#like the movements are so satisfying and aesthetic

[birdy-babe]

When his tail whips around like that >>>

Gifs from @tealvenetianmask !

[himasgod]

Where you fill their faces with lipstick marks.

THIRD-YEARS

FIRST YEARS HERE

The second years will be published throughout the days <3

Where, in a fit of affection, you start showering your boyfriend with soft, quick kisses. However, before you know it, you've covered his entire face with your lipstick. How would the guys react?

maybe cringe? fr I had a lot of fun writing this lmao I didn't take it too seriously and maybe too ooc?

Leona Kingscholar

“Tsk… what a pain.”

From the first kiss, Leona narrows his eyes in suspicion.

For the second, he frowns.

For the third, he lets out a long sigh of resignation.

But most importantly… he doesn’t stop you.

He just lets you do it, lying back with his arms behind his head as if this were another one of an herbivore’s “whims.”

When you’re done, he opens one eye and looks at you in boredom.

“Are you done?”

You nod, satisfied.

Leona stretches and rolls over to go back to sleep.

“…I’ll clean it up later.”

And when he says “later,” he means he’s going to walk all over Savanaclaw like this without caring what anyone says.

When Ruggie sees it, he almost falls over laughing.

“Boss, you look like a romantic work of art!”

Leona doesn't even blink.

"So what?"

If you try to repeat it another day, he'll pull you by the wrist and roll you with him in the grass, trapping you under his arm with a mocking smile.

"Now it's my turn."

And well, you're going to be stuck for a while.

Cater Diamond

From the first kiss, Cater is already smiling. He’s one of those who enjoys these kinds of romantic gestures without any shame.

When you keep leaving traces of your lips on his face, he doesn’t just stay still, but encourages you to continue.

“Come on, Cay-Cay needs kisses on the other side too~!”

When you finish, his face is a mess of kisses. There are marks on his cheeks, his forehead, his jaw… even on his neck.

And the first thing he does is take out his phone 💀💀💀

“Selfie time~! #KissAttack #CayCayIsLoved #BestSmoochEver!”

Not only does he upload the photos to Magicam, but he sets one of them as his wallpaper for a good while.

But the best part comes when Riddle shows up.

“…Cater.”

“Yeah, little housewarden~?” he asks matter-of-factly.

“…Wipe your face before the unbirthday party.”

“Nah, I can’t erase this love!” he replies, winking at you.

And the best part of all: even though he says it’s “for aesthetics,” deep down he feels very loved and doesn’t want to wipe them off so quickly.

And yes, he uses that photo as his wallpaper for a few days… until someone bothers him too much.

But secretly, he saves it in his gallery forever.

Trey Clover

“Oh… so you play dirty now, huh?”

Trey isn’t one to be easily surprised, so when you start showering him with kisses, his initial reaction is to calmly smile and let you have your fun.

But when you finish and look at him in satisfaction, he raises an eyebrow, as if he’s planning something.

And then…

He catches you.

In one swift movement, he grabs you by the waist and drops you onto his lap.

Before you can react, he gives you a forceful kiss on the forehead.

“…Now you’re just like me.”

At first, you’re confused. But then, you feel the warmth on your skin and it dawns on you.

Trey used his own invisible lipstick.

Cater, who was passing by, lets out a laugh.

“Trey, dude! I didn’t know you had such a naughty side~!”

Trey laughs and shrugs, wiping himself off slowly.

“Maybe I should do the same with you next time, huh, prefect?”

And from the way he looks at you with a calm smile, you know he means it.

Vil Schoenheit

“Mh...what are you doing?!”

The first kiss already has him in crisis.

The second has him shaking.

By the third, his mind is collapsing.

“My skin! My makeup! MY FACE!”

He brings both hands to his face as if you’ve committed an unforgivable crime.

He looks at you with drama and disappointment, as if you’re his worst aesthetic mistake.

“I’m going to need to cleanse and rehydrate my skin immediately.”

Without another word, he hurries off to his vanity, pulling out the most expensive products he owns.

But… if you look closely, he’s smiling slightly.

And if you do it in private, he might not take it off right away.

Rook Hunt

"Oh, mon trésor, what a passionate attack!"

From the first kiss, Rook is already fascinated.

Not only does he not stop you, but he leans his face to receive more.

"How bold! How romantic! Your love has been stamped on my skin with the intensity of a tragic poem!"

And the worst thing is that HE DOES NOT TAKE IT OFF.

He walks through Pomefiore with his lips marked as if they were a trophy.

When Vil sees him, he puts a hand on his forehead and sighs deeply.

"Rook… please."

But Rook smiles proudly.

"I will never erase this trace of love, Roi du Poison."

If you try to run away, be prepared, because he will chase you to return your kisses.

"It's my turn to hunt, mon amour..."

Hell yeah he will catch you.

Idia Shroud

“Uh.....”

When the first kiss hits his skin, Idia completely freezes.

When you finish, his hair is completely PINK.

He literally stutters.

“T-This is like… like… a rare event from a secret route in an otome game…”

He's so freaky tf

He can’t process it. His head is crashing.

And the worst thing is that he doesn’t know what to do.

He covers his face with both hands, but his ears are completely red.

“…Why did you do that?” he whispers, almost like it’s a game glitch.

If Ortho sees it, he immediately smile

“Nii-san, you’re super blushing! Did you like it?”

Idia just mentally shuts down.

Malleus Draconia

"Oh… is this how humans show affection?"

From the first kiss, Malleus remains completely still.

When you finish, he stares at you with genuine curiosity.

"…I like it."

HE DOESN'T TAKE IT OFF.

If Sebek sees, he panics completely.

"YOUNG LORD! WHO DID THIS TO YOU?! IT'S DISRESPECTFUL! UNACCEPTABLE!"

Malleus ignores Sebek and smiles gently.

"…Can I have more?"

And then you decide your fate.

Lilia Vanrouge

"Oooh, you're so adorable, prefect~!"

Lilia accepts all the kisses excitedly.

When you're done, he pats you on the head and laughs happily.

"Such youthful energy! It reminds me of my days in the royal court~!"

Not only does he not wipe, but he actually wanders around Diasomnia like that.

If Silver or Malleus sees it, he'll just smile proudly.

"Look, boys, how affectionate is prefect to me~!"

If you try that again, he'll catch you and shower you with kisses in revenge.

Thanks for all the support and I will be uploading the next parts and other twst scenarios on my profile <3

[kashverse]

us and geto having a selfcare day together? haircare, skincare, masks, nails all that good sh★t

wishing all the gays and girls and everyone in between to find a man like this 🙉💗🕺💐 happy birthday getooo <3

self-care sundays with your fiancé suguru are an event. they require extensive planning, a dedicated budget (suguru’s black card), and, most importantly, the unwavering commitment to looking unreasonably good while doing absolutely nothing.

the setup is pristine: warm candlelight flickering on the dresser, a bluetooth speaker playing kali uchis like it’s a sacred ritual, and your bed covered in self-care products. you’re both dressed in matching cow-print pajamas, a last-minute online impulse buy that suguru pretended to be unimpressed with but now wears with a very unserious level of smugness.

“ready?” you ask, holding up a jar of an expensive face mask. suguru tilts his head, arms crossed. “depends. is this the one that tingles and makes me question my choices, or the one that smells like an overpriced smoothie?”

“the latter,” you assure him, unscrewing the lid. “but we’re double-masking today, so you’ll get to experience both.” his dramatic sigh is muffled when you smear the cold mask over his face. suguru, being the effortlessly attractive menace that he is, somehow still looks good—even with streaks of green goop on his cheeks. he doesn’t even flinch. a seasoned veteran.

“i see you got everything from the list,” you say, reaching for the body butter. “of course. do you think i’d let you down?” he grins, stretching out his legs as he watches you. “i was a man on a mission at sephora. dodged at least five aggressive salespeople, flashed my wedding band to scare off a few flirts, and even walked out with my dignity intact.”

“that’s debatable,” you mutter, scooping out a generous amount of cream and rubbing it into your arms. he narrows his eyes. “i’ll have you know i was very graceful.”

“you spent thirty minutes contemplating which cuticle oil was ‘more luxurious.’”

“and look at us now. thriving,” he retorts, wiggling his fingers at you. “unbothered. moisturized. focused. flourishing.” you snort and reach for his hands, rubbing the excess body butter into his palms. he watches you closely, eyes half-lidded, a satisfied smile playing on his lips. suguru loves this part—where you take his hands and carefully massage each finger like it’s the most important thing in the world.

“i still can’t believe you dropped two hundred dollars on a serum,” you tease, reaching for the bottle in question. “oh, we’re still on that?” he chuckles. “you act like i don’t drop that on lunch.”

“lunch feeds you. this makes you glow.”

“and isn’t my glow worth every penny?” he flutters his lashes dramatically. you roll your eyes but can’t fight the smile creeping onto your face. “yeah, yeah. close your eyes.”

he obeys without question as you pat the serum into his skin, gentle and precise. suguru has the nerve to sigh like you’ve just lifted all his worries off his shoulders. “you are so spoiled,” you murmur, rubbing the product into his temples. he hums, eyes still closed. “and whose fault is that?” you smack his arm lightly, and he chuckles, leaning in to press a lazy kiss to your jaw.

once your faces are sufficiently pampered, suguru lounges against the pillows, eyes tracking your movements as you grab the nail polish. “so, what’s the color of the week?” he asks.

“baby pink,” you reply, shaking the bottle. his brows lift. “not my usual black?”

“nope. we’re doing soft aesthetic suguru this week.”

he doesn’t argue. he never does. instead, he stretches his hand toward you with all the regality of a man who has fully accepted his fate. “paint away, my love.” you start with his pinky, carefully brushing on the color, while suguru watches you like you’re the most interesting thing in the world.

“i love you, you know,” he says suddenly, voice soft.

your brush pauses for half a second before you resume, fighting the warmth creeping up your neck. “i know,” you say. “you show me all the time.”

his thumb traces lazy circles on your knee. “i’m gonna keep showing you. every day.”

your chest feels full. warm. like this moment—cow pajamas, kali uchis playing, suguru’s gentle affection—is something sacred.

