#i like when ppl post how long it took them to play a game and what they did like it gives me a good idea how long it'll take me

[aro-aizawa]

oh heck yea idk what i did but i managed to resurrect my longest da:i save file so im very happy.

[sweetheartsaku]

—ot5 txt ; txt as a little more than friends

a/n : [fem!reader] AHH MY VERY FIRST REQ BY @bxckkdoor 😞💞💞 thank u sm u have no idea how grateful i am jskdeds <33 im so sorry this took so long... theres been some things happening irl rn </3

lupine !

yeonjun ; espresso - sabrina carpenter

ALWAYS HYPING YOU UP whether that be on your latest insta post, most recent snap, on call as your studying or even when you’re getting up to order something 😭💗

the best friend who hyung card activates when he sees you slightly uncomfortable from pricks on public transport or anyone, he finds a slight threat. on trams, one hand is on the handle, and one is wrapped around your torso (not waist cuz yall are ‘friends’ and doesn’t wanna make you uncomfortable!) BOUNDARIES PPL

JEWELLERY MAKING!! mentioned in another ot5 post, he loves making little bracelets or picking some cute ones up from stalls. gets cute and silly charms that remind him of you

prefers to take you out to night markets and restaurants, preferably cold dessert or ramen at home. loveloveloves both!!!

soobin ; must be love - laufey

loves to take pictures of sunsets, but ever since you guys became friends its always you taking a picture of the sunset too 🥹 2 of his favourite sights <3

has absolutely no hesitation in sending things over to your house. whether you’re sick and need food, falling behind and need books, hungry and want takeout, mention it once and the uber is at the door

CUTEST photo booth results. when you pass one, yall are bound to snap a couple pictures. you both have quite a collection of photo booth pics, and obviously some polaroids too!! always a couple on your wall and the back of your laptop and the back of his phone.

offers to carry you when your heels get too painful. thats it. thank you for coming to my ted talk.

beomgyu ; you get me so high - the neighborhood

mentions you in vids on tiktok that say iconic duos and it’s your initials with his, or sends you videos that are like 2 friends doing the candy bowls trend with MHA paper wigs on LOL

waits for you to tie your laces if he doesn’t get to them first. most of the time he’ll crouch in front of you and watch you tie them. sometimes you just need to wag your foot and he’s already there subconsciously but it's never in a slave way?? just a habit 😭 “can u tie my laces” “you’re so LAZY smh.” proceeds to tie them

weirdly knows when you’re not sleeping. he’ll text you on a day where you’ve never implied you were going to stay up, so when you get a text from beomgyu its like he knows you so well “GO TO SLEEP???” “EHY DO U HSVE CAMERAS ON ME”

writes your initials on everything!!!!!!! sometimes yeah he'll sneaky a heart over your paired letters, and loves to doodle over your arm or something <3 quite the artîst i say

taehyun ; don't wanna fall in love - KYLE

as much as i don't like saying grabby hands he does it sometimes. when you cross the road, his hands expect to be around yours when you cross. very endearing 10/10 would steal my heart in an instant

very playful sometimes 🥹 (THE VOICESS I CAN'T HOLD IT IN ANYMORE TAEHYUN I LOVE YOUU) bumps his waist onto yours, lightly hits you with whatever's light, just likes to be fun and cozy with you. is very comforting and easy to open up with!!

he gives super nice massages. i dunno. like out of the blue, you or him will be talking to someone and his hands are on your shoulders. he's very gentle with it, and the tension in your body slips away so quickly.

lots of mirror selfies (kinda wants u to compliment him hehe)!! whether it's a new fit, in the changing room, at the gym! he's so pretty i cannot do this anymore.

kai ; forever out of time - tokyo tea room

the most FUN (friend?) dates EVERRRR!!! whether it be visiting the animal shelter, going on picnics, ice-skating, but last but not least (and also his favourite) is simply staying at his or your house and play cozy games on the switch :)) don't forget the noodles, blankets and movies!

his hands brush over yours way more than a normal friend should. maybe it's from being so used to clinging onto his arm or something, it's like magnetised. his arm is like... ALUUUUUURRING.

SO MANY 0.5S AND TIKTOKS. always filming something cute and trendy, a dance, sentimental trend. like yeonjun is always hyping you up in posts or stories, commenting liking favouriting EVERYTHING!!!

wrote the date you guys met on his controller. very small, on the right corner of his switch, in white paint pen with a smiley face next to it (he's so sweet i will cry on you)

[thatdeadaquarius]

@goldensunsetchild Asked:

Hello there! I know that you might be busy right now but I wanted to let you know an idea that I have, greatly inspired by your post: spanish reader who gets homesick but instead of getting depressed by it starts to do things they used to do back on their world. Dancing to their traditional dances while singing their accompanying songs, teaching the children the games they used to play when they were younger and also telling folktales to everyone who is interested in listening to. If you decide to do this idea and want to incorporate things from Costa Rica, please let me know and I'll help you with anything you need (⁠◍⁠•⁠ᴗ⁠•⁠◍⁠)⁠✧⁠*⁠。

(Content under cut)

HELLO YES SORRY IT TOOK ME SO DAMN LONG TO GET TO THIS!! 😭 /gen

I went to Costa Rica back in highschool in 2018? I think, and when I tell you I FELL IN LOVEEEE <3333

Costa Rica is a beautiful country and everyone was really nice, vibes were immaculate 🤌 ✨

☆

Sun: Costa Rican Reader! (you/they/them)

Stars: Sumeru cast

Comets & Meteors: Content Warnings: None known & Trigger Warnings: alcohol usage/drinking game.

Orbit: Headcanons-ish

☆

when u first crash landed in Teyvat, people luckily recognized you from when u were a player!

and u took in whatever culture and traditions everyone was so excited to show you as they were kind enough to give u clothes/food/shelter etc.

butttt… it did get overwhelming after a few months, and u got homesick more and more often :(

after all there wasn’t really an equivalent country to Costa Rica, and you couldn’t just take a plane back home, you were stuck here for… however long it takes someone to leave a video game universe??

You decided to actually do smth abt the crippling depression and “outsider” feelings instead of just rotting away, and went to Sumeru to get closer to the greenery of your home,

it made you feel a little better, but it could be the best, so u decide to lowkey force everyone in Sumeru to convert to Costa Rican LMAO

so ofc u did the most logical thing to convert ppl to a culture, the food!

u helped fund a small restaurant full of classic Costa Rican foods (coughandsoyoucaneatitwheneveryouwantcough)

(u still have the insane mora leftover from what u had in game so ur basically one of the richest ppl in Teyvat ngl 💀)

u recreated just the basic gallo pinto/casado with what was available (some beans from Natlan and rice from Inazuma/Liyue, the Ajilenakh nut from Sumeru acc kinda acts like plantains :0 and local fish/greens for salad)

Needless to say Sumeru is fascinated by the new cuisine and esp since its not a secret that you’ve funded it/made the menu from your homeworld

Alhaitham orders the casado most of the time bc he “admires the exact proportions, its all the nutrients you need, perfectly balanced” NERDDD

Tighnari likes barbudos bc there's not a lot of egg dishes in Sumeru but there are a lot of greens, so he “likes the familiar in unique combinations!”

unsurprisingly, Cyno likes Chancelta bc he can pick it up, eat it quickly, and go on with his patrol

Collei, Kaveh (and secretly Dehya lol) really like being able to munch and snack on sugar cane, (and the plantain imitation desserts!)

(u found sugarcane deep in sumeru forests, it was like on ur world, but sweet flowers sprouted out of the stalks too!)

You decide the next phase was to introduce dances and other fun stuff!!

