#i never got the hang of the gameplay

[wyllzel]

slowly becoming a gamer idk who i am anymore 😪

[mrghostrat]

i bring you my one offering for every fandom: Twitch Streamer AU!

edit: there is now a fic :)

i see your "two teachers at the same school who none of their students realise are married" and raise you "two polar opposite streamers who none of their viewers realise are dating/living together" 😩🙏

i also accidentally drew these at 4k so enjoy these high res wallpapers i guess!! (1 + 2)

i have headcanons:

aziraphale is a variety IRL streamer: cooking, baking, crafts, chatting etc. he's on a bob-ross level of respect and admiration for how sweet and pleasant he is to everyone

crowley streams whatever can be a conduit for mischief: from toxic PVP gameplay, to IRL chatting streams out in public places. he's primarily a gamer, but people watch him for his horrendous personality.

they rarely hang out in each other's chats, but that's just happenstance. one is usually sleeping when the other is live, otherwise they'll have their screens open and lurk

crowley never bans trolls; they’re half his content. he enjoys backchatting and riling them up. his streams are notoriously chaotic because of little moderation and his rapidly shifting attention span

aziraphale’s mods ban trolls very efficiently, but he wouldn’t see their messages anyway, because chat always moves too fast for him. that’s not to say that he’s got a hyperactive chat; even slow mode would be too fast for him. he only ever catches every 5th message.

aziraphale is SO bad at reading chat, it's become a meme within his community that if he reads out/replies to you, you have been Chosen and need to go buy a lottery ticket asap

anathema mods for crowley, which mostly means just hanging out and insulting him when he dies in-game

newt is aziraphale's most revered mod, because whenever he tries to simply purge a mean message, he somehow accidentally IP bans the account. he's invaluable for managing troll attacks

their mods know they're together, but silently watch everyone lose their minds over the steadily growing conspiracy for their own personal entertainment

[nectar-cellar]

Downtown Roles Mod Tutorial - TS3 - Mature Gameplay Ideas

NSFW 18+ mature content / a long read   

TLDR: this is a compilation/recommendation list of mods, a tutorial on how to set up NPCs, and how to tie it all together to add some mature gameplay to your save. 😈

Misukisu/Virtual Artisan had a “Downtown Roles” mod that sadly does not work anymore for the latest versions of TS3. Her mod basically allowed players to add role sims to community lots so your sims could have more NPCs to interact with, making the lots feel more alive in a mature "downtown" sort of way.

I was inspired by her mod and I want to share how you can recreate and expand her mod’s functions with Nraas Register and Arsil’s Custom Generic Role mod. Some players might already know how these mods work, but it was a new discovery for me. I didn’t know how useful role sims could be! It got the gears in my dirty mind turning.

The main purpose of this mod list/tutorial: to add role sims to community lots for your main sims to interact with, while they’re out on the town. These will be sims outside of your household. Their main “job” is to hang out at the lot. You can let the game generate new sims to fill these roles, or assign existing sims in the town to fill the roles.

Examples of role sims you can create: 

A regular patron at a dive bar for your sim to befriend or make enemies with.

A sexy single sim at a beach, gym, pool, bar or club for your sim to mingle and hook up with. 

An escort at a brothel for your sim to woohoo with (Passion mod). 

A client for your sim to sell drugs/weapons to (MonocoDoll Vile Ventures mod and Arms Dealing mod) - I have not tested this but in theory it should work. 

You can add multiple role sims on each lot. You could have a number of partygoers on a club lot/a number of escorts on a brothel lot/a number of mobsters or criminals on a warehouse lot who will always be there when your sim visits.

Why role sims?

Townies are unpredictable - you never know which lot they’ll show up on, and how long they’ll stay. Role sims will consistently be there as the supporting characters in your main sim’s story. 

Having consistent NPCs at certain locations around town can help with story-driven gameplay scenarios.

You can move a household of your own sims into town and assign them to fill various roles. See pretty NPCs around town!

If you let the game generate new sims for the roles, then it saves you the hassle of setting up new households yourself. You can always edit them later in CAS.

Limitations: 

According to Arsil, it seems like sims who are already employed (such as most townies) will be removed from their jobs if they are assigned to be role sims. So I would avoid using any employed townies for this unless you are ok with that. Use unemployed residents instead.

I believe the role sim cannot leave the lot during the designated work hours. Your sim cannot form a group with them and go to another venue. However, you can invite the sim over or hang out afterwards from the relationship panel.

Mods Needed:

Nraas Master Controller + Integration Module

Nraas Register

Arsil‘s Custom Generic Role mod (both the floor marker and the desk)

Passion (if you want your sim to be able to have sex with the role sims on the lot or have the role sims dance on the stripper pole) 

MonocoDoll’s Vile Ventures mod (if you want to create NPC clients for your sim to sell to) 

MonocoDoll’s Arms Dealing mod (if you want to create NPC clients for your sim to sell to) 

How to Set Up: 

Step 1: Install the mods listed above. Then, open the save file you want to add some downtown sleaze to. 

Step 2: Find a community lot you want to add role sims to. This could be a bar, nightclub, brothel/motel/strip club, a run-down warehouse or block of buildings, casino, etc. I have downloaded many lots from Flora2 at ModtheSims and @simsmidgen here on Tumblr that fit the gritty urban vibe.  

Step 3: Enter Build/Buy mode. You can do this from Live mode. 

Press Ctrl + Shift + C, enter this cheat: testingcheatsenabled true 

Press the Shift key and click on the ground of the community lot. 

Click on “Build on this lot”. 

You can also enter Edit Town mode to renovate the community lot. 

Step 4: Place Arsil’s Custom Generic Role floor marker or desk on the lot. Place one for each role sim you want to create. They are located in Build Mode -> Community Objects -> Misc. If the desk looks out of place, use the floor marker instead. 

Step 5: In Live mode, click on the object -> Settings to set:

The name of the role (clubgoer/stripper/escort/mobster/etc.) 

The “work” hours the sim will be on the lot for 

The days off 

The motives to freeze or not (I recommend freezing all the motives to avoid interactions being interrupted/sims complaining due to low motives) 

If the sim you want to assign to the role already lives in town, click on the object -> Nraas -> Register -> Select -> Choose criteria -> select the sim from the list. I would avoid choosing any employed townies as they may lose their job when switching to this role. Choose unemployed residents to avoid conflicts.

Remove assigned roles: click on the object to remove the sim from the role.

Step 6: In Live mode, click on City Hall -> Nraas -> Register

Allow immigration: choose whether you want new sims to be moved into town to take the roles (enable this if you want the game to generate new sims for the roles) 

Allow immigration = False: if you set this option to false, then a new option called "Find Empty Roles" should appear. You can then assign any sim to the role object you placed, from City Hall.

Allow resident assignment: choose whether you want existing unemployed townies to be randomly assigned to fill the roles (I recommend to disable this. I had Buster Clavell show up to work at my strip club. NO!)

Pay per hour: I'm not sure how to adjust the pay for each custom role but you can just leave it at the default or change it globally

Remove roles: click on the object to remove the sim from the role, or click on City Hall -> Nraas -> Register -> Global Roles -> Remove by sim

Step 7: In Live mode, give the game some time to generate the role sims. Visit the community lot and have a look at your new role sims. The role sims should autonomously interact with other sims and objects on the lot. Using Nraas Master Controller, you can take the sim into CAS to give them a makeover, edit their traits, or replace them with a sim from your sim bin. 

Step 8: Make your sim interact with the shiny new role sims and play out the storylines you always wished were possible. Public hookups, functioning brothels, selling drugs and guns - this is what The Sims 3 was made for, baby!!! 

Related Mods:

Arsil’s Exotic Dancer Stage - if you have a club community lot, you can use this mod to hire dancers. You can use role sims to add other NPCs to the club such as guests, shady business sims, or non-dancer sex workers. 

Nraas Relativity - this handy mod can slow down the speed of time so your sim can spend more time doing their "activities"

Nraas Woohooer - if you don’t want the explicit sex animations from Passion, you could use this mod instead to provide more woohoo options. 

Passion - for brothels/strip clubs, this mod will add sex animations and the ability to have role sims dance on the stripper pole. 

MonocoDoll’s Vile Ventures mod and Arms Dealing mod - you can use role sims to create more clients for your sim to sell drugs and weapons to, like different individuals/gangs/mobs. You could have different clients hanging out at different spots in the city. 

LazyDuchess Lot Population - this mod populates community lots with townies, and they can interact with the role sims you’ve created. 

Service Sims Out on the Town - this pushes service sims to visit community lots, to add even more variety to your crowds. 