“good,” you murmur. “now hold still, i’m not redoing these nails if you smudge them.”

he grins. “you're the boss.”

[danibeanie]

astronotes❤️‍🔥

underdeveloped virgo moons are HIGHLY critical when it has anything to do with themselves, others and environments. It can be exhausting having to work with these people cause they’re never satisfied.

cancer placements always have endearing nick names for their friends or their loved ones. especially if cancer resides in the 3rd house.

many people like to associate mysteriousness with pluto and while I do agree SOOOO many people ignore cancer placements/prominent moon aspects when it comes to that topic.there’s a reason why many iconic women have cancer placements and it’s because of that allure🌙 ALSO the moon card in tarot literally represents secrets/hidden.

-Angelina joline

-Margot Robbie

-Pamela Anderson

libra venus men will give you the world and are such romantics. my dad has this placement and he’s one of the reasons why I have such high standards in men😭

taurus placements are very much in tune with their 5 senses and THEY WILL make you feel as comfortable as possible when your with them. can’t tell you how many times people come to my house and say how cozy it is. I think that’s the biggest compliment when you make someone feel safe❤️‍🔥

I feel like earth placements are the most intimidating when it comes to 1st impression wether it be sun,moon, or rising. there’s always a no bs energy to them and are always searching for goals/stability. which can make people think that your not here to waste time.

scorpio risings are always studying people and if they’re comfortable with you they’ll tell you!! small details they notice about you ,changes in your movements when your uncomfortable, certain shirts you like to wear or body parts you like to show off. which I think is super attractive coming from a mercury dominant that’s always looking at details.

mars dominant/mars 1st house people always look good in active wear. it doesn’t even matter the occasion they will wear it and it will always look good.

working with someone that has the opposite mars from you is literally hell. your gonna have to find a common ground with them if not these people are gonna irk the living shi outta you. *cough* *cough* cancerxcap *cough*

chiron synastry is so funny because you end up finding their chart and your like “oh that’s why they triggered me so much” my ex manger had her chiron in my 1st house and yeah no. it also conjuncted my venus and she would say some things that weren’t too nice to say the least😭 it was a double whammy though because my chiron conjuncted her mars which triggered me the most because you use your mars placement a lot in the work field.

virgo risings are the easiest for me to spot. There’s this simplicity to their beauty but so detailed. very much clean girl aesthetic.

most leo risings I know have blonde highlights or just always CHANGING their hair. Its true what they say their hair is very prominent in their appearance.

anya taylor joy being a taurus rising is not surprising literally just look at her cupids bow😭 and her facial structure. she is so gorgeous

[user1smvtysturniolo]

Slap a bow on it for ya | Matt Sturniolo

(Since he said this in the last car video, an idea of fanfic came to my head and I hope it doesnt flop!)

Pairing: sassy!soft!dom!Matt x sub!shy!reader

Summary: Matt knew that your aesthetic was coquette and how much you loved stuff like that so he decided to have a little detail with you.

Trigger Warning: established relationship, fingering (f!receiving), oral (f!receiving) pet names, swearing

Let me know if you wanna be on my tag list, xoxo Divider by @bernardsbsndystraws

It's been a long time since you saw Matt, your boyfriend because of work and other stuff. And this time you decided to come over to his house to give him a surprise, and surprisingly for you too, he was alone at home and had something prepared for you.

"Hi Matt!" I greeted him with a hug as he opened the door. "Hi sweetheart, I expected you would come soon now. It's been days since I've seen you" he said as he hugged me tighter and shut the door. It's only been 4 days but he's really clingy I love that about him. "You look so pretty with that lacy dress, with that little bow on ya" he playfully said as he checked me out when we pulled out from the hug. "Oh, yeah?" I gave him a 360, letting him see the bow on my hair too. "So girly! Love it!" He said with a funny baby voice, trying to mock the way I talk with my friends. I looked up at Matt and crossed my arms "Matt!" I pouted my lips, trying to be mad at him

He grabbed my waist. "Com' on, ya know I'm playing 'round" he winked as he kissed my lips. First it was a normal kiss, but then he slid his tongue in, taking more dominance. He grabbed me and made his way to his room, not breaking the kiss. When we got there he shut the door with his leg and placed me on his bed. "You're just too damn cute when you try to act upset." He chuckles, voice low and playful as he crowds over you on the bed, hands wandering up your sides. "But really, babe, you look gorgeous. That dress really shows off your curves" He bit his lip. His gaze was heated, full of adoration as his thumb brushes over your cheekbone. "Now, how could I resist such a pretty baby?" In one smooth motion he's kneeling before you, hands settling on your knees to gently push them apart. His own eyes flicker up to meet yours, seeking permission with his actions more than words.

You lick your lips and nod. "Mmm, you know exactly what you're doing." You say breathily, parting your legs a little more, baiting him further, your eyes begging for more. He grins at your actions, the corner of his mouth quirking up in that smirk you love so much. "Oh I sure do, babe." Leaning in, he kisses the inside of your thigh tenderly, his hands gliding up your legs under the hem of your dress, fingertips dancing over your sensitive skin. He hums against your warm flesh, looking up once more, eyes intense, yet soft around the edges for just you. "God I need you." He murmured to himself as he quickly started to remove my dress leaving me in my underwear. Before removing my panties he started kissing my inner thighs, softly. It made me want to squirm under his touch and kisses. When he finally removed my thongs, his eyes narrowed at the sight of my soaking walls. "Fuck..." he swore to himself.

Before he did anything. He looked up at my blushing face and spoke up. "Baby... I have something you might like" he grinned as he searched for something in his drawer and got a bow. He put it in his middle and ring finger. "Let's slap a bow on it for ya'" he smirked as he finally put those two fingers in, pumping in and out, earning a loud gasp from me. Your eyes widen, cheek blushing at his playful words and the sassyness and unexpected action. He watches your reaction closely, a self-satisfied glint in his eyes. I moan out his name as I start grinding my hips against his fingers, my legs shaking a bit, my eyes watering from the intense sensations taking over. "Oh god yes...Matt...". I moan out. "That's it, let it all out" Matt's movements start picking up a pace with your movements, the bed starting to creak in time with the pace.

"Your noises are so damn hot." Matt removes his fingers and replaces it by his mouth. Working his tongue in and out, you're so overwhelmed you gripped on his hair as you moaned loudly. He's mesmerized by your ecstasy. My body is arched completely off the bed now, overwhelmed by the pleasure his fingers are giving, the muscles in my legs trembling violently under his hands. "You look gorgeous when you come undone for me." He groans out against my pussy, I whimper at the feeling of his words in my pussy. Matt loved making you a squirm mess. He decides to keep the pressure consistent, determined to get a good orgasm.

"You close, baby?" he whispers as he looks up, his fingers making their way on my pussy hole again and deeper earning a big gasp from me. When I looked up at him, I saw how he licked his mouth from my juices, turned me on so bad. He slid his free hand up to caress your chest teasingly over my bra. "Matt... I'm going to cum" I manage to say between moans. With a final cry of his name, waves of intense pleasure wash through me as I finally come hard, my inner walls pulsating around his fingers still buried inside. He slowly draws his fingers out, watching you intently as you ride out every shiver and aftershock. "Fucking beautiful..." he sighs, his own breaths coming in ragged gasps. "You did so good, babe. You're amazing" He brings his glistening digits to his lips, sucking them clean with a low groan.

[soleauclub]

How I Stay Fit Without Giving Up Cocktails, Croissants, or Clubbing

by Soleau Club / www.soleauclub.com

Let’s get one thing clear: I am not the girl who’s skipping dinner to “save calories for tequila.” I’m also not the one ghosting bottomless brunch or passing on pain au chocolat in Paris. The vibe? Balanced, baddie, and body goals—without sacrificing joy, food, or fun.

Here’s how I stay fit and feel good, while fully living my glam, out-too-late, pastry-obsessed lifestyle.

1. I Move Daily—But Make It Sexy

The gym? Cute. But also... meh. My body thrives on movement that feels good. So I walk everywhere, do low-impact Pilates, and treat every dance floor like a cardio class with a DJ. Movement doesn’t need to be hardcore to be effective. It just needs to be consistent.

My faves: – Hot girl walks with a podcast – Reformer Pilates (she sculpts) – Stretching while watching reality TV – Going out dancing and actually dancing

2. I Eat What I Love—But I Romanticize It

Croissants? Yes. Pasta? Absolutely. But I don’t inhale them in my car between errands. I sit down, light a candle, add some greens on the side, and eat slowly like I’m at a bougie café in Positano. The more I slow down and savor, the less I overeat—and the more satisfied I feel.

My rules? – Don’t restrict. Romanticize. – Protein and fiber always make an appearance – I never eat like I hate myself, even if I’ve had a wild weekend

3. I Don’t "Earn" My Nights Out—I Prep for Them

Clubbing till 3AM is cardio. But I also hydrate like it’s my job, eat before I drink, and make post-night-out recovery sacred. I don’t punish myself with a detox—I nourish.

Night-out wellness prep looks like: – A protein-heavy dinner with greens – Tons of water between drinks – Magnesium and electrolytes before bed – The next morning = lemon water, movement, and something nourishing (hello, smoothie with collagen)

4. I Stay Fit Because I Actually Like Feeling Good

Being fit isn’t just about aesthetics. It’s about energy. Confidence. Longevity. A fit body means I can dance in heels, walk through airports like a model off-duty, and bounce back after long nights. That’s the vibe.

5. I Ditch Guilt for Hot Girl Self-Awareness

If I overdo it? Cool. I don’t spiral. I rebalance. Maybe I take an extra walk the next day or swap my croissant for an egg bowl. No drama, no detox, just a gentle vibe check.

You can have abs and Aperol. You can glow and go out. The secret? Self-awareness > self-punishment. Movement > restriction. And remembering that your fit era is allowed to be fun.

