#i'll do another main quest someday

[stealthnoodle]

There Is No Pond but Ice Pond: Let's Play Tears of the Kingdom

Today on Zelda, I briefly meet the Gerudos and proceed to have a normal one

Lol I got another Zelda flashback and this one is all "I sure am a time traveler! You sure are my ancestors! I sure do need to get back to my time before we get another calamity on our hands, haha! Prime Directive? I don't know her"

I made it through the sandstorm (somehow I made it through-ooh-ooh) but Gerudo Town appears to be empty? What fuckery is this

Okay, I found everyone in an underground shelter after paddling around in the sewers and Ascending through a random ceiling. I was immediately jailed, then released, then kicked out on the streets until I put a shirt on:

You CAGE Miette? You cage her nipples like the tigers? Oh! Oh! Jail for Gerudo! Jail for Gerudo for One Thousand Years!

I have endured Unspeakable Oppression and then stood right outside the entrance, making eye contact with the guard, while whipping my shirt right back off

Ganondorf doesn't have to wear a shirt in this flashback when he pretends to swear fealty to Hyrule. >:( This is bullshit

Dude hang on, I'm finding a korok

I have finally done a "find the crystal and bring it back to the shrine" quest, because the one in Satori Mountains was very close to the target. All I had to do was tuck myself up in a little rock passage and rain down arrows upon a hapless Hinox. You know, hero shit

Call me a cartoon monkey because I have yet to encounter a banana trap that I didn't fall for:

The underground beckons. I think this is the last Big Poe statue and it is being very difficult:

Great Plateau, huh? Okay, back up topside, wanderwanderwander, hello, statue, how are you—

are you motherfuckers in cahoots

You want under the water behind the stone wall? I will FIND your under the water behind the stone wall, mark my words

Okay, I'm pretty sure this is it (it's got arrows point at it from all around!), but how do I get under the icy water?

Openings in the rock below: 0

Successful efforts pairing warm pants with warming elixirs and diving in: 0

Successful efforts dunking a goddamn zonai flamethrower in there: 0

Number of times I have startled a cat with an outburst like "SHIT FUCK COCK FUCK": 4

Items dropped in the water to no avail: lots

I am losing my mind. There is no world beyond the ice pond. The secrets of the universe lie in its frigid depths. I am putting on that one Evanescence track that isn't "Bring Me to Life" because it is 2003 I just finished playing Enter the Matrix

"Ice pond" is an anagram for "coed nip," WE'RE COMING FULL CIRCLE BABY

"Noodle you could look this up" ABSOLUTELY NOT, ice pond forbids it

I've thrown a snowball in and it's slowly bouncing off the edges like a 90s DVD screensaver

Ice pond continues to to reject my sacrifices but I have beheld a golden light shining upon the top of Spectacle Rock and I choose to take it as a sign from my fickle frozen god

Ice pond hath led me to a star fragment. All glory be to ice pond

There's also a gleeok up here, but I recognize this as a trick of the infernal warmth. Not today, hot one

This is what that Florence + The Machine song was about

Um, so, I found a much more obvious stone wall while running around the plateau, blew up a stopper of rocks, and unflooded the area around a little stone statue, so, uh, gonna chase that lead up real quick:

Ice pond, in its infinite and ineffable wisdom, has granted me a special dispensation to pursue this quest of throwing four magical eyes into chasms, because ice pond, in its infinite and ineffable wisdom, understands that this is rad as fuck

My soul of course remains the property of ice pond. From ice pond I have come, and to ice pond I shall return. The frozen bosom awaits. Amen.

[hurricanek8art]

Okay, so, um... Hi? So, I've been a lurker on Tumblr for a while, including the SWTOR tag, because I've got major social anxiety. Recently, I think I've finally worked up the courage to interact, which is great! Especially now, because I think I need advice about the game and don't really know where else to ask! Other social media sites scare me and I'm not currently a subscriber, so I can't access the SWTOR forums. :P

I've just finished Corellia on my Jedi Knight. She's technically my main, even though I already finished the class storylines for Consular and Smuggler. I got burnout on doing the planetary missions and side quests around Balmorra (I'm a huge goody-two-shoes, so I was doing almost every quest I came across) so I figured, hey, I'll just focus on the story for a while and come back to it another time! Except now I feel kinda bad for skipping them because my Knight's leveled at 53, when my other two finished their class stories around 60/65. I know over-leveling's pointless, but at the speed I take getting through stuff, they'll have to have raised the level cap again by the time I catch up. 🤣

Should I go back and do them before finishing the class story? I know it's pretty harmless to skip them but I dunno, I want to do as much as I can with my Knight so I haven't missed out on anything. My brother plays too, we share an account, but his philosophy is skip absolutely everything that's not important unless he's underleveled, so obviously we have differing opinions on the subject. 🤣🤣🤣 Can some more experienced players give me some advice? I'm paralyzed with indecision, help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, etc., etc., you get the gist.

Unnecessarily adding pictures of my Knight because she is awesome and I love her to pieces and I only really get to talk about her with my brother. I'm a writer/artist and I've got loads of stuff I've created about her and my other legacy characters but. y'know. extreme social anxiety says no sharing yet. You guys make such cool stuff and I'm a huge chicken, but I'm working on getting over that, so maybe someday I can actually tell their stories!