Conclusion

If you made it to the end, thank you for reading. Please let me know if you try out this style of gameplay, and if you have ideas for more role sims and community lots to make. This tutorial was NSFW-oriented but you could easily adapt it to create NPCs for SFW community lots.

[ironunderstands]

ACHERON AND DR. RATIO HAVE THE EXACT SAME PHILOSOPHY IM GONNA BITE SOMEONE

‼️2.2 spoilers‼️

If you are like me, when you got to Acheron’s conversation with the trailblazer in front of the manifestation of IX, you tried to resist over tables BECAUSE AAAAAAAUGHH WHAT DO YOU MEAN

Look, LIKE JUST LOOK

This is part of Ratios conversation with Screwllum in the 1.6 questline:

PAY ATTENTION TO THE LAST ONE BECAUSE

GUESS WHO ECHOES IT WHEN WE TALK TO HER IN 2.2:

IS THIS NOT THE SAME? ARE THEY NOT SAYING THE EXACT SAME THING? THAT YOU SHOULD GIVE PEOPLE THE TOOLS TO HELP THEMSELVES, THEN LEAVE THEM ALONE SO THEY CAN SAVE THEMSELVES AND FORGE THEIR OWN FUTURE? THAT THEY BOTH BELIEVE THAT WHEN PEOPLE ARE LEFT ALONE TO FEND FOR THEMSELVES DO THEY SHOW THEIR TRUE STRENGTH?!?

Like this lines especially are just AAAAGHH literal bar for bar repeating one another

SERIOUSLY, SERIOUSLY WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD DOCTOR AS THE SAME OUTLOOK ON HUMANITY AS A LITERAL EMANATOR OF NIHILITY?!?!

An emanator of Nihility WHO SHOULD’NT EXIST

An emanator of Nihility looking to kill IX and find the Existence on the other side of them.

AND HIS VIEWS ARE CREEPILY SIMILAR TO HERS?

Fuck it, Ratio isn’t just accidentally striding the path of Nihility.

He’s accidentally striding the path of Existence.

Nous be damned the reason why this man was never acknowledged by the Erudition is because he’s striding a Path so starkly different to it that the person who resembles him the most shouldn’t even be there either.

No wonder his in game path is Hunt instead of Erudtion, if he’s this similar to Acheron than her singleminded drive to end IX mirrors that of his to spread knowledge (following how Hunt works in gameplay, a lot more like Vengance in lore).

Please please please Hoyo I’m begging on hands and knees for this to be intentional, and for you to do SOMETHING, SOMETHING WITH THIS PLOTPOINT.

Ratio figured out Dormancy somehow, all of his character stories are told from the POV of other people, so we barely know anything about his past, he’s from a planet we don’t know of yet, AND NOW WE HAVE TO CONTEND WITH THIS??

I NEED ANSWERS I NEED EXPLANATIONS I NEED SOMETHING PLEASE DON’T LEAVE ME HANGING. LET HIS LORE AND FUTURE OUT OF THE BOX PLEASE

“I bet they are going to pull an Alhaitham with him”

NO, NO THEY AREN’T. PLEASE TELL ME THEY AREN’T. I know it’s coping, but the mystery around Alhaitham got cleared away when we got his character stories, but Ratio’s character stories only make him more confusing. We have more questions instead of answers and with the 2.2 update I will spontaneously combust if we never get them BECAUSE WHAT DO YOU MEAN AAAAAAA

TLDR: let the Ratio lore out of the box and Hoyoverse pls pls PLEASE let him meet Acheron 

[liyawritesss]

ʀᴀɴᴄʜᴇʀ!ᴀʀᴛʜᴜʀ ᴍᴏʀɢᴀɴ

-> synopsis: in which arthur was able to set aside his criminal ways and leave the Van der Linde gang and live a life of relative normalcy, and perhaps meet a nice little lady to make it all worth it

         -> pairing: rancher!arthur morgan + black!fem!reader

-> from: red dead redemption 2

         -> contains: age-gap (reader is 27, arthur is 37), 2nd person ('you', 'your', 'yours'), references to canon-violence and crimes

-> a/n: my knowledge of Red Dead Redemption is limited, only really coming from watching gameplays and from beta-reading a friends fic, but arthur morgan the man that you are! I really just want him to have a good life outside the gang so i played with the whole rancher idea a little bit here, with a little bit of gen. store clerk!reader, so i hope you guys enjoy!

         -> join my taglist!

-> tags: @mbakuetshurisprincess @shuriszn @writingintheshadowsforever @cafehyunji @niyahwrites @marsfunzon22 @briology @asensitivecookie @moon-bo-young @flo-milli-shit-hoe

ARTHUR MORGAN who eventually turns in his weapons and hangs in the towel of his criminal days, feigning for something more out of life than the thrill of a hunt, Though the decision wasn’t an easy one (mainly because Dutch never made things easy), the man took one last job and took the earnings from it to buy a good 10-acre stretch of land in the southern midwest territories where he knew trouble wouldn’t find him if it came looking. Within the next year he settles down into the life of a rancher, and he couldn’t have asked for anything better.

RANCHER!ARTHUR MORGAN who has taken forever to nail down a routine that actually sticks when it comes to waking up and rousing the animals for the day. He does the chickens first, cuz he hates those little fuckers and how they always like to peck at his feet even though he knows he tosses the corn and feed pellets far away from him. Then the hogs start squealing whenever he even nears the pen, and Arthur always mutters about how they just ate the night before, how can they be this hungry already? After throwing their slop into the feeder, he opens the barn doors to let the cows know it’s morning and that they’ll be milked soon, but he learned not the milk them just as they wake up because they in fact do not like to be fondled so early in the morning. Instead, he grabs his horse and rounds up the few sheep and goats he’s got  and leads them to nearby pasture to graze. Here, Arthur gets the chance to rest a little, maybe snack on some dried meat and journal about his dreams if he’s had any, his aspirations for the day, or maybe even sketch the view.

RANCHER!ARTHUR MORGAN who learns to like making the honest living he’s got going. It may not be as thrill seeking as robbing trains or starting saloon fights or gunslinging like the old days, but he’s comfortable. Content, even. Sometimes he’ll sell one of the hogs for a pretty penny and can afford to buy himself something he likes. The people in the nearest town say his milk from his cows is the best they’ve had in a long time! He’s not a star or anything, but he’s got something good going for himself and he’ll be damned if he lets it wither and die like the dreams he had in his youth.

RANCHER!ARTHUR MORGAN who won’t lie to himself and say he doesn’t miss his old life. At the start, he feigned for it so bad; he’d try to rationalize it and say that it wouldn’t hurt no one, but he knew better. Sometimes he’d lie awake in the modest little house that was on the property when he bought it, reminiscing about the good times in the gang before the cracks started showing. When they could make a quick scheme and walk away feeling like the richest men in the world. He missed his brothers and their asshole behavior; he missed the girls sometimes, too, even if they got on his nerves. But they were behind him, and he knew he couldn’t go back. For his sake, and for theirs.

RANCHER!ARTHUR MORGAN who rides into town one day to drop off some milk at the general store to see someone new behind the counter; someone younger and prettier than the stuffy old lad who talks to proper and irritates Arthur with his poshness. He’s so taken off guard that he almost drops the crate of milk he’s carrying in. He learns that you’re the store owner’s daughter and that you’ve taken over for him because he got into a wild riding accident, and that he’d be out for the next couple of months. You try not to make it so awkward on Arthur, as it seems like seeing you behind the counter instead of your father has already thrown him for a loop. When the cowboy promptly drops off the milk and bids a quick farewell, you fear you’ve made a horrible first impression.

RANCHER!ARTHUR MORGAN who comes back a week later with a much more level head and a little less awkward now that he expects you behind the counter. This time he brings with him some seeds to sell that he’d gotten from a farmer a couple miles down the road that he didn’t want. He thought he’d be able to sell or exchange them for something he’d actually use. He was quiet, yet polite, and had an air of mystery around him that intrigued her. It wasn’t every day a handsome rancher came into the general store, and you wanted to know everything you could about this Arthur Morgan, who kept his cards close to his chest and was a man of few words.

RANCHER!ARTHUR MORGAN who made his visits slightly longer every time he’d come into the general store, whether to sell his goods or to buy some tools or necessities from himself. After a handful of encounters, he finally blessed you with more of his voice and words - they had a roughness to them from years of hard work, but was still warm and inviting. The way he called you ‘miss’ and way he tipped his cowboy hat to you as a farewell made you giddy like a little schoolgirl. You found yourself looking forward to opening the general store every day, hoping to have a conversation with Arthur Morgan if he’d come in.