Nilou was literally shaking with excitement to learn the traditional dances <3 (and also getting ur permission to add fun twists or Sumeru elements to them)

the kids that like to hang around and watch the troupe practice (and join) absolutely got obsessed with swing criollo, it was so cute to watch them all pair up and kinda trip over their own feet trying the footwork out

(u may or may not have teared up bc the band learned how to play a Spanish song for u guys to dance to, just for you)

teaching the theater troupes musicians how to adapt upbeat songs like Caballito Nicoyano or Ticas Lindas

omg getting Nilou Kaveh Faruzan Cyno Dehya (and Dunyazard!) to do the calipso limonense always cheers you up, (which is why they are so eager to do it when ur feeling homesick ❤️‍🩹)

Kaveh steps on too many people’s toes, Dehya gets dizzy from the spins/turns easily, Faruzan keeps spinning for too long, Nilou and Dunyazard are actually secretly latina bc they're so good at it (did they outdo you?? no, no they couldn't possibly-)

and Cyno just really likes the little dance line everyone makes lol

speaking of the General Mahamatra

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD

u CANNOT teach Cyno a new game from your home country, and expect him to NOT be the most competitive mf in Teyvat abt it

that's actually how u spread any games from back home, Cyno just does all the work for you and challenges ppl to things like jackses and no one knows what it is

which he then proceeds to strong arm them into learning and beat their asses at it

(yes Cyno wins against you a lot, sorry lmao)

You definitely had a drinking game centered around it one time and the consequences changed with each person who lost

like Cyno had to learn how to cook tamales that were edible, and more importantly..

Alhaitham had to at least attempt the swing criollo lol

(was it unfairly attractive? maybe. was watching Nilou, who was teaching him, and Alhaitham both do swing criollo 2x as attractive?? that's just for u and the Sumeru vision users to know)

SPEAKING OF ALHAITHAM

absolutely hilarious, yet also impressive?? how quickly he picked up ur slang

smug bastard picked it up based off sheer context/vibes too, u didn't even explain it to him, just u trying to go sit down in ur Costa Rican restaurant and he pulls u back before someone mows u down saying “hey, suave un toque-”

YOUR NECK FUCKING CRACKING BC U WHIPPED AROUND TO LOOK AT HIM SO FAST LMAOOO

(ngl u scared the fuck out of the poor scholar before he got all smug abt knowing slang)

accidentally spread this knowledge to other vision users bc he got in the habit of casually using it, tbh more often when ur not around lol (Alhaitham being caught having habits bc he's fond of other ppl?? never)

his favorite is “qué chante…😒 ” obv lol

so now the forest rangers use stuff like pura vida and tuanis sending each other off on patrols! Collei so cutely excited to explain to other Sumeru ppl or tourists where the words come from and what they mean, spreading ur Costa Rica agenda very well 👌

and the mahamatra like to use “Jale pa’la choza” when coming back from the desert to Sumeru city homebase! :)

ALSO bonus:

u absolutely got leyendas into the bedtime warning/ghost stories of the entirety of Sumeru children lmao

u start spooking kids like Dori (Nahida finds them fascinating)

and after awhile u notice Cyno and Dehya mentioning watching out at night for La Llorona or los cadejos 💀??

like you've genuinely made them paranoid, bc they wanna be sweethearts and protect you from them, like even if they don't believe they exist, they're worried you do and are trying to make u feel better lol <3

☆

an iced coffee? for me?? :O 

Blessed be Costa Rica, such a lovely country when I went, and as soon as I got off the plane coming back the first thing I did was make a Costa Rican meal the best I could

like got my mom to prep from dry black beans and rice etc. as fresh as we could get (nowhere near costa rica level btw) and made fresh guac and fried plantain chips and salmon I think? literally cooked the first night back bc I knew I missed the food already/knew id get sick

and I was RIGHT, that food I made was fine, but any other American food so bad I got nauseous

I literally got sick COMING BACK TO THE U.S like 😨???!!! I knew it was bad but not THAT bad lmao

and the first meal I had after that was still a homecooked meal, like my mom made it💀

love the coffee from there too, we even ordered coffee from the farm we visited when I got back to US it was so good (10x better than American obv)

THANK YOU BTW GOLDEN!! FOR BEING SO PATIENT AND LOVELY TELLING ME ALL ABT COSTA RICA <3333

I hope this did some amount of justice to ur beautiful home! :)

Safe Travels Golden Child,

💀♒

If you wanna join a taglist, DM me what for! "Pspspsss, please tag me for [All SAGAU posts, Only SAGAU Language AUs, diff fandom, etc.]!"

(If you ever wanna drop, just DM me! "No more taglists/specifically this AU/fandom, please!")

♡my beloveds♡

@karmawonders / @0rah-s / @randomnatics / @glxssynarvi / @nexylaza / @genshin-impacts-me / @wholesomey-artist / @thedevioussmirk / @the-dumber-scaramouche / @chocogi / @fallen-starr / @areaderofbooks / @devilangel657 / @esthelily

[seamayweed]

sea you are so right for your squid game tags too we should be seeing junho contemplating how to drag inho off the island while inho contemplates cooking him alive or not all while both of them know they would only do half of that (potentially they’d do so much worse) …. like where is the s1 energy of them being painfully obsessed with each other and proving themselves to each other ,,,,, also get wi ha joon OFF those damn boats and in front of lee byung hun instead

al!!!!! sorry this took so long, but thank you so much for this ask - i'm so happy we are in hwang bros hell together!!!!!!! yes yes yesss i want the brothers to meet each other in the middle or work out some way to be together and reconciled and by each other's side instead of separated by an ocean like this... my heart can't take much more of this, i fear.

i'll SCREAM if we get a mirroring scene where this time it's jun-ho who holds out his hand and says "come with me" to his brother, and then, and then!!! what if in-ho took his hand and they embraced and jun-ho tipped the both of them over the cliff's edge into the sea?? because they had both become monsters for each other and jun-ho knew they could never come back from this?? cue love crime by siouxsie sioux playing in the background, except it's not love crime but fly me to the moon and we realize the song had been about these two all along. (yes, i'm still eternally thinking about the moment in s1 where we pan away from in-ho's face after his haunting by the apparition of his brother in the mirror and the camera zooms in to his record player/the moving figures just in time for the "hold my hand" part of the lyrics to be sung, which is such a clear reference to the offer he made to jun-ho and how he wished nothing more than for jun-ho to hold his hand/join him.)

like, it's so funny to me when i see posts where ppl say they want in-ho and gi-h*n to go full-on hannigram by embracing and falling down a cliff into the sea together because... we already (almost) got that with in-ho and jun-ho!! this imagery/motif/seaside setting was already reserved for them - i'm sorry, but if anyone is gonna go murder-suicide like that, it's the hwang bros.

oops i went off there. but i agree 100%!!! miss their mutual obsession and cat and mouse games from s1 so, so, so much... wi ha joon had better not waste most of his time and talent on those damn boats next season or ELSE!!!!!

[rassicas]

I think the concept behind Grizz is solid: a Former Bear who inadvertently Ship Of Theseus'd himself into Not Being A Bear Anymore ties neatly into the running theme of Judd and Lil Judd being the Only Mammals left: Mr. Grizz, whatever he is now, no longer counts as a mammal. But in execution... Yeah. They should have focused on the "Ship Of Theseus angle" and the fact that, in his attempts to bring back mammals, he's become more like the organisms that he's trying to destroy.

