#im sure I missed some things

[tiny-pun]

On writing pain

Okay so for once this isn’t an actual prompt but more so a tip:

If your character is supposedly in pain that lasts more than a couple of days or even weeks and months, eg. Because of a bigger wound or of a (new) disability… you most likely should show this in more ways than just the occasional “gasp and clutching the wound”!

Having such constant pain will have at least some kind of emotional impact: the stress of constantly being in pain, the constant push and pull between just succumbing to the pain and laying down until it goes away or just ignoring it and powering through. The balancing act of not overdoing it and being hypervigilant to the point you just hunch down to avoid worsening it.

Additionally you have to think about how to treat all of the different pains. How connected are they really? How much sense does it actually make to take pain meds ? Are there enough? Do I trust my doctor/s, to actually listen to me and take my pain seriously? Am I over exaggerating my pain? Am I underselling it? Am I annoying my doctor? Should I just wait and hope it goes away? It’s probably nothing anyway. But what if it’s so much worse ? What if this pain is just covering up something truly awful? But what if I’m making such a fuss now and tomorrow I can jump around like always? How unnecessary it would be to get so many people involved. Right ? This is especially hindered by poor use of words aka incapability to communicate. ( My head is just … kinda fuzzy?/Everything hurts?)

Another factor is how much they want to openly tell others about it. And whom they could possibly even tell and all the whys and hows surrounding it. And how hard it would be aka how long they’ve know each other and how much time they spent together. The hiding and lying adds more emotional stress and also possibly leads to neglect of any medical help. The “overt” complaining about the pain/situation can be exhausting and thus a different kind of stress. Especially if they’re feeling childish/unheard or otherwise ashamed about voicing anything but positive emotions but the pain is just too much and too consistent.

This can also lead to a constant comparison of how far into their recovery they “statistically already should be” or just the plain old “I could do xyz SO EASILY before”. Or worse: they’re comparing themselves to another (equally) wounded/disabled character. Wether it’s an internal belief or externally expected: if the character believes, that their wound/pain is comparably minor or should be easily overcome by themselves; and especially if they have a certain goal in mind, by which they should be back to their regular power and it’s not look in good … well then you certainly have a nice cocktail of stress and anxiety.

And if during the time of their supposed recovery, they end up getting some minor but more common sickness, eg. A cold or a stomach bug, it might not be their first thought. In fact they might do any and every test possible BUT think of the common cold. Not bc they’re necessarily stupid but bc of the fear, things might go to hell after all. Especially if the symptoms of both illnesses are similar enough. Anything else will just not be in their radar.

Also how would they like to be taken care of ? How much of that is a facade to please others ? Do they actually want to be hugged right now or are they just trying to please someone yet feeling suffocated? Do they just want their dead siblings soup and is a companionable silence enough to know they’re gonna be fine? How honest are they towards not only themselves but to others? And how much can the people and the situation itself even give that to them right now? (Do they need silence but they’re currently lying low in the city’s biggest hotel next to the market place?)

For all of this it doesn’t matter how big or small the pain actually is. What matters is that it is seemingly constant and only very slowly going away. The combination of constant physical pain with so much emotional turmoil and back and forth between opposing ideals aka stress can translate to even more physical pain aka psychosomatic pain. Headaches, breathlessness and even bigger issues such as literal heartaches can be the result.

This all can lead to spiralling and in the worst case a (temporary) depression. I dont think I have to explain how that could look like.

And one last thing: If the character is used to being in life or death situations, no matter if it’s due to multiple fights or an already existing disability: the common cold might be worse to deal with. They could be so used to dealing with the possibility of death that anything less than that is ironically unbearable. During a basically fatal stabbing they might just say a cheeky joke but freak out during the common cold.

Disclaimer: I am not a doctor. If you have the same pain for more than 6 week pls get it checked out if you can! And get well soon. These are just possible ways to write, what kind of thoughts and issues any type of constant pain (fatal or not) could cause.

[arcanegifs]

rewatch the show yall. it gets even better if you do.

