#wow this video was a beast to make

[apuckishwit]

With a Capital P

Saw this post about Stobin having no boundaries, by @grimmfitzz and oops, my hand slipped.

By all rights, there should be some awkwardness. A little lingering strangeness, an adjustment period, if you will. After all, only a few days ago, he fully thought he had feelings for Robin. Well, obviously he does have feelings for her...but he'd thought they were entirely different than the ones he has.

He's maybe a little more concussed than he'd convinced the paramedics he was. To be fair, they had a lot going on.

The point is, he feels like there should be more weirdness. A time period in which he awkwardly shuffles Robin from a box marked 'possible girlfriend?' to the one marked just 'friend'--the one Tommy and Carol used to occupy before things went so sideways (though he's still too afraid to really examine the spaces those two left, too afraid it'll just confirm that he wasted so much time with people who were never his friends at all). Maybe even slot her into the box he's slowly constructing for the kids...something not quite labeled 'friend' and not quite labeled 'family' and quickly coming to take up the biggest chunk of his battered, lonely heart (oh, wow, yeah...definitely more concussed than he let on).

Turns out, though, that being drugged and tortured together, and then launching an assault on a gigantic flesh beast from another dimension with nothing but fireworks and nerve lets you skip over a lot of the beginning phases of a relationship (romantic or otherwise). Also turns out there's a secret, fourth box he didn't even know about. One that's just marked 'Robin' that he has apparently been just waiting for her to come along and fill.

Robin ends up spending most of the rest of the summer at Steve's house, more often than not. He doesn't know what she tells her parents. Doesn't particularly care. He's always had a weird relationship with parental care and authority, so he's not sure he's really in a position to have an opinion about if Robin is lying to her parents about where she is, or if they don't care that she's hanging out at his place so much.

They spend days abusing the central air, or watching movies they swipe from Family Video, or eating snacks out by the pool (he tells her she's welcome to swim, she notes that he never gets in the water himself and doesn't ask questions...but also doesn't move from his side). At first, he makes up a guest room for her when she spends the night, but after the fourth or fifth time one (or both) of them wake up screaming (goddamn, goddamn, goddamn it, he'd just gotten a handle on the nightmares about impossible creatures bursting from the wall, now he gets new material to deal with?) Robin just groans and collapses onto Steve's bed, burrowing under his blankets with him.

"Your room is hideous," she grumbles, grabbing one of his hands and bringing their joined fingers to rest in the small space between their bodies.

"I know," he shrugs. He squeezes her hand. She squeezes back. He listens to her breaths in the dark, feels the warmth radiating off of her. It's comforting. Grounding. He's not alone. Whatever terrors the night brings for them, they'll face it together.

He wakes up hours later, sunlight streaming into his room and the beautiful girl he'd thought he was falling for snuggled right up against his side, the two of them having moved in the night. It should be the stuff of adolescent fantasies but all he feels is a distant sort of confusion that they actually slept so long. Robin's face is smashed into his shoulder and he realizes he's been drooling into her hair, and the first thing she does when she wakes up is shriek about it.

"Ewww, gross! Seriously?!"

"I didn't do it on purpose!"

"Spit, Steve! My hair is covered in your spit!"

"Well I'm pretty sure this giant booger on my shirt isn't mine, Buckley!"

"Are you accusing me of--oh, wow that is big." Robin starts rubbing at her nose as she stalks into the bathroom and the shower starts running a moment later. He opens the door long enough to toss a clean towel onto the sink and then wanders down to the kitchen to start coffee.

She makes fun of his bedhead when she comes down the stairs, he goggles at the amount of milk and sugar she puts in her coffee. And he never makes up the guest room for her again.

*

"I am telling you, Johnson is trying to kill us with his exams! It's barely October and we've already had three!" Robin stabs angrily at the chicken cutlets in the pan with her fork, holding one up so Steve can see how brown it is on one side. At his nod, she starts flipping them over. She ducks her head without looking when he reaches over her to snag the basil out of the spice cabinet, still stirring the tomato sauce with his free hand.

"Yeah, Johnson's a dick. Glad I'm done with his class for good." He dips the spoon out of the sauce and blows on it for a moment before tasting, then holds the spoon out for Robin to lick the rest of it off.

"Mmm, more red pepper. And I know! You're so lucky. How did you even pass? Cheryl Mackey was crying in the band room after she got her test back, and she's like, straight a student all the way." Robin finishes flipping the chicken and goes back to chopping carrots for their salad.

"Oh, Robert O'Connell--the guy that works down at the Snack n' Go?--he saved all his tests from when he had Johnson a few years ago. Johnson never writes new ones. You give Robert 20 bucks, you can get any of the answer keys."

Robin sets the knife down and reaches into Steve's back pocket, pulling his wallet out. "Couldn't have told me this earlier?" she grouses, yanking two tens out and shoving the wallet back in his pocket.

"Hey, that's my gas money for the week!" He grabs the pot with the noodles off the stove and takes it to the colander waiting in the sink, sticking his ass out expectantly.

"You look like a hooker trying to pick up johns."

"Well give me at least half my gas money back so I don't have to sell my body to drive you and Henderson to school this week."

"Ugh, fine." She grabs his wallet again and stuffs one of the tens back into it. Then winds up one of his dish towels and smacks his rear end hard enough that he jumps about a foot in the air.

He dumps the drained noodles back into the pot and turns around to bring it back to the stove only to find that Robin is right behind him with the pot of sauce, apparently having been bringing it over to the sink. They collide, hard, and Robin screams bloody murder as hot spaghetti sauce gets dumped all down her front.

"Hot, hot, hot, fuck, hot!"

"Shit, hold on!" He all but tosses the pot of noodles back into the sink and snatches the sauce pot out of her hands. As soon as he does she's whipping off her shirt and grabbing the dish towel she hit him with, wiping off the smears of sauce that got onto her arms. "Did it burn you?" he asks, searching her torso for blisters, even though he knows at the back of his mind that the sauce was only on a simmer.

"No...no, I think I'm good. Damn, I liked that shirt, though." She straightens, glaring down at the sauce pot he slammed onto the counter.

"You sure you're okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine."

He holds his tongue for approximately zero point three seconds.

"Okay, then can we talk about this whole situation, cause I feel like I just got a major piece of the puzzle of why you don't have a girlfriend, yet. What the hell are you wearing?"

Robin's bra is so faded it's unclear what color it was originally, two large tears right above the elastic band.

Robin looks almost comically offended. "Excuse me? I'm sorry, are you commenting on my very comfortable and perfectly functional underwear?"

"Functional, yeah, if the function is 'never get laid ever'."

Robin crosses over to the doorway that leads to the laundry room. "We can't all exclusively wear Calvin Klein, Harrington!"

"How do you know what underwear I wear?"

"Am I wrong? Also, Jesus Christ do you own any normal shirts?"

"What's wrong with my shirts now? Hey, I'm not taking fashion advice from a girl in a, a grandma bra!"

"Hey!" She steps back out of the laundry room, wearing one of his old basketball team shirts.

They keep bickering back and forth as Steve tries to salvage dinner, eventually ending up just sitting on his kitchen counter dipping pieces of breaded chicken into the remains of the pasta sauce in the pot, having decided they really didn't want to eat spaghetti that had to be fished out of the sink.

"I'm not buying a bunch of frilly, sparkly lace just to wear under my clothes," Robin informs him. "That shit itches."

"Not saying you have to, but at least get something that doesn't look like it came out of the bottom of my gym bag."

"Eww, don't talk about your gym bag while I'm eating!"

*

It is a slow day in Family Video, and Robin has been casting him strangely intense looks since she came on shift. He restocks the shelves, picks through the candy to take home the almost expired shit to give to the kids, and is halfway through the rewinding before it finally gets to him.

