#or will he actually relate to the player for having to struggle in life again

[hexxter]

What if Luxu and Player encounter each other with each of the player’s reincarnation

Luxu who is stealing bodies vs the kid that keeps coming back to life

[dykedvonte]

Can you talk about trans!Curly a little bit more? I'm curios if you have any headcanons and the like

-💀

It's just such a thing in my mind because it adds a truthful sadness and differing aspect to mouthwashing.

If Curly was trans it adds the horror of the horribly selfish thought he could have easily been in Anya's situation. It could've been him but it wasn't and he so conflicted on the pit it put in his stomach that brings and the shameful relief it wasn't. In this scenario he is friends with Jimmy for a long time still. Jimmy likely knew him pretransition. Maybe he gave Curly weird looks then, maybe they never stopped after, maybe they seemed meaner. They are guys now, bros, both of them are. He doesn't really have to worry what those looks mean anymore, Jimmy just has that face with him sometimes. It's recontextualizing a lot of things for him that he was in denial about or too ashamed to admit. How naive he was being and how he let that get another person hurt.

Specifically with Anya, it's he knows the dread and fear she's feeling. He can understand it because he had to live with it for a good portion of his life, he knows it cause he still does, just in a slightly different way. It makes him think of all the times he's been alone with Jimmy, all the times he's been way more drunk off his ass and not remember the night, Jimmy was always with him the next day. Makes him think of the comments he would laugh off both because that's what guys do but because that part of being a girl says to laugh so Jimmy doesn't do something. It's the selfish realization that he was never safe and he's uncertain now too. Mad at himself for forgeting that feeling, espcially since for a long time he would've been considered the only woman on a crew (with all that implies) for a long time.

He should've taken those blinders off, step back into that position for just a moment and it's so much more painful that Anya likely came to him because he should've gotten it. Those thoughts don't leave his mind after the crash when he's in an even more vulnerable position than she was...

[negrowhat]

Sports Themed BL Dramas

In honor of the Olympics, I saw someone make a sports themed Anime rec list and decided I could do that for my fellow QL watchers out there (I promise I'm not using QL and BL interchangeably).

The Rebound (Thailand)

Freshly completed. The Rebound is a basketball centered series. Ryu and Zen are both basketball all-stars and used to be each other's rocks on the court in middle school. Fast forward to high school and Zen is trying to put together a new team under a new coach and Ryu is somewhere in the streets playing illegal and highstakes street basketball. Watch Zen re-recruit Ryu back onto the team and back into his life while they both deal with homelife struggles, keeping the basketball team afloat, Ryu's mafia ties, and love rivals.

You're My Sky (Thailand)

This is a multi-sports BL with 3 couples. Follow Fah and Torn as they reunite in college and join the same basketball team and work to repair the damaged relationship and also make their basketball dreams come true. Join freshman soccer star Saen as he juggles his sport and pursuit of his intellectual senior Aii and also taking time out of his day to give Torn love advice. And the last pair features two track stars Dome and Vee who struggle with their growing attraction to each other while Dome is actively dating Vee's sister Pan. This series is all about love and sports.

History 2: Crossing the Line (Taiwan)

This is a high school volleyball bl that focuses on retired player turned manager Qiu Zi Xuan and reluctant newcomer Hsia Yu Hao. Zi Xuan splits his time with training his team and teaching Yu Hao the essentials of the game so he'll be ready in time to compete. What happens when Yu Hao's annoyance for Zi Xuan fades and he begins to catch feelings for the school senior? And how will Zi Xuan deal with a sudden new love interest when his first love has always been volleyball...not to mention his baby sister has a huge crush on Yu Hao. There is a side pairing that features step brother who have an interesting history involving a kidnapping.

Between Us the Series (Thailand)

Okay so this series isn't technically sports-themed but there's a lot of sport in it. 3rd year uni student Win is VP of the swim team and the team has just recruited freshman Team. Win and Team are both very serious about their sport but Team does struggle because of some past swimming related trauma from his childhood. Win takes an immediate interest in Team so he gives him extra special attention outside of the team and soon they begin a sexual relationship (immediately actually). Team soon finds that being with Win helps him sleep peacefully at night so he begins to sleep over in his dorm. They both establish a bond but can't quite slap a label on with Win's commitment issues and Team's trauma. (There's more swimming in Between Us' parent drama Until We Meet Again). There are quite a few side pairing in this series.

Love By Chance (Thailand)

Again this series isn't sports themed but there's a lot of sport in it. This series follows uni freshman Ae and who has just joined the school's soccer team. He's an honest and simple guy who isn't afraid to speak his mind or stand his ground. He meets another freshman named Pete who opposite of him in personality, a quiet and shy guy who speaks politely to everyone. Ae feels the need to protect Pete because he finds Pete to be the delicate type and he doesn't want anyone to take advantage of Pete. Ae splits all his time between Pete and soccer. The second couple also follows another member of the soccer team named Can who gets into it with one of Pete's classmates named Tin. Tin and Can but heads every time they see each other but Tin's hatred for Can soon evolves into interest. Half of the cast in this series is on Ae and Can's soccer team so they spend a lot of time on the soccer field. The other two side pairs are there but I'm not gonna lie I skip them.

The Eighth Sense (South Korea)

This series follows freshman uni student Kim Jihyun who joins the school surfing club because he's looking to branch out but really because he met a cute guy named Seo Jaewon at his job and discovered he was in the surfing club. This series follows Jaewon and Jihyun through club surfing escapades and their instant and growing interest in each other. Jaewon's traumatic past does weigh heavy on his life and he allows the people around him to take advantage of him but Jihyun is there as a beacon of light for him, leading him out of the darkness and into a bright future together for both of them.

Honorable Mentions and one Dishonorable Mention to:

Pit Babe the Series (Thailand). which is a series centered around racecar drivers in an omega universe but I don't think that's an Olympic sport. PB is still very much a sports-themed series but there's also a lot of like...kidnapping, murder, mind control, and apparent mpreg going on in that series. The main pairing is alpha for alpha! Def a great watch.

Love Mechanics (Thailand). Features two swimmers as the mains but their plot is mostly about cheating and lying more than anything else. Sure there's swimming but it's not like that important to the series. Mark has a crush on his senior but that senior already likes someone else and Vee swoops in and sleeps with Mark and then they begin a side romance while Vee refuses to break up with his girlfriend even though she's cheating on him and he knows it. He's got quite a few hang ups and Mark just can't seem to leave that man alone. It's not my favorite series but it's not a bad series, it's quite good and YinWar are amazing but I just wanted to fight Vee more than anything else lol.

Waterboyy the Series (Thailand). This series is very much sports themed and follows two university swimmers on a swim team but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it. Waii is the swim team's all-star and Apo is a newcomer on the scene who seems to be the only one who matches Waii. Unfortunately Waii is very much an asshole to everyone and he and Apo are quite dysfunctional. Also there's a sideplot where a canon lesbian character "realizes she's straight" typa vibe and also Waii's father gets into a realtionship with Waii's old best friend (it's very weird). The overall tone of the series is not a vibe but hey if you're interested in seeing New Thitipoom and Earth Pirapat as a ship then go for it.

[dogtoling]

how would you go about designing a sona-adjacent character for splatoon? I know I’m going with octoling bc I play as them exclusively and this is more a character made from my ingame avatar, but everything else has me indecisive.. sorry I know this is a vague question but I’m interested in hearing your thoughts

this is a cool question! I struggled with this for a really long time and have had MANY sona designs (which either got trashed or became separate characters over time). Really i think how you approach a sona is different for every person. sorry if this is incoherent as i'm typing at 6am from bed

So basically first thing is what are you planning on using the character for? For example in my case when I used to try making splatoon sonas I made them *too much* like me to the point where i didn't like them and they didn't really fit in the world or were interesting at all. But that's just talking personality-wise. I could make an extremely bland octopus guy who doesnt play Turf War or ever go anywhere but it's also like, what is even the point of having a Splatoon sona at that point. What you want to use your sona for kind of affects how they would ideally be in my opinion.

So the way I ended up designing my sona (Koira) was to have us share traits but not have them specifically BE me, which is an approach that I find works really well in creating a connection to a character while still letting them be a character of their own. I would refer to it as more like making a self-insert character to control in a setting rather than physically being there and feeling confined to being yourself if that makes sense? it probably doesnt. But the self-insert player character is kinda what you already do in Splatoon anyway.

I find it a good approach to go with a mix of aspects that are accurate to you but combined with things that are kind of out there. Then you can have a character that's still interesting and appealing to you and might seem similar enough at face value to be relatable, while not being like, super boring. I don't remember my exact design process with Koira, I wanted the design to be silly and stand out and be relatable to how I play the game and approach the series, while at the same time not being confined to what I would realistically do or be like. Like I do not own a labcoat in real life, or mismatched boots, or round shades.

