#not that i'm at a level of welsh where i could play games in it

[screechfoxes]

games i know can be played in welsh

minecraft

dicey dungeons

[misssakuramochi]

Hello! Could I please get a matchup for Baldur's Gate 3? 🥺 I'm an autistic she/they enby, I'm fine with any gender, and while I currently work at a library I'm hoping to become a professor of celtic languages and a linguist someday, so I'm learning Scottish Gaelic, Irish and Welsh. I'm super short, only 4' 10" (147 cm), with long wavy auburn hair, glasses, pale freckled skin and a boyish fashion sense. I also have some chronic illnesses like scoliosis, joint pain and asthma. I'm really polite and very friendly with everyone I meet, but I'm also very protective over my loved ones and can be sassy when I feel it's deserved. While I'm generally an anxious person, I'm not afraid to make the first move because I basically tell myself that the moment could slip away, but I will be having heart palpitations while doing that lol. My special interests include linguistics, science, magic (I practice witchcraft irl), cooking, video games, plant identification and a bunch of other stuff, though honestly I'm down to learn about whatever is available (within reason). I've been described as "homely" and "wise beyond my years" since I give good advice and am very self aware. I really enjoy taking care of people but can get flustered if the sentiment is returned.

Thank you so so much, I hope you're doing well! Take care!

I match you with...

ASTARION

○ You have very complimentary skills. On one hand, you're very book smart - keep him from eating the poisonous animals and such. He's the street smart half, protecting you from nefarious faces you miss in the crowd. He reads others intentions well, you know your own; you help him trust and he helps you doscern. He helps you learn in some ways, you help him in others. You both grow well together.

○ Believe it or not, you make Astarion feel protected. Maybe not physically, exactly, but your willingness to sass and back talk when someone messes with him warms his heart. Knowing you care enough to protect his emotional self means more to him than he can express - even if he complains at you when that sass gets you in trouble.

○ Astarion loves that you always surprise him. When you first showed your firey side, when you were the one to ask him out first. He never knows what you'll do or say next in a positive way. You're exciting and full of life to him, which makes him feel more alive ironically.

○ Knowing you're generally anxious, Astarion doesn't hesitate to step up in situations where you're stressed. Much as he loves to make you squirm, he's the only one allowed to. He loves when you stand up for yourself and he encourages and emboldens you, but when things are too much he's always there.

HEADCANONS

○ I won't lie - Astarions intentions with you are not wholesome at first. Being quiet and well-mannered, maybe a little awkward even, he thinks he can manipulate you. When you first get firey, either in his behalf or at him, it lights a spark of genuine intrigue. Tell himself as he might that he's in it for his own goals, he starts genuinely falling in love with you from then on

○ Astarion pretends not to listen to you. When you infodump about languages, plants, ect. He often pretends to get distracted - usually by saying he can't help but get caught up by how beautiful you are when you speak (which he means more than his tone indicates) It can be irritating, but down the line when he reiterates facts you'd taught him, you realize he was genuinely hearing you. At least ad best he could. Honestly it takes him time, but he learns a few basic sentences in your interest languages to impress you, just based on you telling him about them.

○ You play friendly one upping games in teasing one another, but Astarion wins literally every time. You flirt with him, and when he reciprocates he does so with 10x intensity just to make you blush and stutter. He lives(?) for fluttering you. Even as you get brave enough to keep up more, and flirt further, he'll always take it to a higher level just to get those cheeks pink. (Always within your boundaries ofc)

○ Sometimes, with you being so intelligent, goal-driven, and passionate, he would get discouraged in the beginning because he genuinely didn't feel good enough. After many a long talk and a little time, he finally finds his place in supporting you - emotionally and physically. You teach him that you rely on him too, and that goes from something scary to something that gives him purpose. Cooking, cleaning -- he's more surprised than you are to find himself helping with those things after you've passed out from a day of work and research.

----

Alright my friend! Tysvm for doing this trade with me! It is my pleasure to hand over my precious man to you - please treat him well. Like please he needs it

[elbiotipo]

I don't know were to begin

Y Wladfa, the Welsh settlement in Chubut province which never eached more trhan 20.000 people has claims to all the Patagonia

THE PROVINCES ARE THE WORST I HAVE EVER SEEN IN A PARADOX GAME. I HAVE NEVER SEEN SUCH BORDERGORE IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. THEY MERGED SAN LUIS WITH LA PAMPA. CÓRDOBA DOESN'T EVEN EXIST.

LOOK AT THIS SHIT:

THIS ISN'T SO HARD PARADOX YOU KNOW YOU COULD HAVE LOOKED AT A MAP YOU KNOW THOSE EXIST? SEARCH FOR PROVINCES OF ARGENTINA" IN WIKIPEDIA? HELLO???

The fact that they didn't even bother to change the building/industrial slots for places like Santa Fe or Córdoba (which don't even exist) showws they didn't even fucking care. It's almost insulting (compare to Chile for example, where you cana see different development levels, here they didn't even try)

I'm not going to get nitpicky on the historical focuses as I'm not that of an expert, but tthis is the ENTIRE decision tree for Peronism, the biggest movement of WWII era Argentina and the XX century:

That's a bit uh, lacking. A bit lackluster.

Pretty sure there are major figures lacking in the Communist tree too but I have to check.

I haven't even started to play yet, but I notice they don't even have the Pulqui and Pulqui II aircraft designs, Argentina developed the first jet fighters of Latin America and they don't even appear. No trace of other historical plane designs either

I'll stop there, just the map makes me want to ragequit. Paradox has always been crappy in regards with South America and Argentina but THIS IS ALMOST AN INSULT, it's like they let just a random who had not the barest idea at all about Argentina or South America just do whatever without any quality control. I haven't checked the rest of South America yet (I've heard Brazil is quite good and Chile has fantasy Mapuche missions where you decolonize America) but so far this is just crap.