"What?!" he demands. Robin blinks at him, immediately shrugging. A little too fast, actually.

"What, what?" she asks. He narrows his eyes at her and she ducks her head, pretending to find her biology textbook extremely interesting. He knows she's pretending because she hates biology. They're making her dissect a frog this quarter. After a few seconds, she slams the book shut and straightens up, determined look settling on her face.

Steve has just enough time to get a little nervous before she says, "How do you do the tongue thing?"

He blinks at her. "Uh...can you be more specific?"

She rolls her eyes. "You know...the thing! The thing with your tongue."

"I promise you, I do not know. What're you talking about?"

She looks around the store, as if some customers that they somehow haven't noticed in the last three hours might suddenly appear. Then she lowers her voice. "Like, sex things. With your tongue." She huffs a frustrated sigh. "They had to combine gym periods today 'cause Mrs. Hornby had to sub for Janson's history class, and Maryanne Greene was talking about how her boyfriend wouldn't go down on her and then Sue Rennet--you remember Sue? Apparently you dated her for, like, two weeks at the end of her Sophomore year--started talking about you and how you used to do that to her and it's the best sex she's ever had."

And oh...okay, he remembers Sue. Nice girl, a little ditzy, but she hadn't wanted to get more serious, and then Nancy had caught his eye. He can't help but puff up a little. Sure, Hawkins isn't exactly a big city overrun with choices, and judging by the talk he remembers from his own locker room days, he's a little bit of an outlier as far as being concerned with making sure his partners are having as good a time as he is...but to be called the best someone has ever had is nice.

"Don't let it go to your head," Robin says, because she can read his mind quite a lot of the time. "Just...tongue thing. You know, in case I ever do get a shot with, literally anyone."

He softens at that, reaches across the counter to ruffle her hair because it annoys her as much as it annoys him when someone does that. "You will," he says softly, and thinks that he would give almost anything, would probably happily trade any shot at happiness for himself if he could make sure Robin had someone to love her the way she deserves to be loved. He grabs one of her school notebooks and tears a sheet out, grabbing a pen out of the cup beside the computer.

"Okay, so, first things first, you can't just dive right in--gotta get the motor warmed up a little first--"

"Please don't talk in car analogies the whole time," Robin says, leaning in as he draws a crude (heh, see what he did there?) sketch of what he's going to be talking about.

"Noted. So what you're gonna do is start with a little massage around this area," he points with the end of the pen, "really take your time, get things nice and slick..."

He talks, Robin listening intently and occasionally asking questions.

"No you don't--flutter your tongue, flutter it. Here, like this..."

"Okay, vibration is good, but you're not, like, trying to blow a raspberry on her clit--"

"I said flutter!"

And that is how Lucas and Dustin find them about forty minutes later: Steve with his mouth held open wide, demonstrating what he means by fluttering his tongue while Robin stares at it like it holds the secrets of the universe, pen in hand as she takes furious notes.

In retrospect, he supposes he should be grateful that Lucas didn't immediately join Dustin on the 'Steve and Robin are totally dating' train.

*

"Shit! Steve! Wake up, it's Wednesday!"

Steve's eyes shoot open and he's vertical before he's fully awake, reaching for the nailbat propped up by his bedside table, but it's not there. It's...his bedside table isn't there either.

What the fuck, where's his bed?

"Steve!" Robin shouts, and he blinks rapidly, his surroundings resolving themselves into his...living room?

"What...Rob, what the hell? You're on winter break! You don't have school today?"

Ugh, why does his mouth taste like something died? He looks around the room, at the piles of dusty boxes that look like they came from...

Oh.

Oh yeah.

He and Robin had spent yesterday dragging the Harrington family Christmas decorations down from the attic because Robin said his house looked like a sad capitalism museum and she refused to spend the holidays in a place that didn't have a single Christmas light up. And then they'd found Steve's grandmother's recipe for homemade eggnog. And he'd maybe experimented a little bit with the liquor ratios...they must have fallen asleep on the couch.

"We don't have school but we both promised Keith we'd open all this week!" Robin shouts.

Oh.

Oh fuck.

They're still dressed in their clothes from yesterday. And they smell like a goddamn distillery. Without thinking about it, he grabs her hand and starts hauling her upstairs. "Shit, shit, shit."

"Fuck, shit, fuck!" she agrees as they rocket into the bathroom. Steve starts the water while Robin yanks clean towels out of the linen closet. "Do you have pants I can wear?" she asks, tossing the towels onto the sink and stripping out of her shirt.

"Yeah, I've got those jeans from, like, three years ago. Those fit you pretty well, right?" He tosses his own jeans and boxers towards the laundry hamper, followed by his shirt, and jumps into the shower, adjusting the temperature hotter than he likes it, because Robin's a weirdo who likes to boil herself in the mornings.

"Good enough!" Robin leaps in after him and they squeeze under the spray just long enough to get hair and body wet before separating somewhat so Robin can start scrubbing herself and he can get started on his hair. "Why didn't you set an alarm?"

"Me? Why didn't you set an alarm? You're the one who wanted to take the shifts!"

"Like you're gonna turn down holiday pay."

"It's Keith! Holiday pay probably means a buy one get one coupon to Pizza World up the highway!" He sticks his head under the water again to rinse his hair out and they switch places.

"Are you saying you wouldn't take a buy one get one coupon to Pizza World?"

"I mean...no?"

They switch places again so that Steve can rinse the soap off his body and then it's a race to get dried off, teeth brushed, dressed, and out to the car so they can get to the store in time. It's only as they are piling out of the BMW in front of Family Video that it seems to occur to them both at the same time what they just did. They both pause, mid-step and turn to each other wide-eyed.

"Huh," Steve says quietly.

"Yeah," Robin answers.

Then they shrug and continue towards the store entrance, making it in with exactly three and a half minutes to spare.

*

"Steve I really think if you're worried about this, you should be talking to a doctor, not me," Robin says, peering at a medical journal she checked out from the library spread out over her lap. "Has it changed color or shape recently?"

"I don't know, maybe? I've got so many moles, it's hard to keep track."

"Any pain or tenderness?" She reaches out and taps his hip so that he turns a little more towards the light cast by her desk lamp.

"No, definitely not. I was just having, you know, private time in the shower and it looked weird to me when I looked down."

Robin hums thoughtfully and pokes at the weird-looking mole on Steve's groin. "I mean, it doesn't look like any of these pictures of bad moles, but if you think it looks different to how it used to, you should probably get it check out regardless."

"Damn it, I was afraid you'd say that," he sighs. She shuts the medical journal and props her chin on one hand as he pulls his pants back up.

"Should I call and make the appointment?"

He huffs and flops back down onto her bed. "Yes please," he grumbles. He never remembers to write down all the appointment details.

"You want me to book something over spring break so I can go with you?"

"Nah, just whatever's available soonest. I'd rather not sit around and stress about it."

It turns out to be nothing to worry about. But three weeks later, Dustin and Max come bursting into Family Video while he and Robin are watching a new report about a brutal murder, and Steve is wishing all he had to stress about was a maybe-weird mole on his dick.

*

It's not like no one was aware that Steve and Robin were...perhaps unusually close friends. It was just never much of an issue (except to Dustin, who was obsessed with the idea of the two of them getting together) before the events of the spring of '86 and after...

Well.

Who cared how weirdly codependent Steve and Robin were when Max and Eddie had nearly died and the Upside Down was bursting up into the real Hawkins? Honestly, if that was the weirdest thing about them after all they've been through, he'd count that pretty lucky.