[mtsodie]

Show me the pathetic wet man (Kallamar), pretty please? 🥺

the slayer

[crystalpallette]

frye inspires this sort of manic "i can do whatever i want" kinda will in people and god. I sure did do whatever I wanted here

[butchvamp]

i finished the game last night, here are my unpolished thoughts about the final act and what i liked & didn't like. this is very long and probably incoherent lol

what i liked:

the whole final battle was awesome, i loved the combat, and i really enjoyed the huge cutscenes of everyone fighting together. i had been really disappointed earlier about the lack of a battle scene at weisshaupt a la ostagar in origins, and this definitely made up for it

i liked the suicide mission and actually getting to assign people their roles in the battle

i LOVED Solas's betrayal, that whole section in the fade prison with the statues was one of the strongest scenes in the game, i think the entire relationship between Rook and Solas is really well developed. as the player, we know Solas is manipulating them, but i think they did a good job making it so it's still believable for Rook to fall for his tricks, especially with the Blood of Arlathan quest before this. (also it's very obvious Solas is Weekes' favorite, wish they would have just stuck to him and not all that other dogshit...lol)

i liked the idea of Varric's role here, but not the execution. i'll come back to this lmao

the giant dread wolf and archdemon fight was cool as fuck. no notes. that's just classic rule of cool, baby

also i had Davrin in my party while fighting alongside Solas and i really enjoyed his banter with him and how hard he laid into Solas's ass. it was very satisfying. yippee go Davrin!

okay. now. what i didn't like (sorry not going to bother with bullet points, it's going to be longer down here lol):

while i liked the suicide mission structure, i hated how the game all but told you who to assign where. there were no stakes at all, there was no way to get it wrong unless you did so intentionally.

this also brings me to. The Choice. between Davrin and Harding. i understand the need for a "fallen hero" here, it ties into the entire theme of regret with Solas as we see in the fade prison, it was necessary for Rook to be the person "at fault" (aka directly make the choice that ends with someone getting killed) but this choice was dogshit. it also was really fucking stupid to see Harding climb up and stand atop a giant stone pillar, and then NOT use her stone magic!!! i don't hate the idea of someone dying here, but this was just a series of failed choices over and over again. we should not have pitted returning fan fave Harding against the single Black companion (who comes in late and barely even gets his own story outside of his damn pet)-- it should have been Harding (narratively satisfying, she's been here since the beginning and dies for the fight) or Lucanis (he is literally the guy taking the shot), we also shouldn't have tied all the dwarf lore revelations to a character that can just fucking die at the end, and we shouldn't have had her stand on a giant stone pillar when she has STONE MAGIC!! i knew this choice was coming but her death still caught me off guard cus i was fully expecting her to collapse that stone pillar on her, not use her stupid puny bow 😭

i think this choice is also weakened by the fact that it's THEE only choice. it's obviously an echo of the earlier Treviso and Minrathous choice, which also didn't really seem to affect much outside of potentially losing the corresponding factions (and i think Lucanis's romance gets locked out?) i saved Treviso, so i got the Treviso questline later, and i assume that you get a Minrathous specific questline with the Shadow Dragons if you save the other instead (haven't seen myself tho so i'm not sure, just guessing). but it's very easy to recover the Shadow Dragon's reputation, and the final battle takes place in Minrathous no matter what. the only way for companions to die or the battle to fail is to just straight up ignore quests. you can't lose a faction's support at all unless you intentionally try to do so. i don't even think you can lose companions at all unless you intentionally ignore their quests and place them in the wrong spot. though the game still holds your hand through the battle and basically Tells You who to put where so they survive.

and to be fair. this is true for the suicide mission in mass effect 2, but the thing is, there is so much more dialogue and variations with how you can play your character and interact with the companions and the world than there is in veilguard, it makes it feel like you do have more control over your character and the narrative, even if it's just the illusion of choice.

and then with Solas, it doesn't matter, he always ends up trapped/linked to the Fade, it just changes how he feels. (they also do this with the First Warden. i was excited for a potential variation between punching/not punching, but all it changes is his attitude when you find him later in Davrin's quest) okay.... well. is he going to return again after that post credit scene? and are they really going to write 3 (or 4, with lavellan i guess) different branching personality variations?

i think the powers that be just wanted to get rid of him in a way that would still leave the dragon age setting ultimately unaltered and open for more games in the future. especially given the secret post credits scene. which i also have an issue with. we're going to go from "it was all the Evanuris fault" to Actually, it was this secret third thing and everything we did was for nothing! AGAIN! if they want to make more dragon age games, they can just... start a new story. do they know that. (the fact they're implying Loghain was influenced by some outside force to do what he did at ostagar actually has me livid lol. leave origins alone!!!!)