But I DO own a pair of broken shades i found from a trash can, and in the context of being an avid squid researcher online I felt it would be very fitting to make my in-universe guy an actual squid scientist, and i WISH i had shoes like that because theyre pretty cool. And he has split ends because I DO have split ends (there are so many), but i don't have blonde hair. I picked yellow because it's my favorite color. I would NOT touch turf wars with a ten foot pole if i actually existed in the splatoon world and was the same person there that i am in real life, but like, in the context of Splatoon i might as well have my Splatoon guy represent some aspect of my gameplay experience, hence they own like every weapon but don't really play. Et cetera.

So really again people have different preferences with how to approach making a sona, or sona-adjacent characters like you said, personally the Player Character approach tends to work pretty well for me. I try to reflect my real physical in-the-flesh self less, because that's kind of boring (i literally already exist), and go for the more exaggerated version where some aspects represent me but it's not Literally Me. Like, I'm trying to make What If I Was An Octoling, and not What If An Octoling Looked Like Me The Human. The process of how to get there is a little patchy and again, probably different for everybody, and bear in mind that you might make a sona and not like it and start from scratch. That might happen 5 times. That might happen 10 times. You still learn something more about the process every time.

Here's some questions I can present to help with sona designing...

1. What are some traits that I think reflect myself? How can I include those in the character design?

2. In tandem with the previous question; what species should I pick? (You already picked Octoling, so this one is a bit obsolete - but it's worth thinking about for people who struggle to pick.)

3. If I existed in the Splatoon world, what would I probably, somewhat realistically be doing with my life? What kind of job or hobbies would I have? Can that be reflected in the design?

4. Do I care about any of the above stuff or do I just want to come up with something original? Could I use some of my answers to work with and fill in the blanks with other things that are just cool?

5. How would the ways I play Splatoon be reflected if translated to an in-universe character? (For example, based on how I play, my game-realistic Splatsona would just be a full-time Salmon Runner...)

6. Do I want to use in-game gearsets, or reference the kind of style I prefer in real life, or maybe come up with something unique?

7. Can my main weapon or playstyle be directly equated to my character's personality or appearance? Do I want their personality to be game-accurate, real life accurate or somewhere in between?

8. Finding inspiration through your player character's Badges, Banner and Title that you currently have; what do those say about the player? Or what about the locker?

9. What are some things I love about the setting of Splatoon that I could reflect in a sona or self insert? (For example I made mine an in-universe Inkling researcher to reflect my own obsessiveness about Inkling biology. And squid suckers. I have a dried squid in a minigrip bag on my shelf)

10. The obligatory step in any character design: Can i do something to make it fun or appealing to myself? Adding some flavor.

Aside from all that and I definitely forgot SOMETHING, my general character design tip is do not expect the first draft to be the final perfect result. I watched a video once that said to draw every character design Three Times before 'finalizing' it and it works EXTREMELY well when youre whipping up a character basically from scratch and have an idea in your head, but on paper, you just need some kind of first draft to see if that idea works. The second and third iterations usually help trim out whatever didnt work in the earlier designs and when you keep making more, the parts that DO work are solidified and refined over time.

Rule number 2: if you make a sona design and don't like it, ask yourself why. Then change it! It's not the time to start some kind of self reflecting journey, maybe you just want a more interesting haircut than what you have in real life and you can totally do that if you're bold (my hair is brown, I didn't want the splatoon to have brown hair when like half the point of the game is Neon Color). Maybe you want bright pink eyes. Maybe you want a ridiculous job that you could never do in real life but that would make your character way more interesting. Maybe you want to give them a pet slug because you would LOVE ONE in real life but dont have one, and that would complete the character.

i forgot my point but hopefully this helped and was useful even a little bit? yay

[slime-sandwhich-nom]

GUESS WHO'S BACK WITH HEADCANONS?

scu edition. You can tell I was struggling because I kept talking about charlie. Help me.

- charlie does not blame himself for banishment, he feels SUPER bad for Grizzly's death and whole corruption thing, but does not think it's his fault.

- bizly is kinda like nimona y'know? Always shapeshifts

- nobody can tell what charlie is. Is he a slime? Hybrid? Human? Something else? Nobody actually knows.

- no because, 100! Days charlie is the OPPOSITE of Godcicle (despite one being based on the other.)

Godcicle is not a perfect hero, he's childish, arrogant, never takes no as an answer, always thinks he's right,

But none of these things match 100!days, it's like if he's the better version of his god counterpart.

- condi was already a reptile hybrid before he became a god, nobody can't tell if he's a dragon, lizard or something else. His god powers probably messed that up.

- aside from charlie, the rest of council were all mortals who were turned into gods. (I LIKE THE "charlie was a god all along and was just playing around" THING OKAY?? IT MATCHES WITH WHY HE NEVER TALES THINGS SERIOUSLY)

- grizzly is actually the one who can cook. charlie can grow ANYTHING but can't cook for the life of him. mainly because he plays with the food rather than actually cook.

- Condi is like the mom of the group.

- they all listen to charlie because they are convinced he has more experience on the god stuff, but they don't quite realize that his "god stuff" is playing around with mortals.

- charlie breaks the fourth wall a lot.

- charlie calls his followers "subscribers".

- bizly was actually the one who gifted charlie the little slimes on Charlie's shoulder and head.

- and so charlie, gifted bizly beewee.

- grizzly gets constantly called a furry by everyone because he's a dog hybrid.

- charlie has no idea on how to be a normal guy. If he has to disguise as a mortal, he's SHIT at it.

Yes, the others know how to, they used to be mortals, but charlie? Has zero idea.

- charlie played it off as a game, but he really just made his mortals friends gods because he was... lonely and because he was scared of the inevitable death that soon would reach those three.

- grizzly IS a fucking furry. He's a DOG. FUCKIN DOGGY. like he's a small fluffy puppy dude. He just takes the form of a human. (The only shapeshifting he can do, really.)

You know his dog persona? Y'know his little mascot? That little DOG WITH HUMAN HANDS?

that's grizzly.

Why? BECAUSE IT'S FUCKING FUNNY KYLE

- charlie is not human. That's for sure.

- bizly glasses work like queen's glasses in deltarune.

- condi fav is probably charlie lmao

- bizly favorite unironically is grizzly

- you know that video of 100 players going against the gang? I imagine it just being charlie gathering a bunch of followers of his and said out of nowhere one morning "we have 100 people tracking us down!!!" To the others in the council.

- no, no one actually knows (aside from willbur) that each single slime in each single server is a different guy. (Simply because Wilbur has a similar situation)

Like, y'know slimes? How they split? Yeah. They were all part of one big slime, who knows where that is, and they one day split and become a slimecicle!

And some are oddly similar. (For pure coincidence, esmp and 100! Days are similar in design, despite not being really related in lore.)

Also, before anyone gets confused, 100!days is the only one who didn't come from the mother slime, he's an experiment.

The rest, yes.

But also remember that the whole splitting part is not literal(maybe who knows.) it was for you to understand,

They surely come from the same mother slime though!

It's like if they were created from the same thing and put in different parts of the world to interact.

Please it's late please understand bro

- bizly looks up to charlie, surprisingly

- after Grizzly's death and the defeat of the ender dragon, charlie was never seen again. It's like he dissapeared.

condi and bizly have NO clue of where he is.

- IF condi and bizly would ever meet a slimecicle, they wouldn't get any answers, aside from "nope, wrong guy! Nope, wrong slimecicle!"

- grizzly can't sleep with the lights off. He needs at least something on.

- charlie just can't sleep, he's an insomniac.

- we don't talk about condi sleep schedule.

- at least every, or well, most slimecicles gives the uncanny feeling. Look human, isn't human. The more you stare, the less human it looks.

- the slimes in slime story exist! They are all the slimes that can be found in the different biomes and places!

It was thanks to Bizly, creating them after charlie little silly doodles and ideas of random slimes he thought would be cool to have around the world.

It was like a little gift, and charlie reaction made it all worth it.

- the equivalent of going afk is the character stopping everything they are doing and just stare into space and be unresponsive until they come back, charlie is the only guy who says he went afk, though.

- charlie has BAGS under his eyes to the point you think he draws them to be dramatic.

- condi is just, idk I think someone dug under his eyes.

- somehow, despite charlie being an insomniac and quite literally developing a coffee addiction just to stay awake, he is the most energetic (after bizly)

- condi takes naps around.

- bizly is literally the youngest but he has a BEARD.

- grizzly bullying bizly in scu is the equivalent of Charlie's influence on him

- everyone was so mean to Bizly and for what. Now look at him he flinches whenever someone shouts.

- fallen and charlie have so much beef with each other that it's ridiculous at this point. They probably make out afterwards but fuck do I know they sound stupid (don't take this part seriously)

- Jschlatt is evil because he feels like it. He doesn't have a reason like fallen, he just wants to be evil because he woke up angry on a Monday.