After everything, though--after they put Vecna/Henry Creel/One/Whatever in the fucking ground, after they do what Steve was beginning to think was impossible and seal the Upside Down away from them forever, after Max is as recovered as she's ever going to be (she's probably never going to be able to get a driver's license even with glasses, and her doctors tell them the leg braces and crutches might have to be permanent, but she's alive...she's alive, she's alive, she's alive), after Robin finally feels safe enough to come out to the group at large, after Steve spends an entire week holed up in his room screaming into his pillow while Robin patted his back consolingly before marching down to Eddie's new (government-funded) trailer and announcing that it turns out he likes both and would Eddie please go on a date with him...

He thinks maybe Eddie didn't quite understand what he was getting into when he agreed almost before Steve was done asking him out.

"Uh...hey guys," Eddie says slowly, taking in the picture he and Robin present in Steve's kitchen. There's a bag of cucumbers, a few eggplants, and several bananas spread out on the island in front of them. Robin has a tape measure and a homemade pamphlet acquired from a very exclusive shop they traveled to Indianapolis to visit last weekend. Steve is holding up two of the cucumbers for comparison. "What's, uh, what's going on here?"

Steve and Robin exchange a look. Then Steve jumps up and snatches the tape measure out of her hands. "Perfect! Here, Eds, lemme measure you." He reaches for Eddie's belt, only to freeze with a look of annoyance when his boyfriend jumps back with a yelp.

"Whoa! Whoa, hey, baby, I have no idea what you're talking about and also Robbie's right there!"

"What? Oh it's fine, Rob and I have seen each other naked plenty of times."

"Ask me about the time we accidentally showered together," Robin pipes up with a grin.

"Wait, no...wait, what? How do you accidentally shower together?" Eddie asks incredulously. Then he shakes his head. "Wait, no! No, not important. Robin has never seen me naked, and I am not whipping my dick out in front of your best friend so you can measure it! And why do you want to measure it?"

"Well I was trying to just guesstimate how big you are," Steve says, gesturing to the array of produce on the island, "but it'll be easier if I can just get the numbers from the source."

"Why do you need exact measurements of my dick?!" Eddie's eyes have gone wide as dinner plates, his voice reaching an octave usually reserved for his female NPC's in his nerd game. Steve huffs.

"Babe, you said you want to fuck me, but like, all these guides say we should work up to it." He jerks a thumb back over his shoulder at the pamphlet that Robin is now helpfully holding up. "So I'm gonna figure out exactly how big you are, and then Rob and I are gonna go up to this shop we found in Indy and get some of these toys. It's supposed to help me get used to things being, you know, up there."

Robin nods seriously.

Eddie looks at him. Looks at Robin. Looks back at him.

Steve has never seen someone look touched and horrified at the same time. Eddie rakes a hand back through his hair and sighs.

"What...what measurements do you need, exactly?"

[natigail]

I wanted to see how insane their solo stories from this video looked written out, so please enjoy!

Dan's story "The Dragon Prince"

Once upon a time, there was a boy named Dan from the House of Fire who's motto was "the fire in our ass will never die!" And from Phil, House Amazing, the kingdom of squatting. They were sworn enemies whose houses were at war ever since the great lamp licking incidence. One day, Dan was bathing his fiery drake, Kamala, when he saw a glint in the reflection of his gauntlet. It was a surprise attack from that scallywag Phil! He mounted his dragon and yelled his signature war cry: "ZING!" Phil looked down at the fire kingdom. "Hah, more like squishy kingdom." But before he knew it, Dan was on his tail, he was so close he was practically on his toe. Their beasts, Kamala and Markiplier, released flames at the same time like a torrent of lethal piss. Double K.O. They fell to the ground and lost consciousness. Dan awoke to find Phil's brain stuck in Dan's eye. He shouted, "wow, this is a moist situation." Phil roused gayly. "You saved me," he said. They locked eyes and in that moment, they knew how futile their feud was. They saved each other. Did they have to slay each other? In that moment, Phil felt something skipping down his hips. He swam as hard as he could and suddenly, he felt it, Phil had birthed a beautiful, purple egg. Dan scoffed, "the prophecy is true." "It's our child," Phil said. "The legendary worm and we shall name him Gary." The end.

Phil's story "The Princes"

Once upon a castle in a kingdom called Evony, there were two princing belonging to warring families. Tonight was the last time they would meet before the great battle. Danielo awoke, sword in hand, as he heard a shuffle at the door. Philipus walked into his bedroom wearing a panty. "I didn't mean to disturb you but I thought I should tell you that my father is bringing a dragon to the party and also a large, enchanted hippo. Danielo cried a single tear. "I don't want to die for this stupid family, I just want to be a knight with you and help old ladies cross the street." "Why must we spill blood?" Danielo smirked. "Glory and Amazon coins. Philipus said, "it's our final night together, I thought we could do our favourite activity - twerking. It might make us a bit sweaty but it makes me constipated. As the sun rose, the two knights had fallen asleep in a hay field, using rabbit shit as bedding. This was the morning of the battle, they would be on opposing side. Danielo flew into battle on his dragon Jeff, scanning the skies for his prince Philipus. Philipus raised a sword into the sky as he was silhouetted by the beast. This was not a fair fight. The war had begun. Thousands were being killed. Philipus had a secret weapon, a medieval salami. His best friend flew down from his dragon and approached him. They crossed swords. "I can't do this, Philipus," screamed Danielo. "I want to move to North Korea, start our jobs as Only Phans models." Philipus tried to reason with him but suddenly, Danielo's dragon Jeff started to breath fire at them both. It was so hot, Danielo was on fire. He had one final word for Philipus: "yeee..." as both knights burned to death. They were then eaten by the dragon as a toasty, barbecue snack. They tasted like Takis Fuego. The dragon went on to kill all soldiers and both kings. It ruled the castle in a happy, gay life with his dragon boyfriend, Allisandra, and laid a dragon egg, which he called Kip. They never saw another human again. The princes would always be remembered as the tastiest snacks in the kingdom.

[yan-lorkai]

could you do TWST head cannons with a reader who plays the drums and had a more 'rebellious style' but is very polite?

(any characters you like, but maybe ruggie or silver?)

☆*: Silver knows that judging a book by its cover is a fatal mistake, as appearances are very deceiving about a person's real character. So he would never judge you based on what you wear, otherwise he would be betraying his father's teachings and that is something he would never do.

☆*: Furthermore, he knows that you are a very polite and nice person. He hears good things about you from his dad and his classmates all the time, and it's possible he's even interacted with you before if you were part of the music club. Lilia sometimes invites his son to his practices and shows and Silver regularly appears there to show his support for his father.

☆*: Even though drums are a different instrument than the one his father plays, Silver knows a thing or two about caring for it. So he sometimes helps you take care of and polish your instrument, as well as asking you little questions about why you chose to play the drums, how many songs you know how to play. Anyway, he likes your style and the music you produce. If someone ever spoke badly about you around him because of the way you dress, he would give that person an endless lecture.

☆*: At Savanaclaw it's kill or be killed, so your politeness is something that made quite an impression on him the first time you two crossed paths. I mean, you have this rebellious and confident look, he kind of expected you to be like the other beastmen who think they are better than him because they are wolves or lions, or some other strong beast. He expected you to feel superior to him, he's just a hyena after all, but that was a silly thought that he quickly dismissed after you treated him with kindness and politeness.

☆*: You even gave him one of your donuts and patted his head! What kind of bad person would do that? Obviously you weren't bad, far from it, you were an angel! Therefore, anyone who makes fun of you because of your style or your drumming skills will mysteriously suffer minor accidents. Each of them worse than the other if they don't learn their lesson.

☆*: After your first interaction, Ruggie found himself interested in you. So occasionally he would show up to your shows and practices to watch you play and wow, you play well. He doesn't know much about drums, but as he wants to spend time with you, he asks you to teach him a little. He doesn't have money to buy a drum or any other instrument right now, but when he can he knows his grandma and the kids would love to hear him play. Even better if you're there to see it, but well, he can always send you a video.

