbled. Your old friend held your hand and pulled you with him away from that guy. He really wanted to hurt him but he couldn't...not with you here atleast. He would never want to ruin your view on him. He wanted to stay forever your favorite and only boyfriend bestfriend.

"Are you okay, y/n?? He didn't do anything right?? RIGHT??" He looked like he would lose it in just seconds if you wouldn't answer him.

"Don't worry Alexis, nothing happened." You calmed him down by putting both of your hands on his shoulder and pulled him closer to embrace him. "You did so well I the game by the way." You smiled at him as he could feel his heart explode. His head fell on your own shoulder as he could smell your perfume that he just so loved.

____________________________________________

Hours later when the sun went down and the moon took over the sky, Ness was still outside walking... and following.

He wouldn't have done this if the guy earlier wasn't so stupid to try something with you. He knew that Ness liked you so why even try.

Following behind the player, he got slowly closer and closer to him as he finally was close enough to pull him into an ally and hold him up against a wall. "Leave Y/n alone." The guy finally nodded at Ness as a way to show that he understood.

With the threat and the slight choking the player, Ness walked away and made his way to a house he knew all too well. Yours.

____________________________________________

ᯓᝰ Okokk that's the chapter

-I will also update the chigiri file a bit later, I I thinking about tmmr (Hopefully) 😭 also, I had my communication exam in French today and got a 2 lol

[ladykailitha]

Of Butterflies and Backstrokes Part 4

Shiny new schedule! Lets see how it shakes out. I'm hoping this will give each story time to shine on its own. But as my husband pointed out, it is four days in a row of stories followed by a day of no posting and then WIP Wednesday for the next two. So there really isn't a break between them lol!

Eh, it's fine!

In this Eddie finds what happened to Steve and decides to do something about it. And Steve develops a crush on Eddie's swimming.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

~

Steve was grateful when the party ended. He was about ready to vibrate out of his skin. He needed to talk to Robin.

“All right spit it out,” she huffed when they got into the car. “I can tell you’ve been antsy all day.”

He let out a sigh. He loved her so much. He never had to over-explain himself with her. The way he always did with Tommy.

“When you guys do the staff swim on Saturdays, how often is Eddie there?”

She blinked at the question. It was the last thing she would have thought he would ask.

“Almost every week,” Robin said. “He wasn’t there last week because he had to help his uncle in the yard, but yeah. If he can be there, he will.”

Steve pursed his lips and nodded. “Yeah, okay. Does he play around usually or does he do laps and shit?”

She frowned as she thought back. “He’s usually doing laps when we get there and then plays around with us when we get in the pool.”

“Is he doing a basic breaststroke or...?” he hedged, biting on his bottom lip.

“All right, what’s with the twenty questions?” Robin replied. “Just ask what’s really on your mind.”

Steve let out a long breath. “Is there a chance he could have been trained to swim and not just taught?”

She sat back in the passenger seat and thought about it.

“Huh.”

“Yeah,” he said dryly. “Because Robin, he’s fucking good. Like could be better than me with the right coach good.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Wait, really?”

Steve nodded.

They sat on that thought the rest of the way home.

~

Eddie got home from his swim and immediately hopped into the shower. He hated showering in locker rooms. Even when they were supposedly empty. Too many close calls with the jocks at his high school to feel safe in those things.

When he got out his Uncle Wayne was sitting on the armchair reading the newspaper.

“You know those things are going go the way the dodo any day now, right?” he teased, flopping on the nearby sofa.

“Uh-huh,” Wayne said dryly, not bothering to look up. “You’re back early.”

Eddie huffed out a laugh. “The rec center general manager was having her son’s birthday party today so I dipped out early.”

Wayne put down his paper and took off his glasses. “They didn’t tell you they’d need to use the pool? That’s not fair, Ed.”

“No, no,” Eddie said waving his hands back and forth. “They were using the kiddie pool. They were just super loud and I wasn’t in the mood to deal with just lifeguards today with Robin helping out.”

“She getting paid for that?” Wayne said, steely-eyed.

Eddie rolled his eyes. “Yes Uncle Wayne, they were asked if they wanted to and were paid overtime for it.”

Wayne nodded curtly and went back to his paper. “I went to the library and looked up that Harrington fellow. Five gold medals, two silver and a bronze. Probably would have had even more gold medals if it weren’t for that accident at the beginning of the games.”

“Tragic,” Eddie said. He was aiming for sarcastic but it came out more sincere than he would have liked.

“I think it was sabotage.”

Eddie’s head whipped up to look at his uncle. “You want to repeat that?”

Wayne carefully folded the paper and set it on the side table next to him. He pulled off his glasses and looked him in the eye. “I think it was a deliberate attempt to get Steve out the games.” Eddie’s eyebrows shot up. “Now I don’t know if it was meant to go as far as it did, but without a doubt that jumping board was tampered with.”

Eddie sat back and looked at him skeptically. “You shitting with me right now?” Wayne shook his head. “Because why would anyone do that? He only did okay in the second Olympics he was in. He didn’t even medal the first time.”

“Because they were throwing around phrases like ‘world record’ and ‘best swimmer of his generation’ about Steve Harrington at Beijing,” Wayne explained. “Like proper news worthy stuff. All eyes would have been on him and I’m betting that whoever it was wanted him out.”

Eddie sat back on the sofa with a “Huh.” He pulled out his phone and pulled up the internet. He typed in Steve Harrington’s name and the top results was his 2008 Olympic trials. Which Eddie privately wondered if someone paid heavily for that.

He clicked on the link. The final swim for butterfly and no one else was even in frame. He could hear the zoooom, click, of the camera zooming back out. Hargrove came in second, Hagan third and then everyone else was tight cluster of bodies at the finish line.

“Holy shit,” Eddie breathed. “He’s not just good. He’s God’s gift to swimming, son of Poseidon levels of ability here. If you’re right and someone did this to him, I hope they fucking hang for it.”

“Kick him out of the sport at the very least,” Wayne said gruffly. “Maybe even criminal charges if they call pull them.”

Eddie nodded. “Speaking of criminal charges, how the hell did you convince Chief Hopper to get me off mine? Because I should have gotten probation at least. A criminal record and jail time at the worst.”

Wayne looked him straight in the eye. “Because I know everyone deserves a second chance. Not everyone is like your daddy. He used up every ounce of goodwill he had with everyone before they locked him up threw away the key. Hopper was a delinquent before he got into a big enough trouble and his parents sent him to military school.”

Eddie’s eyebrows went up. That explained a lot more than anything else he knew about the man. “And you what? Covered it up for him? Took the fall? What?”

Wayne chuckled and shook his head. “No, nothing like that.”

Eddie leveled his uncle with a glare. “It must have been something big because he picks me up every day and is part of the trio that has to sign off on my paper work. That’s not a small favor, Uncle Wayne.”

“That’s certainly true,” he agreed. “I was a character witness for him to adopt his daughter, Elinor. He’s pretty damn sure that if it wasn’t for me going to bat for him they would’ve never let him some much as foster let alone adopt.”

“Yeah,” Eddie said, nodding thoughtfully. “That is a pretty big favor.”

“You being good to him?” Wayne asked after a moment.

Eddie reared his head back and tilted in confusion. “Who? Hopper?”

“No,” Wayne scoffed. “Steve. You might have not have known at first what he went through, but you do now. So are you being good to him?”

Eddie opened his mouth to instantly reply ‘of course!’ but he forced himself to stop and think about it. “I don’t really spend enough time with him to be one way or another, but I haven’t gone out of my way to be a dick, you know?”

Wayne nodded and then picked back up his paper and Eddie knew that was the end of that. He went back to watching videos of Steve completely smash his American teammates to smithereens. Like the way the guy moved through the water was like a hot knife through butter, it was that smooth.

Then he pulled up the video. The one that ended the guy’s Olympic dreams for good. They were all at the starting line and everything looked normal. Calm. Then the gun went off and suddenly it all went wrong. The spring board literal flew out from under Steve. He tried to correct his trajectory, but Eddie could see he only made it worse.

He clung to it desperately, but his head bashed the side and suddenly he was under. Sinking like a stone. People held their breath as they watched, waiting for him to surface again. But he didn't. Suddenly, a streak of white flashed by everyone and dove in, straight for him. The figure grabbed Steve and dragged him to the surface. When they both crested the surface, it revealed just exactly who his savior was.