Ready to go hardcore with your clean girl routine? Follow Soleau Club on Tumblr for more daily challenges, catch our YouTube videos every Sunday for new routines, and stay connected with us on TikTok and Instagram (@soleauclub) for all the inspo and accountability you need. For all it-girl wellness accessories to add in your hot girl arsenal, shop at www.soleauclub.com

[apocalypse-shuffle]

JASON TODD & CASSANDRA CAIN (generalized fanon | maybe wfa)

—

“Blind Spot” (Jason Todd x Fem!Reader) and (Cassandra Cain & Platonic!Reader)

| Reader is introduced (this time “formally”) to the second of their new boyfriend’s extended family.

| SFW, stalking(?), batfam shenanigans, worried!Jason

| The pictures used are just for aesthetics and have no contextual meaning to the story. (pic sources: beg.=batman:under the red hood, middle=dceaced, and end=batgirl#1 • all comics)

| part of the meet the bats series

| 3k+ words

Jason’s roof is bumpy. Not like asbestos bumpy or anything, though in Gotham you could never be too sure, but it certainly wasn’t smooth.

“Hey, baby, was your apartment built before or after 1989?”

Jason answers immediately.

“After. I needed a place without a sprinkler system though, so I wouldn’t bet anything special on this building being too up to code.”

“Mm,” you hum, letting your head drop to the side. That still didn’t rule out asbestos.

The new view that greets you is of the back of Jason’s head and the broad scarred expanse of his back.

You’ve decided you’re not going to worry about the possible poison in the walls yet. Hopefully Jason’s paranoia extends to that type of stuff and he’s checked it out already.

“Hey baby?”

In the beat it takes for Jason to let out an acknowledging grunt your eyes catch the black glint of yet another weapon being picked up. You snort.

“You got all those guns, any of ‘em actually do anything interesting?”

His shoulders shake as he laughs.

“Like what?”

You shrug. “I don’t know, just...” your brown fingers snap and you sit up, legs crisscrossed over the cushions, “…there was a rumor going around the other day ‘bout Harley and a beanbag shotgun. Got anything like that?”

Jason scoffs, “You have got to stop listening to whoever is spreading these rumors and giving you your theories.”

“Shut up.” You wait until he’s taken the last piece of the pistol in his hand apart to knock him in the head with one of his throw pillows. “Answer the question, Todd.”

For a good minute he can’t, keeled over laughing as he is, but you have no problem waiting him out, laughter of your own occupying you.

“Alright,” he gasps in air, talking through his giggles. His voice is a little higher than usual. “Short answer is no.”

When he’s done he lets his head fall back into the couch so he can look at you with raised brows.

“Satisfied?” He grins, voice back to normal.

“Believe it or not,” you wiggle around so you can bend over and smack a wet kiss onto his lips, feeling his smile widen, before sitting back up, “no. What’s the long answer?”

He shakes his head at you, muttering something that sounds a lot like ‘insatiable’ under his breath, before going back to his assigned task for the night. You shrug, but a shiver down your spine cuts off whatever response you might’ve given.

Brows furrowing, you lean back on the couch as an uneasy feeling settles in your gut, gaze moving to slide around the apartment until you settle on a familiar item on the small table near the window.

The aloe plant you’d gifted Jason a few weeks ago sits atop it. Surprisingly, it still looked healthy, which was nice. You’d gotten it for him because they were low maintenance, but you could never be too sure with the vigilante schedule he operated on. There’s a small bit of movement behind the plant though and - without your say so - your eye focuses on it instantly. Or at least tries to. For some reason what you’d thought was a bug ends up disappearing on you though.

The longer you look out at what amounts to nothing the more severe your frown gets, face morphing into a grimace.

The darkness feels like it’s watching you back and the prospect makes you queasy. The possibility of a potentially deadly game of hide and seek runs through your mind; somebody popping up from the darkness and smashing the window—

A particularly harsh clink from in front of you snaps your mind back to reality. Jason’s reaching for his briefly disregarded rag and gun oil, parts of a good sized rifle laid out before him, shoulders rising and falling in easy, tempered motions. Instantly you begin matching your breaths with his own, doing your best to shake the feeling of unease off.

Jason starts talking again with a low contemplative tone and you let his voice settle over you like a blanket, slumping back into the couch as you watch the back of his head.

“The barrel of a shotgun isn’t even big enough for a regular sized bean sack—”

“—Bean sack,” you parrot quietly and Jason flips you off without looking. You snicker.

“A bean sack gun,” he continues like you hadn’t interrupted, “just isn’t practical as a primary weapon. It’ll probably lock up and misfire then - look at that - you're dead.”

You huff, “Jason this is supposed to be a fun conversation.”

“This is fun,” he grunts, picking up a tiny brush to clean with.

Your eyes roll.

“Alright, whatever, what about glitter?”

“Please stop.”

You buss out laughing.

“I don’t think I want to. But- just hear me out,” you cut in when you see the furrow that takes over his face, “If Sam and Dean can shoot salt guns then I don’t see how much different glitter would be if you factor in the weight difference.”

The new expression that takes over his face is even worse than beforehand and he gives you this narrow look like he can’t believe you’re being serious.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Those guns aren’t designed for impact, just range, and,” he scoffs, “to look cool probably.”

“Ohhh—” you stop as the confusing patch of night outside the window catches your attention again before scooting farther away from the window. Why it’s even throwing you off you can’t tell, but you don’t want to stress over nothing. You clear your throat and go back to joking with him. “—You don’t think the salt shotgun is cool, Jay? Is the Red Hood too good for the Winchesters?”

“Absolutely.”

He grins at you over his shoulder and you scoff, kicking out to shove him with your foot. He barely rocks from the force of it.

After that an easy silence fills the space once more and you rest your head onto the back of the couch, breathing in deep in an attempt to quell the clench in your stomach.

When you look over again the image through the window is clearer. On the apartment across from Jay’s there’s a fire escape just slightly above his own and — you squint, crawling to the end of the couch to get a better look — and there! Right there! A short burst of breeze causes a heavy piece of fabric to flutter and what’s wrong finally becomes obvious.

You lean even further.

What should be the rest of the metal railing is blocked by a large patch of darkness that you do your best to follow with your eyes, only going a little cross-eyed and blurry in your efforts.

Passively, it occurs to you that maybe this was something you should bring to Jason’s attention. The night coming to life and inching closer wasn’t normal after all, but—

There! The fabric shifts again, another larger piece this time, and with your gaze now having something concrete to focus on more and more of the misplaced darkness starts to come into place.

Glinting stitches, a brief flash of yellow as another gust of wind displaces fabric. Then a light in the house across from you flicks on. Barely any of it leaks through their curtains, but it’s just enough to make the outline of a person perched on the railing, what you can now tell is the smear of a cape draped over the outside of the fire escape and catching the breeze every few seconds, come into staunch focus.

Your eyes go wide.

“Jason?”

His head whips around and he’s looking up at you from his disassembled cache of guns on the floor, gaze sharp. You don’t know what the hell he detected from your voice, but you can see the way his face crests once he gets a look at your expression and your stomach twists.

You didn’t think you looked that alarmed.

Jason’s gaze follows yours when you turn your head back for confirmation, and it’s brief but for a second still the same blotch of black is there before you take your next breath and it’s - the person’s - disappeared.

“Crap,” he curses and you go rigid, falling back as the sounds of him quickly reassembling a gun fill the room.

Next thing you know he’s up and walking over to open the window.

You scramble up from the couch, “Jay! Hold on, are you sure—?”

The window slides open with a small click and a few beats pass before - baffled - you watch Jason sigh and set his firearm down on the side table beside the aloe.

He sticks his head out the window.

“Cass,” he whisper-yells.

From behind Jason you watch nothing happen. It’s quiet except for the city’s usual ambiance and there's a cursory creak of old metal before—

“No, not you too, get out of here. Don’t you have a city to patrol?”

—a face appears in the window, right in front of Jason, and you take in such a harsh breath you stumble back a few steps.

So close to the window with the light from the living room as an aid you can make out the long pointed ears at the top of what you can now tell is the person’s — Batgirl’s, that was Batgirl’s — mask.

Right. Okay. You suppose if Robin popped in to visit and your boyfriend rocked a red helmet and killed people in his spare time then Batgirl also popping in wasn’t too far a stretch of the imagination. You suck in a breath until your lungs fill with enough air to make your chest twinge.

Batgirl’s low scratchy voice fills the quiet.

“The city.” Batgirl seems to fix Jason with a look but the mask makes it hard to tell, before finishing, “Will survive…five minutes.”

Then she pats the hand he still has on the window sill. “Kind of you,” you hear her say before she’s slipping in past the width of his bulk. Jason makes an exasperated noise and moves to let her in - not that she wasn’t already doing that perfectly fine on her own.

After the incident not even a full week ago Jason can’t seem to not throw you a panicked look from behind the woman. You only shrug, heartbeat steadily settling back down. At least you were awake this time. You look over the faceless vigilante, not an inch of skin - of the person underneath - showing. Though you were no less perturbed.

The only huge difference is that it was the blank mask of the Black Bat that’s staring at you from the darkness and you’re not at imminent risk of being beheaded. That was…something. You purse your lips, rocking back onto your heels with your heart in your throat.

The Bat doesn’t say a thing, just looking at you with indents that probably indicate eyes behind them and a face full of more of those glinting stitches.

Jason clears his throat, moving around so he can stand beside you.

“Is this some kind of trend now?”

His irritated grumble brings Batgirl’s attention back to him and you relax, leaning into the arm he presses into the dip of your back.

“Oh,” she breathes. You’d be pressed to think she was being sarcastic if it wasn’t for: “Heard about Robin. Seemed like…fun,” she proclaims.

You briefly wonder at the fact that you’re apparently an interesting enough deviation for Jason that you’re piquing the interest of vigilantes.

Then Batgirl’s attention shifts squarely back to you and you can’t remember how to breathe again, let alone what you were just thinking about.

“Um,” you choke out, “Hi.”

Jason’s tan hand snakes under your shirt to rub at the dark brown skin there. You focus on the warmth from the point of contact, breathing out slowly.

Batgirl’s head shifts, indicating the window behind her. “You noticed me.”

It’s not a question.