[lost-technology]

Dear My Brain, I do NOT need to do another massive Trigun AU right now. However, just to make you happy, I'll toss out my ideas here for "maybe someday." Okay, I'm on a Fallout-kick lately. Good show for my games, yes? A rare pretty decent live action adaptation of a set of video games. Definitely nods to fans / players there. Also been doing a little playing of Fallout 4. (Fallout 3 is the only game of the series I've played all the way through main quest sadly (maybe I'll download the classics from Steam...) Anyway, I've played with this notion for Trigun before - but only in the "if they were players." I made perks / gameplay styles for the main characters. So, what are you doing, brain? Why are you starting to come up with ideas for an actual story for me to write as a crossover?!!! Especially when I do not know if there are enough people who like both properties AND read fanfiction to be interested in a crossover AU / fusion fic - then again, I tend to write things primarily for my own delight, anyway. I was telling myself "no, these two things are already too similar, there's really no need," but then came the idea that "no, there are some things unique enough to the Fallout setting that you could really have fun with the Trigun characters wandering a post nuclear North America rather than Planet Gunsmoke / No Man's Land." I could even interchangeably refer to the Wasteland as No Man's Land... Okay, Brain, so you're telling me that in this fusion universe, Vault-Tec had a subsidiary that worked closely with the budding U.S. space program, which if I am not mistaken, is canon (that satellite-dish quest in Fallout 3 and that experimental for space-colonisation front Vault concealing the real experiment in the Nuka-World expansion for 4). SEEDS was sort of its own separate thing, more benevolent than the Vaults and free from their wild secret experiments. Their mission was open: Developing a new, yet profitable, source of power for the cooperate overlords to profit from, being a failsafe for re-terraforming the Earth in the event of a nuclear war, and being a study for close-quarter scientist-living for potential space colonies. SEEDS Vault 05 (as distinct from Vault 5, SEEDS gets a different class) saw the successful bioengineering of life forms they called Plants. They were actually developed shortly before the war of 2077, but were not considered perfected. After the bombs dropped and the doors sealed, further study showed the Plants' potential as essentially living G.E.C.Ks (Garden of Eden Creation Kits). A living answer to the G.E.C.K, water-chips, cold-fusion... Even a potential way to divest from the atomic energy that America had been depending on since the end of WWII. (Fallout, for non-players, is an AU of reality diverging at WWII's end). And then Independents are born. Rem Saverem, a rogue scientist who rebels against Vault-Tec's lack of ethics managed to smuggle out the first Independent. Poor Tesla, being a little girl she had to send out, but the Hell of the Wastes were literally a better shot for her survival than for her to stay in the SEEDS-Vault. Sometime later, a pair of twin boys are born and Rem manages to convince the crew not to make them into test subjects. Until she can't. Cue big escape scene where she gets Vash and Nai out of the vault and dies in a hail of bullets right before them as guards cut her down and come after them... And so starts the journey of pair of living McGuffins who can either save the world or destroy it in search of their lost sister. Nai eventually becomes Millions Knives, a brutal Wasteland warlord bent on the destruction of humankind. Vash is on the run with bounties upon bounties upon him. He meets a ghoul named Wolfwood, dependant upon a certain kind of Chem to heal his wounds and to keep him from going feral and a couple of reporter-ladies from one of the larger settlement-cities intent upon uncovering Wasteland mysteries.

[calliopechild]

I was tagged by @plothooksinc!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

None yet, but I'm actively working on some WIPs I hope to finish (or start posting, in the case of the multichap) soon.

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

Big ol' goose egg due to the above.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

It's pretty much turtles all the way down, babes. Of what fics I've actually posted (on ff.net), it's TMNT 2003 and I think two Naruto one-shots. These days Rise owns my entire brain and comprises all of my current WIPs.

4. Top five fics by kudos?

See response to question 1, lol.

5. Do you respond to comments?

YES! I love replying to comments/reviews. It was one of my favorite things about fic writing when I was still doing it regularly (college age me, where did all that energy and executive function go). I have major imposter syndrome about my writing, so positive responses make me flail and will have me smiling all day, and getting to talk to people who are excited about and engaged with my stories is so fun.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I think that's gonna have to be a tossup between The End of a Melody and What We Could Have Been, both of which are leorai fics (except without any actual romance) from my 2k3 days (don't judge me).

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Probably The Virtues of Knocking; or at least it's the most humorous ending.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

The closest thing I can remember is a review on Please Leave a Message, which was 2k3 Donnie having a big ol' crush on April and leaving a message on her voicemail about it; someone commented something along the lines of "ew this would be like someone dating their hamster." Otherwise I've been lucky to have some really awesome reviewers/commenters over the years.

9. Do you write smut?

No. Shipping is fun but not my main engagement factor in any fandom, and I've never shipped any ships primarily from the 'really want to see them bone' angle, so it's not an aspect of fandom I've ever felt moved to write stuff for.

10. Craziest crossover?

404 error: not found.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not as far as I know, thankfully!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Also nope.

14. All time favorite ship?

Probably Leosagi. For 2k3 I ship it as like, a soulmate bromance/QPR, and for Rise (yes, I know Usagi has literally never shown up there, shh) I have a lot of fun checking out other people's takes on how our favorite fruit ninja would failboat his way through a relationship. But as mentioned in #9, shipping isn't my primary focus in any fandom; found family content is my bread and butter. (Hence why TMNT, Avengers, and The Hobbit fics account for about 450 of my 750 bookmarks, lol.)

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Oh man. I have two massive multi-chap fics with like...75+ pages of notes and half-written scenes; one for Naruto (the obligatory 'what if Kishimoto didn't hate women and Sakura actually got real character development from the start' with a side of 'what if Kakashi actually did his fucking job prior to the attempted murder of one of his students by another student') and one for The Hobbit (AU where Bilbo never went on the quest, but when the rest of the dwarves head to Erebor from Ered Luin, they stop by to pick up a Hobbit to help restore the land of Dale). I really like the ideas I have for both, but they've been on the backburner for a long time. Of the two, the Naruto one is probably the one that will never get finished but that I'll also never fully stop picking at.