Robin.

Somehow there wasn’t any blood, just a giant bruise where he hit his head. Eddie can tell he’s unconscious and Robin barely holding on. Then finally a couple of the coaches jumped in after them and helped pull him to edge of the pool where EMTs were waiting with a stretcher. They immediately wrapped his neck in brace and then carefully hauled him out of the water.

All this to fucking commentary. Like Eddie wanted to reach back in time and punch those assholes until they bled. Sure, tell people what happened. But this? This was disgusting. A play by play.

Eddie exited out of the video and threw his phone on the sofa next to him. Afraid of the water. That’s what Jeff had suggested back when he first started doing his community service. Murray had even suggested something to the like. But this? This cinched it.

Fuck.

“Would something like almost drowning make you afraid of the water?” Eddie asked out loud, chewing on his lip and rubbing the bottom of his lip.

Wayne looked up from his newspaper again with a questioning hum. So Eddie repeated the question. “Could do, I suppose. Trauma is a bit funny like that. Why do you ask?”

Eddie told him about Steve’s avoidance of main pool and how he stayed to the kiddie pool and endless pool. “Like he obviously takes showers and shit, so it’s not a complete aversion, but it’s something, right?”

Wayne hummed again, this time more thoughtfully. “Certainly sounds like it’s more than something, Ed.”

Eddie slapped his knees and stood up. “Right, I think I know what I need to do.” He grabbed his phone off the sofa and patted his pockets to make sure he had his keys.

“I’ll be back later,” he called out over his shoulder and Wayne hummed his acknowledgment that he heard him, before he was flying out the door.

He got in his van and drove straight over. He skidded to a stop in front of nice house in Loch Nora. He barely managed to yank the keys out of the ignition before storming up the stairs to the front door. He pounded on the door until Gareth opened it.

“Hey,” he said with a grin. “Your dad’s a psychologist, right?”

Gareth blinked at him a moment, unsure what was going on. “Dude, you do realize it’s barely ten o’clock on a Saturday? You know, that day most people use to sleep in?”

Eddie looked at his watch for a moment and then looked up at his friend with a chagrined expression. “Sorry, dude. I can come back later if you want.” He jutted his thumb behind him at his van.

Gareth peered around him and then looked at Eddie blearily. “No, no I don’t want to unleash you on the unsuspecting populous when you get like this.” He turned around and waved for Eddie to follow.

Eddie bounced on his toes for a moment trying to decide if he should come in or not. He was about to decide not, when Mrs. Hughes came around the corner.

“Eddie!” she cried cheerfully. “You’re just in time for breakfast. I’ll throw another couple of slices of bacon on the griddle for you.”

So he came in, lured by the promise of bacon.

“So what did you need to my dad about?” Gareth asked, setting the table for breakfast.

Eddie jumped, nearly forgetting he had a mission. “There’s this guy at the pool they have me doing community service at, who has a shit ton of trauma and I wanted to ask him for advice on not accidentally fucking the guy up worse, you know?”

“That’s admirable, Eddie,” Dr. Hughes said, coming into the kitchen with the newspaper. “Trauma is such a tricky thing and by educating yourself in knowing where the common landmines are is good place to start.”

Eddie sighed in relief. He had been worried that Gareth’s dad would tell him to keep his nose out of it.

So once breakfast was on the table and they had dug in a bit, Gareth’s twin Gethin having spent the night at a friend’s, Eddie started telling Dr. Hughes all about Steve.

Dr. Hughes nodded. “Trauma in relation to pain is a tricky thing to unravel because they avoid the thing for fear of getting hurt again.”

Eddie nodded, soaking up everything and even taking notes. “Thanks, Dr. H, this was really helpful. I won’t feel so nervous around him anymore.”

“You’re a good kid, Eddie,” Dr. Hughes murmured. “I’m glad my personal psych profile was able to help in keeping you out of jail. It never sat right with me that poor people have to resort to crime to stay afloat and then be punished more severely for it.”

Eddie blushed. “Thanks for that, too.”

He knew was reductive to claim that it was Hopper that got him off, especially when so many people came out to help him stay out of jail and out of having a criminal record. But Hopper’s testimony was certainly the most memorable.

He finished breakfast and then spent time with Gareth going over the next session of their current D&D game.

Come Monday, he was going to help Steve in every way he could. Because if anyone knew the consequences of having a shit hand dealt you, it was Eddie.

~

Tag List: CLOSED

1-@mira-jadeamethyst @rozzieroos @itsall-taken @redfreckledwolf @zerokrox-blog

2- @gregre369 ​@a-little-unsteddie @chaosgremlinmunson @messrs-weasley @cryptid-system

3- @maya-custodios-dionach @goodolefashionedloverboi @val-from-lawrence @carlyv @wonderland-girl143-blog

4- @justforthedead89 @irregular-child @bookbinderbitch @bookworm0690 @forgottenkanji

5- @anne-bennett-cosplayer @yikes-a-bee @awkwardgravity1 @littlewildflowerkitten @genderless-spoon

6- @dragonmama76 @ellietheasexylibrarian @thedragonsaunt @useless-nb-bisexual @disrespectedgoatman

7- @counting-dollars-counting-stars @tinyplanet95 @ravenfrog @swimmingbirdrunningrock @lingeringmirth

8- @gutterflower77 @a-lovely-craziness @just-a-tiny-void @w1ll0wtr33 @beelze-the-bubkiss

9- @chameleonhair @sadisticaltarts @dreamercec @xxfiction-is-my-realityxx @mac-attack19

10- @aol19 @eriquin @tartarusknight @gloomysoup @morallyundefined

[shigayokagayama]

Could you do Teru for the ask game?

oh boy. ok.

Sexuality Headcanon:

gay. specifically. ok. maybe my most strange and specific take. but i feel like teru being into girls would kind of make his character arc... weaker? bizarre sentence i know but. hear me out. of the shots we get of him before mob enters the picture, 2/3 of them involve him flirting with girls. post mob we never ever see him with a girl again aside from one omake where there are a crowd of them trying to ask him out on valentines day who he is turning down. i feel like we are supposed to see these relationships as being a part of his fake, "perfect" persona he sheds rather than anything that came out of general interest. he's dating them because he's the handsome popular guy and that's what he's supposed to do, not because he's actually interested at all.

Gender Headcanon:

i like bigender teru a lot

A ship I have with said character:

terumob GIANT ASTERIX in the very specific context of being post confession arc. i see heart eye panel as the exact moment his false, idolized image of mob fades away and he sees him for what he truly is and still chooses to love him flaws and all. i really do think they are able to understand each other on a much deeper level than most people because they have both seen each other at their lowest and still chosen to continue wanting to be in each others lives. they both coped with their powers by creating these perfect masks to show the world (teru's as the prodigy and mob as the nice guy who will do anything for you and never ask anything in return) and were the first to be able to identify each other's facade because they recognized themselves in them and 💥. they mean a lot to me. also i do think the "they dont hang out much post canon" thing is a slight misconception, teru says they dont plan hangouts much and usually just run into each other and hang out from there. that with teru's "you should ask me to hang out more" gives such "im so used to other people making the first move that i havent developed the skills to let people know that i want them in my life" energy it makes me a little insane. anyway.

A BROTP I have with said character:

i need him ritsu and shou to run in circles hitting each other with rocks. i think any two of them on their own hang out normally and if you have the three of them + mob its normal but just the three of them and they start inventing games like "powerline volleyball"

A NOTP I have with said character:

pre confession arc terumob. like mob would never because tsubomi but if they did date it would last one month and they would never speak again itd be so bad (spoken from experience by a person with similar attachment issues who has dated people ive been hyperfixated on before)

A random headcanon:

HES SUCH A FILM BRO I KNOW HES A FILM BRO. this kid's letterboxxed is comprised solely of 1960s horror films made on a budget of 2 dollars and if you watch any of them with him he will provide trivia the entire film. also he has npd source fucking look at him

General Opinion over said character:

hes my favoriteeeeeeee the first time he showed up with the wig i went "alright this is gonna be my favorite character" and i spent the first half of season 2 mournfully going "i miss haystack boy :(" every episode he wasnt in. and then i read the manga and i got crazy insane over him. i really do feel like the anime dumbs him down a lot manga teru is a completely different person and hes so interesting i need to like. tear holes in my drywall. god. teru.