Also he's a demon. Not a god.

- apparently it's canon (from what my 2am brain understood that night when I watched 100!days) that parallel universes exist in scu so GUESS WHAT MESS I CAN DO WITH IT WITH MY "THE SLIMECICLES" HEADCANON?

- each server is a different place. Dsmp? Qsmp? Esmp? All different places. All different slimecicles. All aware. All from the same place.

- condi probably does drugs man

- I need to stop talking about CHARLOE BUT I CANT

- charlie definitely has favorites. Bizly isn't one of them.

- NUH HUH JSCHLATT IS HIS FUCKING RAM CUTE PERSONA IN HERE. NO SCARY DUDE. NO. HE'S A FUCKING CUTE LITTLE RAM WITH HIS LITTLE SWEATER ON AND HE ALWAYS HAS TEO CATS HE PETS WHENEVER HE TALKS BECAUSE HE HAS T W O HANDS.

- charlie interacts with mortals so much because he's so fascinated by them. He surely think of them as just a little playmate (aside form a specific little mortals.) But he's so curious and interested in them. They come up with random drama over something so stupid, OVER LAND!

It's the best thing and the stupidest thing charlie has ever seen.

He loves it.

The rest of the council hates it, really. They experienced it, unlike charlie, and they know how awful mortals actually are. They are selfish and ruthless, they are SO glad they don't have to deal with them anymore. They can just ignore them.

- charlie actually gets so happy whenever a mortals donates something in the churches and whatever they make, the rest ignore those things.

- I'LL KEEP SPREADING THE WORD! GENDERFLUID SLIMECICLE. HE ISN'T HUMAN. HE HAS NO CONCEPT OF GENDER. HE'S SLIMECICLE.

- I bet condi just stopped caring about gender, he's just condi. (Not genderfluid, but agender.)

- charlie is extrovert shy. He's all confident but when he actually meets someone knew he gets super shy and quiet.

- bizly is extrovert.

- grizzly is ambivert.

- condi is introvert.

- condi and charlie spend their time together just by being in the same room, or literally "talks nonstop x listens"

- charlie likes doodling. He makes funny doodles. They look like kids drawings but it's just him having fun.

- bizly and charlie are "talks nonstop x also talks nonstop"

- grizzly and charlie are "sunshine x sunshine"

- they were very happy bro. Like. Seriously. Banishment ruined everything bro.

- Condi probably invented medications and all that stuff with his potions

- grizzly is super pissed because he can't eat chocolate

- so fallen now eats chocolate ANGRILY and AGGRESSIVELY but gets stuck in the bathroom for an hour or two later.

- I imagine fallen being that one villain who is actually evil and has good reasons behind them, but no one ever takes him seriously.

- fallen can't bring himself to hate the council. He's just really really mad at them.

- charlie is actually very nice to Bizly whenever they are alone. Whenever no one's watching charlie is a real sweetheart to Bizly.

- condi dosen't like talking much, so he always gets Charles to be his little talking box.

- grizzly is that one guy who uses the most fanciest words just to say he took a massive shit earlier.

- grizzly and bizly are morning people, condi and charlie are NOT.

- charlie is my favorite character therefore he's cursed in being a small self insert of mine along with all the trauma in the world.

- grizzly is a very touchy guy, he enjoys hugging and dragging people around. And he likes chasing sticks.

[muppetears-stuff]

Warren hate has always been ableist in the very beginning. He gets too much shit for not understanding Max's body language. He gets a lot of hate 'for not taking a hint' or understanding social cues. Hell in the very beginning of the fandom like in 2015 i think i remember there were angry pricefielders calling Warren the literal r slur because he's 'so stupid'. Their words not mine. l I've seen people talk about how they're convinced he's a s*ciopath or a n*rcissist or a ps*chopath which I find ableist and uncomfortable. I think the biggest red flag from the fandom is how there's a lot of shit talk about Warren is an 'obsessive freak/stalker' in their eyes to talking in general about how 'obsessiveness' and 'obsessions' are red flags and are signs of 'evil' apparently and not symptoms of mental illness or neurodivergency apparently. I really relate to Warren and I also suffer from obsessive and actual intrusive thoughts, so i find this fandom to be extremely cruel and alienating toward people with stigmatizing illnesses which I find explains the Chloe demonization bc she is so BPD coded. I don't think Warren is autistic coded like Max but I do think he's ADHD / OCD coded in a way I can't explain. Sorry to drop this really long rant in your inbox, but you're not wrong about the Warren demonization and I just wanted to say something about it. Becauze the demonization of all these characters go back to ableism and the Life Is Strange fandom is the most ableist fandom I've ever been in at all and that really speaks volume about how atrocious it is.

THIS ^^^ YES. FUCKING YES, ABSOLUTELY.

I find the Warren hate unwarranted (hehe) and SUPER FUCKING ABLEIST. you make amazing points, thank you for putting my thoughts into words anon🙏🙏

He very much struggles with social interactions, very evident by the way he only talks teachers or people that are into the same stuff as him, he can become very chatty, sometimes too much, when it comes to things he likes which comes off as "annoying" and "obsessive" when he just wants friends.

Mr. Well's talks about it in his student file, btw.

I share. Alot of the same traits as Warren, with myself also having ADHD and liking science and talking excessively to the point where I find MYSELF annoying.

It's so upsetting too that the developers leaned INTO the stalker/obsessive Warren allegations that I can't even fucking talk about him or mentioning that I like him on certain platforms without the fear of people saying I "support stalking" which I don't. I can't defend him and say that he wasn't stalking without someone going, "but it's canon, the developers confirmed it!!" Yeah well, Mark and Nathan have done some more fucked up shit and I still see people defend them. (I love Nathan too for his complexity and ability to become better. He just needed help, but it doesn't excuse anything he did.)

Warren is the best character. He had so much potential to be an amazing recurring character, but he was their simply for plot convenience or to make the player not suspicious that Mark could be behind everything because Warren was "creepy"

I'm probably gonna have people saying I'm being a baby over this and that he's a fictional character and stuff, you can totally have your own opinion on Warren Graham, I'm not telling you you can't, just please stop calling people who like him "stalkers" or say they support stalking and creepy behavior, when that isn't true. The amount of hate towards anyone that isn't Max or Chloe, and then the immediate hate on YOU for not liking them or liking/defending another character makes me sick, as well as the flat out abelism. The reason why I left the fandom in the first place before picking it back up because of Warren<3

Thank you again, Anon. For sending me such a lovely ask(?) And letting me rant about him because he's my favorite, and I agree with you so much, you're so right<3

[stiffyck]

Very relatable tags about DL! I have some thoughts too that I wanna share but I’m not brave enough to say on main

I loved the concept of the game; the gimmick for sharing health with someone was very creative and was an incredible opportunity to pair up new players. We got rancher duo out of it!

However, I didn’t like the fact that 1) desert duo was paired again and 2) the cheating arc was a thing.

As someone who struggles with over attachment to certain characters and pairings, the story desert duo told with DL upset me a lot. I didn’t like the cheating arc and I didn’t like how upset Grian seemed to be paired with scar again. Logically I know they’re great friends and it’s all exaggeration for comedic purposes, but in the moment it feels too real to me and upsets me (personally!! This isn’t a slander on Grian at all- he’s wonderful; I just didn’t like the character he played in DL if that makes sense)

Now with FANON it’s- as you said, 100x worse. I feel like after double life, a lot of people started to portray desert duo as a one sided friendship / relationship where Grian is mean to Scar or whatever. Which upsets me a lot because of the whole attachment thing but also because it’s so inaccurate. Yes they had their angst thing, but Grian isn’t a mean person, and he’s certainly not intentionally malicious towards scar. Shipping aside, they’re very close friends and enjoy each other’s company. It hurts to see people portray them as toxic yknow?

Idk if any of this makes sense but I wanted to share :>

Makes sense dw! I agree! It didn't really upset me per se? More like it annoyed me.

Like you said, nothing against the ccs. It's a fun block game! I mostly had fun watching it and I'm sure they had fun playing!

I didn't mind desert duo being paired again but I did mind the way it made the duo super toxic in fanon. Canon wasn't really my thing in dl either but fanon was so much worse for me.

I don't care if people enjoy stuff where grian is the abuser or whatever, I just wish people didn't try to portray Grian as the one who was somehow the victim in this situation and also???? TAG YOUR ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIPS PROPERLY

I've stopped trusting desert duo/scarian fics after dl ESPECIALLY when most of them are grian centric because I never know if it's actually hurt/comfort OR if it's Grian being birderline abusive and Scar chasing after him, giving him comfort and forgiving him because he loves him no matter how many times grian hurts him.