(@ anyone side-eyeing me about TMTC, I know. I know. It is my Telltale Heart, but I refuse to officially give up on it. Someday my muse for that one will come home from the war...)

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue/characterization and humor; having people tell me they can totally hear [character] saying a line in a fic is the real-life version of the Brooklyn 99 "vindiCATION!!!" gif.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I feel like pacing is probably one, because there are always so many conversations I want to cram into fics, and if there's a scene I really love it's hard for me to cut it short even if that's better for keeping things moving. Also action scenes? I never think mine are very exciting; they always read as dry or underwhelming to me.

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

*stuffs fics written during the height of my weeaboo phase under the floorboards* Okay look, listen--

I'm definitely guilty of using it in ways that, looking back on it, are kind of cringe. Though at least for TMNT there was canonically some Japanese interspersed with English in the show, so...less cringe than I could have been? Lmao. I think it depends on context and if the character in question actually speaks that other language in canon.

19. First fandom you wrote in?

TMNT 2k3, baby!

20. Favorite fic you've written?

Tied between The More Things Change and The End of a Melody. The former is a huge passion project of mine, and the latter was kind of an experiment in I guess...artistic angst? There was a specific melancholic vibe I was going for that I feel like I captured, and I'm still pretty proud of that one. TMTC, though, is one that's really near and dear to me both because I was so invested in the idea and because the response to it was so positive, way more than I expected.

I'm tagging: @dawntreaderflynne, @goodlucktai, and @rhinocio, though obviously no pressure to any of you. ^_^

[sleepyowlwrites]

rating stories on their amount of plot tag

what a mouthful name. I'm gonna go through my wips and rate how much plot is in each of them.

Youth Story - 1 this baby has no plot to speak of other than the development of characters over the course of a year.

Summon Story - 6 this baby has a plot but the characters weave in an out of it like the player character in a video game stopping the main quest to do other things. the plot will wait for them to get back to it.

City Story - 5 this baby has a plot but it's explored mostly through character mirroring, introspection, and conversation, with the occasionally bit of action in between. the characters are interacting with the plot but casually, and the emotions are the main focus.

Guild Story - 6 this baby probably has a plot, probably has several, but they're not overarching and more episodic in nature. characters take turns being the protagonist for this or that plot.

Mercenary Story - 8 the plot is why the story is happening and the characters are very much interacting with it. it's still a character-driven story - Mirai is literally making the plot happen - but once it starts going it's going, and the characters need to keep up with it.

Rain Story - 9 this baby has so much plot that it overwhelmed me and I'm not working on it anymore. each character has a different stake in the plot and a different motivation to be involved in the story. it's hard to write this with my usual method but I'll work up to it eventually. I hope.

Magick Story - 7 the plot is why the characters are involved with each other and why there are any stakes. and then there are the shenanigans.

Anxiety Story - 3 this baby has characters and mental illnesses and healing. I guess you can call it plot.

Apocalypse Story - 2 this baby might have a through line someday, but right now it's vibes.

Hunter Story - 7 this baby is a folktale plot with a lot of prose. at least it would be if I had written any of it. it's more plot than character, which never happens with me.

Ghost Story - 4 this baby has a plot and it's mostly connected shenanigans. and mostly unwritten, shocking.

(yes, I have more wips than these, but oh well)

@memento-morri-writes @ink-fireplace-coffee @ettawritesnstudies @nikkywrites @writing-with-melon @oh-no-another-idea OR ANYBODY

[riftwalker-limbro]

What's the state of other tenno in Kelth's world? Are there any others running around? If so, is it many? Are they gonna realise their True Tenno Nature someday like Kelth will?

(If any of this is spoilers for your timeline but you feel okay sharing, so be it! Spoilers are fun, I just want story :D)

P.s. Chroma signing "thank you" got me so bad, ouch

yeah this might be. slightly on the spoilers for my lore so i'll put it under a readmore but i don't have a problem sharing it at all >:)

other tenno is a bit of a problem like... by deciding to follow the main quest line & write it all out in excruciating detail, i've kind of written myself into the corner of "kelth is now the Main Tenno of their universe". because - think about it

the quests show you rescuing various characters that are then accessible in the relays. you help grandma suda with her radio. you go unhide the moon. you fix the new war and give ballas the ass-kicking he deserves. that's all One Tenno who Does That. (or it can be different tenno across the quests but i have a headache so i'm keeping it simple)

so actually you asking me this is making me solidify that in my mind - i'm slightly uncomfortable just saying "yeah they're the Main Character of the Game now" but like. oops. they kind of are now. and i think i should embrace that a bit more and i think that will unlock a load more angst and allow me to be more decisive in writing and and and-

buT. other tenno!!! i'm thinking. in awakening, lotus breaks her streak of losing newly awake tenno to vor by getting more hands-on than before. kelth was the first tenno properly awake. other tenno wake up after them, and manage to really get out and survive now that vor's no longer in the picture to go kill them immediately. there's probably significantly less pressure on other tenno to perform and survive (and hopefully now that you've helped me realize that there WILL be elements of this in the future) and perhaps other tenno can just vibe with each other slightly better than they can with kelth. eldest sibling syndrome. every few days, another one will wake up, until eventually, everyone's either dead or awake. kelth is not very social (with their direct peers. yes i am projecting) so i'm not sure we'll see many through their eyes. when lua is retrieved from the void nook where lotus kicked it, i think other tenno will feel it, and they could be guided or helped by lotus or kelth to go retrieve their bodies and put them in their own ships. it would be significantly less dramatic than what the Main Tenno goes through for sure

as i said before, having kelth in this position and putting out my writing to people whose headcanons this cannot meld with is slightly uncomfortable to me. and i do also like being just a Regular Guy (as regular as a tenno can be) so i might also eventually make up an AU of an AU where kelth is not the first tenno and can just chill out

ack. longpost.

ps: HA SUFFER. i'd written the scene already but then i took another bike ride on which my brain said "what if that hurt more though" and i managed to remember that exact bit just in time to add it in before posting. we'll see more of that chroma in the future i'm sure >:)

[alexjcrowley]

Okay so I know I'll be alone in this but I gotta say it. I headcanon Jim Gordon as aromantic (being aromantic myself). It's not like I can "prove it", it's just...He has the vibes. I look at him like "I know what you are". Mind two things before I start this rant: 1) aromanticism is a spectrum, it's not like the things I am going to talk about are irrefutable signs of being aromantic, this is just my interpretation 2) I'm halfway season 2, so I my opinion are only based of what I have seen until this point. I don't know if later something will happen which will make me think this post was bullshit.