[waechan]

nct dream hyung line; small moments

just little moments with each member.

fluff, slight angst (mostly cute)

⋆.˚

lee mark:

you two have been best friends since birth

he knows everything about you, and you know everything about him

he has a soft spot for you, confessed when you found him pacing at your doorstep one day with flowers

pretty quiet at school, sorta nerdy, but cute nerdy!

likes computers, plays basketball for fun

always sends you game pigeon as an excuse to develop conversation (even though you two are already dating)

plays guitar for you to help you fall asleep

you sing along with him sometimes and he always stares at you, smiling softly

works at his friends moms daycare and helps check the kids in and out

its late, 1 in the morning, and he calls you

you pickup, his voice is groggy

"can you come over?"

"of course."

you're there in an instant, you open the door, and you see him standing there in his pjs, looking lost

immediately you walk over, hug him tight, and he holds you, refusing to let go

"what's wrong?"

"i don't know what i'd do without you."

it's all he says, and it's all he needs to say.

"i love you too, mark."

2. huang renjun:

he was your tutor, and hated you, actually.

well, before you two started dating. and he fell for you without realizing. and you made him confess because you were tired of him being stubborn.

you were social, he wasn't

that's really all there was to it

you two basically competed for teachers pet privileges

it didn't start out that way, but you two got competitive for no reason

obviously he was smarter than you

"can you just shut up and listen to me for once?"

"can you just man up and admit you have feelings for me?"

yep, that's how it went.

he blushed

stumbled over his words.

you kissed him

he fell even harder.

little bickering moments like this always reoccurred in your lives, and sometimes people were convinced you actually hated each other

one day the two of you hang out with some of your mutual friends

you leave the cafe after having an intense debate about whether or not mint chocolate chip ice cream is overrated or not, leaving your friends behind after you had to go

"honestly, it tastes like toothpaste."

"can you just agree with your girlfriend? that's all there is to it."

he holds your hand and kisses the back of it as the two of you walk back, and nods

"yes maam."

3. lee jeno:

he was every girls dream

how did you manage to end up with someone like him?

by far the most popular guy at your school

everyone he looked at managed to become flustered

you were the sweet, yet quiet girl in the back

he still noticed you, every day he would look back at you without you noticing

one day, you were having a hard day

you just wanted to go home, wanted to sleep, wanted to forget about all the events that had happened prior which took a negative toll on your health

you see a piece of paper fall on your desk and the silhouette of jeno's shadow passes by

you look up and see him staring at you across the room

he nods

"open it." he mouths, his eye smile appears

you do so, and you immediately smile as you see what's inside

"turn that smile upside down!"

god, of course he had one chance and messed it up. it was so cliche, yet so jeno

and you didn't care that it was a bit on the cheesy side

you walk by him at the end of class

"i think you meant frown?" he gives you a look of confusion.

"wha- oh. oh shit."

popular jock, quiet girl. observer, and recipient.

sometimes though he needs help from you too

one night he stops by without even telling you

he walks through the door, hugs you, and pulls you into the living room

"nap time. please." he sounded so tired, so done.

you chuckle.

angel sent from above. that's what he was.

4. lee haechan:

best friends older brother

shouldnt even be an option tbh

but haechan was haechan, his teasing made you blush, his small acts of care for you never went unnoticed

the three of you went to a cafe

your best friend ordered, then went to the restroom

you ordered your drink

he pushed you to the side

ordered his drink as well

paid for you like nothing happened

"haechan you really didn't have to-"

he puts a finger to his lips as his eyes twinkle, and he smiles gently at you

"i wanted to"

fast forward

you're official and he will not leave your side

always attached to you, in public he glares at any guy who stares at you for a millisecond too long

you walk into a clothing store and the worker smiles at you

"hi, do you need help finding anything?"

haechan pops out of nowhere and grabs your hand

"uh, no, i think we're good, thanks."

he pulls you away immediately

"what was that for??? he was just asking for help..." you whine

"nuh uh, no he wasn't. i know how guys work."

you chuckle. just go with it.

whatever makes him happy.

⋆.˚

let me know if you want the maknae line version! it's my first post on tumblr:) i am taking suggestions as well

[tlgtw]

Bits and pieces of the still incredibly written backstory of Elden Ring continue to poke out from the dogwater, as it were.

St. Trina, as we learn, was a specific aspect of Miquella that was made separate: In Miquella's words, St Trina was the embodiment of his 'love.' And when he abandoned St Trina, he abandoned that aspect of himself that made her.

This newly introduced example reveals to us what the nature of Radagon's exactly was, in turn.

Radagon, the 'other half' of Marika in the exact same way that St Trina had been for Miquella, we learn here, had *himself* been a specific singular aspect of Marika's emotions or feelings.

With St Trina having been made out of Miquella's 'love.'

You wonder, too, what Radagon should have been made from.

What aspect of herself did Marika separate into her second person, as called by her the "Loyal Dog of the Golden Order"? We know Radagon was created prior to the creation of the Golden Order itself, since he was involved in the invasion of Liurnia.

So at the same time as Marika was married to Godfrey, begetting Godwyn and Mogh and Morgott. Radagon was married to Renalla, begetting Rykard and Radahn and raising the potential successor of Marika--the Empyrean Ranni. He was given a massive amount of responsibility, the seeming crux of the Liurnian-Leyndell alliance that ended the Liurnian Wars that Marika's empire was losing, and he by every account was completely dedicated and successful; even weakening the strength of the Carian royal family by reducing their practicing of astrology.

All yet, when push came to shove: After Godwyn was assassinated and Marika sought to destroy the Elden Ring. It was Radagon who dropped everything he had and stepped in to stop her.

"Proudly" as his Golden Order Greatsword says,

Radagon divorced his first wife, married his 'original self,' begettedthe Twin Prodigies Miquella and Malenia as two more potential successors to Queen Marika, set up the brutal inquisition and censorship of the Age of Radagon headed by his own son Rykard, and was even involved with the very the development of Golden Order fundamentalism!

Radagon did so much fucking stuff! He was so damn proactive! So what exactly must he have been!?

That Marika initially separated from herself? And who went on to try and stop her very own plans when they turned against the wishes of the Greater Will??

This conflicting 'half' of her original person! That nonetheless was all this strongly willed on his own!?

What part of Marika COULD Radagon have originally been!?!?!?

And it's awesome. It's really really well-designed writing.

Frankly, even, it's genius. It's not anything revolutionary in terms of narrative devices or anything like that, but it's really elegant. It's really meaningful and concise, and it's really cool!!!

A lot of Elden Ring's base game is, or now maybe--was. (It having been the basis of my entire show on YouTube.)

But the actual story, instead of solely the backstory, of the DLC, unfortunately, is not!

You ever seen a boss item whose entire description was literally entirely the game just fucking QUOTING ITSELF?

Hyetta at Frenzied Flame Proscription: "Become their lord. Take their torment, despair. Their affliction. Every sin, every curse. And melt it all away. As the Lord of Chaos."

Ghost outside Church of Inhibition in Liurnia: "Ahh, Lord Vyke, it seems that you were no lord, after all."

Midras's Flame of Frenzy, from killing Midras, Lord of Frenzied Flame:

Or! Better yet, ANOTHER boss spell, whose entire description is dedicated to literally just acknowledging its fucking colour!!

Land of Shadows, from killing the Scadutree Avatar:

I definitely sure wish I still hadn't!!

In fact, I don't think the level of vacuousness from Shadow of the Erdtree's descriptions has ever been seen before!

Not even in Dark Souls 3!!

AUGH

[calder]

 Fallout 3 was originally in development at Black Isle Studios, codenamed Van Buren, but it was cancelled when Bethesda bought the IP.

 At one point, designer John Deiley was creating an area called the Nursery, a Noah's Ark-like location which housed pre-war fauna.

 He planned to have Pagans and Wiccans take up residence here, but Chris Avellone allegedly said no, banning them outright.

scream

not to dwell on the dev tension of this too much -- it's very exciting to find such a strong link between V29 and occultism

would really love to pick this guys brain

edit oh my god. yeah cool we can "disprove" the headline of this anecdote by identifying the cult in the van buren design doc. i can also read the top of the article. wanna unpack this?

"He said, 'You are not to bring Paganism or Wiccanism or anything into the game,'" Deiley recounts. "I said, 'Well, Chris, what do you think happened to these people when the bombs went off? Did every one of them just vanish from the face of the Earth? When you consider the whole purpose of the Nursery, wouldn't they make the perfect tenants and tenders?' [He said,] 'I've made my decision' and just turned around and walked off."