☆*: Lilia saw you out of the corner of his eye for two seconds and automatically loved your rebellious style, floating towards you to talk and ask for fashion tips, after all, he also likes different styles and knows that the two of you together would be quite a duo. Yes, within five minutes of talking Lilia is already making big plans for the two of you as if you were best friends in the whole world. No, nothing you say or do will drive him away now.

☆*: Whether you join the music club or not, Lilia likes to hear you play. He has a talent for instruments and can help you improve yourself or correct small mistakes you may make without realizing while playing, offering tips and fixing your posture. He also likes to just sit and listen to you play as if nothing in the world could stop him from enjoying it.

☆*: He's like a kid excited about a new toy. And he will also cause accidents to anyone who talks badly about you because of the way you dress. You're so nice, so polite, he love how differently you are apart from your style. And people will treat you with respect or they're gonna deal with him! :)

[maverick-werewolf]

Werewolf Article - (Play As A) Werewolf Video Games

The results of the poll for this month on my Patreon are in, and the winner is an opinionated article on werewolf video games! Apologies in advance if any of my opinions here anger you. I was asked for opinionated, so I went opinionated and did not hold back.

For clarity's sake: this will be a relatively concise list of SOME video games in which you can or do play as a werewolf. It will NOT include every single game in which you can or do play as a werewolf, nor will it include certain kinds of playable werewolves that exist in gaming, for the sake of brevity. You'll notice some missing and then want to be first to tell me I left out [thing], but I assure you I am aware of those too. I am also not going to list games in which you can play as a werewolf but it requires either user-made mods or else playing in a custom campaign/tileset/server (like Neverwinter Nights <3), only games wherein you can play as a werewolf as part of base game or expansion pack mechanics.

This IS a tiered list. It is tiered based on the werewolf gameplay mechanics and elements in the game.

Let's get started. I will begin at #9, go to #1, and then I will close with some words on some other games that didn't make the numbered list.

9. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm

Note: your player character will never have torn-up clothing or use his claws like in this artwork/like the enemy worgen do

I'm just going to list Cataclysm here because, frankly, I don't even want to discuss WoW at Shadowlands and beyond... even if discussing the model update will reach into that era of content. Obviously, I don't play WoW anymore and haven't in quite a while, but yeah, I used to really enjoy it. Played it for many, many years. Probably too many.

Cataclysm was a pretty outright bad expansion, but it did add playable worgen (something I obviously wanted from day 1 after seeing the worgen mobs running around), and they can even turn into human form, which is a must for me in terms of actually being a werewolf instead of just a wolf-person, which I wouldn't even roll. That was a nice touch I didn't actually expect from the devs.

Unfortunately, the model update turned them into something far "cuter" and more cuddly than I liked, not to mention adding preposterous fur options like stripes and merle, but the human form customization was nice. Still, the model update drove me toward playing different races, like maining my kul'tiran and night elf instead of the worgen I was always ultimately pretty disappointed in, given his wearing fine armor and wielding giant weapons. Anyway, the entire game took a huge nosedive not long after the model change, so it's a moot point for me regardless.

As for the deeper worgen lore beyond "they are werewolves with a funny name": I hate it with all my heart. I did my best to ignore every scrap of that and how they are just self-parodies, to delete the Gilneas/worgen starting zone quests from my entire brain, and especially to ignore the fact that they were all preposterously British despite England being one of the last places historically to even have many werewolf legends of its own. I have an article about that here if you are interested in the topic. The game made all of these things very difficult, especially how hard they wanted to drive home that the worgen are silly posh British parody dog-people strutting around in waistcoats and tophats instead of being fearsome cursed werewolves. So I won't bother going into all that.

The mechanics are fun except for the fact that you have to wear armor and use weapons, so ultimately you just look like a beast-person instead of a werewolf, especially after the model change making them far more appealing to a certain demographic. If Blizzard had wanted to put in effort, they would have made your gear look tattered and would have made you swap to claws when you turn, but that would've been a lot of work. They could have at least added a specialized class or something and then also given it to some Horde races to make the precious Horde players happy. I don't know. I just think werewolves wearing fine clothes and armor and wielding weapons is immensely silly. They're supposed to be werewolves.

So while they are extremely far from perfect, the worgen are at least relatively fun in that, if nothing else, you can go between werewolf and human forms and run on all fours as fast as the fastest ground mount, and I am deeply surprised they did either. I immensely enjoyed both of those things during my time playing a worgen, and they helped mitigate the great disappointment otherwise in many other regards - though not enough to keep me from maining other races, especially later on. But, in the end, WoW sucks now and it's unrecoverable, and WoW Classic is a joke, so I'll never be playing a worgen again anyway.

8. Diablo II

I'm sure you were looking for this one - the werewolf druid in Diablo II (preemptive sidebar: I am not going to talk about Diablo IV). I love his design and gameplay mechanics. He's fantastic. However, he is of course yet another instance of "the werewolf must be a druid," which I personally find a little tiresome after so much of it. But hey, this was one of the earlier games to do that, so it predated a lot of the craze.

At any rate, the Druid class in Diablo II obviously gets a werewolf form. It also gets a requisite werebear because werewolves can almost never just be werewolves, but at least the werewolf does not completely suck. You can also summon wolves, which is a bonus.

While I'm not really that big on Diablo-type gameplay - I prefer either third-person or else a proper isometric, party-based RPG - so Diablo II didn't really hold my interest a lot, the werewolf druid is very fun and a very cool werewolf, the setting is great, and the werewolf suits the dark Gothic feeling and look of the game that is enjoyable and well conveyed in the first place. The werewolf druid is a great addition that I am glad they added.

7. Baldur's Gate II

Let me make something perfectly clear: Baldur's Gate II is, in my opinion, the best game ever made (only Uncharted 2: Among Thieves also makes this rank for me). Combined with BG1 to create the Baldur's Gate Saga, it is one of the best stories ever told and also my favorite game mechanics-wise, again alongside Uncharted 2 even if yes, I know that those games could almost not be farther apart in terms of mechanics. I absolutely love BG2 beyond words. Please note I am talking about the original Baldur's Gate II, as released in 2000, not the "Enhanced Edition," which is a disgrace to the game, the entire series, and a piece of garbage. It's shamefully difficult to find the original game anymore, but it's worth it over playing the EE; trust me. I'll try to spare you any further ranting on this topic, as the original Baldur's Gate Saga is something very close to my heart.

Anyway, the werewolf in BG2 is - once again - a druid, specifically a druid subclass called Shapeshifter. It doesn't really have any werewolf gameplay mechanics in that you are not treated differently for it, nor do you transform out of your own control. In fact you will be spending the majority of your time in werewolf form, which can get quite tiresome. I'm not the biggest fan of a werewolf holding normal conversations with NPCs, etc. But regardless, it's there, and I love it, and it looks awesome, and that's more than I can say for so many games. Plus, you get cool bonuses and stuff. The power of it varies over time and with the progression of your character. I will not go too deeply into it, as I am actually an insane D&D video game nerd and even today I can spend far too much time building characters and tweaking numbers and doing ridiculous tricks in D&D games to powergame. If you want just one of my credentials I beat BG2 on the hardest difficulty with Ascension and no other gameplay mods. Long story short, the Greater Werewolf is quite powerful, and it shouldn't be a detriment to your party to either be one or bring along Cernd, one of my favorite companions.

So don't listen to the people down on the Shapeshifter in BG2. You can get mods that make them overpowered, anyway. Also don't listen to my complaints about it not feeling werewolfish enough because that's nearly impossible to come by anyway if you're not playing the #1 game on this list. Go try one out. It's fun! Plus, BG2 is the best game ever made.

6. Altered Beast

What are some of Mav's favorite things? Ancient Greece, hoplites, hot men, werewolves, dragons, tigers...