I think Jim Gordon is aromantic but he doesn't know.

Let's start with saying that, it may be the writers' fault, but I never felt a lot of romantic tension between Jim and his partners up untile the point I have watched the show (so Barbara and Lee). Sexual tension, great, aesthetic attraction, cool, intellectual attraction, especially with Lee, perfect, romantic? Nah.

I think Jim really cares about both Barbara and Lee. I think he is attracted to them sexually and aesthetically, but not romantically. His mind, though, based on this information, created the false equation "I am attracted to them, I care about them, I must be in love with them". And I specifically think that Jim's mind would "trick" him like this because I believe Jim's moral compass is very strong also in his personal relationship. Jim is very old fashioned in his manners, that's something we can easily tell from the show. I think he is one of those who still see only having a sexual partnership without romantic involvement as morally repulsive. It's either something he wouldn't be willing to do, or, at least, he wouldn't do with people he cares about, like Barbara and Lee. He'd feel like he was treating them unfairly by just having sex with them and not making them "honest women". So he forces himself in romantic relationships he doesn't seem really cut for. (I also headcanon he thinks literally everybody feels like him, that books and movies and people who talk about love exaggerates stuff, there's no way people actually feel like that, so he just...copies what he sees other people say and do about love, even if it doesn't come natural to him, because he just thinks that's how you're supposed to do things in relationships, it doesn't matter if you don't really feel them. It's simply following the protocol, you know?)

Everytime something happens that put his loved one in danger, Jim is like "go out of town, see you someday" and sure, he is worried about these people, but at the same times it just looks to me like he...like he really doesn't have separation anxiety. Like, off you go. The kind of love he feels towards Lee and Barbara is not really the dramatic "Oh I can't live without you", Jim is way more pragmatic in his ways. He cares about these people and he wants to keep them safe, but he doesn't need them to be next to him all the time, there is none of that pain of lovers being separated. As long as Lee and Barbara are safe, that's what counts. His life isn't suddenly miserable and unbearable if they aren't around, which is something you often get shown in romantic products when two lovers are away from one another.

Also, I know Jim's main trait is being a very righteous man, and I am not saying it comes from being aromantic, I am just saying it helps explain why job for him is always >>>love. Like, he never meets (until the point I have watched) a woman and he is like "well, done, I am the happiest I have ever been, time to quit being dangerous and live a happy life with her". Love doesn't fulfill him, his quest for justice does.

I also want to add he is not big on PDA and he seems pretty uncomfortable with everybody knowing about his relationship with Lee. Sure, he is a reserved man, I am just saying, in my interpretation, it could be more. Lee costantly tells him to be more open with his affections, but maybe he just...doesn't have the feeling he should be more open with. He was pretty much stunned when Lee gave him the key to her apartment. He doesn't enjoy double dates. I honestly feel everytime he says I love you (which took him a while for him to say) it's like because he feels he has to say it in that moment.

A point I feel it's important to add is about that kiss with Barbara during the interrogation, Lee's mild jealousy and Jim's reaction. During the interrogation in which Jim wants to know more about Theo Galavan from Barbara (I don't remember the episode, but it's the one with Barbara dressed in the wedding gown), Jim kisses her to get more information. Lee is worried and jealous about the kiss, he confronts Jim about it, but he is chill about it. Lee thinks Jim might still have feelings/catch feelings for Barbara, but Jim reassure her, which is obvious, of course he was never going to say that he is at risk of falling for Barbara again. But then he actually doesn't catch feelings again for Barbara. He kisses his ex, but truly this doesn't change anything for Jim. Barbara makes a whole speech about still being in love with Jim, he doesn't even flinch. Look, I have never been in a relationship, but I suppose people usually aren't that indifferent to their exes. I mean, obviously Jim still cares about Barbara as a person, but his "romantic" feelings are just gone. It would have made sense for the writers to play on Jim's lingering romantic affection for Barbara- I mean, they were supposed to marry- but no, nothing, he was cool as a cucumber under her touch. Which I choose to interpret as him never having romantic feelings for Barbara at all, he just cared deeply about her and was attracted to her. I think he doesn't even know he is aromantic and he is in that phase in which he thinks he can switch his feelings towards someone on and off. He said to Lee he wasn't in love with Barbara anymore and there's nothing Barbara could do to make him come back to her, because there never was. Lee is worried while Jim is like "if I say I am not in love with Barbara anymore, I simply am not, because I can control who I fall in love with, like everybody else."

Like, no, honey, no. I used to think the same, but no.

Like I said, I don't have "proof" Jim Gordon is aromantic. It's not like aromanticism is a series of boxes you need to tick, I just choose to interpret his character this way. I am very aware he was not written as aromantic, probably Gotham writers didn't even know what the word aromantic meant, but if I were to stick to canon aromantic representation in media I'd have like 5 characters from shows I don't even watch. I don't even like Jim Gordon as a character that much, I don't like him for a lot of reasons, but you gotta do what you gotta do. Again, I see him and I just go "you have no idea of the distinction between the different kinds of attraction, do you, you slimy little freak?"