@ChrisAvellone: There was a faction you could join, do quests for, and potentially lead in Van Buren that was a pagan faction (Daughters of Hecate). Might have bad info from source?

Deiley said 'he pointedly told me i wasn't allowed to develop this faction descending from pre-war pagans' avellone defended himself by saying 'but i made my own faction which could be called post war pagans'

deiley is describing a thing that happened. the oral history of fallout is richer for this detail & the impulse to entirely deny the reality of his account by calling another van buren faction pagan is an unflattering defensive technicality

these two men worked on eight video games together. they stood in a room together and one of them shit on the other one's creativity repeatedly. his defense is 'he described it imperfectly; i proceeded to do that idea myself'

i just wanted to learn more about the creativity of this furtive fallout vet.

the accusation that someone 'banned paganism from a fallout game' is not remarkable or meaningful enough on its own to be worth negating. we know for a fact deiley was responsible for talking deathclaws and chris avellone killed them and publicly made hostile jokes about it. he complained about deiley's idea (which he already killed) for being hippie shit for a quarter of a century.

WOULD THIS MAN SHIT ON AN IDEA????????

"I’ve always hated aliens in Fallout, for example, and as I’ve often told Tim Cain, I was pretty fucking pissed off he thought including ghosts in Fallout was a good idea. It’s like you’re opening the goddamn door to the spirit world in a post-apoc game, and that’s a whole separate aesthetic detour in a franchise that’s already been placed in danger of losing its direction by being given to a bunch of newbs.” -Avellone, recounting the first time he worked on a fallout game

someone described how avellone stomped on their idea and the rebuttal is that he implemented a similar one elsewhere

it is embarrassing that he responded this way

[x-liv25-jamieswife]

my ranking of the tig/tgg ships. this is my opinion (i think that gigi will end up with slate but since we literally dont know anything about them, i’m not including them obviously). this will probably change as the rest of the tgg series is released (although the first spot wont ever change). i love every single ship on this list. just cause one is at the bottom of my ranking doesnt mean i dont like it.

1. avery and jameson: i think this is quite obvious if you know me. they're my favorite ship in the entire world. their dynamic, banter, development, tension, chemistry etc is just out of this world. none of the ships in the tig universe will ever compare to these two. no words will ever be able to properly describe how much i love them.

2. hannah and toby: i think about what these two could've been a trillion times a day. we don't even know that much about them yet they still manage to be on of my favorite ships of all time. i'm so excited for their novella (even though i know its going to destroy me). they're the epitome of right person wrong time (aka one of my least and most favorite tropes). toby's letters to hannah have made me cry more times than i'd like to admit and everything about them is just pure perfection.

3. libby and nash: again, we don't know much about them but they're literally so adorable and complement each other so well. i wasn't very sure about them at first because i felt like libby was just another one of nash's projects and not an actual love interest, but i now absolutely love them. i love how libby went from sort of not liking him to falling in love with him (she never said she didn't like him but whenever he was around in tig, she would tell him to shut up and stuff) while nash just immediately fell for her. i'm so excited to read more about them in games untold. im sure the fluff is gonna be tooth-rotting (im hoping they're story is gonna help me recover after reading tobannah's novella)

4. savannah and rohan: i honestly really love their dynamic and banter. the tension between the two of them was unmatched and i'm really excited to see where this is gonna go. rohan is so down bad for her its crazy (this dude would not stop thinking about her). rivals who cant keep their hands to themselves, vow to destroy each other, and then become lovers? fuck yeah.

5. max and xander: the only reason they're not higher is because we don't know a lot about them. that doesn't mean i do not absolutely adore them though. i think max and xander are perfect for one another. i feel like they're each other's confidants and only allow themselves to be vulnerable around the other. they're also super unproblematic which i love (no angst (that we know of), just fluff). i think they make each other happy and that's the most important thing.

6. lyra and grayson: i feel like this is the most controversial part of this post. most people really love them but, personally, they're not my thing. i do like them and find them cute, but i just feel like jlb has written better romance. this is obviously subject to change because the rest of the series isn't out yet. they complement each other really well and all, but i just think that they're sort of plain (i don't mind plain when the couple isn't the main focus (like maxander and libbynash), but lyrason is one of the main ships so i just expected more). i also think they're rushed. i know that there will be complications in the next two books and that they're not officially together, but i feel like they shouldn't have kissed at the end of book 1 and stuff (i wanted to add that there's a difference between rohannah's kiss and lyrason's kiss. lyrason already have feelings for one another (their kiss was romantic and fluffy). rohannah on the other hand kissed each other simply because they're physically attracted to one another, they don't have feelings for each other yet. ig you could say lyrason's kiss felt more like an ending (if that makes sense??? idk how to describe it). i want to reiterate that this is my opinion and i do like them, i just think there's better.

6. rebecca and thea: i really like their story, their angst, and the two of them together, but my hatred for thea keeps me from loving them. thea is one of the worst characters in tig (excluding the villains) and i feel like rebecca deserves better. although, like i said, i do like the two of them together, i don't think they're endgame. i think thea is a little unhealthy for rebecca (i mean, thea knew that rebecca struggled with her self worth and shit and still chose emily over her relationship with rebecca the night emily died). idk i feel like thea's priorities aren't straight, and she needs to get therapy and realize that some of her behavior isn't right before committing to a relationship with rebecca (i also think rebecca isn't in the right state of mind to be in a relationship. she needs to find a way to overcome her self-esteem issues before entering a serious relationship with thea. i feel like if she doesn't, their relationship would just become toxic and unhealthy because rebecca wouldn't stand up for herself when needed). i have a lot more to say, but i'm probably just gonna make another post about it.

honorable mention: emily x trash. i think they have a lot of chemistry and they should probably be first but im not ranking them cause emilys dead and the trash deserves better.

its like midnight for me as im writing this so i apologize if some of this doesn't make sense. again, this is my opinion, and you are obviously entitled to your own.

[callmeklair]

How would you rank the boys from most to least possessive? Kind of random question I know but I'm just interested in your opinion :3

it makes me really happy knowing you all love my opinions even though I feel like that's it's been long since I read a few routes and hopefully don't make any misinterpretation 😭

I didn't know what kind of interpretation you wanted so I gave my opinions in what way they were and now are possessive and why.

there are chances some people's ranking might not match with mine but I tried my best to rank the boys based on my (not so horrible) memories. it was difficult to do overall so I did family wise because many boys were ending up on a tie.

(don't forget to read the conclusion note!!)

I ranked based on them giving freedom to Yui from least to highest !!!

Sakamakis:

1. Ayato: it's wayyyy too obvious that Ayato is the most possessive out of all his brothers, and one of the reasons being Cordelia's obsession to make him no.1 which narrowed down his mentality to "yours truly" and always getting/acquiring "first class things" it can also be seen in the anime how obsessed he became to make Yui only his after being the first one to taste her blood, to the point he left hickeys on her before she went for a bath. I wouldn't say his possessiveness towards Yui was just as "a prey", more than that, his obsession to be number one due to Cordelia surpassed that reason as Yui's blood was considered special as it was the finest of its quality in the whole world, according to them.

Kanato: I haven't read his routes much, actually I tried to but just couldn't make myself sit through it, but based on what I have seen in anime and some routes, he is one of the most possessive ones after ayato (maybe?) and.... not in a good way. I don't think I need to expand on it because we all have sat through it in anime in scenes with Kanato. though there are chances he might have changed a little(?) in future games, Kanato stans are free to come and correct me because he is one of the characters whose content I have never read much.

Laito: it might be surprising to some but let me tell you, his possessiveness started on Yui as "a prey" behind that facade he puts on due to what Cordelia did to him. it's more like he is conflicted. his possessiveness is way too conflicted because of Cordelia. openly, people think that he let's Yui to be shared to others but I think it's more like, he don't wanna succumb to any feelings or have anyone special to him, to the point he don't wanna be possessive to someone in either good way or bad way. but ofc, after staying with Yui, he finally started to open up and slowly became possessive (in mid of MB maniac/ecstasy, then VC and further) I would say he is a silent possessive man, because people will think he is being carefree but he is indirectly protecting Yui (encounter with Carla and Shin in DF)

Reiji: the only reason Reiji is considered more possessive than Subaru is because of his obsession to not let Yui in contact with Shu, which is of course because he was scared. Seeing how everything eventually belonged to Shu, no matter if he wanted it or not, meanwhile he, Reiji, being neglected by everyone, even servants, he was scared to lose Yui to Shu. and thus he was such a nasty possessive man in the first game, but his character slowly developed and his possessiveness turned towards the direction of sweetness. it was good to see how he went from being scared of Shu snatching Yui away to not feeling the fear anymore and having full on trust on Yui which is a very big thing in Reiji's case.