When I found out Altered Beast exists and is a game wherein you play as an awesome hoplite dude and turn into a werewolf, a green dragon, a tiger-man, and ultimately a werewolf is still the most powerful of all his forms, I was ecstatic. I had to play it immediately.

I wasn't disappointed. It's a fun, unforgiving game, because it was made before video games started becoming what I think we're supposed to call accessible today. I don't know what else there is to say about the game if what I've already said hasn't convinced you to play it. The werewolf form is your first transformation, and your most powerful is a golden werewolf. Me being me, I appreciate that a werewolf form is still the best in the end instead of being outshone by other creatures, and even the other forms available are all very cool.

As I said, I really don't know what more one could ask for of this setting and gameplay. I've never been picky about genre; I play a very wide variety of video games and have plenty of fun, and I certainly had fun with this one.

(Note: I'm not going to talk about that 2005 Altered Beast remake, I like to pretend it never happened)

5. Werewolf the Apocalypse: Earthblood

I'll be the first to admit I'm far from the biggest World of Darkness fan ever, as has brought many insults my way already, but I was pleasantly surprised by the mechanics of the werewolf form in Earthblood. I will not call it the "crinos form," as that terminology is so immensely silly that I could no longer take it seriously if I did. So anyway, the gameplay actually lets you feel like a werewolf, and you even get two stances you can swap between for different combat styles instead of anchoring werewolves down to just doing one thing. I'm not going to wax on about the lore, the story, etc. - but man the werewolf mechanics really are fun. It is, of course, the main draw of the whole deal, and they didn't slouch on that element.

It's important to me that a werewolf feel powerful and also violent. Werewolves should not be cuddly, or else they are no longer werewolves. Painting hallways with the blood of my enemies as if I'm recreating the Ninja lead-up in Metal Gear Solid while in werewolf form is cathartic and a good way to give the player a sense of being a werewolf instead of just an animal-headed person. This is a very solid "play as a werewolf" game, and one of the few games that exist with the primary purpose of letting you really play as a werewolf, whether you are a predetermined character or not. Be warned, the game is notoriously janky, but if you're like me, you're enjoying the werewolf mechanics enough that you don't care - or you can be even more like me and not give a toss about "jankiness" in a game in the first place.

4. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

While a significant and crushing downgrade from the werewolves in certain other Elder Scrolls entries - more on that momentarily - at least Skyrim let you become a werewolf in the base game. No waiting for an expansion pack and no waiting forever until you move on (thanks, Oblivion). However, the differences between the mechanics of werewolves in past entries and the Skyrim werewolves are many and tragic. I confess I did not play Skyrim much, partially as a result of these exact elements, and partially because I just don't spend much time playing video games anymore, among other things.

In Skyrim, being a werewolf becomes what is colloquially called an "awesome button," letting you turn into a big, strong, cool werewolf that can eat people to extend your werewolf timer. It's great and enjoyable, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't actually feel as if you are truly cursed with lycanthropy or smelly lupus or whatever silly name Elder Scrolls gave it (yes, I know the name, but that doesn't make it less silly). You have no real disadvantages to being a werewolf, such as having to worry about when you will transform outside your own control - because you never will, which is an immense downgrade in terms of feeling werewolfish and adding appropriate challenge and downside to being a werewolf. You also don't have to worry about being forced to devour a civilized race in order to sate your accursed hunger. Instead, you're doing that on purpose to turn out of werewolf form again, because the more you eat, the longer you stay transformed. Still, the werewolves in Skyrim are good - they just don't compare to previous entries. But I certainly appreciate them and the fact that they are present in the base game.

3. The Sims 3

Trust me, they do look better in game, but I couldn't find any of my own screenshots because it's been a hot minute since I played this.

You probably think I'm trolling you, but the werewolves in The Sims have always been pretty fun; I remember when the ones in 2 first came out, I enjoyed them like crazy. The ones in 3 rocked and were easily the best variant; too bad the game is relatively difficult to get running properly, and many aspects of the werewolves are delicate and easy to glitch, including your entire Sim's werewolf form design. I am not going to talk about those abominations that were added to The Sims 4, because they are some of the worst things I have ever had the misfortune of seeing and are not werewolves by any metric.

Sims 3 changed the aspects of Sims 2 werewolves that I didn't like, such as how being a werewolf altered your sim's entire personality over time and how the werewolf form always looked the same. They made the system much more robust. Frankly, the Sims 3 werewolves are some of the better werewolves in gaming, especially for the kind of game that The Sims is (expect assorted dog jokes, for example, given it's The Sims, yet it still isn't half as bad as it could be). I also love the wolf-man design; it works much better with Sims than something bigger and more wolfish. Certainly far better than whatever the hell is in Sims 4, which again, I will try my best not to talk about.

Anyway, I absolutely recommend Sims 3 if you enjoy Sims games and werewolves and want to have some werewolf fun. I'd probably still be occasionally blowing my finite amount of time on this earth playing it if I had it properly running on my current PC.

2. The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall

Bet you didn't expect to see this one, did you? You thought I was gonna say Skyrim as #2, right? Actually, I bet you thought I was going to say that one as #1.

The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall is a game many would consider unapproachable today. I enjoyed it. Obviously, I played it for the playable werewolf, and I had fun! They work similarly to the ones in Bloodmoon, but, in my opinion, they still aren't as fantastic as the Bloodmoon ones. But the game does force you to actually live and behave as a werewolf - I love the werewolf hunter[s] mechanic - which, again... it's almost the only one of its kind other than Bloodmoon. For that, it gets #2 on this list.

And that means you know what makes #1, untouched in its glory, undimmed by time...

1. The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind - Bloodmoon

Alright. Have I ever talked about how this is the single greatest werewolf game ever made? I think I have, but let's get into it again.

I like Morrowind in the first place. I think it's hands down the best of the Elder Scrolls series and, frankly, the only one really worth dedicating much time to (forgive me). I played it when it first came out, and while I have never been the kind of person to pour hours into any ES or even any other open world game, Morrowind held my attention even as a kid - before I knew about "open world" and before it was such a buzzword - whereas other games before and after it struggled to do so or else failed entirely. Morrowind was groundbreaking for its time in many ways. And then they announced the expansion pack called Bloodmoon that would let you play as a werewolf. I was so excited I could hardly stand it, and even with my extreme werewolf pickiness, I was not disappointed. At all.

This is a game wherein the werewolves are treated as a serious threat, they are insanely rare to encounter in the wild in any capacity (I actually became a werewolf through a random encounter because I ran around on Solstheim obsessively every night rather than just becoming one through the story - it took me many nights, IRL, to encounter one), and when you do run into them, they are likely to destroy you. You are insanely, over the top powerful when you turn into a werewolf, yourself. Some would even call it stupid. I would not. You run at the speed of light and your jump turns into borderline flight. It's basically gliding. You're also preposterously powerful in general. I love it.

Most importantly of all, however, is that you are actually forced to roleplay as a werewolf. You will turn each night, and you must consume 1 victim NPC of any of the playable races. Solstheim is full of assorted enemies that will work for this, but when you go back to Vvardenfell, it can be harder to find a nightly meal while avoiding devouring any quest NPCs. Plus, you have to manage your gear before and after transformations, and you have to be sure you are never witnessed transforming. The entire system is in-depth and very awesome, making you actually feel like a cursed being that has to worry when the sun starts to set, forcing you to run far from civilization.

I cannot put into words how much I adore this game's werewolf system. Nothing compares. This is a real werewolf system, instead of "play as a wolf-person" or "hit the awesome button to become a werewolf for a little while with 0 consequences" like basically every other werewolf game out there.

So long story short, if you claim to love werewolves and want to play as one in a video game, and you haven't played Bloodmoon, then you're lying to yourself and the whole world. Shame on you.

And now for things that didn't make the list...

10. Assorted Acknowledgements

This category is for ones I don't even really have a lot to say about, but I figured I would mention them.