I technically also headcanon Edward Nygma as aromantic but a post on that would have literally been "He is greencoded therefore aro coded, I have made my argument".

[vees-genshin-blog]

Current account state (Sep 24, 2024)

Before I can start recording my progress, here is the current state of my account (as of Sep 24, 2024). Someday, I will look back at this post and go "Man, my account has come so far in just X years".

As you can see, my roster of built characters is zilch other than my main team of Anemo Lumine, Fischl, Diona, and Bennett. My Childe International team is being built NOW, but before these pics were taken, they were not really built. I did level Sucrose and Venti a bit back when I didn't have Kazuha, but I stopped once I got him. Ninnguang is leveled a bit because I was gonna use her to fight geo enemies but my main team could take care of it without her so I changed my mind. Also, yes, I do have an Aloy; my account is that old.

I'm not even going to put a pic for my weapons, because the only five star weapon I have is Childe's Polar Star 😭😭.

In terms of AR, I was stuck on AR 50 for so long because my main team could NOT defeat the monsters fast enough. Also, ummm, I main Anemo Traveler, but I use her as a Physical DPS 😂😂 (More on this in another post because boy is that a story to tell). Personally, I'm ok keeping her that way but once my Childe team is up and runnning, I wanna build dendro MC and build a hyperbloom or aggravate team cause I have an ok Fischl. I'm honestly so excited to build other characters and try other teams out 😁😁😁😁.

Story-wise, I'm caught up to the main archon quests, but I still have a bunch of world quests, character quests, and a BUNCH of places I haven't unlocked/explored. For example, I haven't opened up Tataratsuna yet; it's still stuck behind the barrier 😭😂.

That's roughly everything about my account for now, so next time, I'll be posting some progress because this "current" state is actually from a week ago XD.

[ladyazulina]

Azu is Talking — Emotional Rollercoaster

It was a stellar week, if randomly dropping emotions here and there is what you would call ✨ stellar ✨.

Weekly Quests Overview Monday: Celebrate partner's New Year ✨ Tuesday: Catch up with Iron Valley's posts. Wednesday: Get my passport. Thursday: Start new backstage section. Friday: Brainstorm friend's birthday gift. Saturday: Read new solo TTRPG.

I'm not even going to try to cover it, there did was something stellar. I was a stellar mess.

Rolling down in the pre hormones state, this is the lowest I have fallen since I met my partner. Which was a huge and nice streak. The last one was in November, and it was so hard I was trying to convince myself to reach out to any helpline. I did not, as I was gonna have my therapy session the next day, but I was going through hell that night.

Maybe not the whole week, but the ball started rolling in advance, and this past weekend was dreadful. I did the best I could to distract myself, but my mind doesn't turn off.

Let's go back to the week, though:

Monday

Quest of the Day: Celebrate partner's New Year ✨.

It was my partner's birthday and I was so excited to celebrate the first one I could with him. It was stressful, though, ‘cause I had to fight to reserve the day just for us. From his side. (I mean, I know, if he had wanted to do something else or with someone else, I would have been quiet.)

Even though he had to go to work, I'm certain I did a great job. We started it the day prior to make up for the hours we would miss while he was working, but I showered him with lovely gifts.

I've been working on them for MONTHS. It was nice to finally get them out.

The rest and details are just for us though, but it's been so long since I've been waiting for a day that wasn't mine. Starting to plan to beat myself next year already ✨

Tuesday

Quest of the Day: Catch up with Iron Valley's posts.

Did I do that?… Oh, yeah, I did!

Linney's campaign's over, sadly. At least for now. All I had from their first day is already out. You can find the whole of it on Patreon, but a part and excerpts from the rest are as well on Tumblr, Medium, Substack, and Inkspired. Delight yourself to your heart's content 💙

I adore Linney, but I'm sure I'll continue the story mainly because of Chase. Have you met him yet? He's delicious 😋 While rereading (you do that a lot when you're posting stuff, or is that just me?), I figured out demonic lore I doubt I thought about while I was playing, and as I never brought it up explicitly (’cause I doubt it ever came to mind), I can still play with it in the future. If When I get back to it. And I just can tell you… it satisfies a lot of my imagination 🤭

My Personal Campaign starred this week as well and I thought of the best way of describing it:

Celeste is an amnesiac human who has to find out why she's running away from the city.

The only free post is this first one, the rest will be locked behind a paywall on Patreon because, even though this is just another story of mine, I poured a lot of me into the main character. It felt private. It was private, that's what ‘personal’ stands for. And I know someday I will feel a lot better about broadly sharing it, but for now, it will be like that.

Iron Valley, Personal Campaign, is being live every Tuesday.

I also was happy I got to get back with the reviews. I still have a lot of them to share and I want to keep the reading schedule, so there won't be anything new on Patreon for a while. Sadly, whatever has kept me away from posting them on the rest of my accounts has kept me from posting the most recent ones in spaces like Tumblr, GoodReads, The StoryGraph, and Instagram (which are the easiest ones to share on immediately). I have three new titles in the belt, so I should schedule it… It just feels so weird, it just never needed to be in the schedule for me to sit and post them, but I guess I'm more messy now. I need to write down everything or it fell through.

Read this week’s review, The Last Ever After.

Wednesday

Quest of the Day: Get my passport.

My Wednesdays have been taken away from me lately but I hope that was the last one. Because now that I have the workshops up and running, I want to at least make one post talking about them. On Instagram, I mean. It was going to be a thematic Wednesday task, but it just was dragged under with all this passport madness.

I'm sure I'll write a whole particular post about this process, so I'm not gonna rant more than the minimum indispensable.