Subaru: because of his distrust in women due to his mom, even though he was possessive with Yui, it was not in a good way but, thankfully, eventually as he became comfortable with her, he slowly became a sweet gentle boy. what I liked the most was that despite being possessive he let Yui freely roam around but magically appeared whenever someone advances at her. tsundere.

Shu: my lazy sloth, who doesn't want to have anyone close to him because of his past. he was the least possessive for obvious reasons but gradually as his relationship with Yui developed and he came out of his bubble, his possessive side could be seen. Just like the other two before, he did give freedom to Yui but easily gets jealous so his possessiveness was never in a bad way that much.

Mukamis:

(these brothers were so hard to rank because they are equal to each other when it comes to possessiveness)

Kou: ┐⁠(⁠´⁠ー⁠｀⁠)⁠┌ he was very much possessive of Yui in MB but in a very wrong way due to obsession of Adam's apple plan but thankfully by the end of ecstasy he started becoming a little normal. he gets easily jealous, so Yui always watch out for herself. in conclusion, he is the most possessive in his brothers and thankfully it went from toxic to normal possessiveness.

Ruki: livestock. yes that's the word he used to rationalise his toxic possessiveness towards Yui for completion of his plan. it was cute to see how he went from being possessive as "master" to being possessive as a jelly boyfie. plus one of the reasons he is very possessive with Yui is because he can never get any "undisturbed" alone time with her due to his brothers which makes his actions ,when he is being possessive with her, very cute.

Yuma: my sweet Gardner boy. (Yuma Stans help me because I'm out of words (⁠╥⁠﹏⁠╥⁠))

Azusa: my cinnamon roll and one of the members of "eve's no. 1 protector" club. Azusa is cutely possessive (if we ignore the knife obsession in starting). best boi, will do anything for Yui. Might not look possessive of Yui but he secretly is but more than that, to him her happiness matters the most. I read somewhere that in his route in chaos lineage it was revealed he asked Karlheinz to turn back time 3-4 times??? I'm not sure if i remember it correctly but this also directs towards how he remembers in almost most of the routes in CL, and in some, to us readers, it's indirectly hinted that he remembers but he is hiding it.... but that's a topic for another day. also feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. and we got distracted from the topic.......

Tsukinamis:

Shin: insecure possessiveness. after losing his eye and getting his pride hurt, his only aim was to surpass his brother, Carla, which he was never able to. just like how Carla wanted recognition from his father, Shin wanted recognition from his older brother. this is why he was so obsessed to get Yui in every single route, even in his own route. this is why I loved his route, because of the development. minor details matter too. his toxic possessiveness turning into normal boyfriend possessiveness yet the goal to acquire her remaining the same but not in toxic way (LE being an example when he pushed Yui away to keep her safe no matter how much he wanted her.)

Carla: he is such a beautiful composed character, that people aren't aware about the rate of his possessiveness. unless you have read any Carla route, you won't know how bad is the possessive rate in Tsukinami family. as he was raised to be a king, he hides his emotions well which is also the reason why it took him time to realise his own feelings but when he did, the possessiveness (⁠ﾉ⁠´⁠･⁠ω⁠･⁠)⁠ﾉ⁠ ⁠ﾐ⁠ ⁠┻⁠━⁠┻

because of DF Shin, Carla is on second rank or else his LE route was dangerous for my heart. ifykyk

→ I didn't rank kino because I'm totally not aware with his character so I didn't wanna make any wrong interpretation.

in conclusion: all of them were toxic-ly possessive at some rate but slowly as the more time they spent with Yui and developed their character, their nature of possessiveness also started to change. I rated the possessiveness based on the freedom they allow Yui for.

any diaboy at first rank doesn't mean that they don't give freedom to Yui at all, it's just less compared to others and their jealousy level is ↑

why did this post go from possessive analysis to character analysis, I'm sorry, i just loose the track so much while writing (⁠╥⁠﹏⁠╥⁠)

[stars1997]

Lover Boy - Part 1

Warnings: None

Pairing(s): Jeremy Swayman x Fem!Reader

Summary: Y/N Ullmark gets a job with the Bruins as their new photographer. They haven't seen each other in a few years, some things have changed. What happens when her brother's best friend develops a crush on her?

________________________________________________

“Hey guys today’s media day as you know, we gotta get our roster shots. We have a new photographer so do me a favor, be nice to her, she’s ullmarks sister.” I heard Brad Marchand say from inside the locker room. A series of cat-call whistles went off in the locker room before I heard my brother clear his throat. I roll my eyes. Here we go, I think to myself. “Completely off limits to every single one of you. Don’t even think about it.” He says. The whistles continue and I let out a laugh a little louder than needed. The locker room went silent. “I guess I’ll come in now,” I said, stifling the giggles from seconds ago. “As you guys know I’m Y/n Ullmark, your new media girl. So if you guys could suit up and head out to the hallway in 20 that would be great!” I say, and just before walking fully out of the locker room, I saw someone I recognized, Swayman. The last time I saw him was when he first got signed and became best friends with my brother. He looks a little older now. We locked eyes, he gave a smile and a wave which was returned before I headed to the hallway to set up. I set up my camera stand, the lights, and the background as the guys were lining up. A few of the boys jokingly hit on me, but I took it lightly. I could tell I was going to love this job. I was down to the last two guys which were Pasta and Sway. After photoing Pasta it was just me and Sway in the hallway. “Y/n, it’s been so long. How was school?” He asked. “Ah, he speaks. School was awesome but it definitely had its ups and downs. I’ve been keeping up with stats, you guys have been doing really well. Are you excited to be in net for the rangers game tomorrow? I hear they’ve got a new bruiser, Matt something?” I asked while fixing the lighting for his photo. “Matt Rempe, yeah I’ve heard of the kid. Make sure you get my good side tomorrow. No bad angles.” He joked. I laughed and playfully pushed him into position for the photo. I snapped a few good headshots for the roster and some full body for the Instagram, which I now run. Most of the photos weren’t usable since he kept making silly faces at the camera but those were the photos I knew the fans would adore. After taking his pictures he walked back to the locker room and I started putting away the lights and backdrops. This took longer than I thought it would. Almost all of the boys had left by the time I was almost done putting it all away. “Hey, Y/n do you need any help with all of that?” Sway asked from down the hallway, walking out of the locker room in jeans and a flannel, while putting on his hat, flipping so it's backwards. “Oh no its okay, I’m almost finished.” I responded with a smile. “Are you sure, its really no bother.” He said. “Y/n, is this guy bothering you?” My brother asked, stifling a chuckle as he walked down the hallway towards us. “Hey Bubba, Sway asked me to go get drinks with him, would you mind putting the lights and tripod in the closet?” I asked my brother sweetly, watching Jer’s face drop into a puzzled expression out of the corner of my eye. “Wait, what I-“ My brother started. “Thank youuuu.” I interrupted, grabbing Sway's hand and pulling him toward the exit. I turned around to see my brother still standing there shocked. “No need to worry bubba its just as friends, promise.” Once we walked about of the arena I let go of his hand. “Alright tendy, where are you taking me for drinks?” I asked as we make the short walk over to his truck. “Well, since I don’t have much of a choice I was thinking Brock’s bar. Have you ever been?” He asked unlocking the doors and opening his own. I opened mine and grabbed the handle at the top to pull myself in. “Oh come on Jer don’t act like you don’t love my company. I’ve been once or twice but I don’t really remember those nights honestly.” I joked, and we both laughed at the hard truth while he started the truck.

[talenlee]

Why Is Druid?

Say that like ‘where is Wizard Hut?‘

I love the 4e Druid. This is a marked change from how much I liked the 3e druid, or how often you might see me playing a druid in a Baldur’s Gate game. Back in 3rd edition, the druid, despite being very powerful, never really engaged me, in part perhaps because I was always trying to find something exploitative and powerful rather than merely accepting the juggernaut of a toolkit the game just left in the Player’s Handbook. You couldn’t get clever with the Druid, you just had to pick it up and use it, like some sort of society of creative anachronisms where one of the anachronisms available to the players was has gun. Valid, but hardly sporting.