Literally just tag the abusive and toxic shit properly ohh my godddddd

[randomlonelymusician]

Legacy of Lacey: Cooking Rabbit's Exploration of Mental Health and How Life Sometimes Sucks

Digital horror has exploded within the past few years, especially thanks to the Lacey Games series. Lacey's exploration of trauma and abuse set the stage for a new landscape of digital horror influenced by personal experiences. One such series that fits this new subgenre, though not actually inspired by Lacey, is Mononiiz's Cooking Rabbit series.

As of now, August 2023, there are five installments in the series: Cooking Rabbit parts 1, 2, & 3, and Dressing Rabbit, Pretty Rabbit. They follow Percy, a rabbit working as a chef at a restaurant. As the game's instructions say: "Percy the Rabbit needs help! He needs to prepare food to feed his very hungry customers! Follow the arrows to help him prepare today's specialty!"

The installment goes pretty normally, with the player helping Percy make a pizza. But when he goes to put it in the oven, things start to go a bit wrong. Dark clouds start to appear around Percy, and things become more distorted than usual.

The second upload follows the same gamplay, but with more distortion. (And cool animations start to appear, too!) But when Percy goes to put the food in the oven again, things cut to a different screen.

This is where a major theme of the series is revealed: Percy's struggle with mental health. The quick sequence of images and animations after this illustrates his self-worth issues, depression, and suicidality.

The next installment adds to the themes of suicidality and loneliness, using a voiceover as Percy's inner negative thoughts. But each day, despite all his struggles, he goes to work and puts on a happy front. He's stuck in this cycle of loneliness, fear, depression, and self-hatred. He's constantly miserable and blames himself.

The next two uploads follow a similar theme, but in a different way. Dressing Rabbit's gameplay is normal until black pixels start to creep in from the side. And when the player is tasked to dress Percy in an outfit for work, things go downhill quickly. Percy is quite literally being chased by his demons, and even after all his cries for help he still has to return to work the next day.

Meanwhile, Pretty Rabbit opens with saying Percy hasn't left his room in 5 months, adding again to the theme of depression. But when you go to brush Percy's teeth and he doesn't want you to, the game sedates him and a gory sequence follows. After, Percy is sent back to what looks like a screen out of Cooking Rabbit. But when the player clicks on "settings", they're brought to a screen reading: "It's so painful I'm so tired it's so painful..." over and over again.

I've been really loving the influx of flash game inspired series with great storytelling and a focus on lesser talked about topics. The Cooking Rabbit series, in my opinion, is about a young adult struggling with his mental health also trying to keep up with his work life and social life. We watch Percy fall apart, and have thoughts of suicide and self-harm. It's something a lot of people can relate to, and it's great this subgenre of digital horror could bring us something like this.

Here's Mononiiz's channel, where all the installments are! Also her Twitter! Please support the series and heed the trigger warnings!

[dious-chaos]

I've been deeply delving into Supernatural at the moment and I just put something together that I felt should be out in the interwebs.

Dean Winchester and his layers

Obviously we have the stuff everyone already knows right? He likes pie, he has anger issues, he feels overprotective of Sam. But Dean is actually incredibly intelligent yet downplays it for Sam (nothing against Sam cuz I love that man too) and everyone else, some examples of that: He made his own emf reader out of a cassette player and electromagnet from a microwave, he hacked/disarmed a museums security alarm, referenced Vonnegut; Homer; Lord of the Flies and Tolkien, watched and loved Star Trek, he plays dress up/cosplays/larps, etc. Dean was also the one who cared about holidays, trying so hard to give them to little Sammy, and being hurt when adult Sam wanted none of it. Dean had to take on the role of mom and dad for Sam his entire life, even going hungry so his little boy didn’t. He's an amazing cook, has crazy good mechanical skills, loves anything to do with music- karaoke, guitars on his wall, cassette to Cas- and Dean even had a career picked out which had nothing to do with hunting… he wanted to be a firefighter. Dean even took a teaching role as PE teacher in one episode when he could've picked anything else, that just builds a better image of the caring man Dean raised himself to be. Not to mention the fact that when Sam was in the cage with Lucifer Dean GOT OUT!! He wanted that apple pie life, the life he pushed Sam into his whole life because he knew only one of them would get that chance… and of course he'd want it to be his brother/son.

He grew up to hide his wants and dreams in order to please the man who only wanted a soldier, Dean even went so far as seeing his own life as less than Sam and pushing to die instead of the brother he took care of alone. Dean gained food insecurity, he never knew when he would get to eat and we see this throughout the show as he shoves any free food into his mouth like he'll never eat again. He also showed signs of CPTSD, a mental health condition that can develop if you experience chronic (long-term) trauma.

It involves stress responses, such as: Anxiety (maybe like how got scared and he immediately apologized after not shooting John, and then knew it wasn’t his father because the demon wasn’t upset), Having flashbacks or nightmares (post hell is the first thing that comes to mind), Avoiding situations (trying to keep the peace between Sam and John), places and other things related to the traumatic event (avoiding Lawrence KS for decades), Heightened emotional responses, such as impulsivity or aggressiveness (he gets really upset in difficult conversations first and then the other emotions come later), Persistent difficulties in sustaining relationships (come on, Dean is a ladies man).

Examples of chronic trauma include: Long-term child physical or sexual abuse (tell me that John didn’t physically abuse or "discipline" his boys), Long-term domestic violence (again.. Physical abuse by John), Being a victim of human or sex trafficking (not canon… but it could have happened in all the years his father neglected them and fucked off to fight the monsters while his own kids struggled to get by), War (hunter and monsters are at war), Frequent community violence (hunters and monsters alike can be POS). While CPTSD is often associated with chronic trauma in childhood, adults who experience chronic trauma can also develop the condition (which means it only gets worse for Dean as he gets older and doesn't get help for it).

So yeah. Dean deserved better than a piece of rebar at the ass end of Supernatural, that’s all..

[hamofjustice]

it's nice that we're getting anything i guess, but, i'm gonna be what may come off as a little petty and whiny here; it'd be cool if either iteration of the gen 9 anime so far was actually about gen 9's characters instead of using them as cameos to promote original stories we have no investment in yet

it's like, i dunno, like the bait and switch with sonic appearing in wreck it ralph ads, except if wreck it ralph existing meant there would never be a sonic movie, and if you were invested in those characters and recognized they weren't generic platformer mascots, sucks for you, nobody cares

maybe they're just giving the DLC space to do its thing with them first (if they do anything at all...) but idk, i was cautiously optimistic about nemona in horizons, only for her to be a character of the day that the episode wasn't about, and pretty excited by "gen 9 prequel anime" only to find out it's going to be like, four short stories about OCs who have quick brushes with them. these are like the lacroix hint of what an anime about the game could've been like and you're left to imagine the rest yourself

i shouldn't be that surprised if the gen 8 anime reduced hero of galar hop to a character of the day with a level 5 wooloo in order to let the galaxy revolve around ash battling his brother because epic charizards, but man. what if it wasn't like that that now that ash is gone.

we haven't seen penny and team star at all because they're the hardest to talk about without bringing up the trauma of school bullying and the fear of being yourself at school when you're way too young to be dealing with all that drama responsibly. she's still learning to love and forgive herself and feel wanted.

arven's story is about, like, being a latchkey kid to a self-absorbed parent, being unsure how to feel about repairing the relationship or how seriously to take them saying they love him, and struggling to make friends due to misdirected resentment toward people he's jealous of for having apparently normal families and the stubborn self-reliance he was forced into. he's still trying to process things, find himself, and let people in.

nemona is supposed to have been a directionless lonely and depressed kid who hated being called gifted when everything was hard for her, until she met the player character and gained a peer who understood and appreciated she was a little different and she didn't have to mask her true self to have friends anymore. she's happy for now, but may still be under a little too much pressure to be perfect at the expense of her own personality, and probably won't deal well with being abandoned.

as much as they resonate with adults and are a little darker than usual pokemon fare, they're also smaller scale and realer. they are all stories that are explicitly about and meant to be relatable to kids going to school! y'know, your audience! you don't need to paint over them with 3-4 new characters and new stories every time like there was nothing there, or something shameful you need to sanitize and cover up! you can just use the game the way it is!

this got a little more heated than i intended, i just feel a little ridiculous waiting anxiously for loose scraps of a sign that this story isn't over and in the trash already and nemona's life-changing attachment to the player character isn't going to go totally ignored, as we are bombarded with what is supposed to be followup material that almost all seems eager to talk about literally anything else like they think the main story was a mistake they need to run away from

now, i'm not one to complain about original stories being told, but this was already a story that had room to grow. imagine a world where the gen 9 anime was actually about nemona, arven, penny, and the friend who brought them together. or what their lives were like before that friend came along. every episode. that would get me to watch the anime again and whatever movie came out for it. ask yourself why we don't have that, or even the traditional, like, 1-2 characters tagging along with the MCs per region thing that would leave us knowing them better than we know some irl friends

how was starting over with 100% original characters and new lore that might conflict hard with the upcoming DLC the safer bet? why is a 44 minute miniseries specifically for fans of the game making up OCs for them to get invested in and scrambling to tell their stories as quickly as possible before throwing them in the trash instead of being about the damn game?

sigh. i shouldn't get invested in a series that's about selling monster plushies just because it had one story that stuck with me

[until-another-one-comes]

big nate au mentioned tell me everything i’m going insane right now

Thank you so much for asking I haven't yapped to new ppl about my au in ages

UHHHH WHICH ONE?