RANCHER!ARTHUR MORGAN who says to you “I ain’t so good with the ladies” when you ask him why he always seems so shy talking to you, and it actually makes you giggle a little. Arthur Morgan, the unit of a man that he is, admitting his timidity of a woman? What God in Heaven made this be so? Oh, but you have no intention of letting it be just that. No, you tell Arthur Morgan, “I can teach you, if you’d like”, and you swear you see the lightest dust of pink cross his cheeks. He’s got half a mind to walk out of there like a puppy with it’s tail between it’s legs; how could you make him so embarrassed like that! Though, if it’s you than plans on teach him how to be a little less dense and awkward around women, he probably wouldn’t mind it. Maybe he could even return the favor and have you writhing in bashfulness…

If you enjoyed, please leave a like, comment, and reblog for others to see! And don’t be shy to send in a request!

[jimmyandthepulsatingmass]

A Very Long Rope to the Top of the Sky

I've added a Very Long Rope to the Top of the Sky to itch.io!

This is mainly a response to the ask I got the other day to upload God of Crawling Eyes (which I'll get to next, I swear!). Since rpgmaker.net has been down for some time and the only upload for my old games is on archive.org, it felt like probably a good idea to upload everything on itch.io for the sake of preservation. I'm just going to upload them every day or so until they're all there.

From the page:

A Very Long Rope to the Top of the Sky was my first complete game.  It was an overly ambitious, full-length RPG that I had no business making with my rudimentary understanding of game development at the time, but it still has its charm.

The mechanics are pretty by-the-numbers rpg maker, the mapping is generally not detailed enough, and the graphics are RTP with an occasional edit, but the writing mostly holds up and some of the songs are great--even if they're MIDI.  If you're willing to overlook the simplicity of the battle system and the rough-around-the-edges aspects of the game, there's enough here to legitimately enjoy.

The story starts with Mint and Ivy, two sisters who are grappling with the death of their father.  They live on a barren planet, so barren that they've never run into any people outside of their immediate family.  But, there's a rope hanging next to their house.  It's always been there.  It goes up and up and up, so far that it disappears into the clouds.  With their father dead, their attempts at foraging falling short, and the world filled with dangerous monsters, they have no choice but to climb the rope.  What awaits them, above the clouds?

Features: -Original music -Character-centric storyline -40+ hours of gameplay -Different equipment sets that modify the ways characters play -A crafting system featuring over 100 pieces of unique equipment -LOTS of side quests -Recruit an odd assortment of townspeople and pass legislation to develop your own village -Raise a pig to compete in the Pig Arena and win prizes -New game+ feature that includes multiple bonus endings--a mechanic I blatantly stole from Chrono Trigger

[cerastes]

Bro any time I think about Valkyria Chronicles I laugh my nipples off, the game is fundamentally flawed gameplaywise but, simultaneously, it's stupidly fun, which is the recipe for any club banger, it has a story that weaves flawlessly between "that's pretty poignant" and "this is some goofy goober shit", it's got the horrors of war but also this fucking pig piece of shit mascot, Hans,

It's an amalgam of white and black without any gray: It exists on extremes, and it never intersects, it's playing two parallel lines and coming to terms with the fact that you'll never see cohesion but that somehow enhances the end product in ways evidently no one intended. You have narrative comparisons with the persecution of jews and, at the same time, the game ends with the bad guy getting German Suplexed.

But I think the funniest aspect of Valkyria Chronicles The First is that the main character is the farthest thing from a war hero they could possibly muster with the expertise of a stoic Japanese swordsmith from the mountains crafting a god-cleaving blade: Welkin.

This Scout From TF2 Put Through An Anime Filter looking mother fucker was chilling in his hometown talking about how much he wanted to be a teacher and showing people his really good sketches of animals because he's also a gifted artist, when suddenly, the Dudes attack, and his reaction to the Dudes attacking is "hang on, I recall my dad hiding his actual service tank in the shed in the back" so he goes and, yeah, his dad's tank from a previous war is just there, chilling, so he takes it for a joy ride while the town baker, Alicia, armed with a rifle and infinite action economy due to the afore mentioned flawed gameplay, sweeps the entire god damn platoon of heavily armed machine gun troops.

The entire game is Welkin using his love for nature and his baker love interest to inflict insane personnel and materiel damage to an entire empire: Welkin and Alicia will come across a heavily fortified bridge, and the dialogue will go something like

"Welkin! They will pulverize us with the heaviest machine guns known to man if we step one foot in that bridge! They practically developed wooden low-orbit bombardment stations! What's the plan!"

"Well... Look at that duck over there. It's flying from the east to the west, right? Well, YOU SEE, that duck is known as a Balkunese Socioduck, and those, during this season, migrate from west to east, and they only exhibit this irregular flight path if a Matrisgel Weasel family is molting by the juniper berry bushes, their favorite food. Matrisgel Weasels only ever molt if they are put under the exact amount of stress caused to them by the sound of distant tank threads on the road, and they are known to hide in sturdy, stable soil."

"Welkin, SIR, what the fuck does this all mean?"

"If we follow the smoldering shrieking of the molting weasels, we'll find a SECRET PATH that will, as always, let us ambush, flank, and surprise our foes! Alicia, you know what to do."

"Ogggeyyyyy"

and then, invariably, no matter the level, thanks to Welkin's impressive knowledge of fauna and flora, and Alicia's literally infinite action economy in a game that wasn't properly beta tested in-house during development, they combine their powers like a piss poor Captain Planet and kill the absolute shit out of an entire Empire's worth of dudes, and it's legitimately one of the most fun and charming games you'll ever touch if you remember to not take it too seriously. I fucking hate Hans but I love this game.

[ateez-himari]

[241031] DORM LIVE

● 여상 is live on POP now (11:29 PM)

● 92,390 active viewers

[While two of the roommates introduce the furnished living room, their maknae walks in wearing her boyfriend's boxers and a loose sweater suspiciously identical to the one her brother left on his studio chair, waving to the camera while holding a box of Pepero]

H; [Signing to Yunho] "Do you need me to make dinner ? I think we have enough for sundubu jjigae and jjapaguri"

YH; [Signing back very slowly] "Sangie and I ordered some from the place down the street, we got you your favorite. I think it'll be here in about 15 minutes"

[With a nod she takes a seat on the couch while the oldest dormmate sets up the game console, resting her head on Yeosang's shoulder to read the comments]

H; I'm glad you guys like the furniture...I had to drag them out to get some because it was just empty space, a massage chair and protein powder

YS; Maybe if you used some of that protein powder you would've been able to lift the boxes by yourself...just saying

[She stares at him blankly before biting him, causing the phone to fall]

[Yeosang flips the camera to his roommates as the vocalist sits in a rather strange position, legs kicked up against the back pillows of the couch and head hanging from the edge while watching the spiderman gameplay]

YS; What is even going on...are you a bat ? Are you trying to be Spiderman ?

[After registering that he was addressing her, Himari proceeds to make the character's hand gestures before gently throwing a pillow instead of a web, which unfortunately lands right on their friend's face]

YH; Can you turn off the camera for a second...I don't want Atiny to see this

[As Yeosang goes back to speaking with their fans, squeals can be heard in the background along with two pairs of feet running around the apartment]

YS; This is ATEEZ in their natural habitat...well actually it's a rare sight to see in this dorm, usually Hima would be working on something

[Yunho is too concentrated on the game to hear what is going on around him and Himari is laying against his thigh, legs resting on Yeosang's while texting. Seconds later her finger slips on the sound button and a loud voice message of Jungkook screaming 'fuck' plays before she hurriedly cuts it off]

H;[Imitating Dr. Strange's hand movement]...Ah Dormammu

YH; Do you think the staff is watching our live this late- ?

H; I mean they can't fire me either way...right ? Everyone, it was Jeon Jungkook, my mouth would never utter such mean dirty words, he's a delinquent

[Yunho clears his throat very loudly, leading to the maknae slapping his thigh only for him to drop his controller and begin tickling her as Yeosang turns the camera back to himself, posing cutely to distract viewers from the chaos in front of him]

YS; Hahaha...we love each other very much Atiny, ATEEZ is always peaceful these two just have no idol image

[Himari is on the phone with Hongjoong on speaker while she paints her nails and Yunho speaking to Atiny to let Yeosang braid her hair]

HJ; I'm gonna go out for dinner Himi, don't forget to do your rehabilitation exercises, I haven't seen you do them yet

H; Haha, you're stalking our live ? I'll do them in a bit, love you oppa, goodnight

HJ; Love you too, eat well alright ? I sent you some dessert

[Himari is finishing up her rehabilitation exercises while talking to the fans as her roommates set up the freshly delivered food, something catching Yeosang's attention as she moves around slightly]

YS; Are you wearing underwear (boxers) instead of sleeping shorts ? Where did those come from ?