The Druid in 4th edition is different. Wildly different. Weirdly different, and different in one of those ways that shows what I think of as a seam in the design between 4th and 3rd editions of D&D.

The Druid was one of 3rd edition’s great mistakes, a full spellcasting class with healer capacity to serve as a pinch-hitter healer in a group that wanted things a little more varied, addressing an enormously complex potential build from its earlier edition, 2e, and all in the process, resulting in some deeply confused mash up of abilities that attempted to address confusion with volume. The druid of 2e had a special unique set of rules compared to the Cleric — for example, at a certain level, you passed into a specific category of Druidic ability and now you were technically a Hierophant, and Hierophants had seven extra spells of every level. Of course there was a limited supply of Hierophants in the world, so there was a question of if you could level up if another one existed, and maybe there’s a one-in, one-out policy? First in, first fired?

Anyway, I can’t speak to how it played, but I am at least aware, on the edges of it, that the 2e druid was odd. It had a lot of things it could do, but much of how it worked, reading the books, seemed to be interesting but challenging to manage. You could wild shape, you could heal, you could cast utility spells, you could even fight with some melee weapons — personally, I didn’t see any of it worth it, because none of the things it could do it could do very well.

3e addressed this seeming difficulty by instead taking all those different options and bringing them all up to the same level. Wild Shape worked by checking traits of monster units, which meant that you weren’t limited to specific reinterpretations of animals and instead could do what a druid feels like it should do — you know, turn into an animal. The spells were rebalanced and shared across different classes, which meant that they tended to work in a more standardised way. Armour rules were aggregated, and weapons were made less terrible.

The result was that the 3e druid went from being ‘decent’ at a bunch of things to ‘good’ at everything it wanted to do. The problem of the druid then became about picking the thing you wanted to at every opportunity, and doing a good job of it — you’d have druids carrying wands of healing so they could dedicate their spell slots to more important tasks, like Flame Striking opponents, or messing up the battlefield with roots. You’d also see druids keeping the ‘best’ list of animals on hand, and every new monster book presented a new chance for druids to develop a new best form.

It also created the strange question of What does the druid do?

The answer was ‘everything.’

The 4e Druid, in comparison and contrast to these designs is something very different that touches, at best, on the periphery of what the 3e Druid could be. I mean it stands to reason, you can only ever touch on doing everything when something you’re working from is so powerful. 4e with its role system of Defender, Striker, Leader and Controller, and its reliable, reusable balance math suddenly was confronted with fitting an elephant into a shoebox.

How do you represent something busted that could do everything in the context of a new system that sought to explicitly prevent that? I joked when the game was new that the four roles were Defender, Striker, Leader and Miscellaneous. That any class too powerful, with too much stuff it could potentially do, got thrown to the Controller role as suggested by the first Controller we ever saw being the Wizard. Oh and back in Player’s Handbook 1, the Wizard had a few builds that were pretty ridiculously pushed — the pinball wizard, I’ll talk about it sometime — and that meant that it was easy to feel like the Controller Does Everything.

That impression diluted through experience, of course, and eventually it came to that while yes, the Controller sure has some Miscellaneous vibes, the core of what the Controller was there to do was to attack the enemy action economy. Nice and obvious to a non giga-nerd, right? Okay, how about this: The leader lets you do more things, the controller stops them from doing more things?

And into this space, they poured the druid.

It works beautifully, for my tastes; the druid needs to do lots of things to feel properly druidy, but you need to make sure the doing lots of things doesn’t unbalance the game. Controllers have the widest variety of things they can do and ways they can do them – inflicting status conditions, changing enemy position, preventing specific action types, making areas on the battlefield inaccessible, these are all ‘controllery’ things, and that means there’s a lot of different ways you can flavour them. The Invoker is most famous for making zones in the play space hard to deal with, the Wizard has a build that slides things all over the place, and the psion controls people with immense penalties to their damage rolls.

Obligatory pause where, while reading this aloud, for either Fox or I to comment on how amazing it is that Dishearten is an AOE power.

Anyway, the druid was designed to be a mode switcher class. That is, there are two ways a druid can do things. One is a melee controller that makes a single target’s life harder, the other is a ranged controller that makes a large group of enemies’ lives harder. This mode switching then adds a new element to the class that your powers can interact with, where you now have control powers that can add a mode switching element to them as well. This is your Wild Shape – you transform into some kind of nonspecific beast, which can use your Wild Shape powers. Each form has fewer powers to manage, and you can build your druid to specialise in one or the other or do a mix.

This lets the druid do the ‘a lot’ without letting them actually do everything. You have a lot of choices and a lot of ways to play with those pieces, but even just how often you use the mode switch is part of what the druid does to control the battlefield. When I first played a druid, it was not uncommon to start a fight out of wild shape, use the first turn to make some kind of area control power, then shift into wild shape for the rest of the fight kicking people into that area control power. There are druids builds that work like wizards and only ever shapeshift to get away from problems, and make a hit while scuttling away, or to sit on a specific type of problem. There were druids who focused on summoning monsters and using them as kind of turrets on the battlefield, positioning allies in a way that benefitted them around those summons.

Lone artillery combat encounters, where you have a bunch of stuff in front of a long-ranged attacker? Druids love those. Even at level 1, that artillery is spending their days completely stuck underneath a Fire Hawk power.

Problem is, of course, that if you want to do Everything doing a Lot is going to miss something. That was what led to the subclasses of the druid, the ones that added healer elements to the druid, because the druid back in 3e could do that. It added animal companions, because the druid back in 3e could do that. Now I don’t worry too much about these things because if I wanted an animal companion on my Druid, I’d take a theme for that, but also because these changes were introduced in an Essentials book.

Which is to say, they’re crap.

They’re not crap crap, like I try to defend Essentials as giving players a choice for simplified character builds, but in the specific case of the Essentials Druids, in order to work with the simplified choices, these Essentials druids with their animal companions and their healing powers have to look at all other Druid powers and not use them. The only use they get out of their animal companion is using the specific subset of powers that make them work, and that makes combat more samey. But again: That’s a thing you probably want if you want a simplified build.

Still, it gives rise to my favourite joke – I mean like, funny thing, not really a joke, there’s no subversion of reality or anything here – about the Healer Druid. See, every Leader in the game gets an encounter power, usable twice a combat at level 1, that heals an ally with a bonus. Every class gets their own version that lets them distinguish their class specifically and add some interesting detail that shows how this Leader differs from other Leaders.

The Healer druid build gets Healing Word.

The Cleric power.

Literally, the same power, same name, listed as a Cleric power.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[unboundndd]

Hi everyone >:3

The Yone lover anon is here again!!!

OMG PARANOIA IS SO AGKSHSKABSHSHJSJSKS *convulses*

I have been analyzing every detail of the video clip and I have seen the statuses and tweets from the official platforms, it is always a pleasure to see our favorite swordsman interact <3

Well, getting to the point, I have already asked for this request but I wanted to see your execution cause, wow girl, I love your writing, it is exquisite :')

The request is this: Maybe a Yone x fangirl!reader?

Buuut, but but!! That their first face-to-face meeting was a surprise, I explain, she and Yone had met on Discord and had been interacting a little, when the two agreed to meet then she gets a BIG surprise, I hope I make myself understood

Sorry for the amount of text, I have expanded here

Anyway, I hope you take care of yourself and enjoy the new content that is coming out as much as I do

-🍄

Omg hi 🍄 anon!! ♡ Thank you so so much for your very inspirational Yone musings, I hope that me spacing out on the wordlbuilding a bit will not influence the pure fangirling that is going on in our heads!

In this universe Yone strikes me as someone who actually knows a lot about technology and i'm sorry... he produces music for rythm games. And yes he does those extremely complicated and highly detailed songs that are like the hardest charts in the game.

·:¨༺ ♱✮♱ ༻¨:·- Yone's career as a producer and DJ has not been the easiest one, the genres that fascinated him the most were usually not appreciated by a wider audience. The busy notes of electronic samples overlapping one another weren't designed to appaise the need for easy listening music in convenience stores or to climb the charts by becoming viral on social media, in fact the most recognition Yone's music had gotten before heartsteel was in the small niche of rythm game players.