“I mean - barely,” you say. A half aborted chuckle falls past your plush lips. “I pretty much just thought I was losing it.”

“That’s good,” she says and you pause confused. She turns to Jason, tone brightening. “Robin was right. She’s impressive. For a civilian,” she concedes at the end.

When she walks up to you next she holds a hand out. After a moment of hesitation you reach out to take it, her grip is strong and when she shakes your hand you have to steady your arm or else risk her jerking you around.

“You have a good eye. Good instincts. Useful starting point…for learning.”

“She won’t be,” Jason grunts. You roll your eyes at him, you didn’t even want to be a vigilante but he didn’t have to shoot the idea down so hard.

Batgirl shrugs, “I know,” she dismisses. She squeezes softly at your hand. “Y/n. It was nice meeting you. Had to see. Who’d…put up with him,” she ends snidely.

Jason huffs and you laugh despite yourself, squeezing her hand back in turn. That seems to have been enough for her because you can just make out the smile underneath her cowl before she lets go.

She sends a parting nod Jason’s way and he scoffs quietly.

“Yeah, I know,” he says to Batgirl’s retreating form. "See you later, yeah?” he adds, voice dropping.

She stops part way through slipping out the window, half her body already lost to the darkness, before giving a curt nod. A jaunty wave is sent your way next and then…nothing.

You don’t even hear the fire escape creak before she’s melted into the shadows and disappeared back into the night.

─────

Jason doesn’t know how to conceptualize this, but he has to know. He needs that confirmation before he can truly rest easy.

There’s no one else who reads people as well as Cassandra. Maybe she’ll be able to finally get rid of the way he can’t help but jerk away from your closeness sometimes, from the natural pull you have over him. How much he can’t stay away even as reluctance and fear pulls at him.

Jason sighs.

Or help him figure out how comfortable you really were with the whole Red Hood thing. It’s not that he didn’t trust you to keep the secret, just that he wasn’t sure if you were saving face with him or not. The last thing he wants is for you to feel obligated to stay with him. Or intimidated.

Cass waits until he’s just settled beside her on the roof before speaking.

He’s silently grateful for it. For some reason verbally asking for her assessment seemed like more a betrayal than needing the read at all.

This way he can delude himself into thinking she offered the information up unprompted. Something tells him it won’t change anything; he ignores that voice.

“She’s good,” Cass nods. She pointedly doesn’t leave it at that though so Jason stays still, let’s the wind lap at his hoodie and whisp at his hair.

Cass sighs, so still her shoulders barely move, and then turns to him. There’s a low tuft in her voice like she knows exactly what he’s doing here, knows he’s looking to her for salvation.

“Good,” she stresses. Breathes in once. Exhales. “But hiding.”

Jason’s heart doesn’t skip a beat but his gut does twist, caving in on itself in a bid to hide. He starts shaking his head.

The thing about Jason, he stopped trusting his heart a long time ago. Too late to save him from some other grievances in his life but good enough to keep him alive for this long. To protect this second chance, trusting his gut has been crucial. So why did it feel like he was being gutted?

“…hiding what?” When she takes too long to answer Jason finally turns. “Cass—”

She intercepts him easily, barely a rustle of fabric before her closed fist is pressed against his breastbone. It holds him in place more firmly than it has any right to.

“She’s hiding.” She manages somehow to make him feel the weight of her eyes meeting his own before tutting at him. “So are you.”

The plea Jason’s about to let out gets stuck in the base of his throat and he clears it.

“What do you mean?”

Even in the cowl the disbelieving look Cass throws his way is clear, fabric over her brow creasing.

“You are…leading her.” Her head canters barely a centimeter to the side. “She won’t…move. Not without…looking to you…first.”

All he can do for a moment is breathe deep and swallow back the argument bubbling up his throat. They both know Cass didn’t talk if she wasn’t sure, and Cass didn’t make mistakes about these things.

This wasn’t emotions; it was pure science, and body language for someone like Cass was near impossible to skew at the base intention level. And well…Jason can’t even lie to himself enough to believe he hadn’t expected her assessment to be anything other than confirmation for what he already knew.

He shakes his head, hands shoving into his pockets, “How am I supposed to fix that Cass?”

Cass gives a blithe little shrug, turning away from him again. Her cape billows out wide behind her, wingspan almost large enough to wrap the whole of Gotham in her protective embrace.

She snipes, unrepentant, “Why do I? Have to…know?”

Her voice carries on the wind with more leniency than the question suggests.

Jason sighs, rolling his shoulders back and shifting to look out over the stretch of rooftops laid out before them also.

“You don’t,” he grunts. “Sorry— thanks for this Cass. I owe you.”

She nods, shrugging.

“Cool,” she says. “I’ll call. If I…feel like it.”

He can almost hear the smile in her voice. He imagines it’s the little barely tolerate one she tends to give him. It’s not the smirk he knows she’s prone towards sporting with the others, but the fact he gets anything more than the blank look she gives when she’s mad but doesn’t have the energy or the words to say anything more to him is miraculous enough. He’s lucky to have any of her good will at all considering how heated some of their past conversations have gotten.

Cass never treats him like he’s a ghost, more so like she’s doing him a favor; looking past all the skeletons peeking over his shoulder to see Jason. Just Jason.

It’s not great. Even if he does know why.

It’s not the way you look at him; like he’s whole. Like the him that you want is exactly what’s in front of you, not some specter from the past or poor imitation you have to put up with.

One of Cass’s hands moves to rest against the holster on her belt and she raises one foot to prop up on the border surrounding the roof before leaning into his space.

She punches his shoulder, softly for her, and he takes it.

“You. Should keep her…a civilian. Jason,” she stresses. “An alive one.”

Jason hasn’t even begun to react before Cass is tilting forward, firing off her grappling gun and dropping off the roof in a second.

‘I’m trying,’ Jason thinks at the charcoal of her cape.

He takes another few minutes to look out over the city, let the sounds of a broken metropolis and its people wash over him - for his gut to settle back into stone - and then he climbs down the fire escape.

NOTES: Hope you enjoyed!!!

Alright, so, this is my first time really writing Cass so don’t hate me. I didn’t want to shove her into a ‘woman who soothes a man’s woes’ role, but I did still want to give her and Jason a more tolerant and supportive relationship than they’d ever have canonically (and this is a Jason-centric story so some centering is inevitable). Also, I tried to match her speech patterns from the 2000’s comics so don’t come for me, she usually only speaks in four word sentences at the longest and breaks her sentences up so she can presumably search for the word she needs, otherwise her grammar is totally fine so yeah, hopefully my portrayal of her wasn’t too too bad. I will be advancing her sentence structure and speech patterns when she shows up again in a later part in order to depict how her speech advances in the comics too, just because I want to practice with her some more. Also just believe that once Cass realized the Reader-Insert had sensed her she stayed in a more compromising position (in front of a potential light source) just to really test how well she’d be at actually finding her after sensing something was off.

Keep in mind that this is “wholesome” bat family fanon, but that I lean towards post-crisis when it comes to characterization and comics I read for reference (except for Duke obviously) because I largely like post-crisis canon more. Though, how I write Damian is definitely more based on the DCAMU version of him because that was my introduction to his character, but I am working on getting closer to his canon character voice for my own sake since he will be showing back up later in this series (& just in general I’ve slightly shifted how I write Jason as well since part one).

btw: if you’d like to leave a comment I’d very much appreciate it!

Slightly Rewritten - 6/30/24 (bc the way I reread this and was like “well, tell the woman thank you, goddamn” immediately told me I needed to rewrite some dialogue; like, even though I was trying not to I still ended up prioritizing Jason too much at the end)

Alt. Banner (scrapped) —

(source - Batman: Wayne Family Adventures)

Tagged: @bandshirts-andbooks

[bitchqueenofthebitchsquad]

Gripes about season 2:

My rambling and mostly incoherent gripes about arcane season 2 with headers to help me keep track of what I’m trying to say:

Is hanging out with your oppressor a desirable outcome of the struggle?:

Some people imagine that the greatest goal of a stratified society is for all the classes in that society to hang out more. Basically it's the idea that oppression wouldn't happen if we could all just get to know each other. But proximity doesn’t seem to prevent people from oppressing one another. Policy changes, social movements, revolutions etc. are what seem to do it. You know, systemic change. Arcane brings up system problems and then seems to lose interest. At the end of the show, the status quo is pretty much unchanged except that a few tokens have found their way into the hearts of their oppressors. Are we supposed to be satisfied by this?

When people with this “Lets all get along” mindset create art about oppression I find that, no matter how thoughtful, accurate, or heartfelt their description of the problems, the solution they come up with is always really trite and naive.

So for arcane we have Zaun, the under city that wants health and safety and Piltover which is wealthy but at the cost of the health and safety of Zaun. Instead of letting these two battle it out union vs cops/military/state violence style like in the industrial revolution (which is what I thought we were gearing up for) we get this weird moral about how if the two societies don't band together, some foreign other will come take over. 

That's a threat to Piltover, but for Zaun, which is already fucked up, how much would switching out their oppressor change their status quo? The devil you know vs the devil you don't I guess? 

Arcane manages to include some of my least favorite cliches. They have the savage imperialist foreigners, scary new technology that for reasons that can’t be explained destroys people's humanity (old man yells at cloud), and a visibly disabled big bad who loses his humanity thanks to his mobility aids which (again for reasons that can’t be explained) corrupt him. In fact almost all our main antagonists are disabled (Silko, Singed, Sevika kinda, Viktor). For me it fell beyond tropes and into the realm of stereotypes. 

In the end, when the evildoers are defeated, the status quo remains but now the groups are all hanging out a little bit more. This feels super hollow to me. Surely hanging out with the oppressors isn’t the goal of the oppressed. Oppressed people want access to resources and so they go to the places where resources are being held. If we could, we would just build resources and infrastructure in our own communities. Thats the story I would want for Zaun. I also think that a lot of these stories are interested in the aesthetics of oppression because they can use trauma to get audience reactions, but they dont necessarily understand or have anything to say about how oppression works or what should be done about it.