Ive gotten about a good few dozen comments on YT about this exact thing. but half of them being annoyingly condescending in the process for not bringing up this analysis in my Live (keyword live) reaction of me hating on the bear. i dont think ive really addressed how i feel about this particular thing because of how rude ppl were, but its been a while and youre being nice so long post incoming Anyway yes im very much aware of this 'ship of Theseus angle to grizz, I did see that "in defense of grizz" video. And honestly I do agree it is something about him that has interesting potential if they'd leaned into it more. Much of my distaste with the ending of ROTM is the build up and execution. They made the bear foreshadowing laughably obvious years too early, and then all the poor fools like me who care too much about splatoon's story had faith that "surely the splatoon team, who just made a story as surprising and serious as Octo Expansion, wouldn't handle foreshadowing the identity of their next major villain that badly" took the biggest L. IF the splatoon team had been more blatant that the Judds were the last mammals left throughout the series (the only time it was directly stated that all mammals were extinct before ROTM? in a dev interview. and for years nobody wanted to believe it whenever i tried bringing it up lmao.) if they weren't that on the nose about the bear imagery. if the only solid piece of deception they had about Grizz not being a bear in the entirety of splatoon canon wasn't in a paid artbook... if they were more deceptive about the fact, I'm sure i wouldve been a bit more accepting of the idea of him secretly being a bear from earlier on, and it would've been a cooler reveal. But surface level knowledge should be called into question by looking at the deeper evidence, not the other way around.

The ineffectiveness of the bear reveal is a culmination of Splatoon doing a frankly, bad job at putting whats supposed to be basic, important, worldbuilding knowledge in the game. I think the intended effect of the bear reveal was that the general audience of fans were supposed to have been like "woah, but all mammals are supposed to be all dead holy shit i cant believe hes a bear." and that info was supposed to put a wedge in the bear theories. but when 95% of the player-base anticipating splatoon 3 had no idea that all mammals (except the judds) are supposed to be extinct in the splatoon world and how that's an important part of its worldbuilding up until the announcement of the story mode, if at all...idk man thats pretty bad.

The way the info about mammal extinction was worded in the official news posts sounds like it was supposed to be common knowledge for Splatoon fans, not a surprise like it ended up being.

Anyway back to the execution, it would've been cooler if they'd leaned into that horror element, the fact that he's hardly even a mammal anymore. I think the implication is there. It is cool and fucked up in Splatoon's signature way! But again, I agree it would be better if it was played up or even acknowledged once directly, like in log.exe. Even with all the potential for bear Mr. Grizz to be cool, the years of too-blatant foreshadowing leading to a frustratingly disappointing reveal and the exact annoying plot holes i feared of has permanently soured the concept of him being a bear to me.

[longeyelashedtragedy]

Frank James Lampard OBE 👀

ougughgh, you whipped out the order of the british empire? 🫡 😳 maybe i was wrong to judge them teaboos back in the superwholock days (that's a JOKE)

@protect-daniel-james i'll respond here but i might use your ask to post some more Photos cause i'm not sure how to pick just one photo of the Long Eyelashed Tragedy

favorite thing about them: uhhh...so much? he gets me right in the FEELS, man. he tells on himself constantly and seems to be completely unaware. sadboi footballer with pretty dead eyes who loves to Read and took a little notebook with him on the team bus. the intersection of having it easy/privileged childhood & traumatic things that shouldn't have happened--i relate. exhilarating to watch his old performances and he seems like he'd be fun to have a conversation with. fascinating to analyze, this all feels sort of reductive...i'm very Fond of him and some of it is hard to put into words, but i feel very "what's not to love?" about him lol. and he has such a Narrative. he's very easy to write about though it probably doesn't turn out well at all (sounds great and deep in my head though)

also i find a lot of footballers hot but don't really experience significant attraction to them but he is an exception you know what i'm just going to end this here

least favorite thing about them: he lost weight after everton BOO HISS

favorite line: omg, frank james lampard OBE is funny because he's often so intelligent and articulate and then just whips out the WEIRDEST/most cringe thing out of nowhere. some examples:

-his "fight" with klopp on the touchline

THIS wtfery:

these BANGERS:

this classic example of childhood trauma "too old when you're young and too young when you're old" (what some ppl would call "entitled male athlete" but like..i know better than that lol). it's also just patently RIDICULOUS he was like 36...bolding is mine for the classic lines

But it was while on a night out in Manchester during pre-season that the ex-West Hamer star showed his new American team-mates exactly how ex-Premier League stars like to party.

Columbus Crew centre-back Josh Williams was with NYCFC at the time and he told the story to the Athletic.

...“This place is packed, multiple levels. And as soon as we walk in, you could see everybody recognise Frank. And it’s just me, my teammate and Frank and all the energy is just on him.

"He picks up a bottle, this huge bottle of Grey Goose, picks it up, opens it, just starts downing it. Passes it to me and goes, ‘Boys, we’re not putting this down until it’s fucking gone.’”

The trio passed the bottle around three times when the rest of NYCFC showed up.

After about an hour in the club, Lampard approached Williams and asked him about 'that game you Americans play where you throw the little balls — he’s talking about beer pong.'

ok let's see...

brotp: random one but i recently learned that he and ian wright are friends? and i just love that so much both as a gooner and a person. wrighty complements him well and is very...respectful lol. if we consider lamperry to be only one-sided romantic, then definitely lamperry

notp: franko x steven gerrard...there's only One situation in which i've enjoyed that ship (and it was an au). it does nothing for me normally, and i personally don't find stevie g attractive, so! again, it's like an "ew get it away from me" notp, it's just not my vibe.

otp: i mean...lamperry requited. franko x cousin jamie jamie jamie ....maybe someday they can give romeo and juliet their happy ending. and of course, frank and mason...i just really like this ship so much and it keeps my brain so entertained...even though it's not "healthy" and doesn't end well. these ships are all SO good!!!

random headcanon: oh gosh idk...i don't think i have any "headcanons" because everything he says and does in public just kind of tracks. bet he's done coke lol. idk

unpopular opinion: HOO BOY!!! here we go!!! i am aware that i have a wooby nature, but i actually like that about myself. i'd rather approach someone--anyone with softness and then tone it down when i decide they're a dick, than be uncharitable for no reason. that's my way and that's how it's gonna be! so that said...franko gets accusations of "arrogance" and i...i don't see it at all. it might come from his disingenous press conferences at chelsea and everton, but i see that as a man who has horrid self-esteem, was used to being treated by media and fans like a Starboy, and once he started doing badly, had no idea how to handle professional failure--not one single idea. remember on "diary of a ceo" over the summer when he said his first chelsea sacking was the first time he's ever failed professionally? that's insane. Like, imagine making it to age FORTY-TWO and not having a legitimate school or career disaster. that's insane to me. so he just put up a front and got cranky and defensive and funky about where he placed the blame (and to be honest--he has not done a good job as a manager, but he also wound up in some pretty dismal positions. taking chelsea caretaker manager was really shooting himself in the foot because that season just needed to be put out of its misery lol). i'm not saying he's a bastion of humility, or some misunderstood coaching genius, but i don't see him as any more or less arrogant than someone else. idk--i see a weird level of contempt for him that doesn't really feel deserved? he's just a sad sack. sort of a hubris tale in a sense, but also a tale of a man who is still stuck as a kid in some ways...i need to stop before i write a really bad dissertation lol

uh that said...

song i associate with them:

finally a footballer i can give a good answer to this for!!!

name me a better combination than me x lamps x pink floyd x this summer! comfortably numb, shine on you crazy diamond (all of it, but particularly sections vi-ix), wish you were here...

(i know this sounds basic...i know there are more i'm not remembering)

"money" in some ways because i listened to it while writing "visited upon the sons" (it hit me afterward that the fic and the song are structured in the same way...the chicken or the egg?)

from the oooold first days of the lampardverse:

behind blue eyes/a well respected man

also! wouldn't it be nice kind of reminds me of him and cousin jamie loool

favorite picture of them:

dude idk! i really love looking at photos of him! this is granit levels of difficulty...i Cannot choose so let's go with this sad sack from the blessed everton days:

[snowball-doie]

yes pls yap about your book xx

GURL WHERE DO I GET STARTED THERES 55 CHAPTERS AND 450+ PAGES- ummmm ok let’s see- we’ll start w the basics to get the ball rolling 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️

Now I don’t wanna hear a single thing about how my oc’s name is Aurora… I will mention rq that when I first started writing this back in Oct 2023, I did it alone, but then in Jan/Feb of this year, my friend made an oc named Kay and we decided to add her to the book— but my friend was kinda uncomfy writing about real ppl so we changed everyone’s names 😀 (it took so long). Here, I’ll just reference their real names so there’s no confusion, but if you see me tagging posts as “Jace thoughts” then it’s about this book, cuz we changed Johnny to Jace 🤝 ok let us go on w the plot.