anyways. now the fade prison. i have two issues, my main one being Varric. i actually started to suspect early on something was up with him, because he just sits in that damn infirmary the entire game, no interactions, barely any dialogue. i think Varric was horribly underutilized in this game, and it results in all of the emotional beats around him falling flat for me. of course, it's emotional for ME, the player, because Varric is a fan fave returning character and one of my own personal favorites. as far as i've seen in game, though... Rook has no relationship with him at all. i think this game would have been vastly improved with short playable origins that showed the two meeting and developing a relationship, and also he really really needed to have more scenes and dialogue in general. he's barely in the second half of the game, literally just sitting all by himself in that damn room, and even when he is in the cutscenes he has one single line that everyone obviously just ignores. it sucked. very disappointing finale for a really beloved character... it could have been so good if it was good....

because i DO love the idea of Solas using him to manipulate Rook (and i really like Varric and Solas's relationship & the way they contrast against each other), and also the idea of how being tricked in that way would actually affect Rook-- what's real, what's not, can they even trust what they're seeing at all anymore? especially when Solas "glitches" between Varric and Lucanis (idk if it's always him or your LI? would be cool if it's your LI, that's what i assumed) after slaying Ghilan'nain-- this could have tied in with the final romance scene. but of course the game doesn't get into any of that at all.

and now issue 2. how the fuck did Solas do that LOL. how did he switch places, how did he get out, how did it take Rook in his place when it was designed for elven gods? where are the other elven gods (did i just miss this explanation? did the other two just kill them in there)? 🤷 when did this place suddenly turn into a prison of regrets? was that Solas's presence influencing it, or did he do that intentionally for Rook? dont know! who cares. moving on...

i romanced Lucanis, and i was really disappointed with his romance. the final scene was sweet, but.... i think particularly with Lucanis you can tell so much of his story and arc ended up on the cutting room floor, it feels disjointed and as if we're missing pieces, and you can feel it in his romance, too. i also really didnt understand the "keep flirting (not a lock in) or end it now" choices that didnt feel like they did anything at all. why was i given like 3 different times to break up with him when we weren't even dating yet lmao. the romance was a bummer, of course i love the setting and the story but i go into these games expecting strong romance along with it and i was really banking on that being the highlight in this mess of a game but. alas

this also segues me back into the whole "trapped in the Fade prison" section. why was there no reunion with both your LI and everyone else? apparently Rook was in there for WEEKS!!! they hardly communicate this and Rook just reappears and jumps straight back into leading the team, no tears or questions asked about how they found them, how they got out, what everyone was thinking while they were gone... we also get a deus ex machina knife, how convenient that they did all that while i was gone and no explanation is given as to how it could possibly fool Solas, just trust us bro! 💆 i feel like trying to craft our own copy of the knife should have been something actively happening in the background throughout the entire game, and it gets finished while Rook is in the Fade. but this truly came out of nowhere lol

again i think it's obvious things were cut and rewritten and maybe this was the result of a frantic scramble to come up with something that would work, and i'll be generous and blame it on that, i guess...

when we finally get to the final confrontation with Solas, i was very excited, because again i feel like Rook and Solas's relationship is the best in the game, Solas's writing is consistent and strong, i knew this scene had to be good.... and i guess it was? but it felt so unsatisfying. i chose to fight him (my Rook would do anything to get him to shut up) and i was hoping for. an actual fight. you can do it with Mythal earlier in the game, and we already saw his giant wolf form, i was so excited. and then. no<3

okay! sure. we beat him with the power of friendship (not surprised and not even making fun of it here, it makes sense narratively, i knew some version of this was coming after the whole comparing Rook versus Solas bit in the Fade) but come onnnnn i wanted to fight the giant wolf.... sigh. i did check out the other endings as well, and it's clear the redemption ending is the "true" ending and also the best written one imo.