H; I dunno...I can ask Mingi where he bought them if you want, the brand might be on the waistband actually, let me check

[As she starts to pull the hem of the sweater up in order to see the boxers clearly, the two members stop her in a panic]

H; Oh but when you guys strip on stage it's fine huh-

[After a rather filling dinner, the maknae lays down on Yunho's back as he scrolls on his phone, resting on his stomach and barely flinching at her weight]

YS; She's like a big cat, she can't be without physical touch for more than 10 seconds especially when she's tired. Apparently Yunho is subject to mattress testing today

[Letting out a loud yawn she turns towards him and points towards her ear void of a hearing aid in preparation for a sudden nap, a gesture understood by the man who quickly translated it through clumsy hand signs]

H; It's the advantage of having 8 other members...you never have to sleep on the ground, or even in your bed

YS; Or you can just fall asleep in your studio and have one of your 8 members come drive you home-

[After taking a little while to register what he said she lunges over to him, accidentally digging her foot into Yunho's backside in the process - both male members rushing to attack her with pillows]

[The vocalist opted to lay on the tallest dancer's back once more, practically mimicking his position before turning her head to Yeosang]

H; [Signing while talking] "Sangie oppa, do you know when we're going back to Italy ?"

YS; [S] "I'm not sure...I think some time around January, why ?"

H; [S] "Hyunjin oppa just sent me a picture of this really pretty paintbrush set but apparently he only found it in Milan, so I wanted to go buy it...I have to buy some new scrolls and ink too but Seonghwa oppa is coming shopping with me tomorrow"

YH; You guys have no idea how much money she makes from royalties alone, and she has over 200, but she only spends it on art stuff...you should see her car, you'd never guess she gets paid that much

H; Are you dissing my car ?? You're just mad because your long legs don't fit in it

YH; [S] "At least they're not so short that I have to power walk just to keep up with our members, or have to wait for breakfast because I can't reach the cereal"

[Yeosang slowly zooms in on her offended face before she smothers his face in a pillow, causing the two to start play fighting yet again - a true cat/dog duo]

H; So NOW you're fluent in sign language huh ??

YS; I'm sure they'll work it out...

[Yunho can be heard screaming in the background as Himari jumps on him]

YS; They love each other so much-

[Worn out from so much physical exercise after a work filled day, the maknae is fast asleep with her head on Yeosang's thigh, holding a plush previously taken from her room as ammunition. Surprisingly the dorm's oldest fell asleep quickly as well, head resting on the vocalist's side]

YS; Well Atiny that's it for today's live, I guess I should get some sleep too, bye bye

Translated by 9024subs

[sunflowerhae]

The Flops™️

Y/n

A 22 year old professional dumb ass with a side gig in being comedic relief. Y/n is easy to understand; she loves video games, loves her cat, and loves pasta. And well..MAYBE she loves her fans too. Y/n is what you could call an “unstoppable force”. She’s going up in the online entertainment world, and has no plans on stopping soon. After having JUST passed her 4 million subscriber milestone on YouTube, y/n believes her life is just near perfect. Which is exactly why God needed to humble her, she thinks. Because WHO kicks someone out of their apartment (3 months before their lease ends, might I add) because of a “miscommunication” if not compelled to by God Himself. So, now Y/n has to move all of her things..AGAIN..to a new place…AGAIN…and pray to God (who we’ve found does NOT have a soft spot for her) that this one sticks - at least for a little bit. Everyone around y/n quickly learns that it’s not her who’s the comedic relief, but instead her life which is so ridiculous, that you can’t help but laugh.

Giselle

Giselle has two main interests. She is a fan of music, and a fan of y/n. She got the music part covered by being one of Korea’s leading superstars. AND she has the y/n part covered by being y/n’s absolute ULTIMATE best friend. When she’s not hypnotizing a whole country with her melodies, she’s dreaming of hanging out with her friends and, maybe hot Greek men. But be careful! This kitty bites, and if you poke too hard at her, you’ll understand why they say she has claws.

Winter

When winter isn’t focusing on her (some would call it) obsession with animal crossing, she’s focusing on her blossoming career in the mukbang community. If you can name it, Winter can eat it. She’s still pretty new, but she’s gaining a steady following by her charming personality and, quite frankly, insane ability to hound a plate of food faster than you can utter an insult. It of course doesn’t hurt her new following that she’s good friends with some of the most influential people of her generation, but that doesn’t mean much to her. With a laugh and bite - winter is a happy girl.

Jisung

Jisung would never call himself a streamer. Sure, he plays video games for people to watch. Sure, he gets viewer numbers up to the thousands. SURE, he makes money off it and has a weekly upload schedule. But no, Jisung would NEVER call himself a streamer. So y/n does it for him! You might think the whole “bicker like siblings” thing is an act for the camera, but that’s just the nature of these two friends. When she’s not nagging him about how much he eats and yet never goes to the gym, Jisung fills the space by laughing and bullying y/n’s gameplay choices. Some newbies are convinced they actually hate each other, but OG’s know these two love each other fiercely, the difference is they show it in their own..unique..way.

Jaemin

Ah..Jaemin. The irony of Jaemin befalls all his friends. He is, by far, the most outgoing one of the bunch. Jaemin sees a new person as a new opportunity for a friend. He laughs in the face of introverts, while also hugging them and giving them a free bag of chips. Jaemin knows just what to say, and just when to say it. And it pains them all that he’s the ONLY “normal” one of the group. Jaemin is currently studying business at SNU, hoping to one day open a cat cafe. His nonchalance towards being in the most envied and admired friend group of their country confuses Jaemins classmates. And what confuses them even more is that, when asked if he feels lucky to be friends with them, his reply is only, “those idiots? More like what crimes did I commit in my last life to be cursed to know them”. But fear not for little old Jaemin, for he is probably the sneakiest of the lot. And if you don’t know what I mean, I’m sorry, but it’s already too late for you.

Jeno

Jeno is a model. It’s really that simple. Jeno is a model - and also so much more. He’s Jaemins best friend, he’s winters boyfriend, he’s the “glue” of the group (as y/n would put it), and he’s just genuinely a nice person. If you have an issue with anything - he’s there. A leak in your roof? Call Jeno. You’re missing a final ingredient for a recipe you’ve been dying to try? Jeno will find it, or die trying! Need a shoulder to cry on after a nasty breakup? Jeno is at yours with a tissue one minute, and an undisclosed location with a gun and some rope in the next. He’s the fiercest and loyalist friend you’ll ever have; who just so happens to be a model.

GG! (Good Game!) 👾

Notes: does anybody actually read my character descriptions bc I actually think I popped off w these ngl. Also not them being a hype house lowkey (without the house part)

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[iraprince]

I love the entire concept of Cookie... the look, the fashion, the gender... Would you mind telling us a little more about him? I'm also intrigued about why she's named Cooking with Gorgeous!

HI i would LOVE to talk about george thank you so much. also this makes me realize i've never actually sat down and just made a post unabashedly infodumping at length abt an oc before and it seems silly that i haven't. i ask only for all dear readers to please temper their expectations for this post with the knowledge that i just smoked half a joint before sitting down to answer it. a small one. but still. anyway

FIRST OF ALL FOR THE UNACQUAINTED THIS IS COOKING WITH GORGEOUS, aka cookie or george for short. he uses he/him and she/her pronouns interchangeably!

hi sorry that's not cookie that's a horse in a bridal veil that i. found in my stuff while trying to scroll and find my cookie art. i just got distracted and had to show you. okay no for real here's cookie

he's the character i'm playing in a playtest campaign of the absolutely mesmerizing sapphicworld, an in-development ttrpg!!! and if i'm going to be talking about cookie i feel like i HAVE to say i think a huge amount of her charm and dazzle and charisma comes directly from the charm and dazzle and charisma of the setting i created her for. i know i am laying it on really thick right now but that is on purpose. i want, desperately and unashamedly, for this game to get really popular bc 1. it's genuinely that good. and it's not even DONE yet and 2. i want everyone to get into it so that everyone will make sapphicworld characters and then i'll get to see everyone's sapphicworld characters.