Off the top of my head:

Different Roads au: The one where Nate grew up with his mom instead and the trio's lives are changed before they meet each other again in adulthood

Superpower au: What it says. Au where the kids have powers. (Nate has pyrokinesis and super speed, Francis has telekinesis and Teddy has earth power) (the rest of the kids have powers too but I only used the trio for my fic) (also have another one where its ridiculously lore heavy)

Angels and Demons au: Okay this is a bit too lore heavy and tbh had jack shit to do with BN. I just wanted to draw the characters as angels and demons

Two-Player Game au: Almost the same as Different Roads but this time Nate grows up with Randy who's parents split up wayyy earlier and they just so happen to end up living in the same town.

Adult AU: Okay this isnt even an AU this is just the cast aged up and what I imagine their future to be like. (also fanchildren but I understand thats not up to everyone's taste)

Two Future AU: Nate meets 2 different versions of his future selves. The first version is an art teacher and the second one is a famous rockstar. But the more Nate gets to know them the more he learns about whats actually important in life and what actually makes your life meaningful.

Start Over AU: Based on the A Silent Voice anime, an au where Randy gets in serious trouble in middle school and become a social outcast in high school and learning to grow and overcome his past with new people. Scrapped because I have no idea what to do with this and too OC heavy

Ummm those are the general AUs. I have a few others but they're all ship related, mainly for Randy/Marcus.

If you're interested:

Role Swap AU: Randy and Marcus swap places so Marcus is the school's main bully and Randy is the popular kid. Swap!Marcus is way more brutal than og!Randy and Swap!Randy is a theater kid with 0 social skills but is popular anyway cuz he's rich. They meet after Randy pays asks Marcus to help him shape up for sports.

Infinity Train au: If haven't watched Infinity Train its this show where people end up in this train with infinite number of rooms that are designed to help you overcome your internal problems, flaws and struggles. So yeah Randy and Marcus end up on this train and learn to be better people together.

[brightlight-dazzlingeyes]

love means nothing | chapter 01

leon goretzka x original female character [+18]

synopsis: 10 years ago, after winning wimbledon at the age of 18, olivia araujo was tennis's biggest rising star. she had a cosmopolitan social life, a handsome boyfriend and all the time in the world. now she was pushing 30, single, lonely and after several complicated injuries she could feel her career coming to an end. warnings: sports-typical violence; mentions of depression; angst; timeline of events are not based on real life; minors dni.

masterlist | next chapter

Chapter 01 | Everybody’s Changing

“Trying to make a move just to stay in the game

I try to stay awake and remember my name

But Everybody's Changing, and I don't feel the same”

February, 2023, Lyon

Every sport has its own language, with every little detail about them having its own particular overcomplicated term. It helps to keep the normal people clueless and it makes us weirdos feel like we are better than everybody else. When explaining tennis to my normal friends the part they struggle the most is accepting the scoring nomenclature. So, let me try to explain it to you. A tennis match is divided in ‘sets’ and every set is divided in what we call ‘games’. To win a tennis match you need to win 2 sets, and to win a set you need to win at least 6 games. To win a game you need to score at least four points. The first point a player scores in a game is called fifteen; the second is called thirty; zero points is called Love. Why? I have no idea; it’s just the way it is. It’s a cute nickname. Basically, in tennis, Love means nothing.

I have been a professional tennis player for 10 years now. I heard every stupid pun and felt compelled to buy every stupid t-shirt related to the Love being zero thing. But now, alone in a 5 star hotel in France, the reality of the irony is weighing on me. You get used to hear it and I'm starting to think the corelation fucked up my head. I'm 28 and have been single for the past 5 years. To make the irony greater, I'm a singles specialist. In fact I haven't played in a doubles match for a couple seasons. For multiple reasons, my health being the main one. I had to prioritize. Can't play every tournament anymore, can't play all the categories.

It’s a life of sacrifices, being a pro athlete. That’s not news for me. But when you’re young what drives you is the belief it will all be worth it. It’s okay to skip college, lose friendships, miss your little sister’s birthdays– you’re doing it for a cause, for a passion. Because you already spent too much time in it, and you just can’t go back.

When youth fades the passion fades with it. The cause doesn’t feel as important anymore. The trophies don’t shine as bright. The cities you travel to are not as interesting. Or maybe it’s not an age thing. Maybe I'm just depressed. Or maybe it’s because my ankle is twice the size it should be. Another injury and it’s just the start of the season. I was playing Caroline Garcia in the Lyon Open semi final yesterday. She was defending like a lion and I was serving like I was 22 again. And then I slipped.

My week actually started pretty decently. I was in Paris, my favorite city in the world, having brunch with my dashing ex boyfriend. Sure, it didn’t go exactly as I planned, and he didn’t fall to my feet professing his love for me. If anything it was the other way around. You can’t blame me, Leon has changed so much since the last time we’ve met. He had just played against PSG for the Champions League round of 16, and before traveling back to Munich he agreed on having brunch together. We were staying at the same hotel and it was too much of a coincidence for me to let it pass. A once in a lifetime opportunity, really. In the past ten years of travel that didn’t happen once.

Leon and I dated for six months back when we were eighteen. That was a long time ago and we were young enough to be certain we were soulmates. We planned a beautiful wedding in Italy and two well-behaved children who would, naturally, become legends in our sports when they grew up. Well, none of that happened.

���You’re looking good.” He was being polite when he said that, and I was practically drooling for him. The man looked spectacular. I tried to behave in a friendly manner, it was brunch so it didn’t really feel like a date. 

“It’s been so long!”

“I know, I’m glad you texted. I had no idea you were in town.”

“To be fair, the entire Bayern Munich squad is a bit easier to spot. And I’m in Paris practicing, I’m only competing next week, in Lyon.”

“Oh, I see. I’ll make sure I’ll watch you on the tv.”

“I watched you last night! I was in the stadium.”

“Really?”

It was so strange being in the same room again. He looked amazing and sounded so mature. He was a grown man in front of me. So bizarre that I didn’t get to watch that change happen. We hugged when we said goodbye and it was so hard letting him go. We promised to keep in touch but I remember how that went last time.

Now, I’m lying in bed after my physio shoved as many anti-inflammatory down my throat as she was legally allowed. Tomorrow morning I’m back in Paris and we’ll run some tests. After the pills kick in and the pains get easier to deal with, it's the boredom that drives me crazy. Recently, when I’m feeling especially sorry for myself, I’ll google my own name. And there it was, first link! A condescending sky sports article about my injury.

The image reads: Olivia Araujo withdraws from Lyon Open due to ankle injury. Later, in the same article, there was a link to the tweet the Open posted.

The tweet reads: “Unfortunately, Araujo has withdrawn from the tournament due to injury ❤️‍🩹Thank you for the incredible play, Liv! Congrats to Garcia who moves through to the final!”

After the night reading and almost crashing my phone on the wall, I finally passed out from the pills.

***

“Say goodbye to Indian Wells.” Sara, my longtime physio and close friend, whistled. She was reading me the results of my exams.

“Never liked the desert anyway.”

“But if you behave we can get you to Miami! Or if you decide to take a vacation as I have been suggesting, you could just skip it and jump to the clay season.”

“Miami sounds like a vacation.”

“You know I can only get you 100% physically, right? The mental part, Liv, that’s not with me. But I can tell something's off with you.”

“Of course something is off with me, Sara, my ankle is all fucked up! Just get me fit and I’ll be fine. Promise.”

My phone becomes much more important than that conversation when Leon texts me. 

leon:

how did the exams go

feeling better?

:(

liv:

i’ll be fine to play miami next month

what are you up to

True to his words, Leon did watch me play and he did keep in touch. He sends me a pic of himself at the gym and I feel like dying. I’m still not sure if he’s flirting with me or what. I do know he’s single so at least it’s okay for me to thirst.

liv: you’re looking fit don’t make me jealous

leon: can’t help being young and healthy but seriously i do know how much it sucks to be injured you want to talk? i can call

I called him immediately after reading his text.

“Hi.”

“Hello.”

We both giggle.

“I’m actually not upset anymore. It could be better, but it could be worse.”

“So you’re an optimist now? Since when?” I can practically see him smiling on the other side of the call.

“Don't sound so surprised, you changed a lot too.”

“Yes? How so?”

“You’re all buff now.” I’m blushing as I say it and he laughs.

“But that, I just showed you how I did it.”

“I didn’t turn into an optimist. I just went through worse, so I can’t be too bothered over a sprained ankle.”