overall. this was a bad dragon age game. i had a lot of fun playing it though, so it's not a bad game game. the gameplay loop never got boring, i never got tired exploring or doubling back, i loved the maps, i loved the combat, and i did love the companions. but the writing is atrocious and racist. this is a horrible dragon age game. i don't know where i fall on recommending this. again, i've had a lot of fun playing and dissecting it, but i dont know that i could recommend this to dragon age fans. this would have been way more successful as a completely different fantasy game. the changes to the lore, disregarding the majority of the games that came before it, the horrible depictions of returning characters (the inquisitor and isabela were the worst offenders for me) the setting and characters feeling watered down and incomplete, the complete lack of the classic "grey morality" shtick (even if it's not always been implemented well)... idk man. bummer! it's obvious there was a cohesive vision at one point, i do think this game is a casualty of the current state of the gaming industry (i was honestly surprised it was functional on launch. not shade at bioware just in general that is rare to see now) we know EA thrashed bioware throughout development, and bioware made a lot of really bad choices, too (the racism is absolutely their doing, they made that choice back in inquisition). but we can see, particularly in the artbook, that there were good ideas & an intention to actually tie everything together and give this story the finale it deserved... but it all got lost along the way in a very ugly, chaotic development. and the game really suffers for it.

[luck-of-the-drawings]

smth smth about 'the thing that the character did that you thought was rly rly funny in the moment is actually linked to a terrible trauma that lies within said character.' or wahtever.

[seaweedstarshine]

[just after having helped River make a getaway from a heist of an astatine lace shawl — the rarest substance in the universe — without her even needing to ask beyond a simple “hello sweetie” scrawl in the sky] [Eleventh Doctor] “I can see its worth — but Alice is right! What’s so special about a lace shawl?” [River] “Ah, well, lace, you see, is the traditional gift for a thirteenth wedding anniversary…” [Eleventh Doctor] “Wedding anniversary? Whose wedding anniversary?” [River] “Spoilers…!” *winks* [Thirteenth Doctor, reminiscing] “I love River.”

HAPPY THIRTEENTH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY TO THE DOCTOR AND RIVER SONG!

Sources: Diary of River Song: The Furies, Diary of River Song: The Lady in the Lake, The Day of the Moon, Doctor Who Magazine Special Edition #33, The Wedding of River Song, The Big Bang, The Angels Take Manhattan, The Many Lives of Doctor Who: Without a Paddle, The Time of the Doctor, Forest of the Dead, Let's Kill Hitler, Diary of River Song: The Wife of River Song, Eleventh Doctor Year Two: Physician Heal Thyself, A Good Man Goes to War, Eleventh Doctor Chronicles: Broken Hearts, The Husbands of River Song, Doctor Who Confidential: When Time Froze

[topaziraphale]

"Stop saying Crowley won't help Aziraphale in S3 he'd go back to him in a HEARTBEAT and nothing would stop him" I get it no one likes the idea of Crowley being bitter after what happened for a long period of time but like can we at least acknowledge that he's currently going through probably the most emotional pain in his life since falling? Can we agree that he's opened his heart entirely - something you couldn't pay him to do unless the world is literally ending and he's desperate - to Aziraphale, and got shot down? Can we understand that he did it AGAIN only to lose Aziraphale again? Not that what Aziraphale did isn't without Crowley's own shortcomings (hiding the truth of Heaven's cruelty from him) but like,,,,

The appeal here isn't Scorned Crowley Doesn't Love Aziraphale Anymore, or Never Wants To Help Him Again, the appeal here is Crowley learning enough self respect to not just walk back right to Aziraphale like nothing happened after Aziraphale has had a pattern of consistently refusing him. Going years ping-ponging between "We're not friends I don't even know him" to "That's what friends are for right?" and "We're friends, why would you even say anything?" and "Friends? We're not friends. We are an angel and a demon!"

Like I get it, Crowley is a heartbreakingly forgiving person. Of course he's gonna forgive Aziraphale, I'll be surprised if he didn't forgive him by the time he walked out the bookshop door, but gdi he could at least grant himself the luxury of being at least a little irritated for longer than however long it takes to make a globe and some books float and angrily cry out to God in his flat. But due to the change of pace and dynamic that is establishing part of the conflict for Season 3, I just really like the idea of him for ONCE prioritizing himself and being like "Okay, fine. We'll get back at it when you're ready, then," instead of just taking Aziraphale back like his words and actions meant nothing to him, when clearly they have an effect on him.