EDIT i'm scrolling back up here and adding a readmore bc this is already getting so long lol. you asked for "a little more" and apparently i have graciously decided this means "literally every fact about cookie that exists in my brain"

SO a lot of the info/tidbits i haven't shared about cookie are i guess gameplay-specific stuff... his title (which is like a class/playbook) is "The Noble Sweetheart," though in sapphicworld "nobility" no longer has anything to do with wealth or class, and is instead entirely about amassing a court purely via devotion/popularity; her subculture (which is like, Who You Hang Out With; drifters, goths, poets, debauchers, cowpokes, etc) is Babe; and her kind (which is like ancestries but in sapphicworld is really just like, a physical form, which u can change more or less at will) is Lunarthrope, which is basically a werewolf!! or more broadly a furry, since u always look like whatever were-animal you are 24/7. just MORE at night, tho i suppose i don't represent that aspect much in my cookie art... ANYWAY i am restraining myself from just sitting here and like. transcribing her entire character sheet. but basically what all this means is that cookie's role in the world (at least at the beginning of the campaign) is "Professionally — no, VOCATIONALLY Hot Person who everyone loves so so so so so so much." cookie really enjoys this role.

he's named cooking with gorgeous because he's an avid cook, and he wants to share that with you, and he's gorgeous!! though honestly the cooking hasn't ended up as important to his character as it was when i first came up with him, lol — but my initial concept was kind of like, what's the equivalent of a bouncy normie recipe blogger/lifestyle influencer but in the context of the lush horny trans deathless psychedelic universe of sapphicworld. and it's cooking with gorgeous, a doggirl dyke with big blue boobs (six of them!!) who is so devastatingly cute and darling that a bunch of people just kind of pledge their fealty to him for no real reason other than he feeds them. and is cute

also her name is def influenced by the fantastic names of many canon sapphicworld npcs! like, quick example list of some npc names off the top of my head: the booty commie, death cybernetic, princess eureka!, the culinary goof (whom cookie dislikes. btw.), pizza friday (whom cookie loves!!!)

cookie is very very determined, and she's ALMOST always very confident. even when she isn't feeling confident, she's still very good at forcing herself to keep putting one foot in front of the other — maybe just while screaming or crying or uncontrollably barking or at least very ardently complaining. he has a tendency to be spoiled and, like, tactless-via-obliviousness, so sometimes he can be grating to interact with, and he has a petty/vindictive streak; but in general he's an AGGRESSIVELY kind person and usually aims all his shrill, cheerful stubbornness directly toward the goal of refusing to accept anything but the best for everyone.

at the beginning of our campaign cookie has JUST received a brand new castle!!!! (chateau gorgeous.) which he doesn't actually "own" bc, remember, no wealth or class in sapphicworld, but he's the ENTHUSIASTIC new caretaker and is chomping at the bit to renovate it so ppl can live there and he can throw a bunch of magnificent parties and basically continue living exactly as he has been, But Even More Fabulous. obviously this is exactly when the main plot threat of the campaign shows up and spoils everything and compels cookie to go on his First Ever Adventure!!!!!! she HAS to save the world otherwise NOBODY will be able to go to the first big party at chateau gorgeous :((((

at this point to prevent myself from just like, giving you guys a play by play of the entire campaign so far i am going to just start listing every cookie fact i can think of as bullet points

🎀 he owns a magical sword in the shape of a giant microplane. it's called The Microplane. he pronounces this "mee-crow-plah-nay"

🎀 george desperately wants to resurrect The Dog-Lich, an entity that once ruled over all beasts from its palace on the moon but was murdered and torn to pieces in a cosmic war far in the past. her attitude towards this desire is 50% devoted lunar cultist, 50% parasocially obsessive twitter stan

🎀 this isn't really a cookie fact but going back to how his title is The Noble Sweetheart — just for a glimpse at party composition, his fellow party members' titles are The Intimate Scholar, The Tentacle Advocate, and The Tw*nk Controversial (the * is the canon spelling).

^ aforementioned tw*nk. its name is Mwah ("pronounced like the kiss you blow at someone you just fucked over"). mwah is played by @/squiddelyfather on twitter!

🎀 mwah and cookie used to be very, very tight, BEFORE mwah became the tw*nk controversial. now that it's so.... you know.... controversial, well. they're still very close, but it has gotten a little stilted and weird (and watching them slowly un-weird it together as the campaign goes on has been one of my fav roleplay experiences ever honestly)

🎀 cookie's other adventuremates, skarligge and delaryn, are both very indulgent towards him. delaryn acts the most grumpy/dismissive about it but is honestly sometimes the worst about spoiling cookie out of anyone in the party (skarligge's player is twt@/clown_dream and delaryn's is twt@/glaiveguisarme and hey while im at it our fantastic gm is the sapphicworld dev, twt@/ddemoneclipse. hi guys i hope u don't mind me chattering abt ur ocs here lol it's just hard to talk abt the best of cookie w/o bringing up everyone else's characters and roleplay also!!!)

🎀 cookie is very VERY sensitive and will burst into tears at the drop of a hat. the precursor to this is her eyes getting So So So Big And Wet And Round. one of my favorite bits to menace the other party members with is when something is not going cookie's way i will lean into my mic and say "cookie's eyes are getting so so so big. they're getting so big and wet and round and shiny. they're so so round and fucking big her eyes are like big wet black glass marbles" and this is like kryptonite to them. this is like getting hit with deadly radiation

🎀 oh speaking of fashion!!!! one of cookie's perks from being a Babe is that she can always change her look whenever she wants. she will ALWAYS have whatever outfit she needs and can quickchange instantly. wait this reminds me i have a bunch of seasonal holiday outfits sketched out and i don't think i've ever posted them here but it'll only let me put one more image in this post. well here have this one

🎀 okay well suddenly i have forgotten all other george facts so that's all for now!!! from now on i will try to just dump oc facts like this more often tho this is really fun. ty for getting me going lol!!!

[chasedeys]

https://www.tumblr.com/chasedeys/768170997377597440/httpswwwtumblrcomchasedeys768169507136159744

Oh 100 % I agree that they had a talk afterwards. Both of them have emphasized communication throughout the 6 years they have been “together 😭💀,” so no way they didn’t have a heart to heart they never get like that with each other

they couldn't have not have the talk lbr like that fight was kind of crazy had people talking about bengals downfall burrow-chase connection fallout etc they got to have a heart-to-heart 😭 though i guess it wasn't really actually a fight?? ja'marr just got so fucking angry and joe had to cool him down and the way to cool him down quick was to yk shove at him and yell at him right back ig though 100% nobody else but joe would've away with it on that field lol

i've talked about it a bit here in the end!!

also after that infamous kc game shove, i definitely think they had a very tough heart to heart where ja'marr maybe spills his full feelings over the contract and how he hasn’t been getting the ball to actually make big plays and how his worth as a wr1 is being brought to question and joe probably spills on his own feelings on how ja'marr held out so long and had last minute (?) changes of playing that week one ramps up joe's own anxiety and hang ups like i definitely feel like he had some unchecked anxiety over playing with his wrist that first game that ja'marr probably said something incredibly insane yet uplifting about in response. the next game its like they mended some unseen frayed stitch of their connection! first drive banger of a 41 yarder td for jamarr, two tuddys for the game in fact lol!! joe gets him his deep ball, then the insane way joe rushed at him after his 63 yarder in the next game, its like that first touchdown against minnesota again. i just wish the very best for them, to keep making these insane passes and insane runs they’ve been making since lsu.

that's pretty much it lmao but there's some more word vomit below that might a bit much tbh:

okay like i was new at this during the first few weeks okay I've not been here for their lsu to bengals run and my understanding of their burrow-chase throw-catch connection by which i mean like actual football playing qb-wr gameplay was still being learned!! i absolute did not know any rules of the game that first week i watched 😭 didn't even know how you got 7pts out a touchdown etc etc sorry i really was just there for the pretty men who had their faces covered by helmets 90% of the time lmao and from what i saw it was kind of meh you know???

like I've watched their highlights before don't get me wrong i know they got it. the touchdowns??? the way joe throws and ja'marr runs??? crazyyyyyy how the fuck does joe know exactly where ja'marr was going to run, how the fuck did ja'marr know exactly how far joe was going to throw, and like this could absolutely be attributed to the way they plan things with coaches and play calling etc but!! doesn't change the fact that in the end it just takes two people to do that shit and they've understood each other so well to have done it near perfectly!! like it made me understand why there's so much poetry and romance in sports!!! the trust the connection the whatever i can't find words the point is i didn't really like......see that in the first two games??? like there was some kind of disconnect yk and like idk they played like shit 😭 but keep in mind i was completely unknowledgeable of football like at all and i refuse to rewatch those games so maybe i was just stupid and didn't see it lmao

BUT THEN???? the week 3 game?????? ja'marr's first touchdown of the season???????? THAT was the shit i was waiting for like iirc ja'marr and tee were running their way down by the sidelines getting double teamed (?) each idk ja'marr was definitely double teamed had me doubting they'd make it but joe threw an absolutely beautiful ball at him and ja'marr caught that shit over his shoulder!?!?!?!??! brought it right home too!!!!!!! i was so gassedddddd i was exhilarated like completely 100% fell in love with the sport that was amazing that was literally my first live burrow-chase touchdown!!!!!!