After my photo finally being approved, my biometric data painstakingly taken, and the delivery date scheduled, I just had to go get my passport.

This little book has given me so much stress and many headaches… But just after a little hell of a time, enough to take out the rest of my day, I got it.

I did it.

It took a little more than a month, but I finally have my passport.

Now onto the visa 🫠

My dad wants to take me to the US, so I need to have a visa for that. But, more importantly, I need a visa to go to my partner.

As I missed the visit window time for the embassy, I settled with an email I didn't thought I was going to get an answer from. It didn't even took long. I scheduled it to go the next morning and I had an answer before noon.

My intention to have a winter (more like summer? He's on the opposite side of the world from me) vacation was destroyed before I even got time to think about what I wanted for lunch. It was a lot to digest but that only meant our plans changed, not that they disappeared.

We will still be hit by it every now and then as the days pass by, but we will also be solidifying the next attempt, so nothing was really lost (more than expectations, I mean). (I know very well that expectations are A Big Thing™️ and play a great deal in long-distance relationships, I shouldn't have said that—in that way at least, but I forgot how the original sentence or intent went. I'm sorry.)

Thursday

Quest of the Day: Start new backstage section.

I certainly didn’t start it. I was down. That was the day in which my partner and I talked about our plans crumbling, so we weren’t feeling exactly great. He was busy and I certainly busied myself with editions (finally, I started them! But, uh oh, did I managed to keep it constant?), so in some way, we kept ourselves together anyway.

I had my first level 5 English quiz and I got a 19/20. Neat. I didn’t find where the mistake was, though, so I will have to carry my curiosity to the grave. And after that, I went on doing English homework until I was fed up with it. I have to start this week’s one already, but I still have a few days to do so.

The Supernatural episodes weren’t nice to us. My partner got to enjoy them somehow, but the wound was fresh and they were pushing their fingers on it. It also could have been because of my hormones, but welp. We survived? Yay?

Friday

Quest of the Day: Brainstorm friend's birthday gift.

I have a certain idea of what I want to write about, but I didn’t dwell on that.

My partner received the hit of the news that morning, so we spent a little time licking our wounds.

I did nothing else apart from the editions, which is good anyway. I mean, I’m trying to balance my body’s needs and all that, so if I needed to take a step away to breathe, I was going to do so.

And I did so, more and less, all weekend.

Saturday

Quest of the Day: Read new solo TTRPG.

I wanted to start the last TTRPG I received, but emotional baggage is never taken into account. I mean, I never do, it’s impossible to prevent.

So I spent the whole weekend watching a Dorama. The hormones brought a destructive wave of feelings and thoughts I rather didn’t pay attention to, and distracting my mind is the best way to ignore them. It wasn’t easy. It didn’t made them go. But the days passed faster and I stayed less in those moments and emotions.

I started to feel a little better last night, when I drafted half of this update. And though today has been another hardship, aren’t I here? I say it counts as something.

This new ‘template’ just occurred to me and I’m not sure if I should share what I think would be next (this) week’s main quests, but I will pass right now. I don’t want to see what the week has in store for me—not in the mood just yet.

The most important one at the moment is getting back into place. Why does it always seem like I’m always fighting to get back in place?

[beck-nightengale]

Short answer for my main Prophetess: I do the questline after the Living Temple, in between Calia and Jespar's Black Stone quests. I feel like that's a good point for her to have enough of a mental breakdown that she'd participate in bloodsports and agree to a potential suicide mission amid a world-ending event that she's supposed to be trying to prevent.

Long answer with some spoiler-y ramblings:

So I feel like I'm the only one who isn't as attached to Tharaêl as most of the fandom seems to be. Maybe Nico's intent to make him a hateable character actually worked for me, lol. But maybe it's also just my "roleplay brain" because my Prophetess butts heads with him more often than not, and mostly just agrees to ally with him because she hates people who hurt kids and believes the Father has to die more. She empathizes and even agrees with Tharaêl sometimes, but finds his hypocrisy and how he judges others insufferable.

I do plan to do another run for my lycanthrope lady to take him in, so maybe I'll warm up to his character a little more someday... but in general I've never been a big Tharaêl fan and never really felt the emotional impact of his ending like many others have (I'd wonder if I was cold and heartless, but I cry each time during Esme's quest. The Rhalâta's quest is great, but not as emotionally impactful to me for some reason). After what he did to Zar'Ah, that was it for me, and my gut reaction was to just kill him... until my roleplay brain kicked in once again because my Prophetess would never side with a child killer. She had no qualms with killing Qalian, either.

That said, Tharaêl dies in her run, so no fun cozy roommate epilogue shenanigans for her. It ends up becoming one of her deepest regrets. Still, I feel like in her story, Tharaêl's death makes more sense than her trying to talk him down because suicidal ideation is also something she struggles with, and she wouldn't be able to think of some redemption speech for him.

It's just a shame she didn't know Jumper, or she could have done it. Probably.

Rhalata timeline data gathering

not sure if this will work, but hey, why not try Enderal Fans!! For the purposes of science, when do you personally complete Rhalata questline in regards to the main questline? My silly tgm-poisoned ass would always complete all dlc before even becoming the member of the Order, and now i'm curious when do you send your Prophets and Prophetesses to this particular torture?