While internalized oppression complicates this, I still think that ultimately most oppressed people are making a pragmatic choice when they associate with the opposing class. Like, when I go to the white grocery store, it's not because I want to emulate white people or I’m itching to see them, it's just that their grocery store is way better than the one in my neighborhood. 

Instead of Piltover having to give up anything material the show is like "what if Piltover let a token Zaun girlie on their council?" And this is shown as a hopeful step in the right direction. But if you know you know. How many tokens have we seen who look like us but don't represent us, either because they are beholden to the interests that put them in power in the first place or because they don't really have power, they're just meant to make us feel "represented". Very uncool.

Episode seven:

In episode seven, Ekko gets to see a Zaun that is safer and healthier but also visually more like Piltover. That was a big miss for me. How cool would it have been to see the aesthetics of Zaun but without the blight? I also just hate the little fury professor. Rich, naive, old people are almost as annoying in media as they are irl.

Also why was the jinx in that episode so boring? I get why Ekko didn’t stick around. If I thought I was going to have to date homegirl I would've gone back to my universe as well. Hate to see an unambitious woman running around. 

Body augmentation:

Also I have serious hatred in my heart for the idea that augmenting the body is something to be feared.  Like, the narrative that changing your body is not loving yourself is trash. I understand that the writers were kind of trapped by the game lore but I’m complaining about what I didn’t like not making an argument for why things had to be exactly as they were. It would have been nice if Viktor could have just been a regular degular revolutionary who kills his oppressors because they’re unwilling to cede power instead of for “magic corruption” reasons. Like let the disabled man get prosthetics and fight the people who are responsible for his illness without implying that body modification, particularly life saving body modification, is hubris. And then when he goes and heals the junkies and sick people. Can someone explain to me what the problem was with that without integrating game lore? Like just textual evidence from the show, what was wrong with that?

Final gripes

Jayce killing Viktor is what prompts him to go on his glorious evolution thing where he integrates warwick into his body or whatever so isn’t it Jayce’s fault shit goes sideways???  So then how does the time travel make sense? Isn’t it Jayce who needed to be stopped?

Time travel is either writers jumping on the trend or a way to try and dig themselves out of a hole. Either way its lazy.

I have buckets of contempt for people who claim they love Black characters but none of their fanworks contain those characters. What do the girls get out of these kind of lies? Is there some social capital they think they’re gaining? Is anyone (anyone worth taking seriously) demanding they do this? 

Don’t think this was a shipping win for Jayce Vik actually although I agree it was very gay. Gayness/queerness that is only subtext, even if its barely subtext, isn’t explicit enough for me.

I might be reaching here but the whole “he’s taking peoples individuality” is giving anti communist dog whistle.

What I liked:

I liked when the lesbians were eating coochie

The show is so beautiful! I loved all of the glimpses of the arcane and wish we’d had more Sky and Victor wandering around in people's mind palaces.

[mothiir]

Could I maybe get Fulgrim/Konrad/Ferrus with maybe spitroasting or double penetration?

cw: exactly what the ask says! some canon typical gore because it’s konrad.

—

—

Fulgrim grits his teeth, determined not to reward Konrad’s continued terrible manners with a scream. It would be one thing if the Night Haunter was deliberately trying to evoke a response, to create a symphony of gasps and sighs and cries — but no, he is acting on base instinct, with no thoughts to the aesthetics of his actions. His claws are buried into the meat of Fulgrim’s thighs, dragging down, flesh splitting and blood dripping down to his elbows.

He does not even have the decency to do it in anything resembling a rhythm — no, he gouges independently of Fulgrim and Ferrus’s well-timed thrusts, almost like he is deliberately trying to upset the balance. Fulgrim huffs impatience.

“Ferrus, darling — wait a moment.”

Ferrus pauses, his cock half-out of Konrad’s arse, holding the Night Haunter up by his bony hips; the other Primarch’s feet barely rest on the ground, such is the height difference. Konrad immediately objects to the cessation of movement, snarling around Fulgrim’s prick — and that, of course, means that Fulgrim has to withdraw from his (admittedly divine) throat to avoid an impromptu, uncalled-for circumcision.

“Konrad, no —“

“You stopped,” Konrad growls, showing his teeth, drool slopping down his chin. “You stopped, you bastard, don’t you dare stop — I did not tell you to stop — I will flay you —“

The threat is somewhat undermined by the whining cadence of Konrad’s voice, and the way he grabs at Fulgrim’s thighs once more, trying to hook Fulgrim’s cock back into his mouth with his oddly prehensile tongue. Fulgrim shivers all over at the sight, then comes to his senses, and grabs Konrad’s jaw. Ferrus tightens his grasp on Konrad’s hips, even as the Night Haunter tries his utmost to wriggle back onto Ferrus’ cock.

“I was so close,” Konrad says. “I was close, and you stopped, and —“

“Brother, dear, I do not object to a little blood during sex, but this is quite ridiculous,” Fulgrim says, gesturing to the mess Konrad has made of his thighs. Konrad, glowering all the way, unsticks his claws, wiping them clean on Fulgrim’s thighs without so much as a by your leave.

“If I wanted to have someone bitch over a little blood, I would fuck a mortal,” Konrad says.

“Well, if that’s how you feel — Ferrus my lovely, clearly we are not men enough for Konrad’s tastes, so we should leave him to seek out some poor lass to ejaculate into. Shall we adjourn?”

Fulgrim makes a point of stepping back; Ferrus, looking less than thrilled at the prospect of stopping, withdraws precisely one inch. Konrad immediately swipes at him; Ferrus catches his wrist with metal fingers, and squeezes until bones creak. Konrad’s moan of pain/pleasure could blister paint.

“No, that is — that is not what I meant. Keep going. I —“

There’s a malicious edge to Fulgrim’s smile as he cups Konrad’s chin, tipping it up. The Night Haunter’s black eyes are fevered. Rabid. Desperate.

“You’ll what, little brother?”

“I’ll —“

It is not the first time that Konrad has been forced into this position, and he hates this part just as much as he loves the rest.

“I’ll — I’ll be good,” he whispers, so softly that one has to strain to hear it. “I’ll be good, I promise — just. Keep going.”

“Well — you heard the lad!” Fulgrim purrs, grinning at Ferrus. The other Primarch’s expressions are challenging to read for the uninitiated, but Fulgrim recognises this one: a smug, satisfied grin. Ferrus bottoms out in one effortless thrust, and Konrad’s wail is amputated as Fulgrim reintroduces his cock to Konrad’s uvula. The Night Haunter moans and whimpers and slurps around his prick — and this time, as he grips Fulgrim’s thighs, urging him deeper, harder, faster — this time, his claws remain sheathed.

[canmom]

so hades 2 huh

it's fun! i am more convinced after actually playing it than i was in the runup to it. the green colour palette looked a little drab in the videos but it works better for me fullscreen in game, and I really like the second zone's design. the major aesthetic change does go a little way towards making this feel like 'new Supergiant game' instead of just a rehash of the first game.

the difficulty floor is higher than the first game. i think it's well-tuned to go into if you've beaten that one. so far i've played 6 runs, seen the first boss in 5, and and beaten her in 2 of them; yet to get more than about halfway through the second zone after that tho!

the new mana mechanic is kinda interesting, lots of tradeoffs to make. it's a bit more granular than the cast in the first game; you use it to do powered up versions of your attacks, and spending it also charges up the Call-equivalent.

i'm increasingly intrigued by the setting, and i really like some of the side characters like arachne. i think the time skip was a good decision - the story of Zagreus et al. was definitely done. the epilogue ending of the first game was way too neat.

still, starting a revenge plot in media res is curious. especially when Nemesis lampshades the lack of personal motivation. compared to Zagreus's very pressing and relatable motivation (run away from my abusive dad), Melinoë's motivation is a little more abstract - this seems to be deliberate. but it does a fair bit to sell the sort of 'desperate resistance base' setting. it definitely seems rather like they're setting up a twist down the line. but it lacks the immediate emotional hook of the overbearing patriarch in the first game. curious to see how it will work once I've seen more of the story.

as far as the new gods, I'm fascinated by the decision to make Hephaestus and Hestia both be Northern - probably Yorkshire. it's always fun hearing regional UK accents in games. they do also both feel like responses to the criticism that Jen Z never designs fat characters lmao. still, they are good designs. both have satisfying mechanics. Selene also has a really good design I think.

the other gods' mechanics have naturally been redesigned to fit the new game. still broadly the same themes, e.g. Zeus will still be lightning based, but different interpretations of what that means, so for example you have 'hitting an enemy produces a lightning blast behind them' as the primary Zeus mechanic instead of chain lightning. which definitely keeps things fresh. Melinoë's kit has a lot of directional attacks and, with the Cast now being an AOE which slows/freezes enemies, there's a lot more emphasis now on positioning enemies to set up AOE attacks which is interesting.

the witch stuff is quite fun in an admittedly slightly cheesy way. it's definitely pull on aesthetic currents which aren't at all Ancient Greek, like the pointed hats. but hey! I can get into it, it's not like the game's aesthetic has ever been all that strictly historical. even if I am still scratching my head at 'so mote it be'. apparently it's an archaic word meaning 'may', i.e. 'may it be so'.

of course the main thing is, the actual moment to moment gameplay is fun. it flows just as the first game did, and it's just as addictive with the way it spreads out story breadcrumbs. the vfx and such look great, the movement is already super tightly tuned (tbf it's basically the same as the first game with the addition of a new 'hold dash to sprint'), and there's a already good variety of enemy mechanics.

there's some obvious placeholders for some of the UI art and character portraits (notably none of the keepsakes have been drawn yet), but overall it's surprisingly polished for an early-access build. all the voice acting is already there - it's fun seeing the Supergiant voice cast return in new roles.

the meta progression element... there's some neat ideas, like an upgrade system with a limited set of slots that very much calls to mind NieR Automata's chip system. so there are some stronger tradeoffs to make; it's not as simple as 'spend resource, get better' as it was in the first game. and it's clearly possible to advance quite far even without a lot of meta resource investment. so far it definitely feels like my main limit is skill, and I'll progress further once I learn more of the enemy patterns and figure out what builds I like to play.