(another fucking list sorry) me being the Master Speculator of Shit that i am made my own stupid ass narratives about how:

they were unsure of their game and each other's lmao hear me out. joe's first game back after the devastating wrist injury that was hell to get back into form to, had to deal with all the noise about him never going to be able to throw the way he used to again and knew just how many fucking eyes would be on him that first game back watching his wrist like bloodthirsty hawks. even if i believe that he's the type of person who can completely block out that noise without flinching, some subconscious and fearful part of him had to have been holding him back. the numerous, numerous, painful clips of him twisting his wrists repeatedly, fidgeting harder than he's ever fidgeted before, the water bottle stupidity that he actually got asked about, etc (god i can't imagine being a celebrity having your anxious shit caught on camera and analyzed so loudly over the internet). and then you add in how ja'marr's been in a contract holdout and clearly bothered as all hell about it because it's just not getting done at all even d-1 of their opening week!! insane. there were questions of ja'marr even playing game 1 and joe of course said unflinchingly that ja'marr would be ready week 1 regardless but completely understandable if he's rattled okay!! if ja'marr wasn't really planning on playing (wasn't he listed as questionable due to illness idk i forgot) suddenly switching up however many hours before to actually playing that's gotta fuck up joe's steady structure that he already prepared beforehand of not playing with ja'marr you know??? like basically a) anxiety over his wrist, b) ja'marr's sudden status as active messing up his pregame, and c) everybody and their grandmothers all up in his business for his first game back.

ja'marr's contract situation. people absolutely saying the foulest shit about his decision to hold out, the amount of money he asked, saying to boot him out, calling him a diva /derogatory, comparing him to justin, tee's contract situation, etc. the fo being the one to open convo about his extension only to not be open to his numbers??? sensible numbers if you think abt it btw and now well lmao good luck fo his agent must be smug as all hell. it maybe planted seeds of doubt and insecurity in him on his worth as WR1 you know?? like why are they acting like he isn't worth all that fucking money. incredibly emotional highly intelligent sensitive pisces that he is gets understandably more and more pissed off and defensive about literally everything but he fucking loves this sport and he loves his guys so he decides to play the game 1 anyway and. well. just. sigh.

the game went to shit and ja'marr played idk better than the rest of the receivers but in all honesty everyone was kind of shit?? and like. they lost to the patriots. who literally got beaten belt to ass by the dolphins last week. but anyways game 2 against ja'marr's most Hated capital h and everything fucking chiefs 😭 yeah with the whole contract situation still up in the air there was no way he wasn't going to have some sort of meltdown tbh. hence the fight....where joe got physical with him.....where his actions definitely contributed heavily to their loss which should have been a win.

and so: the talk. like i said they both talked about their anxieties no holds barred literally all the shit i wrote above and apologized to each other the way men usually do idk bro hugged it out maybe. i genuinely think ja'marr went off on joe on not getting the ball more like????? i can't explain it damn it he definitely chewed him out on it and joe was like 'fuck okay'. ja'marr says he never notices shit about how joe throws the ball so maybe he doesn't notice anything about joe's wrist acting up. but maybe he notices that joe's holding back or there's some sort of hang up over the way he plays and needles it out of him point-blank like the person that he is and joe finally talks about it and ja'marr responds by being 100% insane like he usually does and that sort of devotion and sheer stubbornness on one's belief in who you are has to have some kind of impact on joe damn. they probably got some professional therapy too btw at least i hope so :'). but basically ja'marr just wants the ball more and joe gets him the fucking ball.

ja'marr said something along the lines of him finding joy playing again 😔🤚 this was such a comment like god he hasn't been playing happy at all and when he put to rest the contract shit he finally gets to play a sport he loves with joy!!! him being happy is so fucking important to me wow 😭 i think I've said this before in some post idk but he knows he messed up, he knows the contract negotiation fucked up his emotions so bad he brings it on the field so he nips that shit quick and done. no more contract talks until the next offseason. probably made it clear to joe though that he will not leave but fuck if he's listening to any bullshit from the fo when he's got a game to win and a super bowl to get to and idk about you but that probably healed something in joe like there is the guy who gets him. who's as hungry as he is for a win, for a ring, for a championship. who's got his back, who he can trust to be there on the other end of the field to catch his throws.

the next game!!!!!!!!! god i really am not the person to talk about routes or strategy or whatever but i know for damn sure that that was a beautiful throw and that was a beautiful catch and that was a one-of-a-kind connection. like they fixed something that was unknowingly dented in their connection and like they're finally trusting themselves and each other again to make the big plays they've done before the injury and the contract drama you know????? aurrugrgrhrh i can't word anything out i feel like saying more about this but i cant please get me anyway 😭

this entire emotional roller coaster thing was also the main reason they had those kind of helmet bonks on the next 63 yard td and 70 yard td btw. been a long while since they've had those kind of plays, probably had some unnamed unknowing unacknowledged doubts that they would ever have it again, so it was like the first time all over again lol. (was one of the things joe said to him in that little bubble of their celly after the ravens 70 yarder something like 'see i knew we still got it. i knew you still got it.' god i feel insane)

ok bye......

[biffybobs]

"But Mummy whyyyy are we in Del Sol Valley? I wanted to stay home and play Roblox."

"We're here to find Judith. The nice lady whose autograph hangs above the potty at home. She's going to be your other Mum."

this gameplay got derailed very quickly and never returned to the tracks. but as @gerbits always says: "it is a biffy save after all."

[deusvervewrites]

AU where the world of MHA is a full dive MMO, with top heroes also being the best players.

My Hero Online is the newest hit Full Dive MMO based around a world of Superheroes and special powers. The game advertises itself on not only Full Dive gameplay but the customizable 'Quirk' system that allows you to create your own unique superpower by combining thousands of preset parts. E-Sports are a big deal, with a national leaderboard.

Midoriya wants the game due to a strong desire for escapism on account of junior-high bullying. Why is he being bullied in a No-Quirks(?) AU, you might ask, if you've never been to middle school. When he finally gets it, he's approached in-game during the tutorial by another player, inviting Midoriya to a 'secret area.' Midoriya, not really being a gamer before this, doesn't know enough to spot the red flags.

The 'secret area' is out of bounds and not meant for players to be there, but the other player is a hacker. They genuinely meant to hang out and goof around with exploits and cheats, but, uh. There seems to be two digimon-adjacent asks at the top of this post. I hope you weren't attached to your body, Midoriya, because you're about to lose it.

To cut a long story short, Midoriya got grabbed by some kind of glitch entity while logging out of the game (to avoid said entity) and found himself back in his room but, uh, not quite physical anymore. Cyber Sleuth refers to this as a half-cyber body*. I'm taking a few liberties with it though.

Midoriya would actually kind of like his body back though, it's his and he is attached to it. But he's not going to be able to get it back without diving deep into My Hero Online and learning more about what's below its surface.

+1. Midoriya is locked into his first character as a result of the glitched logout that took his body. It also gave him the Quirk, Glitch, which doesn't appear to be a real Quirk that you can create through the character creation system, and seems to border on warping reality within the game. And it might be getting stronger.

*For those of you who've never seen it, the half-cyber body is a blue silhouette of the person covered in a shifting pattern of squares resembling the particle effect used for digital stuff. However, by adjusting some data, this body can be customized to appear normal.

[lillotte17]

Okay, I’ve done 2 play throughs and I’m well into my 3rd, so I feel like my review of the game can be (mostly) fair and not as emotionally driven as it was when I finished the first time. (this is very long >_>)

I want to start with the good things!

The game is beautiful. BEAUTIFUL. I was not crazy about the stylistic change of the graphics from DAI at first, but once I started playing, I really loved it. The maps are huge and unique. I find something new every time. I love all the little puzzles and sneaky little side quests you can find. I the little sneaky cameos of items and songs from other games.

I love the mechanics of being able to use companions’ special abilities when they are not in your party. I still wish we got 3 people in our party instead of just 2 for balance reasons, but otherwise I find the fighting really engaging and dynamic.