What is Aziraphale going to learn if Crowley just accepts what he did so quickly, like he always has the entire time they've been friends? Idk maybe I'm just projecting too much darkness on their dynamic but I mean, if the pattern of Aziraphale pushing Crowley away/disrespecting him one day and then being fine with his friendship the next + Crowley never stopping to be like "Hey, that's not cool, at least give me a little credit" or smth was fine all along and will continue to be fine in the future, then why, after 6,000 years of being friends and loving this demon, can Aziraphale still not accept that Crowley is just fine the way he is, and instead got excited to promote him to an angel in a heartbeat once the opportunity presented itself? You can't blame all of it on Heaven when Aziraphale has demonstrated his free will/defiance to Heaven so many times. Or, I don't know, I guess maybe we can? Maybe I'm just craving too much angst to the point where I'm letting it cloud my analysis of canon. Idk.

[skitskatdacat63]

Happy 5/14!!!!

Aaaaahh not sure if this is my best work 😭 I just really wanted to draw smth for vettonso day but my brain hasn't really been functioning well LOL so I kept dreading working on this, especially bcs its so important to me, y'know? I hope it's good????? I'm happy with the concept, but I was just so unsure on so many of the angles and it was killing me. I did the color thing bcs I thought it'd add something interesting to it :) since I didn't paint it as I usually would

Anyways! Process!

Now I will explain all of them:

Boy king au is where it all starts of course. I think their relationship is the most developed in this compared to the others, but at the same point, they just start from such a different point, especially affection-wise. All of these kinda have a power dynamic, except the last one, and this is the most imbalanced. Fernando is being subservient, the only part of Seb he may kiss(in public lol) is his hand.

Matador au next. They hurt themselves when they try to be affectionate, because they live in the culture of a sport of violence and death. The sword separates them, their love for the sport keeps them apart, in fear that they hurt each other. Seb, yet again, looks down upon Fernando. Seb haunts Fernando's whole career, the constant overhanging presence. Also aside from that, shame that you can't see his three musketeers look bcs of the black background 😔

2012 core!!! I think this one is pretty easy to understand. Both of them often kiss their trophies, more so than any driver. So they're both trying to claim the wdc trophy by kissing it. Maybe you guys should just get rid of the trophy altogether and claim each other! But yes, just like the sword in the matador au one, the trophy and their ambitions divides, keeps them from ever bridging the vast gap between them, at least at that point in time.

The conclusion! Aka what I wish we will get at Imola 2024- kidding kidding. But it is 2024. Finally there is no conflict between them, there's no big thing keeping them in conflict, they can finally come together. Finally they can touch, there is no gap to bridge, they can appreciate each other, and appreciate what they failed to in years past.

The thesis is basically that they always have their aspirations between them, and their aspirations happen to be basically the same thing. Until those are resolved, the gap between them is too vast for them to recognize and/or find any commonality. How do you get along with someone when you're both fighting for the same thing? How do you get along when it feels like one of you is winning more? How do you get along when there's such a vast gap?

In boy king au, it's going to take a while before they both feel settled about the issue of the throne. That's what makes that au interesting, they're trapped in this state of non-closure and they have to actually solve their issues without the matter of one of them simply removing themselves from the equation. They have to find a way to get over themselves and their aspirations, because like it or not they're stuck with each other. I think with the hand kissing, it represents how Fernando, at that point, is only willing to play along with the game if it's tradition, and he often won't budge in other ways. Yes, I will show subservience, but only in this detached, formal way that I don't connect personally to. He's still holding his own bitterness over meaningfully appreciating Seb. Though it's not like Seb isn't at fault. It takes a while for him to not hold things over Fernando, and constantly humiliate him. One day they will meaningfully show affection, and it won't be some sort of power play.

I think matador au is pretty similar to real life, and the 2010s era(it's basically just their actual plot line but in the context of bullfighting.) They're forever going to have this big elephant in the room, and it only really gets resolved when one of them leaves the sport. Once they're not fighting directly against each other, they realize what they've been missing out on and what they were not appreciating for so many years beforehand. They finally come together because they can't just rely anymore on the sport keeping them together. They actually have to make that step to be in each other's lives, rather than just taking their presence for granted.