(though I guess the idea with this kind of game is that the power ups quietly boost you and make it feel like you're getting better a lot faster than you are just learning the game lmao)

overall, it's just really fun to have another Supergiant game to sink my teeth into haha. I still wish they'd continued their streak of coming up with new IPs each time, because they'd come up with fantastic settings, but there's plenty of interest here still.

also the more I work in game dev the more I can appreciate just what a ludicrous amount of polish there is in Supergiant's games. I can only imagine the amount of work it must have taken to tune the feel of everything this tight.

[meifel1]

𝐑𝐎𝐁𝐈𝐍 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐁𝐎𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐋𝐋

꒰ྀི ⸝⸝⸝꒱ 🌟   ₊ О1   ┊ 🌟  zZ

Note: peering !Robinhill; possible deviations from the canon; possible spelling and punctuation errors; The storyline is not the canon of the game, but the appearance does not change (that is, Robin - with wings and a halo, and Boothill - with a metal body, and others).

author's comment: I saw art with Robinhill (cover) on the expanses of Pinterest, and inspiration came flooding in.

Have fun reading!!

૮꒰っ´༥'ς꒱ 👡 。 --- 🏷 ( ! ! )

Evening, France, 1894. The streets are packed with beautiful buildings of the nobility, in places you can see the beautiful castles of high society, and the most important among them is the castle of the king himself.

Of course, we can say that France in these years is one of the best times for this and the future era of this humanity. The carefree life of the nobles, the most beautiful outfits of people, the aesthetics that hovers in the air between the houses and on the narrow roads between them (houses). And much more.

[ . . . ]

Today, a ball is being held in the Royal Castle in honor of the princess's nineteenth birthday - a well-known girl with elegant appearance and smooth beautiful movements. Her eyes sparkle in the sun, and the princess herself is kind not only to the high society of that time, but also to ordinary nobles. Today is her birthday, so she turns nineteen, and it's quite grandiose for everyone.

Boothill is a male cyborg with a metal body, and looking like a cowboy, personally acquainted with the princess, although her brother is against communicating with some kind of cheat. The man is always unhappy after such words from her brother, because there is a strained relationship between them. However, the most important thing is that her parents do not know about their meetings outside the walls of this castle. And he wouldn't be himself if he didn't get that damn invitation to the ball to congratulate Robin personally, even if it was illegal.

And so, the evening, the ball is in the midst of fun. Buthill was late, but he came anyway, having made his way through the guards in the backyard of the castle, where there was a beautiful garden. Robin felt stuffy, so she went out of the hall onto the balcony, which overlooked just that garden. The cybor raised his head and smiled, revealing his sharp teeth. He whispered her name a couple of times so that she would see him. Robin lowered her head, a smile playing on her face when she saw a face she already knew. She gently waved her hand at him, looking around to see if there was anyone nearby, but unfortunately no one.

The cowboy deftly climbed the castle walls to the third floor, where the ballroom was located. As soon as his feet touched the balcony floor, his metal arms immediately wrapped around her waist, hugging her with a sly smile. After that, he hands her a bouquet, with which he climbed onto the balcony.

— Happy birthday, angel. – Boothill says, and stroked the top of her head as she picks up a small bouquet of roses. Robin laughed, wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her face in his metal collarbone. The man himself is dressed elegantly enough for the ball, which is very unlike him, but it's even for the best. He really tried to make everything so perfect that a satisfied and sweet smile shone on the face of his beloved angel, and fortunately, today he sees her..

For a while they stood on the balconies and chatted about everything. Boothill's eyes betrayed his adoration for the princess, from which she often noticed this and how he tried that he even dressed in classic clothes, which he endures her spirit. And the cowboy, in turn, blushed, frowned, turned away and grumbled.

At the end of their conversation, ballroom music for slow dancing in pairs began playing in the background, to which Boothill, at his own risk, invited Robin to dance while her parents were distracted by the important guests of this celebration.

[inevitableisopod]

Bigger Angrier Men

So, the landsknecht, and their signature weapons! in this post i'll mainly be focussing on one of these weapons in particular, the doppelhander (or zweihander, or bidenhander, or montante, or spadone, they're all basically the same weapons for all intents and purposes)

(some original examples)

so, features!

firstly, as it pertains to the landsknchect, these swords had very very long grips(over 50cm including the pommel), large often spherical pommels, or perhaps scent stopper style, very wide curving guards, often with side rings to offer additional hand protection

(more examples)

and now the business end! these blades were often well over 120cm long, and had several interesting and unusual features, firstly, a blunt portion at the bottom of the blade that can be grabbed and gripped in numerous ways without paying much attention (you can grip a sharp blade without too much trouble but it's rather difficult to do without cutting yourself in the heat of the moment) this allowed our big murderous bastards to more easily control the tip of their weapons and made them much more suited to close combat against single opponents, the a smidge further up the blade we have the parrying flukes. these we don't know exactly how they would have been useful but there are a few good guesses; it acts as a forward guard when gripping the blade (half swording), it acts as a way to trap blades in binding and winding, or simply aesthetics. most likely a combination of all three and several other factors i've probably forgotten. lastly, the wavy blades; this is another thing where we do not know why. it may be that it offers additional cutting performance, or some other benefit, but it would take considerably longer to manufacture and be much more fragile (remember, real sword blades break. they might chip, have notches cut into them, have chucks crack out of the edge or even just straight up shatter). it might have been a prestige thing, which is absolutely in character for the half crazed dress sense usually exhibited by these people, and also, ive you've ever been lucky enough to see one in the sunlight, the name of the blade style, flamberge (flaming), becomes rather apparent, as the entire blade lights up in shifting patterns that seem to ripple like silver fire.

aigt so anatomy aside, how do you use the bastard? we have several iberian (spanish/portugese) and i believe a german and italian manual on how to use these, and most of the techniques appear to revolve around an individual idea, which is as follows. large continuous motions, usually swapping between the false and true edge. these actions begin and end in positions where it is easy to flow into another movement that doesn't necessarily seem to flow from the previous one, quickly and easily, but the user can also choke up and use the sword more like a short polearm for single combat, or against heavier armour. this leads us to a conclusion, which is that these swords were explicitly designed to even the score against multiple opponents by creating a large zone of area denial where to oppenents cannot go for fear of having their brains beaten out of their ears (if wearing a lighter helmet), or just being bisected. the idea is during these large movements you use the momentum of the sword to turn quickly to face new opponents continuously (spinning, basically) and so is an ideal bodyguards weapon. also, from personal experience, having been part of a reconstructed scenario where 3 people armed with longswords had to fight a montante wielder, it's fucking terrifying, the thing comes around unbelievably quickly and hits like a truck so it's rather hard to parry if your unlucky enough to have to do so. more often that not it just collapsed the structure of the parry and lead to a hit being scored. great fun to use though, very satisfying.

that'll be it today, and i'll continue the next post with the theme of even biggerer angrierer men, or possibly a sword review??????????? it's one ive had a while don't worry im not spending all my money. i'm also going back to my university this Sunday, so posts might be a tad more infrequent and also potentially much drunker, but i might also be open to doing some live streams on youtube or twitch if that's something you lot'd wanna see, it'd probably be me getting steadily drunker and answering questions sooooo just lemme know?

May your edges stay sharp, and your points true!

[itadoraki]

Between Dust, Crows and Carcasses.

—————————————————————————

Dire Crowley x R.femele. ( Black humor )

—————————————————————————

.

.

The sky over Night Raven College was particularly gloomy that late afternoon, and the principal - as usual - was "occupied" with his noblest mission: to avoid work at all costs. Wrapped in his feather cloak, he watched the movement of the students from the highest window of the tower, until an old and familiar whisper made him shiver even the feathers of the collar.

- "So quiet, my crow... It seems that they've been burying fewer corpses around here lately..."

Crowley froze. That voice was like velvet stained with dry blood. When she turned around, she was already there, sitting with her legs crossed on her own table, as if she were the throne of a mausoleum.

Her. (Y/n). Your wife.

Former fugger of a forgotten court, golden slit eyes, long hair the color of worn bones and a smile that has already made necromancers lose sleep.

She swayed a skull gently, like someone who rocks a baby.

- "I hope you're not cheating on me with some of those fragile little things in uniform... Or are you ignoring me for another more... poignant reason?"

Crowley composed himself with his typical theatrical flourish.

- "Ah, my dark and deliciously morbid wife! I would never dare to pay more attention to someone who didn't share my love for aesthetic dread and social disgrace. I mean, see, I'm wearing the necklace you gave me... made with teeth of dead maidens in collective hysteria!"

She laughed. That laughter - shrill, deep, almost spectral - echoed through the walls of the tower like the ringing of funeral bells.

- "Oh, how I love it when he lies with such elegance. In fact, only you to make misfortune look fashionable."

She got off the table with soft and silent movements like cemetery steam, wrapped Crowley's neck with leather gloves stained with paint and dried blood, and stared at him closely.

- "I missed you. The dead were very... quiet."

- "I also felt your absence, my exhumed bat... But look, I haven't been knocked down by any student rebellion or interdimensional attack this week. I'm getting over myself."

- "This is worrying. A man with so much power shouldn't seem so... dispensable. How about we fake his death and reorganize his image? We can bury you in a theatrical pose and announce your resurrection as a prophet of a new academic era..."

- "So tempting... But unfortunately I have bills from Azul's lounge to pay with the money I diverted. I'll die later."

She pulled him into a dry kiss like sterile earth, and even so, there was a passion made of dark pacts and promises that smelled of rotten roses.

After the kiss, she rested her head on his shoulder like a satisfied widow.

- "I missed your smell... of fresh paint, nervous sweat and institutional fear."

- "And I of your... eternal aroma of moss, washed bones and scent of Gothic daydreams."

- "This one is new. I'll write it down to put it on the tombstone of our future mausoleum."

- "Surely! And we will write 'they died arguing which one was more theatrical'."

They laughed together, a strange sound, like the tingling of glasses at a luxurious funeral.