I love that they brought back specific banter spots, shortened the time between when the next banter triggers AND allowed for recovery of the conversation if it got interrupted by something. Thank you for my LIFE. Waiting for certain banters to trigger in DAI was awful lmao.

I really appreciated the effort they put into the CC, allowing for greater body type differences and the various gender options. Long hair, curly hair, please and thank! The CC took some getting used to, but once I got the hang of it, it’s fun just to build characters, lol.

I really liked the easy upgrades and enchantments for your armors, and I LOVED being able to wear whatever the best armor was, but have a different armor visible. Great call, team! Do that for always and ever. The only qualm I had was that I would have liked to be able to change the colors on some of the outfits, but really, there was such a good variety, this is a very minor complaint.

In terms of storyline, my favorite quest was the Blood of Arlathan, and I also liked the final push at the end through Minrathous. Big surprise that the things I liked best was actually getting to fight with Solas on my team again, lol. But those where also the times where it really felt like everything was on the table, you know? Weisshaupt was a strong contender, too. That quest was so fasted paced, it made it a little hard to appreciate just how much was going on around you. But asking your local assassin to stab a god-cloud is never not funny, so that one gets good points, too.

Overall, the gameplay is really strong. The rollout was really smooth. I didn’t really encounter any bugs, except for one time I managed to change all the subtitles to French? But I think that might have been a user error. If I was just here for a generic fantasy game, this would get 10/10. It’s fun to play and it’s pretty. You can stab stuff, and throw magic around, and there are dragons.

However…

The storyline and the pacing was a mess. Which is honestly baffling from a BioWare game. I am not saying this with spite or hatred, because I know that EA tried to kill this game repeatedly, so it’s kind of amazing that we got anything at all, BUT it’s still frustrating, because…I can SEE IT. I can SEE all the pieces of a REALLY good story. An AMAZING story. The story I WANTED to play!!! And it’s like…it all got put together wrong.

The nearly nonexistent romances are honestly the worst offenders here. Even if they wanted to keep the rating down to make it more accessible to a wider audience, there is no reason why I should only have ONE opportunity to kiss my love interest over the course of an 80+ hour game. SOLAVELLAN had more unique romance scenes and kisses than you get with Lucanis and he DUMPS your character before coming back to steal your hand. Not to mention the fact that it is possible for your LI to die before you ever get to actually say you love them or anything. Davrin was my first romance. At the end of Tearstone Island like…I wasn’t sad. I wasn’t feeling my PCs grief that her boyfriend whom she had kissed exactly one time was dead. I was PISSED. I don’t think I have ever been so mad about a writing choice, and I am a certified Tragedy Enjoyer. It didn’t even feel like a good tragic blow, because they didn’t take the time to build up the romance before killing him. And Rook hardly gets a second to mourn afterwards, so it was just kind of a nothingburger that made me feel like I wasted all the time I had spent playing for it. (I went back and changed it so he lived but jfc)

Speaking of killing characters: Varric. It was a mistake. I know what they were going for. I see what they were trying to do. But it was a mistake. First of all, they relied way too much on the idea that the player has played the other games, in the sense that the story just opens with Rook already with Varric, who they have known for over a year, and then they turn around and nerf him in the first act. There’s no time to establish how Rook feels about Varric, or how they feel about this quest they’ve been on for so long, you just get thrown into it without preamble. And then, Varric is just kind of… there. He’s Rook’s cheerleader, but he almost never has any real advice, and you almost never get to have a discussion with him. Which means, when you find out what happened to him later, the emotional blow is relying almost entirely on your attachment to Varric from previous games instead of the game you are currently playing.

Also, I figured out he was dead pretty early on, so the reveal had almost no impact, and felt a bit ham-fisted, if I’m being honest.

The second reason it was a mistake is that…it just felt like an excuse to make the player hate Solas. Like, it honestly feels like that is the only reason they did it. Which seems so unnecessary? The man is responsible for the fucking blight and the death of the titans and is currently trying to tear the Veil down, and you think that’s not ENOUGH motivation for the PC to want to give him the middle finger???

Which brings us to: Solas. I love this man. I love Solavellan. I love his story. I love THEIR story. But…if I had played this game first, I don’t think I would have cared about redeeming him. All of the companions tell stories about second chances and redemption and being able to change your nature, and I KNOW that was supposed to be in reference to Solas, I know it was but… It just felt like they did almost nothing to SHOW you how much he was trying to do the right thing every time he fucked up. How badly he wanted to be a hero and a protector, and someone giving wisdom instead of orders. When we saw his regrets and talked about them with the team, I really thought it was going to be relevant later. I thought it would come up in conversation with Solas, and depending on how you talked to him about the things you saw, you could slowly guide him towards choosing a better path at the end. I thought it would all be on Rook, and their choice to take a chance to try and redeem him or not. But in the end, it didn’t matter. It only unlocked Mythal. She was the only thing that made a difference. Not Rook. Not your Inquisitor. Not any of the other choices you made in the entire game or the one that preceded it. Don’t get me wrong, I am SO grateful they squeezed a Solavellan ending in there for us, really and truly. But the fact that he was so in love with her during DAI that he was about to give up everything without her even asking, and he’s so torn up about her during Trespasser that he can hardly let her close to him because just being in proximity to her makes him want to stop everything and stay with her, and then when she shows up at the end of Veilguard and asks him to stop…he pauses for even less time to consider the option than when ROOK asks. And then Mythal holds more sway with him by like 1000%. Just. Felt very much like a downgrade. (Also I wanted a hug. He needed a fucking hug and my Lavellan would have hugged the Bad Choices right out of him)

There are other things. Dwarves getting sidelined again. Slavery in Tevinter barely being touched on. The weird idea of the Crows being a good option for orphans with nowhere to go. The SUPER uncomfortable end of Bellara’s quest where a non-elf Rook can have an opinion on what she should do with the history of her people. But those are kind of like…small potatoes. Typical BioWare story flubs tbh.

I know, my complaints are much longer than my praises, but I really do like playing the game. Really and truly. It is a good game, and I am eternally grateful that they got it to us at all. I just…wish we could have gotten the story I think they wanted to tell us, instead of what we ended up with. But as they say: That’s what Fanfic is for. <3

[dead-lights]

trai-lore!

because ya know. trailers. with lore.

i'll see myself out

but! before i go - I went and compiled all of the Vampires trailers I could find! I wasn't familiar with all of the shorts and I'm not 100% sure I found them all. There are a lot of contradictions, but aside from the gameplay trailer they can mostly be stitched together.

Also, I recognize I'm trying to wring blood from a stone, reading into things that EA never intended, but ya know. That's the point of exploring lore!

this is mostly validated by werewolves - Lily's dialogue confirms that Caleb was turned by Miss Hell, and the 7 years unlucky mirror confirms that Vlad ambushed her while she was brushing her teeth.

It looks like the bar Miss Hell attacks Caleb in is supposed to be in Forgotten Hollow. There are plenty of reasons he could've been there, but to me that implies that Lilith turned first, and he was there because that's where she hangs out now.

It looks like you're supposed to be able to see the normie parts of Forgotten Hollow from that cliff with the bench, rather than just more of the mountain. There's definitely supposed to be more than just those 5 lots.

I'm not sure if the person behind Miss Hell in the bar is anyone specific? they feel slightly familiar but I might be thinking of Leila Illes from island living, which came out afterwards.

It's unclear how Caleb ended up in the bathroom or whether he asked to turn - the animation is the same either way. In game, I've had a lot of success with both bat-form bathroom ambushes and the good ol' "ask for woohoo and then cancel the order as soon as you're alone together" maneuver so either is plausible. To me, it looks like she's reenacting her transformation, with her as Vlad, so she would've wanted unwilling prey. I've generally thought that Caleb followed her into the bathroom thinking he was going to get laid, but with that in mind it does make sense that she would've just ambushed him when he got up to pee (poor humans and their bladders can't handle their nectar). @charsimsalot has a lot of interesting things to say about how being forcibly turned would have affected Miss Hell in this excellent post about the apartment they built for the rebellious vampires!

That bathroom door is on backwards. I checked - that door only has a sign on one side. Maybe they really wanted to hammer home the point that this is a bathroom? the sink and toilet do a pretty good job of that...