Aurora started working as the boys’ new manager in 2018 after their previous one came under fire for treating the boys poorly in public. They hired Aurora cuz she’s trilingual (English, Japanese, and Korean). She went to school and worked in Japan, so she already had an in w/ entertainment in Korea, but applying to SM was lowkey just a meme to her, she didn’t think she’d actually get the job or have to move to Seoul. Welp! How the turn tables turned.

Anyhow, because she’s fluent in Japanese, Yuta IMMEDIATELY is like “you’re my friend now 😁” while the other boys take time to come around. And Aurora’s fine w that cuz they’re supposed to be coworkers anyhow— well technically she’s their boss lmao. But Taeyong is the next to get close w her because they do so much work together. Aurora recognizes that in order to make everything work like a well-oiled machine, she needs input from the boys, a voice from them to relay to the execs because she’s always just getting orders and the boys are never able to express how they feel about that. So her and Taeyong become like the mom and the dad of the group. She attends their practices, even if it’s just her sitting in the corner while she does work on her laptop. She’s at every single one of their events. And she gets Taeyong into important meetings so that he can be the boys’ voice rather than playing a game of telephone. It’s really nice. And to really encourage the boys to stay close with each other and whatnot, she yoinks the idea of the Dreamies’ friendship ring by buying the 127 boys matching small green pendant necklaces— But she knows that she’s not close enough with them yet for them to take the necklaces seriously if she gives them, so she asks Taeyong to take the credit instead. And it works. The boys wear the necklaces every single day, and Taeyong feels guilty as hell for taking the credit but Aurora always just laughs and reassures him that this is what she wants. Taeyong introduces Aurora to Ten, and the three of them become a lil clique. Meanwhile Yuta’s hogging Aurora by always hugging her, hanging out at her apartment, sleeping in her bed, etc etc. they’re very close. So close that when they get drunk together in her bed one night, they start making out, and he rolls on top, and she’s CERTAIN they’re gonna fuck until they stop and go “ya we’re just friends 🤝” lmaoooo

Anyhow. When COVID hits, Aurora and Johnny start to play video games and watch anime together because those are interests they share. They start to get closer, which is nice to Aurora because they were never really close before this. She always just thought of him as the frat boy type who spends his time seeing models outside of work and not the otaku kid who sits in vc with her from the minute they wake up to the time they fall asleep. During the Resonance era, Aurora’s meeting with all of the NCT boys to coordinate subunits, and the execs let her run these meetings irl (bless up) so when Johnny comes in, they talk shop for a bit til out of fucking NOWHERE this man goes “so what kind of guys are you into” 🙄 ok bud. Chill. But Aurora explains briefly that she likes guys with long dyed hair… She doesn’t care about things like eye color or height or weight or anything else like that. This mf goes “so are you into Yuta?” And she nearly falls out of her chair laughing bc no she’s not into Yuta, they established that quite a while ago. Anyhow! As Resonance era goes on, Aurora notices that Johnny’s growing out his hair?? And then he dyes it randomly one day without permission from the company, and he calls to brag about it???? Aurora calls Ten for the inside scoop….. which he doesn’t have, but she begs him to find out why the hell Johnny is doing this?? He’s being so weird recently! “Have you stopped to consider he likes you?” “What? No! Johnny’s the type to date models, to fly to different countries to fuck the prettiest women who are falling at his feet. He’s not looking at….. me.” “Aurora, he stopped fucking around back when you joined the company” HUHHH. Anyhow. Ten still does NAWT get the inside scoop, but that doesn’t matter, cuz when Chenle hosts a secret listening party of the album at his house, Johnny finally gets the balls to ask out Aurora and she says yes— And all the boys start trading around money. Apparently they took bets on whether or not he’d ever get around to it…..

Ok we’ve only just scratched the surface, but I’ve yapped a lot here so lmk what else you guys wanna know!! I can summarize more plot. Or I can talk about Aurora’s character, or her relationship/dynamic with the boys. Throughout the book, she’s close with different ppl, but the notable ones are Johnny. Taeyong, Yuta, Haechan (because of my other oc who he starts dating), Renjun, and Ten. I can talk about my Hyuck x oc plot line too— It’s childhood best friends reunited later in life and fall in love. Or I have 2 guy ocs, Haneul and Shiwoo who I can talk about. Shiwoo ends up w Renjun 🫣 Or there’s my friend’s oc, Kay, who starts w having a fwb relationship w Yuta until she starts dating Mark. She messy fr 😂

[guiltygearconfessions]

its currently 2 going on 3 years since i was introduced to the game guilty gear. at the time i was 17 ish and pretty unhappy with my life. i didn't know by then that a year later i'd be dropping out of school, and at the time i was stuck at home running parody accounts on twitter with a couple hundred followers like it was my job. i put a lot of effort into them, and through them i met a close friend of mine who ran a guilty gear account.

we get to talking, like ppl do, and i inevitably ask, "what's guilty gear?" to which they reply, "it's a badass fighting game. you should totally get it, rev 2 is dirt cheap and goes on sale a lot, you can snag it for like 3 dollars" and then that same day i snagged it for 3 dollars. i didnt have a lot of money at the time, couldnt get a job, all that.

i will never, never, *ever* forget my first game of xrd. i played it with that same friend after touching training mode for all of about 5 minutes and even if i was just mashing then i had so much fun. i remember the thumping of my heart when i first pulled off sol's dragon install and won a set, or when i first got an instant kill, or when i played with (and against) leon massey (the fgc youtuber) and took a round off him. i still have the clip of him saying "lets go [name]! look at that outro. big strong." it makes me tear up a little bit.

through the friend that introduced it to me, i met another close friend of mine who's an amazing animator and whose skills taught me a lot in the way of flash, the program. i got formally invited to a group project, later bought accent core, and got 3rd place in a tournament. i bought strive at launch for $90 and even if i dont enjoy how it turned out i wouldnt take it back for anything. i like the phrase "we didnt know we were making memories, we were just having fun" because i really didnt know it then. i just thought it was a really good fighting game.

i know this was a long winded post. i just think this is my only real "confession" past maybe like, baiken having short hair or being super childish (like flipping a table after losing chess or something). thanks, guilty gear. you really helped me through a tough time, and i love you so very very much.

-

[youredreamingofroo]

Long winded rant of me talking about NSB, doing a new series, storytelling and whatever else I talked about under the cut, feel free to read it's just me rambling, I don't really care if ppl read it or not it's VERY long 😭

I've been painfully itching to start a new series, I know I'm doing NSB rn, and I do plan to at least finish the normal NSB legacy (up to Gen 9), although I might finish or take a break at around Gen 5 or 6, just because I don't wanna lose motivation and also because it takes A LOT to make some of these posts (for example, the last NSB post... took a lot out of me), and I'm only on Gen 2, almost Gen 3 rn, and I was originally planning to do all 30 or 40 Gens in the updated ver of NSB, which def doesn't seem like it'll be happening right now, because at the current rate at which I post, and how fast things in my game move, Sims 6 will be out before I even finish Gen 30 😭😭