Terraria - You can get an item that lets you turn into a werewolf when night falls. It's pretty fun! I like the mechanics of it, plus it has a neat werewolf design, to boot. I dock serious points in this game for straight-up replacing the zombies with hordes of werewolves in hard mode, though. "Werewolf infestations" and werewolves being zombie stand-ins these days is preposterous and overdone. But I had a lot of fun running around as a werewolf and exploring, so it's absolutely top of the non-tiered list especially as far as werewolf mechanics go.

Pillars of Eternity - The "werewolf" in this game is one of several animal-person forms the druid can get, continuing the common theme in gaming of druid werewolves. The wolf is decidedly the worst of the lot, less useful even than the prey animals available. Put bluntly: they are basically terrible, and you're an idiot to ever use this form when there are so many build options available. There are also lots of other RPG options available. As in other games out there in the world. You should play those instead.

Guild Wars 2 - You cannot actually play as a werewolf in Guild Wars 2, but I figured I would mention it because lots of people do. If you want to roll one of the Norn giant race, either as a pretty giant woman who is the mommy stepping on you from some men's dreams or as the ugly tiny-headed cartoon men, you can get an ability to turn into a werewolf for like 30 seconds; it's far from exciting. And like so many werewolf abilities today, it comes with the option to also turn into other humanoid animals with different abilities. I've heard that, of them, only the cat and bear are useful, which is not a shocker as video game logic goes (game devs think wolves straight up suck at everything lol). I didn't play a Norn during my stint with Guild Wars 2 - I played a male human. He's Nolan North, so he's obviously the only choice and also why I played the game as much as I did.

The Elder Scrolls Online - This disgraceful abomination of a "game" is terrible in every way and could not have been a bigger disappointment on the promise of an "Elder Scrolls but MMORPG" concept even from the very beginning. It was never good, it only ever got worse, and I am happy to say I abandoned it long ago (I am not happy to say I was playing it in early closed beta because of the promise of werewolves - and I played it far more than I should have, so I am not coming at this from ignorance). It is a game with designs so ugly and unremarkable that you want to quit and walk through the woods just to remind yourself beauty still exists in the world. ESO clearly had no idea what direction to take itself in from the moment it dropped, and it certainly was never created with the pretense of playing like an Elder Scrolls game but being massively multiplayer. It has no sense of mood or atmosphere whatsoever and possesses writing that will make you long for the riveting tales in other low-rent, low-thought MMORPGs. You can play as a hideous weird sad werewolf model that is absurdly small (most likely smaller than the race you are playing as, which means you actually shrink when you transform) and should have been left in beta, which functions like a worse awesome button werewolf than the ones in Skyrim, because you also suck gameplay-wise especially depending on the dev's mood with the meta. It is terrible, as is everything about the game. ESO also went out of its way to completely wreck all previous Elder Scrolls werewolf lore that was actually really good. Anyway, don't play this. Your time is worth more than that, even if you don't think it is.

That covers some of the best! Requisite apologies if I didn't include your favorite.

( Free Newsletter  — Patreon — Wulfgard — Werewolf Fact Masterlist — Twitter — Vampire Fact Masterlist — Amazon Author page )

[turbofanatic]

A bunch of ink studies and sketches.

I love Tiny's nose. It's so fun to draw. And I think I'm getting a handle on drawing him as a kid. He's an adorable little weirdo with a thousand-yard stare.

Ravio is another one of my favorite Zelda characters, I like the idea that he's a heavily sarcastic scam artist who also makes one of the most harrowing ethical choices ever seen in a Zelda game. While wearing a bunny hood. Also Sheerow is the most competent one on the top row.

I've been trying to figure out everyone's height in relation to each other, and wow, the downfall and adult timeline Links are tiny. To some extent with video game heights you just have to accept that getting exact values is a fool's errand. Oh sure, you can pull out the model and measure it, but then you have to account for the fact that there's lots of size multipliers applied to models that can change throughout the game, and that the entire world might not quite use the same measurements as ours, plus stylistic differences, and... yeah it's hard. It's pretty clear most Links are tiny (except Tiny, who ends up being huge canonically) and I'm going to make Ravio about 4'7" / 140cm. Since it's hard to reconcile the wide range in sizes of Hylians, I think there's just a tendency for some to be very small, just like the Gerudo have a tendency for some to be very large, and certain ethnic groups have more or less of this. The ones surviving in the harsh environments of flooded and downfall timelines tend to have more of the smaller Hylians.

In the middle we have Link from OG Zelda and Adventure of Link. He's probably even shorter than Ravio. I've given him a Phrygian cap, which is pretty cool and loaded with symbolism. I've also drawn his fairy form, and tried to keep the curly hat shape. He's green because of course, but also a little red for the color shift when he uses the shield spell.

At the bottom we have a rough idea for a shadow beast from Twilight Princess, because they were hugely influential to me and one of my favorite designs ever, though I think I have to refine this further.

Also a maneless lynel! No thoughts only big kitty.

[fantomette22]

As some know i am replaying Bloodborne.

I was wondering around Cathedral Ward and i just discover something… something a bit dark that i never noticed before. Wow i gained insight.

For everyone who played the game, you might be aware there’s a lot of tombstones, urns with bones and coffins in Yharnam right ? There’s even bones everywhere who are being moved.

We really arrived at the worst time 💀 everyone was really dying or trying to run away but failed (abandoned horse drawn)

Also it seems there some sorts of crematorium in Cathedral ward here in addition to Hemwick (i wont re tell all the theories on Hemwick but it’s were corpse are send to have bone marrow ash)

(The building on the left with the smoke)

So i noticed this « box »… i never really took the time to pay attention to it until now.

it’s not just a box. But a small coffin. A child’s coffin.

I took a closer look at it. And look what’s inside 💀

Do you see it now? The hand with the claws ?

I guess one big mysteries in Bloodborne is explain now. At least more clear. Children can contract the beast plague.

(+ there’s a messenger head on it. Something associated with children kinda)

Loran bastards are stillborn and contract it before birth but it wasn’t clear if they could be infected and how children were impacted by it. So do they die naturally because their body can’t support it ? Or.. does someone have to put and end to them? I don’t want to think too much about it…

An other child corpse we saw is where we found the beggar. And oh some of the Mensis corpse are children too 💀 (they’re not small foreigners) It’s complicated in video games to show graphically children deaths, that would cause problems. Fromsoftware always need to come up with way to integrated it astuciously so the world stay coherent. (That’s also why we never saw Gascoigne daughter… the player could have the choice to kill her and it’s a no no)

Update : ok there’s 2 skull in it 💀 (nothing in an other one) so yeah i guess it could be to deplaced bones like the the chalice dungeon (there’s small wood box with bones but they are differents) + that doesn’t explain the hand ? And well it make sense i guess…

Another update :

There’s more in Upper Cathedral Ward… at the Orphanage 💀

[mostlyincorrectdipandpip]

Writing Phan Fiction About Ourselves Stories

I literally just listened to the video, typed as fast as I could, then edited the red squiggles and formatted it to look nice. Let me know what edits need to be made!

Story 1 - The Dragon Prince by Dan Howell

Once upon a time, there was a boy named Dan, from House Fire, whose motto was, "The fire in our ass will never die" and from Phil, the House Amazing, the Kingdom of Squatting. They were sworn enemies whose houses had been at war ever since The Great Lamp Licking incident. One day, Dan was bathing his fiery drake, Kamala Harris, when he saw a glint in the refection of his gauntlet. It was a surprise attack from that scally wag, Phil. He mounted his dragon and yelled his signature war cry, "ZING!"