Caleb is not a daywalker in this trailer - since this seems to show him in his earlier days, that 100% checks out. It takes 15 skill points to become a daywalker, which... yikes.

note: I know the sims is very gay these days but do keep in mind that vampires was released January 2017. Gay marriage wasn't fully legalized in the US until June 2015. It was a big deal that Caleb suave kissed a guy in the trailer!

fun fact: the song used for this, deadly flo, seems to be either very cheap or free to license. It is used in a few episodes of the Baking Championship franchise. Y'all, that franchise got me back into baking and directly inspired GOBC. I lost my absolute shit when I heard it playing! There are also parts of Holiday Baking Championship that sound suspiciously like the sims 2 theme... I kinda wonder if there's a simmer in their sound department.

Not really that interesting - earlier versions of their outfits/vlad's dark form. Lilith cannot actually turn into a bat in-game.

vlad bloodvein can use "deprive needs" (must be a master vampire at minimum)

brandy can turn into a bat (should be a minor vampire at minimum)

based on the view outside Brandy's bedroom window, it looks like the virtuous vampires might live in an apartment in San Myshuno?

vlad uses supernatural speed to collect figurines

Not very interesting - just Brandy and Elle eating.

↓↓↓ WARNING - jumpscare below ↓↓↓

lmao what

this one doesn't even seem real, but as far as I can tell it was in fact released as a teaser for the full trailer.

This is the official trailer - it lines up reasonably well with other lore. Also the song is so fun.

Most notably: this trailer shows that Caleb is the one who turned Inna. No context is given. Other promotional material & the in-game paintings show that she was a thrall, potentially for hundreds of years before Caleb turned her.

The exterior of the house where Caleb turns Inna looks exactly like Wolfsbane Manor. However, Inna's bedroom doesn't match any room in the manor. It looks like there is a nearly identical house where Widowshild Townhouse currently is, so either Inna was in that house, or Wolfsbane Manor has since been remodeled. It would be kinda interesting if Caleb and Lilith decided to buy Inna's old house when they moved...

When Caleb turns into a bat, he's in the graveyard to the left of Vlad's house. Maybe he and Lilith lived with Vlad for a time? It kinda looks like Vlad had a lot of vampires filtering in and out of his place.

Elle real horny. I wonder what happened to that guy - he isn't a gallery vampire but he shows up in a lot of the paintings. As far as I'm aware Elle doesn't show up in any paintings.

This trailer is an absolute mess. It contradicts enough existing lore that it shouldn't be taken as any sort of canon, but it's a decent source of inspiration to fill in the gaps, and I pulled heavily from it when I was choosing powers for the gallery vampires.

Elle uses her mist form (I checked the animations) - she must be a grand master. She can use Command.

Markus Crow has supernatural speed - must be master+

Lilith is using a computer at the beginning of this, which feels weird because this is supposed to be at least 50 years ago. That said, technology doesn't advance in the sims, so, sure.

This makes it look like Vlad just broke into her house and turned her like he did with Miss Hell, but to me Lily makes it sound like Lilith was a more active participant: "I remember when my cousin, Lilith, first told me she'd met a fascinating man named Vlad. After that, she started spending a lot of time "training" with him. I thought she meant they were workout buddies. It wasn't until later that I found out she'd been lured to the dark arts."

Lilith's bed is a reward from the painter career - not sure if the implication is that she earned it herself?

I can't really see outside Lilith's windows, but it does kinda look like Forgotten Hollow? Which doesn't make a lot of sense to me - why would she and Caleb have to move to Forgotten Hollow if they already lived there? That said, that isn't Lilith. And that isn't Caleb. This was from when their names were Gina and Raylan.

Note that "Raylan" doesn't have the good vampire aspiration, and his traits are completely different. The others aren't quite the same as the gallery sims, but at least they still have the same names.

Looking out the window, it looks like the Virtuous Vampires are in Forgotten Hollow with everyone else. In one of the shorts, it looks like they live in a big city. I'm not sure which I like better!

Lilith is used as the example for supernatural strength. While she doesn't actually have that in-game, this is part of why I like to make her fitness 10 brute with vampiric might.

Elle continues to be real horny. Who is that guy? I like the implication that they had to go get it on as bats because Vlad was taking a nap and they couldn't fuck in his coffin :(

Bonus! While this isn't a trailer, exactly, it's a promotional blog post from Vlad's point of view and it is the best. Every last part of this makes me happy, from Caleb and Lilith ganging up on Vlad to Vlad referring to sparring matches as "epic duels" (or, in this particular case, what seems like a pretty good training sesh for Caleb).

Nothing about Lilith makes it seem like she doesn't feed on people except a) her household description and b) this post. That said, those two things about as primary as canon can get.

Vlad claims to own 100 gray coats

Vlad only fought Caleb. There could be so many reasons for that - was Caleb the one who made the challenge? Does Vlad not want to fight his offspring?

Vlad claims that the Encyclopedia Vampirica is mostly based on him. Make of that what you will.

Second bonus: Did you know that Vlad has a normie cousin??? There was a bit of promotional content for seasons involving the Climate family. This is that time they invited Vlad over for Harvestfest.

Please let me know if I missed anything! There's a lot of material out there, much of it no longer available on EA's site, so it's definitely possible there are things I didn't find.

[emelinstriker]

☆ Playing Monkey King VR ☆

That episode is still engraved in my head with how much the game MK was playing looked like an actual game one could play irl, and I'm still salty about how it's not an actual game.

Also my hyperfixation picked these three for these headcanons- And I'm aware about how the game is implied to have been created by Wukong himself, but we shall ignore that fact for a sec-

☆ ~ Headcanons ~ ☆

☆ Sun Wukong

>His ego just skyrocketed and won't be coming back to earth for a long time; may Buddha have mercy on your poor soul

>Expect him to watch you play everytime with a smug grin

>You can clearly see his tail swish around happily whenever he sees you react to one of the Sun Wukong character sprites (Especially towards the images of him being buffer than usual)

>You know how the game's Wukong would keep stopping the game's MK just to give him a bunch of tips and tutorials? He's actually doing that to you while you're playing, but with a lot more telling on what exactly he wants you to do (Backseat gamer smh)

>"Go back! Go back! You ran past an important quest item for the endgame!"

>Will distract you a lot by leaning into you from the side or from behind, or wrapping his tail around you in the middle of a battle

>You're struggling with a boss (cuz of him distracting you lmao)? Hand him your controller, right fucking now, he'll use his knowledge to beat the shit out of them for you

>Don't get your hopes up of him doing minigames and puzzles for you however, he absolutely sucks at even those easy-level ones

>If the game has a PvP mode and you have a second controller, expect him to want to duel you just to show off

>You can distract him by scratching his fur or touching his tail in the middle of it as revenge though

☆ Macaque

>Bro would be so salty if he sees you play this game it's not even funny

>He was actually thinking you were talking to the actual Sun Wukong when he heard his voice coming from your living room

>Once you give him a description of the game, it doesn't exactly lower his saltiness over you playing a game based on his nemesis and his successor

>"Why do you not have the option to fight Wukong?"

>"Be happy this isn't a dating sim, Mac..."

>"...The fuck is that supposed to mean"

>I would highly suggest playing whenever your monkey's out of house just to avoid the risk of him deleting the game from your console- It was a paid game after all with roughly 10 hours of playtime on your save file

>You can't tell me he isn't a master at any puzzle at any given difficulty. He could do all puzzles for you!

>Doesn't mean he would

>Jk, he would solve them when you're not looking or when he's bored- or even reluctantly with you if you beg enough cuz he loves you too much

>That doesn't stop him from either leaving you with a clone or spy at your gameplay as a shadow when he got time

>Unironically enjoys watching you play and beat up all those enemies with a smile

>Will deny it if you ask him if he's been watching you play from the shadows

☆ MK

>Excited noodle boy

>Would try to figure out if there's a way to co-op the story quest part

>ABSOLUTELY will play it himself when you introduce the game to him; I mean, it's about Monkey King??

>WILL gush about his hero, Monkey King, despite being his successor

>Will be lowkey annoyed if you refuse to skip cutscenes and are actually listening in on the tutorials and stories- It's evident by his constant whining and groaning

>But it's all good, he could never stay mad at you over it!

>You actually have to pry the controller away from his grasp from time to time- He will not stop to take a break until this boss is down!

>Dear gods, he's been playing for like 12 hours straight now, please knock him out and get him to bed- He won't be beating the boss like this

>Has a lot of fun doing easy-level minigames and puzzles, but does struggle with puzzles later on so you better help him

>"I'm getting the hang of this! But why isn't the strongest skill in the game working on this guy??"

>"The tutorial literally tells you to counter him, dummy"

>"Ugh! Why does it keep healing itself?? It should've died like half an hour ago!"

>"If only you read the boss description at the start of the battle..."

> Link to Masterlist <