——————

-Later-

While the NRC students slept, swearing they heard strange whispers and scratches on the walls, Crowley and (Y/n) drank tea served in cracked cups, surrounded by flickering candles and small stuffed crows.

She traced old runes on the table with her finger, distracted.

- "Do you still love me, corvito?"

- "With every fiber of my rotten heart, my fragrant skull."

- "Great. Because if you betray me... I won't kill you.

– I'll resurrect you.

– Every day.

*– For a thousand years."

Crowley widened his eyes, a little pale, but deeply excited by the terror.

— "...You're perfect."

And she just smiled with the sharp teeth of those who have already bitten souls before dinner.

————— A very long time later—————

Director Crowley staggered backwards when he saw what she was holding: a small black outfit with lace details and a skull embroidered on her chest.

- "Tell me, my dear, do you think we should call him 'Little Death' if it's a girl, or just 'Curse', regardless of gender?"

Crowley blinked several times, as if reality was trying to restart.

— "...Are you... pregnant?"

She just raised an eyebrow.

- "No, dear. I swallowed a ghost and I'm incubating resentments. Of course I'm pregnant."

She stroked her belly with her gloved fingertips.

She was visibly rounded, although her long black dress with slits seemed part of a ritual and not a maternal fashion.

- "It's fascinating... I feel the creature's paws inside me. She kicks with the delicacy of a demon trying to get out of hell itself."

Crowley was in shock and ecstasy.

- "My little skull... a... a being, an heir! Someone to continue my legacy of evasion of responsibilities and dramatic costumes!"

- "Do you really think he'll look like you? With that scared crow face and a morality as malleable as wet paper?"

- "With luck, you will inherit your emotional coldness and my ability to disappear in critical moments!"

She got up slowly, with an air of a priestess in a ceremony. Her long silver hair ran down her back like fog.

The pale light of the moon highlighted the brightness of the necklace of small teeth - the first ones she had collected as a memory of the childhood... of the others.

- "I have desires."

Crowley sighed with relief, then worried.

- "Oh, my gloomy little being... What kind of wishes? Avocado with whipped cream? Ice with pepper sauce? Ice cream and dead fish sandwich?"

She stared at him with her ghost cat eyes. Slowly, he opened an old grimoire and pointed to a grotesque illustration.

- "I want... the dust of the horn of a forgotten creature, mixed with dew drops harvested in cemeteries and served in a cup made of human ribs. Slightly sweetened with sugar burned in hell."

Crowley blinked. One. Twice.

- "You... are you sure you don't want... I don't know, pickles with condensed milk like any pregnant woman?"

- "Crowley... our son will be born with crow wings or wolf fangs. He deserves a wish to match."

- "Right. Of course. Nothing more fair. Just... give me a second."

He ran away, tripping over his own shoes, sending urgent messages via magic mirror to any night student desperate enough to look for "cemetery dew". In less than half an hour, the NRC corridors were in total chaos: Grim running away from a jar of crushed teeth, Ruggie trying to bargain with ghosts for a spoon of cursed silver, and Kalim offering spices thinking it was a supper.

Meanwhile, she smiled satisfied, caressing her belly.

- "He's kicking."

Crowley returned, out of breath, with an improvised tray in his hands. Some ingredients may not have been exactly what she asked for, but they were close enough to avoid a curse.

- "Here it is, my haunting of eternal love... a 'tempered death cocktail'... limited edition."

She drank slowly. And he smiled with the peace of an ancient spirit meeting his favorite tomb again.

- "Ahhhh... that... that's pregnancy."

Crowley fell to his knees, exhausted, with the feathers of the cape soaked in sweat.

- "How many months are left?"

- "Seven."

He cried. Inside, of course. Outside, he posed.

She smiled, amused by his tragedy.

- "Tomorrow maybe I want to smell the virgin dragon blood... Or maybe I just want poisoned sawdust. It will depend on the baby's mood."

- "Great. Wonderful. We're doing so well..."

————————— Months later————————

The night was darker than pitch. The moon hid behind dense clouds that seemed to whisper forgotten secrets. Lightning rays scratched the sky while thunder echoed like drums of an ancestral funeral. In the castle of Night Raven College, a private room of the highest tower was transformed into a macabre sanctuary.

Black candles melted slowly, casting dancing shadows on walls decorated with skull tapestries and arcane symbols. In the center, an improvised altar with withered bones and withered flowers supported a dark red velvet bed, where (Y/n), Dire Crowley's gothic and enigmatic wife, fought against the pains of childbirth.

Crowley, wearing his usual costume, although now slightly crumpled by nervousness, watched with wide eyes, mixing fascination and dread.

- "Reathe, my eternal enigma... It's almost."

She smiled, her eyes shining like dead lanterns.

- "This won't be an ordinary baby, my sloppy crow."

The walls vibrated when an irregular beat began to echo, as if the castle itself marked the rhythm of the arrival of the little being. The air became heavy, loaded with ancient magic.

After a series of moans that looked like ghost songs, finally, the silence fell. A strange cry - not human, but melodic and chilling - broke the stillness.

Crowley approached cautiously, while (Y/n) rested, exhausted, a satisfied smile on her lips.

Among the black blankets, a small being was curled up. The baby's eyes shone in a deep violet tone, and his skin was pale, almost translucent, with light feather-shaped marks on his arms.

He opened his hands - and small black claws stretched - before emitting a sound that looked more like a crow's song than an ordinary cry.

- "He's... perfect." - Crowley whispered, moved, his voice stunned by the magnitude of the moment.

(Y/n) passed a soft finger over the baby's forehead, as if recognizing an ancient soul reincarnated.

- "Our son. A crow reborn from darkness. The next guardian of the secrets that Night Raven can never reveal."

She looked at Crowley, a dark and maternal glow in her eyes.

- "Now our true mission begins. Teach him that the world is not made for the weak... and that death is just the beginning."

Crowley smiled, once again in love and terrified at the same time.

- "So... let the new times come. Our son will be the terror and mystery of the NRC."

And in the highest tower, the baby let out a sound - half sinister laughter, half ancestral song - as if he had already mastered the secrets of darkness.

—————————————————————————

[efangamez]

Hey y'all! Here is Efan's quick rundown and review of almost all the cool games I played this year, as well as my Steam in Review!

1. Darkest Dungeon

I've been playing this game for nearly ten years, and I finally beat it this year. Not a 2023 release, but a huge milestone for myself. After a terrible year before it, I made it a goal to face my fears and beat this game. Lo' and behold, I did, and it's one of my own personal gaming accomplishments. It's solidified as the best turn based game I've ever played, but it does have its late-game issues, specifically with the Crimson Court maps and the final dungeon maps. It's just absurd tbh. However, this is one of my favorite games of all time, if not my favorite, and it's a must have for horror fans, HP Lovecrft fans, and turn based game fans. 9.7/10

2. Sun Haven

A wonderful and cute farming sim that scratched an itch no other could scratch. Its characters are fun, the music is solid, the graphics are very bright and fantastical, and the combat was simple yet kinda fun. I really loved the progression in this game too. It still has its issues, such as the late game (it may have been fixed because this game was in early access) and some of the utility of the workbenches you can use. All in all, a very solid farming sim (and just life sim in general tbh) if you like a little bit of fantasy mixed in. 9/10

3. Halls of Torment

My favorite Survivor game. The music, aesthetics, progression, characters, and maps are all different enough to keep you coming back for more. As I am disabled, these games are actually super fun to play because I only have to play with one hand. It was in early access when I played it heavily, so it had some issues like the handling of inventory, some balance issues, and feature creep issues, but they may have been fixed now. 9.3/10

4. Cassette Beasts

A must-play monster battler with an amazing plot, an incredible soundtrack, interesting monsters, and great characters for the most part. If you've been really wanting a game that is reminiscent of Pokemon colleseum but also want that 2d love of the Black and White games, this is a must have. It does have some balance issues (again, early access game when I played), but other than that and maybe some performance issues that are probably fixed by now, it was an incredible game that made me want a 2d Pokemon game more than ever. 9/10

5. Roboquest

A fantastic FPS roguelike game with great gunplay, movement, art direction, and music too. Each weapon feels pretty unique, it has melee weapons (wish there were more though) and a progression system that's really cool. It plays like if Doom Eternal had a kid with Borderlands, and I think plays a bit better than any other RANGED FPS roguelike/lite that I've played. I will say the difficulty settings are really cool, but I think they are a little too enticing due to game balance as of 1.0 due to progression being a bit of a grind. I think that having different endings for each difficulty might be a cool idea, each as satisfying as the other, but I know that can be a pain to develop. 9/10

6. Mortal Sin

A beautifully dark and trippy mostly melee FPS roguelike that takes the intensity of DOOM and the melee weapons of Elderborn and drenches it in a slow-mo filled, heavy swinging fun time. It's definitely the most FUN game this year as I've been craving an FPS melee roguelike for a while. It accomplishes this and then some with pretty cool progression that adds some variety to each game. The art direction reminds me of a more purple and red MORK BORG (fellow TTRPGers rejoice) and I LOVE it. The only issues to me are that the story and lore are a bit boring and lacking, but again it's in early access, so it has time to cook. 9.5/10

7. And last, my game of the year, LUNACID by @stylishkira

What a gorgeous game all around. The music has probably the most atmosphere out of any indie game I've played outside of Darkest Dungeon. Its levelling system is accessible but fun, you can create your own character with their own name and profile picture which I think is SO cool (Mortal Sin should totally do this if it's not too much of a copy). The combat is really fun and the sound design is probably second, once again, to Darkest Dungeon. It was an absolutely magical experience playing this game, and an experience I don't think I'll ever forget. I do think, however, that the ending feels really really rushed, and that sullied my experience a little bit, and the bosses are pretty unbalanced because you can just spam all of your health potions and tank the bosses, but the experience leading up to the ending is amazing. Also, I know the true ending is purposely a little complex, but tbh, if the goal was to have the "true" endings similar to the Souls games, having the final climactic boss (which I won't spoil, but is really cool) be the core of the normal ending, paired with alternate endings WITH that really cool final boss I think, might make the experience a bit more satisfying. It's already kinda implemented, but I loved this game so much that the standard ending just kinda felt....empty. Don't let these critiques stop you from playing this game, however. It's one of my favorites of all time, and I only give these critiques because I love this game so much. This is a MUST PLAY, and for the price, it's an absolute steal and should be priced up, imo. I cannot wait to see where the direction of possible King's Field style games come, because I am THIRSTY for more! 9.6/10

Annnddddddd that's it! Some great other games I played this year were the Demon Souls remake (9.2/10) Shadow of the Colossus (9.3/10), and Bloodborne (for probably the 30th time, and that's no joke, 9.8/10), and Quake (9.8/10).