Anyways, I don't know what the series would be about, if I were to do a new series, it would definitely be a lot more story based, if not completely story based, I don't know if I'd do/include gameplay, but I really wanna dive into more storytelling and setting up scenes, I'm not a film or theatre kid by any means, and I really don't know much about writing and setting up scenes and stuff, to be honest, i don't even know how I storytell, I guess it's just regurgitated content molded to shape the statue of my story if that makes sense lmao, I guess it's also the art of using so many fucking metaphors and similes that doing something like comparing love to drowning in a cold ocean comes sorta easy to me? I'm not grammatically inclined and don't know a lot about punctuation, my teachers all kinda gave up on me in English class, so all of my writing is basically self taught, which I guess is the case for a lot of things I do- I feel like starting a new series would help me learn how to write better, even though it seems like a lot of ppl love my writing, I still feel like I could improve so much and do so much better. I already have a couple ideas in mind for a new series, I don't think I'll say much rn just in case I decide to make them a series, but as for right now, I've got plans for Gen 3 NSB (aka Calico), and if I were to start a new series, I would not stop playing NSB, but due to how I function and shit, I would have to put NSB on hiatus, I kind of have a hard time doing two stories at once, hence why Sharkie's story got put on hiatus, because it was too stressful for me to double up, especially with how often I post (at least 3 or 4 times a week), I would like to go back and play Sharkies story and share her story up to this point where I last played her, her story is a lot more gameplay centered (for example, I am more inclined to make a blender scene for NSB, then Sharkie, for Sharkie, I'd do stuff like go to the bar and see how it plays out and take screenshots and just edit those) which I like more, but that's not to say I don't enjoy NSB, because I equally LOVE storytelling as I do gameplay.

While writing this, I did think of something I could do, which would be posting NSB every other week (so one week I do Sharkie or some other series and then the next week I do NSB, then a diff series, so on so forth), the only problem is that usually when I get an idea, and I finish that idea, I like to post it asap, I'm not good at scheduling posts lmao, but it might be worth it if people want to see another series (that is if anyone is still reading up to this point lol), I'd like to channel my storytelling into a more story based save/story, but idk! I'm just kinda doing my thing rn and I'm at a point where i wanna do something different. I especially wanna start doing more in blender, it just takes fucking forever to do some of the stuff I wanna do, and some of it means learning new stuff which is thrice as hard and takes thrice as long compared to normal posing and stuff 😭

[aeoneris]

for archival reasons, and because rise has officially ended, i'm coping by looking back at the past two years and thinking about the master utsushi rabbit hole. this is based on a long reply i sent to a mutual but i think it deserved to have its own post where others can read it and i can expand further on certain details. or something. i don't know. i have no idea who will read this but if you do, please enjoy...

the ballad of master utsushi.

he was there regardless.

always watching.

waiting.

i wound up getting attached to utsushi-kyokan (master/instructor utsushi), ウツハン/utsuhan (utsushi x hunter) ship, and finding his Japanese fan community late 2021, and i've been chatting with mutuals and friends i made there since. at that time, capcom had opened up pre-orders for his nui (plushie). this plush is lovingly referred to as "Unui-kun", and people love to take him around and bring him places. here's my Unui-kun in new york city lol

fans love to dress him up and make clothing and accessories for him. had i known just how attached i would become, i would not have set my Unui-kun to ship via surface mail delivery because it took about 2-3 months extra for him to arrive... ;;

but anyway, it seemed that his popularity was growing because they continued to make more merch of him. he seems to have more than any of the other characters.

many of these are limited print/pre-order only, or were from specific events like the capcom cafe features. trying to get his merchandise became crazy, because scalpers started to pick up on how badly people wanted goodies of him?!

just how popular is this guy?! what's with the character tax!!

and how did this even happen... we're playing monster hunter, not an idol game! but i think it really speaks a lot for itself how rise had such colorful characters that you could get attached to. it seems he really jives with many female and queer players, so good on capcom for that hehe. many of the japanese fans i've met are either older women, very often mothers, or gnc, which i found to be really cool. the english-speaking utsushi fans are usually the same, too. the solidarity is real...

I found out that a lot of ppl, including myself, shared a similar experience: they missed out on a majority of utsushi's flavor text in base rise bc they didn't talk to him or the other NPCs very much during village and high rank quests, and therefore didn't even think much of him until after the fact. people double-taking when going through the game again and actually catching on to his antics... I think what really got things going was when they released his DLC voice and learned about his, uh, extremely affectionate lines towards the hunter when it comes to mew mew and blowing a kiss LOL. (the "welcome back, master!" line?!?! there's so much art of him in a maid outfit... and the way he says ace/manadeshi in his sleep at the table?!?! scandalous?!?!) even for me, he got my attention only once i saw the official art of him (realizing "hey he's got a cute design actually") and eventually encountering utsushi x hunter fanart on pixiv. another thing that got me noticing him was brian david gilbert's now deleted tweet about how zac efron and utsushi are the same. thankfully, we have the internet archive to save the existence of this post and i have to make sure people experience this lost media.

once i realized how weirdly close he was to the hunter, the gears started turning

i confirmed that ppl really did notice that it was unusual for an instructor character to refer to his pupil as "manadeshi (beloved/dearest disciple)" in the manner that he does, being so close to them in a way that felt so familiar and warm. he was already popular enough that by valentine's day 2022, fans literally sent real chocolates to capcom addressed to utsushi. i knew about this for a while, but i was shook that they wound up officially addressing that this really happened during the last update video.

after they received his chocolates, they immediately got one of the (female) illustrators on board to quickly draw that really cute valentine's day art of utsushi. the japanese tweet for that artwork had even a little bit more text than the english one…

that "i'll always be watching over you" line…

(and while i'm here, i have to mention the valentine's day art we got for 2023- i made a separate post about THAT.)

we started to suspect capcom caught on to this niche community's love for utsushi, and they started to kind of... troll us??? LOL.

throughout the previews of sunbreak last year, they would start obsessively sneaking utsushi into those chibi artworks. and when npc followers were announced, people were scrambling to find out if he was going to be one of them, but there also was some weird radio silence about him for a bit...

in one of the earlier trailers that showed the elgado hub for the first time, there was a very short part of the clip where ppl could see someone standing in the distance at the corner of the screen. all the utsushi fans went nuts because they were taking a magnifying glass and zooming up at there wondering if it was really him, because everyone wanted him to be there in sunbreak LOL.

of course we'd eventually find out that would be his perch for most of the game! it was only during the final preview trailer before the release of sunbreak did they finally announce utsushi as a follower, as if they were saving the best for last. and sunbreak dropped, we got to see him in elgado and enjoy hunting with him. and it didn't end there. he wound up being featured in two of the short stories released last summer, and we would not forget this incident.

when i think about how easy it is to just play through the story and miss out on following specific out-of-the-way flavor texts, let alone know about all this outside of the game, i wonder if utsushi joining the hunter in the battle against amatsu in the penultimate battle was strange, because he has such a spotlight on him, even being the one who allows you to ride an apex which was normally impossible. if people didn't acknowledge him before, certainly people would love him now.

his final line after you defeat amatsu: it's cute and silly in english... but in japanese, his line and delivery was extremely, almost unabashedly... romantic. many people were shocked because it sounded like a fervent confession.