·:¨༺ ♱✮♱ ༻¨:·- It was never the big game developers that contacted him, they had collaborations with world renouned producers and famous idols that voiced their characters. On the other hand smaller studios would often ask him to make one or two tracks for their games, which Yone would gladly accept to do. Despite the limited reach the producer was still proud of his work, always buying a copy of the games where his music appeared and keeping in touch with the communities that formed around them with a discord account that would't reveal who he really was.

·:¨༺ ♱✮♱ ༻¨:·- You were just a casual player of one of those games, sometimes coming into its dedicated discord servers to chat with like minded people. When people asked you about your favorite songs in the game you would most likely reply with one of the songs Yone produced, often going into detail about what made them resonate with you so much and what made them so unique in your opinion.

·:¨༺ ♱✮♱ ༻¨:·- Under the guise of anonymity Yone would sometimes join the conversation, asking questions and indirectly getting some feedback from you, even finding it helpful with his writer's block sometimes. It was enough for the man to send you a DM to discuss more of your shared music tastes, hoping you'd reply.

·:¨༺ ♱✮♱ ༻¨:·- Your discussions quickly settled into a developing friendship, you knew the man had an extensive knowledge in music theory as he would sometimes ramble about it with you and he also told you that because of a new job offer he would become more and more busy as time went on. You'd still keep recommending songs to each other but the conversations would be less and less, you missed your friend but you knew that his work was more important than chatting about music.

·:¨༺ ♱✮♱ ༻¨:·- That was until Heartsteel's debut was announced with a small teaser, showing all the members and a small snippet of their new single. You immediately recognized the familiar electronic sound of the songs that made you and Yone bond in the first place, the nostalgic feeling making you smile. You decided to send a link of the teaser to him, asking for thoughts and sharing the hype about the new band.

·:¨༺ ♱✮♱ ༻¨:·- Yone had never felt so guilty yet glad that he never revealed that he had produced those rythm game songs to you. You were so familiar with his style that you spotted it immediately, you could've uncovered that he was actually part of the band! He tried to stop himself from asking more of what you thought of the members, thought of him, but quickly surrendered to the fact that hearing you gush about how much you liked his music gave him even more reasons to keep going.

·:¨༺ ♱✮♱ ༻¨:·- When he asked who your favorite member was he almost spit water on his midi keyboard, causing Aphelios to turn around to see if he was alright. Yone composed himelf quickly, yet the message you wrote kept resonating in his mind. "Oh I'm totally in love with Yone, looking at him and his interactions on twitter he sounds like a bit of a band mom and I find it really endearing! He looks like a really calm person who surrounds himself with a ton of unhinged friends! Too bad he hasn't revealed his voice yet! "

·:¨༺ ♱✮♱ ༻¨:·- Of course all of this didn't go past Aphelios, Kayn, Sett, K'Sante and even Alune. They realized he was spending more time than normal on his phone, reading your thoughts on the new promotional materials that were being posted. Kayn was the one who confronted him first and could not stop laughing when he realized Yone had started to develop some feelings for you, scrolling trough the messages the younger man could also see that you were starting to feel the same way for him.

·:¨༺ ♱✮♱ ༻¨:·- As much as the Kayn was amused at the absurdity of Yone falling for his online friend turned fangirl, he alsoknew he had to help his fellow bandmate, barging into the common room to tell everyone what was going on and fill Ezreal in as he was oblivous to the whole ordeal. It took all of them a good half hour to concoct a plan to make a meeting between you and Yone happen, then another half hour was needed to convince the producer that this was indeed a good idea and that you would not take it as badly as he imagined.

·:¨༺ ♱✮♱ ༻¨:·- When Yone said he wanted to voice chat with you out of the blue you were a bit confused but excited. You were happy to hear his voice after one year of being friends and made sure to reserve a few hours just for him, as you went about your day your mind started to wander a bit about what it would sound like and if your conversations would flow just as smoothly as they did via text.

·:¨༺ ♱✮♱ ༻¨:·- You were starting to feel a bit nervous when you picked up the call, timidly muttering a "hello?" and waiting for any sort of reply. "Oh Hello, it's nice to finally be able to associate a voice to the person." You could not help but squeal a little on the inside, who would have known that his voice sounded so rich and felt so mature? The two of you talked for a while about how long overdue your call was and how time had flown since you first met, it truly didn't feel like your first conversation at all.

·:¨༺ ♱✮♱ ༻¨:·- You finally gave into the curiosity and asked him if there was any particular reason for Yone to have wanted to voice chat now and his reply almost left you speechless. "So... I'm know that you're very excited about the debut of Heartsteel, one of my coworkers managed to get two VIP tickets and backstage access. The thing is that the person they bought the other ticket for cancelled last minute and they gave it to me." A carefully crafted lie exited Yone's lips, all to give you an excuse to go meet him.

·:¨༺ ♱✮♱ ༻¨:·- You couldn't help but feel a slight pang of jealousy for how lucky your friend was but you wanted to be supportive and expressed your joy for him and how excited he must have been. "Wait, you've got it all wrong. I wasn't planning on keeping the ticket." You froze for a second, all sorts of possibilities racing trough your mind. Then you heard it the notification of a discord message from Yone, he had just sent you the ticket. "Wait... so you want me to go?" You heard him chuckle as you were slowly realizing what this would imply, your heart couldn't race more than this. "You deserve to go and see them, you've kept an eye on them for a long time now. I don't want to impose it onto you so think about it for a while and let me know, will you?" Useless to say that you spent a very long amount of time asking him if he was sure about it and then thanking him profusely, this truly was one of your dreams come true.

·:¨༺ ♱✮♱ ༻¨:·- During the day of the debut concert the Heartsteel's members grand plan was put into motion: security was well aware that as soon as your ticket number was checked in they would have been able to identify you. Security notified their manager Alune and gave her a detailed description of your looks, she too felt happy about what was going on in Yone's life and told him and the other boys to concentrate on the performance while she took care of things in the background and made sure to give you and the producer ample time to talk.

·:¨༺ ♱✮♱ ༻¨:·- You had the time of your life at the concert, seeing how much energy and stage presence Heartsteel had in real life made their music video pale in comparison. The stage felt electric and once it was over you couldn't help but feel dizzy and overloaded but also oh so happy, seeing Yone and Aphelios playing alongside the other members was the highlight of the concert for you.

·:¨༺ ♱✮♱ ༻¨:·- So many things were going to your mind when you were queued up for the small meet and greet that was beeing held backstage, you were one of the last people and when it was your turn you couldn't help but feel like Sett, Kayn and Ezreal were all treating you like they somehow knew you already... and they were all hiding something. You felt their gazes following you as you finally approached Yone and even he looked like something was amiss.

·:¨༺ ♱✮♱ ༻¨:·- You tried to ignore the feeling, you were about to meet the artist that managed to capture your attention so easily and always kept you wanting for more. You would not let this special occasion be ruined by your gut feeling! You took a few steps and prepared to greet him, hopefully having enough time to tell him how good his performance was and how much you enjoyed rooting for his success. Before you could even say a word he anticipated you and for a second you thought you had misheard everything he said.

·:¨༺ ♱✮♱ ༻¨:·- "Wait... how do you know my discord username?" You heard a few of Heartsteel's members chuckle, you did not realize how quiet the room had become as you were the last of their fans there, the laughter was interrupted by Yone speaking again. "Cut her some slack everyone, it's normal for her to be confused right now." Yone could see your eyes widen in realization you recognized his voice, he was your online friend! The one who would always listen to your rambles about the latest chart topping songs and give you his insight on what would make them so popular, the man who somehow knew your taste better than you at this point and was able to always give you spot on recommendations... ·:¨༺ ♱✮♱ ༻¨:·- The grounding touch of his hand on your shoulder snapped you back into reality, you blinked at him in disbelief and confusion... and then realized about how much you fangirled about him while being unaware of who you were talking to. "There must be many questions running trough your head right now and I don't blame you if you're angry at me for never revealing who I really was. If I hadn't been under such a strict NDA at the time maybe things could have been different..." ·:¨༺ ♱✮♱ ༻¨:·- You gave the man a reassuring smile, you understood why he did what he did and suddenly him asking you what you thought of all the new trailers and promotional materials made sense. You were kind of honored to have been able to give feedback -although unknowingly- to a talented artist such as him. "Maybe I could clear some things up for you over dinner... I was too nervous to eat anything before the concert." You gave him a quick nod and he motioned you to follow him, you saw him gather his laptop and headphones and haistly put them in a sleek looking backpack and then taking out the keys to his car. The rest of your time spent backstage was a blur, his hand around your back was swiftly guiding you through the various areas and muttering to security guards that you were with him if they happened to enquire about you. Once in his car he could finally drop the persona and relax a bit more, the Yone you had met online was starting to show himself more and more. "Do you have any particular preferences for food?" He asked while making his way through the still packed streets of the city. "Mmh... I think I'll leave the choice to you, after all you just performend in front of thousands of people on an empty stomach." You replied, smiling at how kind he was being to you even though he must have been starving for hours. "Fine, I saw a ramen small ramen place on my way here before the concert. It will give us enough privacy for me to finally make things up to you."