“Trust me, I know exactly what you’re talking about.”

Those phone calls quickly became routine. I went back to Lisbon for my treatment, and the nostalgia hit me like a truck. Being in my family home while calling Leon and giggling hiding from my parents. It felt too much like being 18 again. For my parents, they couldn't see much of a change. They got used to me being here over the last couple of years. I don’t remember the last time I went over 6 months without an injury, and dealing with that in Lisbon was so much easier. My father, who’s my coach, and my physio Sara, both live here. The place I used to call home is now an abandoned apartment in Monte Carlo.

“At least it wasn’t your wrist.” My dad spoke nonchalantly over breakfast. I am the daughter of Fabio Araujo, still the best ranking male Portuguese tennis player in history, 20 years after his retirement. The best ranking Portuguese tennis player in all categories would be me. I’ve reached number 1 in both singles and doubles. But that was a long time ago, now I sit comfortably under the 100’s.

“Yes, at least it wasn’t my wrist. Could be worse, right?”

My mother was Eva Borges, she was a supermodel in the 90’s and was terribly disappointed when I decided to follow my dad’s steps. But she got lucky and around the same time she got pregnant again. My baby sister Chiara was a perfect copy of our mother. Mom’s obsessed with the idea of turning Chiara into a mini her. Making her a model, marrying her off to a rich man. It’s been working well for her so far.

“There’s someone I want you to meet.” Chiara said when I arrived. “He’s very handsome. His name is John.”

John was a puppy. A baby pug. We never got to have dogs when we were kids, our parents were too busy and didn’t really like animals. Now Chiara was 21 and had her own place. She seemed responsible enough for the job, unlike me at her age.

“I’m talking to Leon again.”

“The football player?”

“Yes. The football player.”

We’re in her bed and I show her pictures of him. The pictures he sends me.

“He’s so hitting on you.”

“Are you sure? I don’t know.” Chiara laughs when I say that.

“Well, I know. For sure.”

In my childhood room there’s a box with special items from my previous relationships. From Leon I’ve only kept two things: a Maroon 5 album he gifted me on our 3 month anniversary and a polaroid of us kissing. In the picture I was a blonde girl, baby cheeks being 90% of my face. At the time I also had a killer backhand that got lost along the way. Looking in the mirror I couldn't find a single trace of the girl in the brunette woman in front of me.

March, 2023, Key Biscayne

I was once a Grand Slam winner, now I'm out of the Miami Open after my first match. I got beaten 6-1, 6-2, in a 49 minute match. My physio blamed the injury and my father couldn’t really look me in the eye. He always gets like that when I lose. ‘Let’s go back to training.’ He’ll say tomorrow.

Florida is not an ideal place to be sad, at least not at this time of the year. The sun is shining too brightly and the palm trees are standing way too pretty for me to feel bad. Or guilty. I have been to the final of every Grand Slam. Wimbledon, I won twice. Roland Garros once. In hard courts there was only disappointment. Three years ago when I lost the Australian Open, I seriously considered retiring. The mental exhaustion of the sport became too much for me. So losing in Miami now isn’t exactly a tragedy. My ego has been bruised for a while.

So why keep going? I don’t know what else to do. Tennis is my life, is all I know. I can’t imagine starting over, and I do know the time for retirement will come no matter what. There’s nothing I can do to avoid it. I understand my father a lot better now, he made an heir, he taught me his trade, and now he still has a taste of the life he used to live. Maybe that’s what I should do. Pop a baby, repeat the cycle.

Back in the hotel room the realization of the loss hits me. I feel like crying. Or maybe punching someone would help too. Instead, I text Leon.

liv: i lost again and i’m in florida, that’s the worst part this place is awful leon: let’s meet up let’s have dinner together

[captainsspnanon]

C2E69 - The Kings Cage - rewatch reaction

The episode that should have been NiceTM, and was not.

Whyyyy are the subtitles so fucked for this episode? They’re covering Travis’s face! I’m guessing it’s because of the PC icons that showed up. Wait, is this the first time that this has happened??? *checks previous episode again* Oh man, I’m so used to seeing this that 1) I didn’t notice when it wasn’t there and 2) I didn’t realize that this was the first time they showed up! I don’t remember this fucking up the subtitles before or in other episodes….maybe this was first time issues?

I am super distracted by Matt not noticing Sam’s shirt.

Funnily enough, this entire scene matches what the one dnd playtest is talking about with warlocks. Sometimes they are the only one calling for a short rest and you have this disparity in what the players want to do.

It is now July 4th, I last touched this a full fucking month ago. I have watched ~30 minutes of the latest Candela Obscura, but am struggling to get into it (a sad reality of me and CR one shots and mini-series.) SO LET’S GET BACK TO THE DRAMA!!

...I’m only 17 minutes in….*starts over from the beginning*

Oh geez I forgot that this was episode 69. They went into this with teasing hype for months about ‘lul 69’ and then they got this heart wrench of an episode.

Sam and Laura play the “I have Not(t)” bit really well. There’s just a touch in Jester’s tone which is inserting a comma in there ‘I have, Nott’, but it’s a clever bit of attempted deception as well, even though it fails.

I’d forgotten that Nott claimed the flask defined her as a person. T.T Once the campaign is over, it’s easy to remember the goblin alcoholism as mostly jokes, but there were some really deep and painful moments. I don’t personally know anyone who struggles with addiction, so I know there are aspects of this emotionally that I don’t relate to, but there these small moments are incredibly well done. Sam talked about how he discussed Scanlan’s attempts at addiction with Brian, I don’t recall if he also went to him for Nott?

The juxtaposition of Jester very seriously expressing her worries to Nott about how when Nott is drunk, she’s less cautious and will run straight at things without looking for traps, versus everyone else loosing their shit when she says ‘or trigger them’. I’ll have to try to pay attention, but I think even after this RP, Nott still doesn’t become someone super careful about looking for traps. We, of course, know her big moments in the future (happy fun ball time!), but I’m unsure if Sam/Nott is more on top of it.

I really do love the push/pull relationship that Nott/Veth has with her family and her love of adventure. In hindsight, I feel like Sam managed to hold the balance of it very well and very realistically. For most of the PCs, I feel like the epilogues give me enough to have a very good idea of their lives going forwards, even if only for a while. Veth is the one I’m curious about the most though, how does she continue to balance her love of adventure with her family? The dynamics have certainly changed from how they were pre-campaign, and that helps a lot, but I wonder if sometimes she may instigate small things for the Nein to go on, or if she insists she get invited along to someone else’s trip (maybe one of the trips to Aeor?). Or does she find herself content with the chaos of the summer camp in addition to her homely life?

LOL Sam and Laura pushing for Caleb to have a chin that matches Liam, and Liam at every instance making it clear with official art that Caleb absolutely does NOT have a cleft chin.

Does the whip ever actually get used in combat? I know it gets given to Fjord when he loses his power…. TELL ME, CRITROLESTATS. Actually transcript search might be better for this, I don’t think critrolestats says what weapon is used. I think it’s only used in the Obann fight here, and then with the purple worm by Fjord, and then by no one else ever again. XD It gets mentioned in another episode or two as a possibility to use (catching someone who might fall), but I don’t think it does?

WE NEED MORE CALEB AND YASHA MOMENTS!!! Him suggesting she be in the middle of the group, her not being sure, him saying that protection is not a bad thing, her saying it could be and then almost asking him permission to be on the front, him making it clear he’s not telling her what to do. Seriously, this pairing has SUCH a good dynamic and it only gets better from here, but we have so little interaction. :( I will forever grump and mourn and exclaim that we need more Liam and Ashley scenes. We were robbed of Pike and Vax moments in C1, robbed on Caleb and Yasha moments in C2, and I could ALWAYS use more than we currently have in C3.

LOL at the matching nat 1s for trying to determine what the sigil is. Very very glad that Caleb had fortune’s favor and could re-roll. The sometimes frustrating aspect of dnd is some PCs failing at stuff they should 100% be able to do. I’m reminded of the Hand’s heart scene where Liam kept failing checks for Caleb where everyone else was succeeding, despite the fact that it was arcana related.

...Torog? Moradin? Sehanine? What’s with all these 5e names, Matt? I’d thought you’d thoroughly switched to unique epithets by now. You’re even using with with the Allhammer and Moonweaver!

Why do they immediately assume devil upon red skin, yellow eyes, two horns? They’re all gasping before he gets to the wings, but couldn’t he just have been a tiefling with the description?

Did we ever find out what Obann thought he was actually getting from the Angel of Irons? We know they opened abyssal rifts, and that they were trying to free Tharizdun (without knowing that’s what they were doing). So like, is it just an image of an angel saying ‘free me by doing this, oh and also tear the planes apart to let demons in?’ ..demons? devils? This is the hardest part of 5e for me, dammit. Demons. Demons from the abyss. But Obann’s a devil. Aaagh as much as I enjoy the angel of irons subplot, it’s also I think the sketchiest plot in all of CR with no clear understanding of goals or what or why.