"I'll say it once more... You are my pride, my beloved disciple."

finally, during the last update video…

we got this line straight from the director LOL. utsushi wound up being his personal favorite character in rise, and perhaps why we wound up seeing more and more of him in sunbreak.

all in all, if you kept up with the flavor text of rise, and if you followed utsushi's dialogue throughout the base game and expansion, the emotional pay off at the end was even better! and it is a shame when this stuff is mostly optional or you have to go out of the way for it, with so much being missable with every bit of progression. but making a monhun where story and character interactions are pushed more… i think they were on to something. it's probably something that could be divisive, but personally I think they should go all in on it more in the future. Rise proved that they could make charming and memorable (not to mention, named) characters... if they lean into it more in a future entry, then i hope they do it in a way where everyone can enjoy it and not feel like they missed out. but I also hope they would make it so that people don't feel overwhelmed with flavor text... it comes down to taste, but i think i have faith that monhun can try making more character-driven stories while still keeping the core of the series in tact.

here are some more miscellaneous utsushi things that i didn't know how to fit in earlier:

he's been featured multiple times in capcom cafe entrees. here's his matcha latte dango drink:

and for the sunbreak stories: a cake based on his fight with rathalos together with the royal guard, and then a drink that represents his... uh, struggle across the ocean to chase the hunter to elgado. because they will never let him live that down. i won't either.

here's a t-shirt of utsushi and kagami you can pick up on amazon right now. kagami was a very interesting arc when he was first shown- he was introduced as a long time friend of utsushi, training together in the past, but eventually parting ways.

his seiyuu in japanese is a sentai actor who loves monster hunter, so essentially, kagami is lowkey like a self-insert for him lol. he's goofy in english because he's voiced by a certain youtuber, but in japanese he takes a different direction of silly because he has a "chuunibyou" edgelord cringe way of talking. it's such a shame that kagami wasn't really in the game itself besides being mentioned in a few mission descriptions because i would've loved to see him interact with utsushi and the hunter, and i wish the royal knights and many of the NPCs had more cutscenes or something. it makes me think, if it weren't for the pandemic, could rise's story and scenario have been something more because of the DLC voice characters like hibasa/monju/kagami? anyway, a popular headcanon is that utsushi and kagami are ex-boyfriends lol (i personally like this one and adapted it for my utsuhan fanfics). but there are even those who ship kagautsu too (although it is rare because people overseas are a little wary of shipping characters who are based on real people).

and lastly, one of my personal favorites... the diseased kyokan shirt. this is from an online capcom shop, and you can use a proxy service like fromjapan.com to order it.

if you read this all, thank you! happy hunting! with the instructor! we love that guy! the guy of all time!

[ravel-puzzlewell]

btw i'm playing slay the princess and while i think its fun and i enjoy it mostly, but that one post about how its rancid to turn any support of someone into a simping accusation, as in you're only support them bc you want to fuck them, is literally about damsel path of this game asdfghjk

this was the first path i got and it was so jarring to me, bc like. i exhausted all dialogue options, i tried to learn as much as possible about her, and in the end i decided that like. ethical choice is to NOT murder her just bc voice in my head said so. like yeah, she was obv an unhuman abomination, but i already saw protag's arm, so i knew i'm playing abomination too. and then when narrator attacked, it became clear that she's well-intended, so like yeah, i tried to resist and NOT kill her bc i don't want to let some freak whose possessing me murder non-hostile person?? like there was nothing about liking her or smth, when freeing her, i even chose an option that said smth ok im gonna free you bc i don't trust ppl telling me to kill you even more, but i'm watching you. it was decidedly un-romantic.

so i was extremely confused when then in the following loop the game pivoted HARD into making fun of player for being in love with her smh, and like. weirdly passive aggressively implying my choices previously were erasing her actual personality and turning her into a waifu. like??? where that came from??? like guys i play no kill playthroughs in dishonored not because i'm simping for every single guard

idk i feel like tha route should have hard more defined prerequisites that could justify arguing that "anime waifu" was your perception of her. like idk, if you didn't talk to her at all and immediately freed her. or if you said some creepy shit about how you're gonna be together or you're savior or smth. bc rn i think it undermines general thesis of the game, like it took me way too long to realize that it was about your perceptions shaping her, bc damsel didn't map with my perceptions at all, so i thought ok she's just changing at random i guess for like most of first playhrough

[frontierpodiatrist]

clavell character analysis

y’know, while i do like clavell, i think a lot of people sort of underestimate his nuance as a character

while yes, his primary trait is being sort of disarmingly naive or seemingly ignorant of things going on, and just being a bit sillay, and he Does care about his students—i see SO much found family art of him and arven, without like...anyone acknowledging that he’s kind of...not great to him actually? in post-game immediately after turo/sada’s death, he just kind of is like “well you still need credits to graduate sorryyyy” and then says, in essence, he’s proud of everyone and “they all have a role to play”...except for arven, who specifically calls him out on it, and then when arven asks if his role’s obvious, the scene just ends

i’ve also seen mention of him looking away when he says to arven he’s sorry for their loss, and i saw someone mention it’s bc he’s about to cry, but personally, i interpret it more as guilt

what i find most interesting is how much of a role he takes w team star, really stepping up to the plate to help them, and yes i do believe he genuinely wants to help and love his students, just that his relationship with arven (due to his relationship with his parents) is a bit...complicated. but my personal feeling is that while he did also want to help team star bc they needed it, he also already felt guilt for unintentionally ignoring arven, and couldn’t withstand not taking action a second time. in a way, he probably wanted to atone and help other students where he failed to help arven

the way he fondly speaks of sada/turo, and how he refers to them as a dear friend, and how he even conformed their old lab space into his own, it definitely reads as “beyond friendship” and more into a romantic leaning, as a lot of ppl hc, but more importantly BECAUSE of this. because he was blinded by rose tinted glasses, and could only ever really see the good in them/his own relationship to them—that he really just...did not notice what was happening with arven, and not purposefully ignored his own plights, much like the old school did with team star

as what’s seemingly established in the game, arven doesn’t really have an already established relationship with clavell like nemona does, or at least not one that’s said, so to me it seems as if they’re no closer than any other characters. i think a more interesting take on it is that clavell was never able to see the damage being done to arven bc he was so caught up in his own longing for the professor, that by the time he noticed anything was up when arven was much older and acting up/being a delinquent by skipping school and stuff like that (which is when he took up the director position), it was almost too late to intervene

there’s also the fact that based on his dialogue at the beginning he knows they were building a time machine and despite this, never took legal action or anything grand to stop them instead just choosing to...walk away, which i think says a lot about his character, and how they were a sort of weak point of is

that being said, i think found family with him and arven is cute, i just think there’s a lot of unresolved emotional turmoil b/w the two of them by the end of the game that i’ve not really seen anyone talk about but that’s just my two cents ✌️ 😌

them talking in postgame IS interesting, i mean arven doesn’t really have anybody else he can ask about them, but it’s notable also how whenever arven says something like “ig building a time machine is more important than taking care of a child” or “i never bothered to know them” (even though they were neglectful) clavell never goes out of his way to correct him. and i feel as if he would, were it anybody else’s child

to clavell, they WERE special and they still are. he isn’t purposefully alienating arven by speaking about them in such a fond way, but he’s still doing it nevertheless. you can fail with one child (arven) and still succeed with others (penny and the rest of team star) and really i'm sympathetic for him that would be an insane situation to be in

[sapphire-weapon]

haiii it's the anon that wrote the orange light analysis again😭😭all ur aeon posts recently have got something on my chest

despite my video I don't actually ship aeon... like they're a good duo and I like them together but in the remakes there aren't any romantic moments between them and I feel like aeon shippers deliberately misinterpret scenes to fit their narratives and their beliefs

Like the kiss scene in 2 HOW was that romantic... re2r was my second re game and even I realised the first time I played it that he was annoyed and didn't kiss her back. But aeon stans never mention that they're just like 'oh they kissed so they're in love' nooo... SHE kissed HIM. and not for any romantical reason either. And then when Annette tells him Ada isn't FBI he doesn't question it he just seems dissapointed because he KNEW she wasn't. But aeon fans get so mad when u say that they act like it's real life like it's not that deep....

And also the shippers who act like their head over heels for eachother. They're not like they do not know eachother. They r practically strangers (talking ab the remakes.) And it's very clear with the remakes Leon has more of a spine and isn't allowing himself to be pushed around by her. Ppl infantilise him and make him seem stupid but it's like../. In re2r he is. A 21-year-old GROWN MAN. maybe a bit naïve but not some stupid little baby who can't tell Ada is fucking with him which is the way a lot of people paint him.

N e wayz this is long as hell u don't even have to respond😭just wanted this off my chest I love talking about their relationship.

anon, if we were together in person, i'd offer to take you out for a drink.

believe it or not, it even took me a long time to break away from that "aeon as default" mindset. it's only been since... may of this year that i've felt comfortable/confident enough to say that aeon has been de-canonized and eagleone is far closer to a canon romance than they are in the remake-verse.