Also the text on the comic. "We keep missing, and missing, and missing, and finally kissing." It's basically: we keep missing the point of it all, we keep failing to appreciate each other presence in our lives and in our own individual grand stories. But when we're not forced together anymore, we have to make the choice to come together again ourselves. We keep missing what we actually need to do. Missing each other in favor of our aspirations. Etc etc. One day we will finally embrace and there will be nothing keeping us apart.

[ganondoodle]

im quite tired of talking about totk, like im sure you all know by know just how frustrated i am, but something i still strongly believe was the logical, and best thing to do in a sequel.. -

while botw was about you feeling lost in a strange world with neither you nor link knowing anything and both discovering it as you go, the theme of lonelyness and isolation, freeing the spirits of dead friends you need toremember again, in the end finally reuniting with one of the only friends still alive, after a 100 years

totk should have been about community, about working together with zelda at your side, as a companion, after having been seperated for so long, and seeing nothing of the time between titles, this should have been her travelling alongside you, after botw you'd WANT to spend time with her and get to know her more, her being the diplomat, the archtitect, the scientist, the translator of old texts, a historian trying to find out the truth about what her fathers kingdom was built on, to right old wrongs perhaps, for a better future- theres so much that she should have been, so much of her character was primed to go into this direction- and instead she is a pretty prize with no personality you get at the end like this is an 80s cartoon still

(this is disregarding the whole fact that ganondorf, AS WELL, should have been a giant factor in all this, in the history of it all, to explore his character and his actions, to have zelda research and find out about histroy clearly written by the victors- theres so much potential depth here that it dirves me crazy, botw was such a set up for more that was wasted, utterly wasted, for something i wouldnt even want to call paper thin bc even paper has more depth than anything in totk)

[sillyabtmusic]

♡ Keonhee in Oneus MVs ♡

[naamahdarling]

.

[911bts]

As we start another season:

How to Spot Fake/Joke News Updates:

- if it's tweet, look at the @/username. 90% of the tweets that go around on here that say they're a film updates or news site have a normal user @ thats not associated with the actual site they're pretending to be.

- if it's a screenshot of a news site or other site/account, verify for yourself. (Especially if it's futoncritic, they don't actually delete posts. They just put a strike through and make another post)

- if you can't find a REPUTABLE (major publication or legit database) way to back up (significant) information , it most likely isn't real/true.

[aroaessidhe]

okay I was asked about fey books I’ve read that Do stick to folklore a bit more than certain popular books - and actually looking at what fey books I’ve read  it’s a bit like.... books that stick to folklore closely I sometimes Don’t Love, and there are others that don’t stick to it as much but I like the overall narrative more? or some mix of that. 

so here’s a list of a few - a range of how much they stick to folklore (which of course is an amorphous thing) and how much I like them, but it’s something!

YA

That Self-Same Metal - literally just read this, it’s about a Black girl who’s the stage blade expert for shakespeare’s company and can see fey, and they’re appearing more and more in the city. explores a bit of the midsummer night’s dream fey but also like “shakespeare was wrong” and general folklore. definitely the start of a series and has a lot going on but I thought it has some cool ideas!

all Holly Black’s books deal with them well! the Modern Faerie Tales companion/trilogy has maybe aged a bit by now, and I hate way the romance ended up together in The Folk of the Air (and the way the fandom is about it) but otherwise I do really like how it deals with fey and politics! also enjoyed The Darkest Part of the Forest. these are all intertwined/same world

The Buried And The Bound - a hedgewitch girl keeps fey away from her town, and gets caught up with two boys who are cursed. mostly deals with minor fey and a powerful hag

An Enchantment of Ravens - it’s been quite a few years since I read this, but I do remember enjoying it. It is a bit more of a romance focused story also, an artist stolen into the fey realm for painting a fey prince as if he was human(iirc?)

The Bone Houses - not directly dealing with fey, but like the aftermath of the ancient fey’s curses? welsh myth inspired. which I think is cool.