Phil looked down on the Fire Kingdom. "More like squishy kingdom!" But before he knew it, Dan was on his tail. He was so close he was practically on his toe. Their beasts, Kamala Harris and Markiplier, realeased flames at the same time, like a torrent of lethal piss. Double KO, they fell to the ground and loss consciousness. Dan awoke to find Phil's brain stuck in Dan's eye. He shouted, "Wow, this is a moist situation." Phil roused, gayly. "You saved me," he said.

They locked eyes and knew in that moment how futile their feud was. They saved each other, did they have to slay each other? In that moment, Phil felt something skipping down his hips. He swam as hard as he could and suddenly, he felt it. Phil had birthed a beautiful purple egg. Dan scoffed, "the prophecy is true! It's our child!"

"The legendary worm, and we shall name him Gary," said Phil.

THE END

Story 2 - The Princes by Phil Lester

Once upon a castle, in the Kingdom of Evony, there were two princes belonging to warring families. Tonight was the last time they would meet before the great battle. Danielo awoke, sword in hand as he heard a shuffle at the door. Philipus walked into hid bedroom wearing a panty.

"I didn't mean to disturb you, but I thought I'd tell you that my father is bringing a dragon into the battle, and also a large enchanted hippo." Danielo cried a single tear.

"I don't want to die for this stupid family. I just want to be a knight with you and help old ladies cross the street."

"Why must we spill blood?" Danielo smirked. "Glory and amazon coins."

Philipus says, "Since it's our final night together, I thought we could do our favorite activity, twerking together. It might make up a bit sweaty, but it makes me constipated."

As the sun rose, the two knights had fallen asleep in a hay field using rabbit shit as bedding. This was the morning of the battle, they would be rivaling sides, leading the charge against each other. Danielo few into battle on his dragon, Jeff, scanning lines for his prince, Philipus. Philipus raised his sword into the sky as he was silhouetted by the beast. This was not a fair fight. The war had begun, thousands were being killed. Philipus has a secret weapon, a medieval salami.

His best friend flew down from his dragon and approached him. They crossed swords.

"I can't do this, Philipus" screamed Danielo. "I want to move to North Korea and start our jobs as OnlyPhans' models."

Philipus tried to reason with him, but suddenly Danielo's dragon, Jeff, started to breath fire at them both. It was so hot that Danielo was on fire. He had one final word for Philipus.

"Yeee," as both knights burned to death. They were then eaten by the dragon as a toasty BBQ snack. They tasted like Takis Fuego. The dragon went on to kill all soldiers and both kings. It ruled the castle in a happy gay life with his dragon boyfriend, Alessandra and laid a dragon egg they called Kip. They never saw a human again. The Princes were always remembered as the tastiest snacks in the Kingdom.

Story 3 - The Big Sword by Phan Howlter

They stared at the intimidating shape, thinking, "damn, that is one crusty shaft". Two lowly village boys had found a cave filled with sour cream and onion pringles. One of us must grip this with our teeth. They know one of them would gain the power of hamster flicking.

"I believe its you!" Mr. Phil, the wet pauper, exclaimed.

"Thank you. I got this for you. It's my favorite Party Hat."

"We will never know which on of us is truly the chosen one," uttered Dan, sexily. "We'll have to do it together."

And so the boys stood wearing sports bras, daring to survive the cyclone threatening to bare down on the. They interlocked hands on the shaft as they thought of their favorite food, egg.

"Either we both become heroes, or we might as well become trump supporters."

They yanked it with the might of a thousand anteaters and it burst from the ground, but in that moment, a glint of greed in each boys eye. They wanted the greatness for themselves and all of the steak knives waiting for them in the village. So they tumbled as the blade ripped open their jockstraps and with boing, they knew it was over and they were both impaled on the sword. Gravity was pulling them closer, like a toilet lid. As their noses pressed together, the blood poured out of them like a hydro pump.

"I always knew it would end like this," says Dan.

"You mean scared and throbbing?"

"I wouldn't rather do this with anyone else."

Then they died. Then forever, their petrified bodies stood as a warning to all who sought glory, if you dare to thrust, you will get put on the naughty step.

(respectfully, this was like.... a hard launch right? Like this is the hardest lauch I have ever seen??)

[neko-loogi]

I'm back baby- oh yeah, it's time for another opinion post!

I'm going to briefly talk about this song. I don't have much to say about it so I'll go over this as quickly as possible..

Alright, so Poison, this song is um.. decent at best and somewhat repetitive at worst. When I first saw the post on the official Instagram account for Hazbin I was honestly pretty surprised that they made a song for Angel Dust already, which is one thing I'm actually going to complain about a little bit.

Like, the show isn't even fucking out yet and they're already posting songs from the series?? It's a bit weird if you ask me. if I was Viv, I honestly would've waited until the show was out to actually post the song on YouTube and hype it up. But whatever, she can do whatever she wants really, (even if her choices are hella questionable) but idc.

Anyway, I already heard the song. And all I can say is, it's not the worst thing I've heard. However I still prefer Addict a bit more than Poison, because the lyrics are actually pretty good and kinda catchy. (Also, I don't care what y'all think about Angel's original VA, it doesn't matter if he could sing or not, he did a pretty damn good job with the song so stfu). Which is another thing I wanted to mention, Angel's new VA is alright, I guess?? I mean, the guy can sing decently, but it's not like super wow or whatever. If anything he sounds like if Beast Boy from Teen Titans had a good singing voice.. yeah, that's all I can say about the voice really. (Although I have to admit, I like the last part of the song, because he actually makes Angel sound super distraught and heartbroken, so I'll give him points for that).

As for the lyrics, I don't really have much to say about them, he just repeats the word poison like twenty times and that's about it, which is the name of the song- so yeah.. The song isn't that amazing- not to mention that Viv only posted a lyric video on YouTube, which is fine I guess, but c'mon man I need visuals! All her other stupid songs have visuals and actually show the characters singing, so how come this song doesn't? It makes no sense!

This is why I think it's stupid of Viv to post the song before the show is even out yet! Because she's hyping the show up, so people get engaged and for what? She's not even going to post the show on YouTube! What's the point of all this damn hype? Jfc it's so stupid.

That's all I have to say about this song- this opinion post was kinda stupid and unnecessary but I don't think anyone else has been talking about this enough, so I felt the need to mention it.

Alright bye, I'll make another one of these real soon-

[simpingforcreamsoda]

I think it would be really funny if everyone who’s made a pseudo intellectual post harassing or justifying hatred of Jocat stubbed their toes all at once. Like seriously it pisses me off so much seeing (hypothetical name definitely in relation to nobody) peewhirlpool on twitter go “um, he’s horny but pretending to be wholesome so people should be MAD AT HIM” like touch grass and grow the hell up. You’re malding because someone drew himself on SFW dates with women from a meme template. Because he made a parody video comedically showing off his fictional crushes. Breaking news fucko, sometimes people are attracted to women. Sometimes, just sometimes, people might want to fuck women. Some people have the desire to have sex with women. It’s so crazy how that works, isn’t it? It’s ok, you can come out of the blanket when it stops being scary! I wouldn’t want some widdle Internet funny man with a cute lil puppydog pfp to learn what a sex drive is! Check your arms for any boo-boos, because I fucking guarantee a song cover of Lizzo’s “Boys” and a panel drawing of two people dancing like in Beauty in the Beast didn’t melt your face off like the nazis in Indiana Jones.

Jumpscare! When I was in elementary school I had a crush on Blaze the Cat! Nah that was tame, wasn’t it? Ok here’s a good one— sometimes I’ll see women in real life and think “wow, she’s super pretty.” Sometimes I’ll even think “Wow, she’s hot.” Lock me in fuckin Alcatraz, pissvortex. Oopsie, said the barely hidden name because like be real who’s reading this besides my mutuals. It turns out when you don’t actually harm or harass people in real life, and respect them as human beings, you’re allowed to have feelings.