RE6 has been out for 10 years, and the post i just made the other day where i first mentioned that RE6 ends with leon rejecting ada is the first time i've said that out loud/in public. because that "aeon as default" discourse is so prevalent and oppressive.

but we need to be willing to talk about these things openly and with our names attached if anything in the fandom is going to change. and it can't just be me, either. like i've said, my reach is very limited. but the fact of the matter is that aeon fandom has had a chokehold on the conversation surrounding this series for 25 fucking years, and their interpretation of the story is wrong.

it's just wrong.

it's incorrect.

it's not what the story actually is.

and it's being pitched to new fans without giving said new fans a chance to think or speak on their own. and the perpetuation of misinformation throughout this fandom continues.

people are finally starting the first rumblings of pushing back against the "leon's background is in the italian mafia" bullshit. we can push back on the aeon narrative, too.

because we should.

[equalseleventhirds]

Hey, do you have any recs for long form, more serious ttrpg systems for fantasy settings? I feel like I hear a lot about short/definitively-lengthed systems, but I've been yearning for a DnD-esque system without all the baggage of equip loads and complicated Challenge Ratings and other rules-y baggage I don't super care about.

do i! do i ever!

serious & long-form systems do on the whole tend to be crunchier than shorter systems (not always, but generally); nevertheless, i've picked out a........ handful......... ok there's Several, i did try to control and limit myself but u kno.......... games......... anyway, here are some that are considerably less crunchy than d&d but still lend themselves to long fantasy campaigns.

uh. under the cut for. oh god it's so long. it's so long. tried my best to explain them, u see. (which is also why it took me so long to reply lol, sry abt that)

godeater (& godeater 2.0): play in a broken, post-apocalyptic fantasy world, where dead and dying gods warp the land, and you raid their bodies for divine magic to help support humanity. 2d10-based, get weird & funky with it! i admit a small preference for version 1.0, which gave u some loose examples but left much of the worldbuilding and even character building up to u to create; 2.0 has some extra books that go with it that i haven't much looked into yet, but seem to give more solid lore to work with, if u would like that.

when the guilds pay in copper, crime pays in gold: alchemical guilds pay shit wages to use people for magical experiments. go do crimes on 'em with your own magic. d6 base, assign dice to stats to make ur own dice pool; fairly light rules and in fact very little in the way of instruction or hard lore on the gm's side, so better played with an experienced gm who's good at making their own stuff, but certainly campaign material for the right gm!

third empire - violence + beauty: the world sucks, and has sucked for a while, through two oppressive empires and into a third one. you play adventurers who are trying to carve out a little goodness, a little justice, a little vengeance, in the world. y'know. lasers & feelings based, but expanded beyond the original (which also comes with it if u get it!) into more lore, more character choices, very collaborative worldbuilding, downtime mechanics, etc etc.

ruby radiance 6e: streamlined dungeoneering built to let ppl play the way actual play podcasts sound, essentially. d20 pool system, based on trophy mechanics but v much adjusted. lots of choices to make during character creation & leveling, but much much less to keep track of during the playing part. u get it.

wizard pals: all of you are wizards, going on adventures and trying to accomplish your goals in a fantasy world. d12-based, fairly lighthearted (can lean silly but u could use it for more serious if not super grimdark adventures), much worldbuilding left up to the gm, but very simple rules, so.

grimblade rpg: (speaking of grim lol,) action & adventure in a grim fantasy world; things like character creation and rewards (and magic) fully imply a fantasy world, but worldbuilding is left up to the gm, altho there are many tables to roll on to give some help. uses d4, 6, 8, and 10; all rolls are contested rolls, with dice picked based on how serious the gm feels this roll is.

shattered aether: post-apocalyptic science fantasy, you roam around a fucked up magic world and protect ppl from various dangers. 2d6 based, based on the lumen system so fairly combat-forward in a very high-action very cool asskicking way. for some reason the font chosen for this book is murder on my eyes, but if u can get past that (or just zoom in lots and read a bit at a time) it's straightforward, simple, and fun!

familiars of terra: this one may be a little too crunchy, but i love it a lot and rly the most crunch is in character creation and tracking experience, actual gameplay is (imo) pretty easy. post-post-apocalyptic fantasy world, some science fantasy elements depending on where you choose to focus, bcos there are absolute PAGES of lore on this extremely cool and enormous world; you and your party go around with your soul-bonded animal friends to spread hope and healing and also do cool shit. y'know. card-based, again it is probably more crunchy than ur looking for but less abt tracking what you can do during things and more abt tracking experience in order to level up stats, so.

1400 quest: ok that last one was crunchy, this one's very uncrunchy. pick a handful of things and get going! clearly inspired by d&d, but very very streamlined, so things that were pages of mechanics are like, one or two sentences. gm's side of it is like, a handful of rollable tables and then do whatever, so prolly for the more experienced gm. d6 based, but you may have occasion to use other dice. also if you like this one there's others by the same author focusing on other things (1400 mage, sneak, etc), or you can check out others in the 24XX type of games, which started out sci fi but has since been expanded to a bunch of other stuff. u kno.

beast dream: pokemon-inspired game where you make friends with magical beasts and go on magical adventures! d6-based, forged in the dark, so there is a little crunch wrt deciding on position etc and stuff like stress, but the author rly wanted to focus in on letting u adventure and have fun without getting bogged down in numbers and i think that shows, stuff like load and reputation aren't so much a thing.

cognatons: play as sentient, magic-filled automatons doing whatever fantasy adventures your robot heart desires. d4-based, caltrop core, so you get a fairly simple & defined set of actions; less to keep track of, easy to follow.

dethrone the divine: you're gonna overthrow the gods, and also take their places. you're already either divine, semi-divine, or magically powerful in other ways, and you adventure with the goal of gathering power and followers so you can take the place of the shitty gods in power. d6-based, pretty straightforward system, makes characters v cool and powerful, which is always fun.

perilous: do you love dungeon crawls bcos i love dungeon crawls... streamlined and easy to understand fantasy dungeoneer adventures in this one! d20-based, leans towards tags instead of complicated numerical skill stuff to keep track of. go to dungeons, fight monsters, get treasure. simple n good. (adds in some metaplot, like who sent you, how will this affect the people living here, whatever, but rly strong with the very old core of d&d-style 'go do a dungeon' kinda thing, if that's what u like.)

high magic lowlives: ok my latest obsession bcos i'm currently planning a big ol campaign for friends in this one. there are classic adventurers in this world, out there cleaning out monster nests or whatever, but they're usually in the employ of the immortal aristocracy. you? you make your money by stealing from and humiliating the immortal aristocracy, because you're a lowlife. it's a dangerous gig, but isn't it better than going into student debt at wizard school? melds high fantasy aesthetics with like, magical twitch streaming aesthetics. fun as hell. uses all the dice and also sometimes tarot cards (mostly just for character creation, u kno). easy to understand rules, i'm having a great time.

ellipses rpg: setting-agnostic system (make ur own setting!) with simple, streamlined rules and an emphasis on improvisation. d20 based, rly just some very basic foundation and then a lot of encouragement to make things up and do what's fun. so like, loosey goosey & not super structured if you want structure, but could be fun!

unbound: setting-agnostic system but with much more formal structure, got structure around how to collaboratively worldbuild your setting and everything. obvs this means some crunch, but it's still not super crunchy, nice and straightforward rly. lotta character options but not so complex and math-heavy, u kno. card-based system. designed actually for a series of short campaigns in a linked world, tho, so if ur not up for exploring new characters a lot, may not be for you.

[maegalkarven]

Out of curiosity what happens to all of your dark urges post-game?

This is going to be LONG, so i'm putting it under the "read more".