[walnutcookie]

What have you been thinking about lately? (:

HI THANK U SO MUCH FOR THIS ASK . SMILES SO BIG!!!!!

i have been thinking about walnut so much lately.. more specifically her character development as well as her relationship to both roguefort and her mother. ill focus on her and roguefort more in this post though :] im gonna try to be comprehensible in this one but thisll be a doozy

reblogs ok!

what i find interesting is that in every case we've seen walnut and roguefort BESIDES their release event, walnut has always defended them. In the butter painting affair she knew that they would have left a calling card, in the lost holiday she knew that they wouldnt have done any harm to eggnog cookie, and in face the trial she knew they wouldnt have stolen something with such little value. Theres a big contrast between her first interaction with them in their release event and how she treats them from that point on, and its clear that they dont have quite the rivalry that was shown in that first event. Walnut isnt nipping at their heels every chance she gets lol

i think that from the start, roguefort has always been fond of her,, in a mentor or parental way almost; they see her potential. they see her skill. they want to watch her grow, to see her learn from her mistakes and become a better detective and a better person. in the lost holiday the calling card was a gift itself - they know how much she loves doing detective work and they want to encourage her, though if they break character then the game isnt fun anymore and it feels less genuine ,, so they observe her from a distance. I do think that they wish they could care for her more but they have to be discreet about it since theyre. yknow. A thief and supposed to be her most hated rival (be weird abt these two btw and i will eat your fingers)(dont ship them)

i dont know if this was intended to be canon or not, but thinking about how roguefort left in their release event feels,,, strange? If the boat was far enough from the docks that nobody was trying to stop them, then surely they couldve escaped with the jewel still in their hands. sure, they threw to distract everyone and allow them to escape, but there was a Whole crowd of people there ? if walnut had caught the gem, someone else could have jumped onto the boat and caught them. i like to interpret it as them trying to reward walnut. While they werent going to turn themself over just like that, they wanted to give her a prize for being smart enough to solve their puzzle. They wanted to encourage her by giving her back the gem, even if Cheesecake had a spare and nothing would have really changed if they had kept it :]c

heres my interpretation of them, and its mainly based off of the lines "One logical answer always exists!" "One logical answer? Sounds rather... dull."

in the start, walnut did consider them rivals. She was pretty young at the time and still figuring the world out so she saw them basically as a supervillain, basically just a person filled with pure evil intent and thats... Obviously not who they are. but little wawer just saw someone stealing and went Ah evil!! Evil!!!!! you are WRONG and you must be STOPPED!!! And thus their rivalry began. Also why she was so bitter towards them in the first event :]

in the events of search for lost time/pursuit of lost time, though - and keep in mind, this is completely based on my own headcanons since we hardly know anything abt these costumes - walnut realizes a shift in their behavior. At some point, they even put their own life on the line just to save her... would an evil, cruel person really do something like that? Why would they risk themself to save her when all shes ever done is try to have them arrested?

this is when she starts to realize that not everything in the world is black and white. Not everything has one logical answer. What is rogueforts motive? that is one messy question with multiple answers and none of them are logical. This also goes into my headcanons with her relationship with almond but thats for another ask heehee... Walnut starts to realize other things, too. Roguefort always leaves a calling card, and theyre always incredibly polite to everyone, even the authorities,, of course thats just phantom thief stuff but she realizes that they really arent just some villain. Theres much more to them than some urge to cause mischief and steal from others. in my timeline, all of the other events take place after search for lost time/pursuit of lost time, and this is where walnut starts to defend them rather than just try to chase them.

At this point, i dont think walnut wants to see them behind bars anymore. that was pretty clear when she was distraught at the sentence cappuccino gave them. i think shes conflicted about them. She wants to know the truth about who they are, and why theyre doing everything. She wants to see them change - for them to start doing good. but at the same time, she doesnt. at the same time,,, roguefort is one of the only ones who takes her seriously

Almond is the most guilty of this, and ill elaborate on that in another post, but oh Boy does he make walnut feel worthless and dumb. walnut is always trying to act more mature, more professional and less child-like despite Very much being a child, first example off the top of my head being her not wanting to decorate her office for the holidays and also the way that she always calls almond by his name instead of mom/mother(or dad/father if we're not talking about my hcs lol). She doesnt want to be treated like a child. and to some extent, yeah, people baby her!! almond told cappuccino he was scared that shed eat a Rotten jelly are you fucking kidding me ? (dont even get me started on the one twitter art where hes worried that roguefort kidnapped walnut i do Not consider that canon because from what weve seen abt how he acts towards roguefort?? No the fuck he wouldnt????) he didnt want her to be involved in the butter painting affair because it was "dangerous" despite it basically being identical to other theft cases shes dealt with and there wasnt any violence to begin with. in her story even, people usually let her investigate just because shes cute which.. works in her favor but also FRUSTRATING because its only because shes a kid. almond is always talking about how worried he is that she'll get into trouble and YES she is a child she does need some sort of supervision but shes also so much smarter than people give her credit for. she has so much potential thats being wasted purely because people think shes too young, though at the same time, i think walnut overestimates herself. i think that because of the lack of support she gets from almond and other adults in her life she tries to go above and beyond to Prove that shes better than she actually is and that shes worthy of being a detective and taking on more cases and ends up getting hurt because of it (cough sflt). she tries to act more mature because she wants people to take her seriously but she is a Child and thus people will just look at her and go "Aww! what a cute little detective :)"

i think that the reason why shes so involved with rogueforts cases is because theyre the only one who takes her seriously. They do tease her about it - this is seen throughout all of the events but most specifically in the first one when she gets upset at them calling her "little detective." though they still take her seriously. They see the skill she has now, and they dont just see what she could be in the future. theyre more focused on supporting her now and giving her encouragment and more puzzles to solve rather than babying her and telling her she'll be a great detective someday like everyone else. thats especially important to walnut considering almond does Not show her the same support and is more often restricting her and trying to get her to stop

if roguefort were to stop, to be arrested or to decide that their life of crime was over, walnut wouldnt have that support anymore. Thats terrifying to her. while she does want what is best, there is also a part of her thats a little selfish and just wants things to stay the same forever.

idk where to put this but im elaborating more on her wanting to learn more about them. because really she shows a much deeper understanding and respect than most other characters despite them being her supposed rival ? Lost holiday in specific was so funny because she was so chill with them like "yeah i know you probably didnt do it lol i just needed to have u here just in case" ANYWAYS just the fact that she keeps standing up for them is enough to show how much respect she has for them. The general public is SO cruel and dehumanizing towards them through either idolization or vilification or both at the same time and shes one of the few who actually treat them like a person. she doesnt like it when people are unnecessarily cruel to them, like almond insisting that she stays out of the butter painting affair despite them not committing the crime or her reaction to the harsh jail sentence cappuccino gave them. Both almond and cappuccino are characters who are very close and friendly with her, might i add, and yet she still wants to protect roguefort. She knows that they deserve so much more than how the public and how authorities treat them, thief or not.

anywasy yeah um. In summary. i think that the two lines "One logical answer always exists!" "One logical answer? Sounds rather... dull." symbolize them quite nicely ... roguefort is a motivation for her, a mentor disguised as a rival. they teach her more about the world and detective work. they made her realize that not everything is black and white and taught her to people and situations in more complicated shades of gray. and i think that it goes the other way, too - in a world where roguefort is so Deeply misunderstood and misjudged, walnut tries to stand up for them and does understand them, to a degree. better than anyone else at least. she gives them hope.