At The Edge of The Woods - about a girl in a religious/patriarchial village who starts to have strange dreams about a fey boy luring her into the woods. it’s not super focused on them, but they’re very much the classic ‘dangerous fey stealing people away for entertainment’ kind of thing

Adult

Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries - I sort of have mixed feelings about this - I really enjoy how it dealt with fey and the creepier folklore creatures side of it! the handling of the changeling was a bit iffy and not sure about the romance

The Wolf Among the Wild Hunt - dark fantasy novella about a wolf-shifter made to join the wild hunt to save his qpr. focused on the unseelie/wild hunt area

Silver in the Wood - gaslamp fantasy novella about the keeper of a magical forest, dryads and dangerous fey

The Wind City - a bit of a mashup of fey folklore and Māori atua in a modern NZ setting

Sinners/Veiled - very classic but also with the element of a modern setting where human pollution is like a drug to fey (and the MC is a drug lord.) (so kind of dark but also not dark in the sexy way bc the MC is aroace)

Under The Pendulum Sun - this is a gothic fantasy that has a bit of a new take on a fey world, but also definitely has some of those creepy folklore vibes.

Siren Queen - this only partly involves fey but I thought the way that it mashed up old hollywood and fey (aka shady deals for fame themes) was interesting!

Sorcerer to the Crown/The True Queen - my memory on this is hazy, but I believe it’s regency fantasy, with its own take on a fey world/magic (moreso the 2nd book)

Malice/Misrule - adult high fantasy lesbian sleeping beauty reimagining, this is kind of doing it’s own thing I guess (I don’t remember if they’re even called fey?) but definitely has a bit of the creepy creature/court vibes in book 2 especially

In The Jaded Grove - I was just looking up books to see if there was anything I missed and found this, which seems interesting to me!

I also haven’t read Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (but I watched the show ages ago) and I believe that has the vibe too

[liquidstar]

honestly does anyone else think that the what:if routes are perhaps telling us that some sort of collision between subaru and reinhard is just inevitable in nearly every route

[foxx-queen]

been running around act 2 trying to work out the timeline of what happened back when ketheric was defeated and im still stuck on a few things but i think ive managed to sort out most of it?

isobel dies. she doesn't remember how she died, and if you talk to squire, ketheric's dog, she says that ketheric told her she died the same night as isobel, trying to protect her. but she also doesn't remember how she died/what she was protecting isobel from.

ketheric turns to shar. he and balthazar imprison aylin in the shadowfell and build the gauntlet around that prison. i wasn't super clear on when? this happened, but she's definitely been imprisoned for at least a century, and it would've had to have been not long after he turned to shar otherwise aylin wouldn't have trusted him - i'm pretty sure she said they lured her there by saying someone was in danger? which i doubt she would've trusted if she'd known he'd converted to shar at the time.

ketheric raises an army of dark justiciars in shar's name and rebuilds the fortress in the underdark, which was already in ruin at that point. he plans to lead an assault from moonrise and the underdark.

the harpers and the druids gather in force to stop him.

at the same time, there's a very small selunite resistance in reithwin, lead by the grand mason of the mason's guild. he makes a deal with raphael to wipe out ketheric's forces. raphael sends yurgir and his army via the underdark to wipe out the dark justiciars in the fortress/temple, while ensuring theres still one alive to keep yurgir trapped there. im not entirely sure why raphael offered the mason that deal? he obviously gets the mason's soul, but it seems like a lot in exchange for one soul? yurgir says raphael mentioned 'something about an aasimar', which would've been aylin, but i can't figure out what raphael would've meant by that.

the harpers and druids defeat ketheric. this is where i get a bit confused, because if you ask jaheria about it she says she buried ketheric in the mausoleum herself, and that he was definitely dead. but when he gets attacked in the present day he heals straight away, so im not sure how he was definitely dead if he was already bound to aylin? and if he wasn't dead, it's not like they could've missed that?

im not sure exactly when ketheric was supposed to have been bought back? im assuming it had something to do with balthazar, but again i can't work out if he was actually dead or not. also not sure if he'd just been chilling in moonrise for a century before myrkul offered to bring back isobel in exchange for him becoming myrkuls chosen/joining with the other chosen. isobel probably hasn't been back for that long either by the time jaheria and the harpers arrive at last light in, otherwise ketheric probably would've found another way to try and retrieve her.

in terms of how isobel died, im very suss about the fact that she and squire both don't remember anything about it. it could be just the trauma of dying but i also wouldn't be surprised if their memories were removed, which sharrans definitely know how to do.