Thanks so much for asking and giving me an opportunity to rant about my boys! (they're all masc, yeah. All kind of trans. I am not projecting anything. Also I lied just now)

As of now I have 3 (4 counting Morgan) developed till post-game Durges.

Morgan is my first playthrough and maybe shouldn't be counted, but he and Astarion leave for Underdark. Morgan is a drow bard btw and his story is the messiest bullshit ever bc at that point I was still figuring BG3 out.

Now to the fun part! (June, Levi and Nemo). Mind what all 3 of them are romantically involved with Gortash and it plays its part.

So let's start with my favorite druid asshole Levi. He visually appears to be a tiefling. 6 ft tall handsome young man with one blazing green eye, one eye pitch-black (later an implant of the eye of the devil he took for himself), wavy ginger hair, freckles EVERYWHERE and a very arrogant attitude. His horns have been broken by Sarevok when he was around adolescence.

Levi has 2 versions of how his live goes after the end credits. Basically his good (canon) ending and his bad ending.

Bad ending is where Gortash dies, Levi goes the whole "I am god" way, takes the Crown of Karsus for himself and erases Bhaal from the existence of the universe, successfully taking his domain, his aspect and his place. It's a lonely life of godhood for him and the one where he loses himself.

His good ending branches depending if Noah (his son) exists.

If Noah indeed exists, Levi has a whole ass husband and a son waiting for him at home (in Baldur's Gate) and a whole new playground of the city. He transforms part of the city into the garden and creates the new circle of druids with Kagha as the achdruid. But inevitably fuck off to hells to fight not his battle bc he can and he loves fighting.

Levi is set on a long ass quest conquering Hells bc: 1) it's fun. 2) His homie needs Mizora dead. 3) His other homie needs Zariel dead.

If Noah wasn't born, his path goes almost the same way (considering Hells), but it's the main focus of his, and the main goal. In that version he wants all of Mephisto's wonders for himself and operates from the House of Hope what he and Gortash live in (while planning evil things for evil reasons, yeah. "If heavens are out of reach, we will make Hells ours" kind of an attitude.)

Basically for Levi it's either godhood but the path of loneliness or a lot of shenanigans in hells with his two best friends (Wyll and Karlach) and the wicked partnership with Gortash. Watch him successfully balance out THAT dynamic mix.

Then there's Nemo. Nemo is non-amnesiac Durge who got very weak after his sister's attack. Looks like a half-drow (ppl keep calling him half-breed and he hates it. He is a pureblood bhaalspawn, damn it!) Looks like a golden child with sun-warmed skin, golden eyes and hair and A LONG ASS SCAR ORIN LEFT OVER HIS PERFECT FACE. THANKS FOR NOTHING, SISTER. Short (5 ft). The only 'off' thing about him is what his sclera is black.

He is also the mastermind behind the successful creation and management of the current cult of Bhaal in BG as it is. Nemo's misadventures are featured in the series of oneshots called "Empty Prayers".

He has only a good ending because I said so, and this is where he kills Orin and himself in a double suicide act, robbing Bhaal of the chosen and a child. Bhaal throws a fit, Withers plays a savior.

EVERYONE is angry at Nemo, Orin is left with no memory of who she is or what the fuck is going on.

No one is happy 2.0.

His post-game ending is where he is a shadow over the BG, a leader of the newly established assassins' guild into which he drags his lover and partner in crime Astarion.

Nemo is a man who transfers the cult of Bhaal into something else and earns money for it. It is easy, because most of the cultists only knew him as a leader and several of them were raised by him.

He basically lowers his expectations and chills, having joint-custody over the city underground with Ninefingers.

Gortash manages to stay arcduke in that one, but ba-a-a-arely. No one is happy, even Gortash, because it's such a mediocre win it's embarrassing. He will manage to pull Nemo into some heist-like bullshit very soon, that with him and his very useful guild of trained cutthroats who are loyal to Nemo and Nemo alone.

The last one - June. My least fav child bc I am v conflicted with how he just branched into 2 separate entities. @ June come on. He has either grey hair and silver eyes (selunite!June) or black-blue hair and light-blue eyes (cambion!June). Either way his skin is greyish-blue with freckles, his horns are grey as some ash can be. He is 5 ft 5.

June is either tiefling priest of Selune or cambion grandchild of Mephisto. I consider both of the versions like alt. of the same person.

In his good (canon) ending June leaves for Underdark with Gortash and Astarion to conquer it and seek all the netherise artifacts left there.

Ex priest of Selûne June does it in some quest of "salvation", cambion June does it because he's the forbidden knowledge seeking bastard (Mephisto raised him, ok). Both versions of June defy Bhaal, though for different reasons.

Now, there is a bad ending for June too, which is highly tied to how he treats the situation with Gortash and how much has the tadparty affected him. If he has failed to develop enough ties with the team, June agrees with everything the man says - Gortash dies at the Netherbrain Blast - June becomes the new Chosen of Bane.

Which strangely fits both versions of June, because selunite!June DID pray to Bane, he just never answered.

And cambion!June is a little too alike Bane's own son (a hybrid of a god and fiend who Bhaal probably was going to use the same way Bane used his son) and in a dire need of a plan to out-do Mephisto.

If June does have close ties with his team and they affect his decision-making, then he's a little more smart about it, tadpoles Gortash, and that derails everything to Gortash joining the team and all hells breaking loose (to the good end. I promise)

There's also Callisto, but Callisto didn't live further than the escape from the nautiloid. I will play them after I break my pc's mind and re-merge it gently, after which BG3 (hopefully) will run on my pc without any third parties involved. But Callisto is a half-drow priest of Tiamat. My baby said FUCK toxic father, I want to be adopted by a toxic mother instead. Their main long goal is freeing Tiamat from her prison in Hell.

[boy-above]

Venti for the ask game if he hasn't been asked yet? Or or Furina!!

i'll do venti here and i might do furina in another post later :3

favorite thing about them

Most Things. i love how cute he is and how gender he is. i'm ace Except For Venti (and xiao but especially venti). not only does he look cute but everything abt him is adorable, i love his laughs and yahoos. i also love that he's an angel boy thats Very much my aesthetic. i love his personality bc underneath the front he puts up theres just this like, wiseness about him? you can tell theres a lot of things he knows that he can't tell us, but he tries to give hints when he can. he's one of my favorite characters ever and if he ever died i'd cry.

least favorite thing about them

hoyo under-utilizing him!!!! i'm hoping its bc he's gonna play a much bigger part in late/endgame but i hate how he's only been showing up in events for a few minutes and hasn't had an event or story quest dedicated to him in Such a long time. all the other archons have two story quests except him!! (and furina but im certain shes getting one soon)

favorite line

i'm sure this is a lot of ppls favorite, it illustrates his concept of freedom so well. as well as "just because you shouldn't listen to the abyss doesn't mean you should listen to me" (or something along those lines) it really shows that he wants dvalin to choose his own life, even if it would hurt venti.

brOTP

does him and his dead friend count ASDFGH like he loved him so much that he took his face so his legacy could live on forever, that's true (platonic) love.

OTP

you already know its him and XIAOOOO i love xiaoven i eat sleep and breathe xiaoven i'm obsessed with them i would die for them

nOTP

venti/zhongli or venti/aether. i also don't particularly like venti with ladies but i mean, i don't like venti with Anyone but xiao so that doesn't rly matter.

random headcanon

venti can speak the language of the wind wisps which would be cute little squeaks and chirps. there is no basis for this in canon i just love the idea.

unpopular opinion

i think venti should be allowed to have more controversial opinions himself because it seems like hoyo doesn't allow him to have negative feelings about many things. like i think he should hate raiden, she's like the opposite of everything he stands for but his voiceline for her is just about sweets or whatever.

favorite picture of them

this horny birthday art of him like HELLO??? hello??

also honestly any panel of him from the manga he's soooo slutty its great