[greatwyrmgold]

For the "ask about a fandom you blog about that I don't know" prompt: I don't know anything about the game but I enjoyed the tactical breach wizardposting you were doing not so long ago. Would you like to talk a bit more about what made the game so enjoyable for you?

Tactical Breach Wizards has layers.

As with many video games, the core of Tactical Breach Wizards is the core gameplay loop. You're given a few wizards who have some esoteric tools, and a bunch of enemies who are too numerous or tanky to be overwhelmed with the limited force you can bring to bear; now figure out how to use the trickier elements of those tools to negate or overcome that lack of brute force.

Knockback is hardly the only example, but it's the first you're introduced to, and it's also a ton of fun. Jen's lightning is weak, but it can easily defenestrate enemies. Getting yourself and the enemy into position where you can defenestrate the most dangerous target without exposing yourself to more danger from the other targets is an interesting mini-puzzle, and you keep doing stuff like that.

If I want to throw the heavy guy out the window, I need Banks to throw sedative at him. But moving Banks in range means she's exposed to a bunch of mooks who collectively have enough firepower to put her down. So Zan and Dall need to protect Dall, but they don't have enough bullets for all the mooks, so—

It's a similar kind of almost experimental joy that I get from games like Slice & Dice or Into the Breach. I have a set of tools and a set of problems to overcome, and have to figure out how to make the two mesh in a way beneficial to me.

The next layer (shared in some form by both S&D and ItB) is the "Foresee" mechanic. There's a lot of complexity in TBW, and while there isn't really RNG to worry about, it's easy for you to overlook some factor. Maybe shooting that guy makes him run into an explosive barrel you didn't want to explode. Maybe moving Rion into position for a good vine means he's exposed to too much fire. Maybe you thought you budgeted Dall's health properly, but forgot that she was accidentally caught in Banks's sedative cloud two turns ago. No problem; just rewind!

It gives you the freedom to fuck around, find out, and finagle a new solution instead of faceplanting. If Jen's current position doesn't let her zap that guy in the direction you wanted, reverse the shot and her movement and try again. Keep trying, keep foreseeing new possibilities, until you're satisfied.

The next layer is level design. You have a lot of tools designed to work together, and the Foresight to make sure they work together the way you expect. So the levels need to be challenging despite your tools, without just making a bunch of your tools temporarily irrelevant. And they need to find a bunch of different ways to challenge you, so you're not just solving the same problems the same way every level.

Most of the campaign and training dreams manage this balance well, especially when you factor in the optional Confidence Goals which change how you have to approach each level. You can beat this level, but can you beat it fast or without getting hurt or while ignoring Steve? The Proving Grounds are dull in large part because they don't have this balance, and neither do most user-created levels.

On top of these mechanical details, gameplay polished to balance a complex experience properly, we have a layer of presentation. Aesthetics and interface and UX. There's a lot of stuff that Just Works, making everything feel intuitive without being noticed, and all of that is critical to making the gameplay work properly. When something doesn't work how you expected, it's easy to figure out how.

Presentation is a good transition from gameplay to narrative, thanks to aesthetics. The levels and character models not only serve the ludic needs of Tactical Breach Wizards, they serve its story. Zan Vesker and Steve Clark and First Chaplain Richter and everyone else look they way they need to look to sell the gameplay, to bridge the gap between fantastical powers and gritty modern combat. At the same time, they also sell the narrative, seeming less like Cool Units being moved around a tabletop and more like people in a world.

The stylization also helps. Making a bone-clad pyromancer look grounded is a tall order, but it's easier when he blends so naturally into this world of police stations and office buildings and trains, especially when there are Jens and Bankses and Livs around to help make this world feel like one where it's normal to dress like a warlock sometimes.

The next layer is the prose. It helps with both presentation and characterization, but it's also just fun. A lot of my TBW posts were just me sharing and commenting on screenshots of various good lines, and I screenshot a lot of other lines that I later decided not to post.

And the fun doesn't detract from the tone or overall narrative, even though the characters are usually in life-or-death situations. A big part of this, I think, is that the characters don't all quip the same. Jen's quips don't sound like Banks's quips don't sound like Liv's quips don't sound like Rion's quips. They quip in different ways and under different kinds of stress. It adds to your sense of these characters as various kinds of people who would quip at each other seconds before initiating a desperate firefight.

Which I guess brings me to the characterization layer. The eight-ish main characters all have at least a bit of depth (except Steve, of course), and the ones who end up on your team get more than that. Even taciturn latecomer Rion has a magic stress dream which helps explain why he wound up how he is. All of these characters are neat; you can easily imagine any of them existing outside the context of their story. You do not want them to get imprisoned or murdered or suffer through World War 5.

And on top of the individual characters and scenes and sentences, the overarching narrative is pretty good. The worldbuilding is sketchy, but there's enough to make everything make sense. You understand why characters and institutions have the goals they do, and why they take the actions they do, and why that results in conflict. There are a lot of balls in the air—Liv Kennedy's private goals, Reactor's plans, the Kalan revolution, Medil's situation, etc etc etc. But all of them matter by the end, and all of them get satisfying resolutions.

There's exactly enough story to set up problems for our protagonists to solve, to bring them together, and then to watch them solve those problems. From top to bottom, core to surface, it's quite elegant.

The biggest problem I have is that it's...self-contained? In a good way, but also kind of a frustrating way. I want more, but it's not there.

I've mentioned that I don't find any of the user-created levels satisfying, and I don't think that's going to change; my experience with the level editor is that it's clunky and lacks the tools you need to create truly novel scenarios. So there won't be satisfying new ludic experiences with TBW unless they release DLC. And while I like the characters, they don't have the depth of Taylor Hebert or Ai Hoshino or my other long-term blorbos; I kinda want to see more of them, but I also kinda want to leave them where they lie. They have a couple of epilogue options each, and that's...fine.

Tactical Breach Wizards is a very well-made game, polished, created with care. It's exactly as much as it needs to, and all of that was a lot of fun, and it gave me something to chew on without overstaying its welcome.

[meatball-headache]

Decided to play some Soulframe today (a friend gave me a beta alpha pre-pre-pre-alpha invite) just 'cause.

I like this game. It's obviously not done, of course, but what's present is fun enough. I like how it seems and feels. I like the aesthetic, I like the movement and combat, I like the potential of the randomized dungeons and the Warframe-inspired grind.

It's like... Dark Souls spawned a whole genre. It kicked off a revolution. You could play a different "soulslike" every day for the rest of your life. There's a million billions games like this, where R1 is a light attack and R2 is a heavy attack and holding R2 is a charge attack, where you can parry and upgrade your weapons and there's vague and mysterious worlds and giant bosses. So what makes Soulframe special?

Nothing, really. I like Warframe. The same company is making this, so, out of all the soulslikes out there, I'm gonna go with this one.

I don't really want to chase the next big thing. I'm not watching new releases and jumping on the latest Persona remake or Obscura 33 or Lethal Company or Schedule I. If it was 2002, sure. But there's MMOs now. There's live-service games. Love them or hate them, they're here, and their broad, endless design appeals to me. I don't want a lot of games, I just want a couple I can settle down with. FFXIV consistently offers fantastic music and excellent story, with a decent grind and pretty characters. Warframe has an awesome grind and fun, hectic gameplay. Caves of Qud has wonderful character creation and build development and endless random worlds to explore. Soulframe has—so far, it has satisfying character-action melee combat and randomized elements for a repeatable experience. We'll see, we'll see.

I love Lies of P. That game is incredible, beautiful, fun, touching, cool, impressive. But I beat it, then beat it again, then one more time. It's the same each time. Yeah, you can have a different weapon, but the story, levels, enemies, don't change in the slightest. Great game, highly recommended, but it's not somewhere I can settle down and live in, y'know?

When a show airs, when a show gets cancelled, and people go "Aw that's too bad, I liked that fandom," and then someone else goes, "It's up to you to keep the fandom alive! People are still writing TOS fanfics!!!" —I guess I'm not like that? I finished Lies of P... okay, moving on. Not getting into the Lies of P fandom, not writing fics, not doing art, just moving on. Or, bigger examples: Bloodborne and Dishonored, which if it weren't for the grip of MMOs mentioned above, would be rock solid locks for my favorite games of all time—but I've played them so much that I've seen everything there is to see, done everything there is to do, so I'm moving on.

Or maybe I'm just a quitter, and I'm lying: I am chasing the next big thing, but rather than looking for newer and better games, I'm looking for a game that will keep offering newer and better things. I don't have to check out new releases because FFXIV keeps having new releases. First we got a chapter of the story (which I still haven't finished, heard it's good though), then we got Cosmic Exploration which even I, who hate crafting, am getting into, and soon we'll get Occult Crescent which if it's half as good as Bozja, my summer just filled up... It's not like I got to Praetorium and said "Oh man, I could just farm this all day long..." and just stayed with that. Or PVP, or Palace of the Dead, or . . .

Anyway, Soulframe's pretty cool. It's gonna be like a year before it has any meat to it, but for now it's pretty, it's Warframe-like in its grind and aesthetics, it's Dark-Souls-like in its gameplay and motion. I like the grind Warframe offers, but sometimes I'm like "I'm getting too old for this shit. How do I set it on Slow?" So, this might be up my alley.

Still disappointed that they changed the compass from the artful in-universe language, unobtrusively sitting at the bottom, to the standard English NSEW branded in the middle of the sky, though.

Anyway, this has been Feelings With Meatball.