...Is this the first “making my way”??? *checks transcripts* Oh, it’s not – the first was in episode 60. BUT I think this is the first time since then, so here’s where it becomes a running gag?

Huh, not letting Fjord get off his eldritch blasts that triggered the whole initiative.

“what do a devil and a tree have in common? Intelligence” …..not gonna lie, I don’t get the joke at ALL. Tasha’s Hideous Laughter would fail just because I’m so confused. I’m ASSUMING that it’s just calling Obann dumb….if so I feel like it would be better if the object were ‘rock’ or ‘brick’, based off of ‘dumb as a rock’ or ‘dumb as a brick’.

I’ve seen some people say that Matt picked up the trick of stating a DC ahead of time from Brennan, but here he just stated that Beau needed at 25 DC acrobatics to do a flurry of blows on Obann (she fails with a 22), so it’s something that he has done beforehand. I think it’s just not something that he prefers to do much.

Only two rounds to free the Laughing Hand? Well, I guess it’s something that Matt really needed to have happen so that makes sense. I think I would have liked three or four rounds to give the PCs more time to do shit, but that’s just personal preference.

Oooo!!! I forgot that over the break he replaced the sarcophagus mini with a broken open sarcophagus! Fun!

Counterspell a Shield! Not quite a counterspell a counterspell, but still sexy.

Ashley interrupting to inform Matt that because of her Ring of Protection, Yasha’s saving throw was actually 3 instead of 2. I LOVE HER.

I really love the moments where something truly horrible starts happening to the PCs (Yasha being turned against them, being an unwilling creature for Fjord’s thunderstep) and while the PCs are NOT happy about it, the players are stoked and excited! It’s a fun juxtaposition of the true fun of ‘what’s going on’ in the game especially when compared with the more settled RP moments where the players are in full PC mode and their personal enthusiasm is sometimes hidden by the RP. Fjord is furious with Yasha for betraying them, but here Travis is wiggling and singing “this is getting interesting!”

I’m not going to research it, and a comments check didn’t help, but I wonder how many PC rolls the Bless-that-should-have-dropped actually helped. Quick check of the livetweets for critrolestats, maybe Yasha’s saving throw against the Hand’s laughter, and the rest are Beau attacks. However, Beau had advantage on many of them, rolled consistently high, and I think actually forgot the bless a number of times? So honestly? I think even if bless had dropped correctly, things still would have played out the way they did. Oh wait...Fjord’s last hit for the HDYWTDT was because of bless. (very sad the the critrolestats livetweets did not include Ashley correcting for Yasha’s 2 to 3 for the wisdom save XD)

MIGHTY NEIN ONE SHOT ANNOUNCED AS FIRST LIVE SHOW SINCE THE PANDEMIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (though I’m seeing some people saying they’ll be level 20, but can’t find any actual statement saying what level they’ll be?? Hoping before I post this that someone will let me know)

Beau using Stillness of Mind to end fear, UGH SO GOOD. Seriously, with the new UAs and everything for the new dnd I keep hearing about how bad monks are, but I haven’t ever experienced it because Beau is so GOOD (and I haven’t played with a monk yet. Someone had done a monk/cleric multiclass, but that game ended while we were still in level 2 due to some session 0 miscommunications)

Lesser Restoration not being able to cure fear, but Greater Restoration does just seems weird to me. Like, Lesser can cure blind, deaf, paralyze, or poison. While Greater…..wait. Greater doesn’t cure frightened either! It only reduces exhaustion, ends charmed or petrified, undoes a curse, undoes an ability score reduction, undoes an effect that reduces hit point max. Fear is none of those. So, neither of the restorations RAW end fear??? Well, I guess that’s the reason for Calm Emotions.

NOTT GIVES YASHA A FLOWER FROM HER HAIR I’m having my heart being crushed by things I didn’t remember! And Jester knew that Yasha was controlled, she tried to Charm her back but it didn’t work! All I really remembered from the Nein was Jester being very sad and Fjord and Beau being very angry, I didn’t remember that others knew she didn’t have a choice!

Oh FUUUUUCK I never realized that when Fjord is brought down by Yasha, only to come back with Relentless Endurance, when he asks her “why” he asks her in his true voice. MY HEAAAART.

I know everyone mentions it, but Ashley’s exaggerated sad-face when Taliesin starts to count her then skips her for Bless, then Matt winking at her and her grin. Even when they have such heavy emotional episodes like this combat turned to be, signs like that are some of the clearest that they’re all still having a blast.

Obviously didn’t say much for the combat itself, I think my only ‘analysis’ of it is that it’s one of the higher stakes combats in C2, easily matching the level of some C1 fights. Even a good chunk into C3, C1 is still the reigning champion for most intense combats. While I don’t all into the hivemind that shouts that Matt takes it easy on them, I do think there are times when Matt is taking it HARDER on them, and this certainly was one of those combats. I really do enjoy the combats where they are fighting an intelligent and evil enemy who is fully intent on destroying them. You get such great tactics and some real creativity in those moments that you don’t get as strongly on a standard 6v1/7v1 creature combat.

Ending the episode with the side by side of Matt and Ashley as Matt gently narrates the confusion in Yasha, the uncertainty of if she is being controlled or doing this on her own, it’s beautiful, heartbreaking, and perfect. (aside from the fact that because of the table layout, they end up facing away from each other during the close ups XD Who knows, maybe that makes it more jarring to go with Yasha’s mindset?)

[avitus-ostrander]

5 comfort characters & 5 tags

Thank you @sonderlativ​ for the tag

#1 - Varis zos Galvus (Final Fantasy XIV) 

Many of my favorite characters are not necessarily comforting. I do not handle character death exceptionally well. After being brutally emotionally tortured by Blizzard for years as they slowly and agonizingly character assassinated and killed off a character I loved (who at the time was a comfort character, helping me recover from another character death), I was left unable to get attached to anyone. 

Enter Varis.

I remember finishing the ARR MSQ and seeing him show up and thinking “ooh the new emperor is really attractive…” and that was kind of fun. I hadn’t experienced that sort of instant pull to a character in quite some time. It still took an act of will to allow myself to actually get attached to him. And then, after some agonizing, I decided to ship my player character, Aurelien, with him. This was the most self-indulgent thing I had ever allowed myself to do. 

He also got me back into drawing after a multi-year hiatus. If anyone wants to see some random shipping pics, they can be found here. 

He’s a serious, dedicated, deeply flawed person, and I love him immensely. Also, his relationship with my OC is possibly the only ‘healthy’ relationship I have ever written. 

#2 - Millions Knives (Trigun)

This will come as a surprise to (probably) no one who is following me here. 

So I’d been having a pretty difficult time and was struggling a lot. I’d pretty much given up on being alive and was just mindlessly counting down the days. 

Then my best friend suggested we give Trigun Stampede a try. I was skeptical, because reboots often burn me and Trigun was something I loved from my childhood, but I figured if it sucked we could hit the bricks. 

When Knives showed up and announced his presence by playing the piano, I completely lost my mind. I instantly felt something I had not felt in SO LONG. I regained the will to live. I felt EXCITED to be alive again. 

I really tried to fight it for a few days, but I couldn’t. I gave myself an undercut. I smiled uncontrollably at any mention of anything even tangentially related to him. Hearing a single note from a piano made me feel like I was going to faint from joy. Finally, I confessed to my best friend that I was deeply obsessed. 

The reason he does not make the number 1 spot is because this fixation has come with some serious emotional upheaval, as I evaluate some of my unresolved issues that I see reflected in him. And also, Varis is such a minor character that I just didn’t see that much negativity about him. Knives is in the spotlight a lot more, so it can be more challenging to just casually indulge without running into people who hate him. 

No one has to like him and I can see why some people wouldn’t, but he brought me back to life and sometimes I just want to be able to feel happy about that.

[Honorable mention here goes to Legato for helping me through my Knives-based angst when it comes around. He was my favorite from Trigun in my youth and one of two characters I built a character shrine for (if anyone remembers those).]

# 3 - Erwin Smith (Attack on Titan)

This one is a bit more obscure in its reasoning. Levi was actually my favorite character in Attack on Titan, but I wrote this figure skating/hockey AU where Erwin is arguably the best figure skater in the world and, just before he can prove this in competition, he gets injured and has to give up his dream. 

Years later, a bitter and aimless Erwin discovers Levi, who is participating in underground murder hockey tournaments, and decides to take him under his wing. Erwin regains his sense of purpose. Levi stops risking life and limb on a daily basis. And I got insanely attached to Erwin while working on this crazy AU. 