Gonna test Argentina in the new Hearts of Iron IV pack now

[ingravinoveritas]

Hey there. I'm glad I'm not the only one who ships David and Michael. I want to ask... Since you ship them too, what are your favorite moments between them and why? And when did you start thinking there actually might something happen between them?

Hi Anon! I apologize that it’s taken me time to respond to your question. I needed to really think about my answer to this, as it is so difficult to choose a favorite moment between Michael and David. I’ve also been talking about so many of those moments lately, so I wanted to think of something that hadn’t already been discussed.

So I would say that, yes, many of my favorites are ones I’ve mentioned previously on my blog, but two that come to mind right now are when David and Michael were on Graham Norton last year, and then David interviewing Michael for his podcast.

Now, there was a lot going on during this interview, with Graham Norton busy Graham Norton-ing and of course the eggplant emoji incident, but what gets me is the sustained look of pure, unadulterated adoration that Michael was giving David:

...That. Nonstop. For almost the entire interview. Amazing.

Their bodies were also oriented toward each other the whole time, again falling into that pattern of always ending up in their own little world. Michael and David were ever the professionals, of course, interacting gamely with Graham and Chris Hemsworth and the audience, but they clearly only had eyes for each other. I also loved the moment where David recited the very long name of the place in Wales. He didn’t learn it specifically to impress Michael, as we know (he learned it from a Welsh actress while doing a Shakespeare play, to mess with the sign language interpreter), but on some level, he had to know what that would do to Michael. And we got Michael’s wonderful, giddy reaction--which was to look like he was barely restraining himself from dropping to one knee and proposing right there--and David just utterly basking in the warm glow of Michael’s attention.

The second moment I mentioned was David interviewing Michael on his podcast. It’s one of the most delightful interviews I’ve ever heard precisely for the reason that it doesn’t at all sound like an interview, but rather like two close friends just having a conversation (which is at least partly due to David’s talent as an interviewer). But right from the outset, one of the first things David says as they’re talking about a GO photo shoot they had just done is, “You're an honest version of how I'm feeling." Which confirmed something that I’ve been observing for a long while now, which is that Michael says the things that David only thinks. There’s a thread of that in so many of their interactions and interviews, which is subtle, but after a while you start to see it, and it’s fascinating.

To go back to the conversational quality of the interview, even though there was no video, the way Michael and David interacted made it easy to imagine what that conversation might look like. My mental image is basically of a sleepover, of them sitting on the floor together in their pyjamas, David behind Michael, knees bent and his long legs bracketing either side of Michael’s body, both of them sharing popcorn out of a bowl beside them and drinking glasses of red wine. David idly plays with Michael’s hair as he asks questions and giggles at Michael’s answers, and then he slowly starts to grip his curls just a tiny bit harder, massaging his head, making Michael’s breath hitch in his throat, but he keeps the conversation going. By the end, they’re both a bit tipsy and Michael is leaning back against David’s chest, warm and flushed and eyes fluttering closed as David rubs the back of his neck, debating whether to laugh or to turn his head and kiss David to break the growing tension...

(...I realize that was rather elaborate, but that whole scenario just blossomed in my mind as I re-listened to the podcast. Also, the fact that there’s a deleted clip of Michael saying “I almost came” and David giggling in response is another reason it’s one of my favorite MS/DT moments and really, really makes me wish we had video of this interview...)

Anyway, to the second part of your question, Anon, which is when did I think there might be something happening between Michael and David. I actually went back into my Tumblr archive to see when I started getting into Good Omens (June 2019) and how the timeline progressed from there. I can see that from the beginning, as I was diving headfirst into Aziraphale/Crowley fanfic and fanart, that I kept gravitating to the more ‘realistic’ art--illustrations, paintings, drawings, etc. that looked like the actors, rather than an artistic interpretation of the characters (which is not to say that other forms are bad, just that it’s my personal preference for fanart).

Right away, I was shipping Aziraphale and Crowley, but I think I was unconsciously drawn to that chemistry between Michael and David, even though I wasn’t outright shipping them then. The shift started to happen not long after that, as I began watching more and more of Michael and David’s interviews and all the GO press tour stuff I could get my hands on. But I am pretty sure that what made the switch finally flip was two things: Michael calling David his “lover,” and this moment, from earlier this year:

Over and over again, Michael has talked about how he was initially excited to be in Good Omens because he’s such a huge fan of the book, he’s known Neil forever, he’s mainlined Ineffable Husbands fanfic like Turkish black mule heroin, and so on. But then here, Michael is talking about what made filming the show so special...and it’s David. He’s remembering this experience--this incredible, life-altering journey of filming this show--and it’s not the book or shipping Aziraphale and Crowley that he speaks about with the most tender affection. It’s David. I just thought that was utterly lovely and very telling.

But the thing is, Anon, is that there really isn’t one specific moment that made me think something might have happened between Michael and David. It’s just been the gradual accumulation of all these moments put together--both the ones I mentioned in this post and the ones I’ve talked about previously. It’s how Michael and David talk about each other when they’re together and when they are apart. And it’s how, despite having numerous opportunities to put out the flames of suggestion, Michael instead runs toward them cackling maniacally, a can of kerosene in hand. (I also like to imagine an amused David just standing there calmly and holding up a Zippo lighter for his part.)

So I hope that helps to answer your question, Anon, and I’m always glad to hear from another shipper. Thanks for writing in and for being here! x