[itsclydebitches]

I got witcher!Ciri too! I kind wonder wha would happen if she died tho, dont wanna put geralt or her through that but I love angst lmfaoo. The game got really confusing at point cause I you have to learn a bunch of politics and how this world works and I didnt pay that much attention so I'm sure I'll get those moments in my second playthrough too I'm playing something in the hearts of stone thnig, it was lower level so I'm assuming you should play that first? a main quest with the asshole ghost in the wedding and wow I fucking hate it, it's so umcomfortable to watch geralt be this gross n weird lol, I'm not too familar when Shani either so watching her get mad when I get geralt to say he wouldnt do what the ghost is doing is so annoying lol, OH AND the ghost is a creepy fuck! shani babe you can do much much better than an asshole who talks about his dick and fucking "maidens" every other sentence!! Geralt really does get thrown into so much shit huh I'm tempted to read the books cause I do rly like the world and most- some characters but yeah reading about yen being yen wold be one of the things to stop me, what are some of the plot points that put you off? if you don't mind sharing And yeah I'd so be up for more content esp with ciri, would be cool to see them work together, even with how combat works in this game with npcs lmao

Woo witcher Ciri ending! :D If you enjoy putting yourself through pain I recommend looking up that other ending on YouTube because there are definitely some nice angst shots in the cut scenes. I watched and then promptly went, “I don’t need to play that for myself” lol. But yeah, hard agree on things getting confusing, especially towards the end. I completely missed stuff like the fact that my actions would actually impact this war, rather than the war simply being backdrop, or that Ciri’s powers were more than just the ability to teleport short distances. So by the time I was getting called on to murder kings and Avallach was taking us to totally different worlds, I had a very John Mulaney approach of, “This might as well happen. Things are already so goddamn weird.” Which, you know, really isn't the game's fault. It's what I get for jumping into the third game first and while I don't regret that at all, the story has absolutely deserved a second playthrough where I actually understand all the basic stuff I should have known going in.

Yeah, Hearts of Stone comes first. You can do any of the side quests you’d like from either DLC, but I’d recommend keeping Blood & Wine’s main storyline for the final push. But yeah, that ghost dude is, uh… something. I quite like the wedding on the whole—I really enjoy Shani, dancing is fun, O’Dimm is being a wonderfully evil dude—but yeah, dead dude is definitely a creep. Which is partly one of the things that turned me off from the books. It has the same ‘Guy trying to write women’ energy of the games but… worse. I’ve read a lot of excerpts over the years and so many of them turn me off. There are a ton of small things, like Triss importantly informing the witchers (who are all like 100+ years old??) about periods and that Ciri can’t train today because of hers (a moment that much of the fandom celebrates as... progressive?), or Triss and Yen getting super catty with one another over Geralt, to much bigger things like Ciri nearly getting raped/being involved in intimate acts with really questionable consent. A lot of the Witcher has a “This didn’t age well” vibe to it which, to be fair, isn’t entirely the fault of the author. The story is the product of 90’s Polish culture and, again, a man trying to write some pretty complex subjects from an arguably ignorant place, which makes much of the work eye-rolling for me at best, outright uncomfortable at worst. (Which I think is why I enjoy the games far more. I have agency in this questionable world, the ability to tailor it somewhat to my own beliefs and desires, which makes moments when that's taken away, like Geralt automatically commenting on how good Yen looks at a funeral, all the more frustrating). I obviously am not a Geralt/Yen fan, which sours a great deal of the plot. From what I got through the pacing felt like a slog and, more importantly, much seems to have been lost in the translation from Polish to English. (I continually hear about how amazing the dialogue is, but sadly that hasn’t come across in translation for me. Much of it is... awkward.) The parts I’ve heard about/read excerpts of that I’m most interested in—Geralt’s hanza—ends tragically and I’m… just not here for that right now. Which isn’t to say it’s badly written or anything, just that it’s not my personal cup of tea, especially nowadays with a pandemic and what all going on lol. I look at what I know of the series as a whole and go, “Do I really want to read five books filled with outdated representation for women, that old-school fantasy violence that turned me off GoT, with a super depressing ending, all wrapped up in an iffy translation and a style I don’t think does well in long-form storytelling? … Not really.”

Still loved most of the short stories and I’ve heard that many people liked the audio book versions when they couldn't get into the text, so I might give that a go someday. I’d prefer to actually have read all the source material for a fandom I’m spending so much time in, but I sadly just haven't had the urge yet. If you do read them, anon, you’ll have to tell me what you think. It’s becoming quite the divisive topic, especially as Netflix fans turn to the books, and—putting aside that everyone’s tastes will always differ—it’s interesting to hear not just whether someone had fallen in love with the books or not, but if they haven’t what about them prevented that. It's very much a case of one person's "That was awful" being another's "Are you kidding me? That's the best part!"

[superfluouskeys]

im eyes wip number 8 and 9 tbh take your pick 👀

Hello fellow X'rhun enjoyer!!!

8. self indulgent rhunwol as usual

I actually really like some of this, but it was just a kneejerk reaction to redoing the lvl 50-60 rdm quests with Adrienne, so there's a lot of canon rehashing but it also repeatedly and directly references "but don't be happier" so it doesn't quite stand on its own. I posted this snip before but I really like it lol, set after the lvl 60 quest:

--

The corner of his lip curls into a smile, and he affords her a sidelong glance through heavy-lidded eyes. Truthfully, it’s a very becoming expression, and Adrienne cannot help the way her heart flutters in response.

“I never knew you were a proper conjurer,” he says.

Adrienne lets out a little huff of nervous laughter. “Proper is a stretch,” she deflects. “But I’ve always been good with magic.”

“I believe that,” says X’rhun warmly.

Reasonably satisfied that Lambard’s strange magic will not reappear, Adrienne places her hand over X’rhun’s wound and casts a proper healing spell. She didn’t need to get this close, perhaps, and it is a monumental struggle not to think overmuch about the way she can feel his breath catch just shy of her ear.

“It seems I’ve repaid my debt to you at last,” she says, poorly feigning lightness.

“On the contrary,” says X’rhun, with equal hesitancy, “as there was never any debt to speak of, I’d say it is now very much mine.”