There was a comic I was working on for the prologue for it, but I only got 3 and a half pages in, because I couldn’t figure out how to render the climactic scene. (for those interested: pg 1, pg 2, pg 3) 

#4 - Yuri Plisetsky (Yuri!!! on Ice)

I swear I don’t exclusively like angry blondes… 

But I might (almost) exclusively have them as comfort characters. 

Yuri on Ice is in general one of my comfort shows. I’ve loved figure skating since forever, so an anime about figure skating was a dream come true! It doesn’t hurt that the main characters are adorable. 

But this mega grouch was my favorite. He is angry and standoffish, but really soft on the inside. And he’s an incredible skater. What more could I ask for? 

(Everyone should brace themselves for the potential that everyone on this list will be drawn skating at some point, if they haven’t been already) 

#5 - Malokh Skullsplitter & Auralion Duskwither (World of Warcraft)

So these two are OCs. As such, I don’t have any great color pictures of them. I started coloring this one, but it’s stuck on a tablet that needs fixing. All of my other pictures of these two are even more outdated, so this will have to do.

I haven’t played WoW in ages and am not sure I ever will again, but I still love my characters dearly. 

Aura is a Blood Elf shadow priest. Malokh is an Orc warrior. 

Anyway, Auralion has been my absolute favorite OC for about… 13+ years now? Like everyone else on this list, he is an angry blonde. He’s also a (very slightly) older twin. When I don’t have a current obsession, I draw/write stuff about him. This is not his proper hair. This is his hair growing back after he was nearly incinerated. Here is a picture of how his hair normally looks. 

While Aura embodies a lot of my struggles and I channel a lot of my angst into him, Malokh embodies a lot of the things I feel like I need. It’s about to get kind of personal here so feel free to skip to the end… 

As a little kid, I had the misfortune of simultaneously finding out that death was a thing and that it could be violent and terrible, and I never felt safe again. My parents comforted me by telling me that I was not important enough to murder, and my takeaway was “these people won’t and can’t defend me.” So I decided I would be the person to defend the family. I became a very aggressive, very cruel person because I didn’t feel safe unless I was the worst person in the room. 

But really, all I wanted was for someone to say they would protect me. 

Malokh embodies all the things I wanted as a kid. He is fiercely loyal, compassionate, intelligent, patient, and he would absolutely wreck anyone who threatened the people he loves. 

I have loved orcs since I was a little kid and first played the original Warcraft RTS game. There was something very comforting to me about being so big and strong that you didn’t really have to be afraid of humans. 

I ship him and Aura in the red quadrant (because I do Homestuck style shipping for some of my OCs). 

And Malokh has black hair, so he breaks the pattern!

Anyway, tagging: @skuppycake​, @dragonofeternal​, @evilgeometry​, @setsuntamew​, @arahith​

No pressure if anyone does not want to do this or doesn’t have time! I tried to message everyone to make sure it was okay, but I am not sure if all of the messages got through. I was getting a lot of ‘message not sent’ errors and lately when I try to comment on posts it takes multiple tries for anything to show up.

[icyhellhovnd]

BASICS;;

faceclaim: harry styles

full name: campbell nathan saunders

age & birthday: 22 ( march 5th, 2001 )

zodiac: pisces

gender: cismale ( questioning )

sexual orientation: pansexual ( closeted )

occupation: musician / hockey player

college major: music production

EVERYONE’S GOT SOMETHING TO HIDE, WHAT’S THEIRS?;;

[ tw; depression / suicidal ideation ] “i'm finding it hard to keep my head above water with school and all my obligations- and i don't know how much longer i can deal with it.”

HEADCANONS;;

[ trigger warnings for depression, self-harm, and suicidal ideation ]

as hard on himself as he is now, cam was even worse in high school. he didn’t dare express himself in ways that would be deemed uncool or embrace any sort of non-masculine ideals or styles. it was easier to try to fit into a mold and keep his interests outside hockey to himself. 

[ TW ] he started self-harming his sophomore year of high school when the pressure was at its peak. the year was a blur of anxiety and dread and his grades suffered a lot. he kept them up enough to stay on the team, but outside that he mostly just went to school, practice, and then went home. 

his junior year, things began to change a bit. he gained an interest in getting tattoos to curb his urges and after shakily approaching one bianca desousa for the name of a good artist, he got his first one. it became a stress relief, and despite the flack he got from his host family, his actual family, and his coaches he didn’t really care. it was the first time in a long time he felt like he was doing something for himself. 

it was through that and different more risky outings he met esme song, and the two bonded over a shared understanding. they felt like they were drowning, and even if he couldn’t vocalize a lot of his struggles, she just seemed to get it. it wasn’t a fix it, but it helped a lot.

cam managed to graduate, and despite his grades never being the best he got a hockey scholarship. the summer before he started college was a transformative one and he began to find himself more. exploring different styles, partying a bit more, and rediscovering the passion for music he’d been burying due to hockey for years. declaring music production as his major shocked and slightly angered his parents, his father wanting him to pursue a sports related career even after his hockey career was over. cam was adamant he didn’t want that, though. he wanted an end in sight for the activity that had put so much pressure on him and consumed his life. he wanted something to look forward to.

the tensions with his family remain, but he’s been able to work on music and care a bit less about what everyone thinks of him... to an extent. his clothes are flashy which gets him some grief from the more dickish and overall judgmental of his peers.

the first year or so of college wasn’t as bad, but as things continue the rising pressure that debilitated him in high school is surfacing once again. between trying to do well in class, meet expectations in hockey, finding gigs to keep a bit of spending money in his pocket, and attempting to have a social life? he’s spirallng again and tattoos aren’t the same release they were back then. he doesn’t know how much longer he can stay afloat, and he wonders if anyone will notice. 

[words-and-threads]

I want to say better writing but that's obviously a half-assed response at best. But I do have some ideas.

Relatability: nv's world is the future of ours so it's a little easier for it to feel real and familiar. That alone wouldn't be enough but I bet it helps.

Motivation: people do things for reasons that make consistent sense. Ceasar isn't just eeeevil muahaha. He's arrogant but scared, justifying his actions as necessary brutality to keep order. His soldiers are convincingly brainwashed. The ncr are desperate, beset on all sides and getting more paranoid and controlling as their task becomes more obviously impossible. The dialogue options the game gives you are necessarily limites, so the writers did a good job of thinking through what a player might want to say, not just what gets the dialogue the wanted to write. I rarely found myself wanting to say something but blocked by the dialogue options, except when it was a matter of skill (e.g. you don't know enough about medicine to make this guess.) This happens in skyrim regularly (and also baldurs gate 3 but annnnyway).

Coherence: you can spend most of skyrim giving 0 shits about the civil war or the dragons. People talk about them, they show up as set dressing, but the draugr and the vampires and the thieves' guild are just going about their day. Conversely, the conflict between the NCR and Legion impacts you constantly. They both hire you for quests all around the map. You struggle across the desert to a town only to find it destroyed. Hope you didn't want supplies. If you go looking for them in the town hall, the Legion's dogs attack you. Quests point you to new vegas, benny, and the lucky 38. Having Veronica with you pulls you toward the Brotherhood which might put you in conflict with the NCR and directs you to meet the boomers who are being courted by both sides. Everything links up to everything else and the major plot constantly affects your choices no matter what you're doing.

Emotional weight: skyrim hits you with a couple of grisly executions and nearly your own. Excellent, I'm in. Buuut then it's about freedom from the empire and saving the world, both very abstract. Very big and epic and impersonal. Doc Holiday saves your life. Will you betray him to the powder gang for power? Benny promises big things if you work with him, then betrays you. When things in nv aren't happening specifically to you, they're often related by struggling, traumatized survivors of horrible violence. And the game gets fucking DARK. The writers of nv knew that in a game that's 70 percent grisly homicide, murder gets a bit...weak. So they raised the stakes, confronting you with violence and exploitation way beyond your own, things even a desensitized gamer will likely find horrifying. Murder is one thing but what kind of monster kills somebody's dog? It's mostly just murder, theft, and property destruction in skyrim and it is very likely the player also does all those things.

Practical weight: pissing off the legion or ncr will make your life VERY difficult. The NCR is entrenched in half the settlements in the Mojave and the legion will send death squads after you. Having the platinum chip gives you options, bargaining power. You can't carry your guns into the new vegas casinos without a specific skill so if you're looking to start shit I hope you're ready to suffer. Joining the thieves guild...gets you some jobs. You can pay off any guard in any city. Very few decisions make things more difficult unless you let them. Again, the stakes are just always a lot lower.

Voice acting: the voice acting in new vegas is just better.

Flexibility and agency: this isn't a new take but nv allows players to kill anyone, take anything, go anywhere. There are consequences, you might die, but you're rarely just blocked. Fewer artificial boundaries makes the game feel more real.

I don't know if anyone actually wanted this explanation but uh. Well here it is.

what is it about Fallout New Vegas that makes it feel like an immersive world full of real folks while Skyrim feels like 3 guys larping and putting on accents