Adrienne’s hand lingers long after the spell is cast, but she cannot quite bring herself to meet his gaze. “And however might you repay me?” she dares, feels the tremor in her voice. Why is she doing this? “The dashing rescuer in this case would gladly accept a kiss.”

She feels the rapid intake of his breath against her ear and beneath her hand. He almost chuckles. “When the rescued party is already thusly compromised? Surely an honourable lass would not take advantage.”

Adrienne bites the inside of her cheek, a vain attempt to hide her smile as she hazards a glance upward. “Do you take me for a villain, X’rhun Tia?” she teases.

He inclines his head thoughtfully, and that strange, sad look settles about him again. She’d like to reach out, to hold his face between her hands and soothe the lines of worry from his brow, but she cannot convince herself to move.

“An unwitting thief, perhaps,” X’rhun says at last.

“A thief?” Adrienne echoes curiously, uncertain whether he means to tease. “Whatever have I stolen from you?”

She slides her hand up his bare torso, and he brings his hand to cover hers, just over his heart.

--

9. rdm quest notes

there are 3500 words in this document. in fairness some of it is just written out quotes from rdm quests that I wanted to remember for characterization purposes. Sometimes I write out slightly longer dms in word docs and then paste them into discord bc anxiety so there's some of that in here. There's just like ---- like a full journal post about something that upset me irl around this time LOL. Some of it is just like shitposts made to myself ig? eg. "can’t believe Adrienne mained red mage for awhile bc she was hot for the teacher" and that's just in a little section by itself.

About 3 different starts to part 2 of "but don't be happier", about 3 different takes on another stupid scene I will never write where both Alisaie and G'raha find out Adri banged X'rhun and are like why did you never mention this????? A few short bits about how I feel their relationship ends which I'll be unlikely to write at least for a long while bc it makes me too sad LOL.

I would share a snip but they're all like so badly written!!! Maybe someday.....

WIP Ask Meme!

[writingonesdreams]

WIPs introduction

My favourite writing ideas that could turn into books someday. Their outlines are finished, but I'm still unsure which one to focus on. I'll be writing snippets and drabbles for these 4 to try to get a feeling for them. Maybe some new initiative will be born. 

-What I found in you

Genre: contemporary, young adult, romance 

She was afraid to want anything. He wanted everything. If they balanced each other out, they might be able to live again. 

Summary: Anise would much rather lock herself in her room and dream about writing all day then face the world. But then she meets the carefree and passionate boxer Rhys that turns her gray boring life upside down. However Rhys’s passion for thrills and risks often get him in trouble. He is driven, but restless - which might something to do with his broken family and rebellious estranged little brother Oliver he tries to connect with again. In the mean time Anise faces disapproval from her apathetic best friend Cole, who gave up on boxing a long time ago after the permanent injury to his hand. Could they find in each other what they lack in themselves?  

-In every version of the universe

Genre: fantasy, dimension travel 

What really makes a person who he is? If the world and circumstances you lived in were different, would your soul, wishes and problems be different too? Or is the core of the soul the same, no matter the universe its born into? 

Summary: Prince Callum of a powerful magically based kingdom is tasked with a mission that requires him to cross dimensions to different realities and versions of himself. The dimension travel is only possible by transfering one’s mind into one’s body in the alternate dimension. For this to work there has to be a team with specific abilities. Anina can keep her original memories after transfering her mind into the different dimension. Asher, the ex-thief, is able to track the dimensional holes, that can be used as passages for the mind. The prince supplies the magical power needed for the transfer, since he is connected to his kingdom’s magical core as his source. The three individual with completly different backrounds and attitudes are forced to work together for their greater goal.

Their wills and desires are reflected by their alternate versions and as they change the worlds around them change too - reflecting their personalities, relationships and hearts.

-I have yet to learn your magic

Genre: fantasy, magic 

Magic was what separeted them. Now it’s the only thing they have in common.

Summary: A kingdom was once divided into five princedoms representing the kind of elemental magic people practiced there. It was believed that people of different magic could not understand each other by no means. This was proven by the 10 years long war. Afterwards the king closed the borders between the princedoms, and discouraged the use of magic to maintain peace. As a result mages are now a rarity that’s looked down upon or distanced from. 

After 50 years of separation, the boarders open again.

Young water mage Skylar has loved magic since she can remember. Her talent in magic was however shunned by her peers and parents, since the society considers magic pointless. This changes when she meets the stoic and powerful lightning mage Augustine and joins him on his quest to visit all five princedoms. Afterwards they come across the casual travelling fighter Killian, who for some reason knows all the paths and has more secrets then his friendly personality suggests. Together the unlikely trio embark on a journey to all the princedoms, trying to bridge their differences and animnosity to find a way to coexist and save the dying magic they can’t give up on.  

-My brother wolf

Homo homini lupus est. A man is a wolf to another man - especially when the resources are tight and the cities are falling apart. When the world is dying, a true wolf might be the best friend to have.    

Genre: post-apocalyptic, fantasy, adventure

Summary: A young wolf Vincent, surving in the dying world only by learning to take on a human form, befriends a passionate boy named Reece, who aims to reunite with his younger brother. For this they have to cross the desolated desert separating individual European cities, where all people gather now to survive together. Facing desperate gangs, robbers, hostile packs and wolf hunters, they have to learn to trust each other to reach their goal and find some kind of meaning in their lives. They are followed by the determined wolf hunter Holland and aided by the scribe Suellyn, that collects lost books. 

---

The OCs are very similar, based on my main ones (Rhys, Cole, Anise, Oliver). They would fit in any of these with little modifications. I changed their names and am working on making them more distinct so they fit better in their story universe.

I have about 20 of such ideas with summaries, themes and characters saved on my comp. Those selected here are the most serious ones, with finished outlines and research. 

I would love to know what you think about them. What would you read?