Not even sure why I’m so mad about this. Maybe I’m not even mad, maybe I’m just baffled. So many people going after some DND and Final Fantasy YouTuber and not only doxxing him off platforms, but trying to mask it by saying “he gives me the ick! I bet he looks at hentai” (believe it or not, you can look at hentai and it’s not a crime also, but clearly some people aren’t ready for that conversation). It’s not even that you’re making baseless assumptions and forcing what you think is sin on an individual who has not made anything nsfw in these things other than a reference to the couch meme at MOST, those assumptions don’t fucking matter! Like genuinely why do you CARE if Jocat likes women? He ain’t doing shit! You’re pissing yourselves over DRAWINGS! So yeah, washed up tumblr funny guys, and everyone else who participates in this bullshit, honestly just shut your fucking mouth. You jagoff.

Oh and yeah, I know some of you are doing this because Jocat is nonconforming to stereotypical masculinity. Maybe a lot of you. I hope next time you eat a tootsie-pop you cut the roof of your mouth on a crack in its outer layer.

am I missing something? Oh yeah, and then hammers fly everywhere, now it’s a a joke that’ll get me harassed by a site mod.

[trashpandacraft]

ok, @craftychahuhu, this one's for you! but also for anyone else who might find it interesting. so we were talking about drafting fibre, and how to tell if it's hard to draft, and what it looks like when it's drafting well, and i was like, well, i have fibre and a camera, i can make this everyone's problem!

so: some fibre.

from the top left and going clockwise (ish):, the blue and yellow is rambouillet, the green is lonk, the dark blue is polwarth, the circle sort of in the middle is a merino/bond cross, the sausage is a rolag that i ended up not using in this but i'll talk about a little anyhow, and the dense white guy at the bottom left is corriedale.

let's talk about these fibres! i picked them for a couple reasons, but if i'm honest, the most pressing ones were that i had easy access to them and with the exception of the lonk, they're all fibres that i'd more or less group together into the 'very fine' category. no, they're not all identical, but for our purposes here, they're close enough. the lonk is a much coarser fibre, and it's here mostly to serve as a counterpoint to the rest—beginners are often pointed towards coarser fibres, and the lonk will make clear why that's the case!

(sidebar: if you have ideas about what i should do with the lonk, please feel free; i think i have about 300g and no specific plans.)

onward! let's talk about each of these individually.

blue and yellow rambouillet: this is commercial top that i dyed. i like rambouillet! it looks pretty ok! this fibre sucks.

green lonk: again, commercial top that i dyed. looks good. is actually good.

blue polwarth: wow, again, commercial top that i dyed. shocker. i love this and it's also actually good.

merino/bond circle: this is top that i processed from raw fleece and hand combed probably five minutes before i took this photo. again, it's good.

rolag: most people on tumblr are making rolags with blending boards and/or drum carders, and those are a very different beast to ones made on hand cards! handcarded ones are fluffy little sausages. i was going to show you this drafted out like i do the others, but honestly, rolags don't really draft like that. if there's a part two of this, i'll spin one to show the difference.

corrie: back to commercially processed top. it's also good.

because i wanted to show the difference between good fibre and bad fibre, i'm not actually spinning these, though i can do that if someone wants. instead, i'm predrafting them so that you can see how good fibre vs bad fibre looks.

i have to stress that this is a little subjective, but...uh, but it's my blog and i can talk about my opinions if i want.

more seriously, i've been spinning for over twenty years, and dyeing for probably ten of them, and i have a pretty good idea of what's reasonable to expect from fibre. that said, two things. first, i rarely predraft things, so what i'm doing in these videos isn't really part of my usual workflow. second, because of the limitations of my little tripod stand and the need for my hands to be in frame, i'm doing this in a very weird direction, so it's a little jerkier and less even than it would be under normal circumstances. i think it still conveys the point, though.

spare yourself the headphones—none of these videos have sound, because my neighbours who i hate are still doing fucking construction and the soundtrack to these is just like. clunking and whirring.

let's start with the corrie, which is pretty easy to find.

it takes me a minute to get started, but once i do, see how it pulls apart mostly smoothly? (the lack of smoothness in this and several of the other videos is the weird angle that i was talking about earlier.)

look at my wrists and hands. i have ehlers-danlos syndrome, so i'm more likely to use the middle joint of my thumb to pull, but other than potentially the weird thumb position, things are pretty loose. i'm not jerking on the top, my back hand is pretty loose, and all up, things move pretty smoothly.

this is what top should do. if you're having to really yank on it, if you have to dig your fingers into it, etc, it's not great top. it might still be usable, but you definitely shouldn't be using it as a starter fibre.

ok, so let's look at the polwarth, which for the purposes of this post we'll say is indie dyed. close enough.

as before, the weird angle isn't doing us any favours, but all things considered, this drafts out pretty easily. dyed fibre is almost always at least a little harder to draft than undyed is, but it shouldn't be that much harder.

again, you can look at my hands and fingers. the hand holding most of the fibre is still fairly loose—the thumb on that hand is doing most of the actual holding. it's more work than the undyed commercial stuff, but it's not difficult by any stretch of the imagination.

i also want to point out that i'm not a professional dyer! i'm just some guy who sometimes dyes things in their kitchen. if you're buying from indie dyers, it shouldn't be much harder to draft out than this is. (if you're buying from commercial places—ashford's dyed top, for example—it should draft more or less like the commercial corrie did.)

ok so next up, let's look at the handcombed top.

this drafts out so easy! handcombed top isn't as dense or as tightly packed as commercial top, plus all the fibres are going in the same direction, so it drafts out really smoothly.

last two. i think it's time to look at...the bad fibre.

fuckin yikes, hey. the weird thing about this one is that it basically looks ok—right until you get your hands on it. look how tight the hand holding the braid is. look how i'm trying so hard to get a grip on the part that i'm pulling out that my whole thumb flattens out, hoping to get more weight on it. look how my knuckles and my fingernails turn white!

the fibre doesn't want to move, and when it does, it's usually in a big clump that moves very fast, then immediately stops moving again.

fibre shouldn't be like this. this fibre is super compacted, and also a little bit felted. imo, if you buy from a dyer and get fibre like this—not just for the first few centimetres, but all the way through—you shouldn't buy from them again. this fibre is not being buddies.

but can you make it work? i wouldn't recommend it when you're learning to spin, but yeah, you probably can. i've used about half of this braid on various junk projects.

to make this more usable, you can split the braid in two (or more) pieces, unfold it as much as possible, and fluff it out. i've wondered if this would be a good application for steaming roving, but this is the only really compacted piece i have, so i haven't tried it.

it's still probably not going to be a joy to spin, but it can be usable, if you really want it to be. if you have the interest and tools, you might have better luck reprocessing it—i've used some of that braid practicing making rolags, for example, and it's been solidly fine for that, since i'm pulling it all apart anyhow.

if you're learning, though, and your fibre's behaving like this, please put that fibre down and try something else.

finally, let's look at the lonk!

again, nice loose grip, and despite being dyed, those fibres are totally happy to pull out pretty evenly. it drafts smoothly, and it requires very little effort on my part to do so. which is, i think, the big advantage to using coarser wools as a beginner, even if you don't love the texture of them. it's a lot easier to learn the movements on something that's not actively fighting you, and once you've got the movements down, it's a lot easier to do them on something that resists a little bit more.

i'm not saying you can't (or shouldn't) learn on the ultrafine merino of your heart or whatever, but if you're new to spinning and you're finding it a struggle, it's maybe worth trying some coarser fibres and seeing if that helps.

anyhow, hopefully that's an ok overview of how to tell if your fibre is actually doing what it's meant to do or not. if you think it'd help you to have a video of any of this being drafted while spinning, let me know—it turns out it's pretty easy to throw my phone in the little tripod thing and then clip out the bits that are useful.

[asordinaryppl]

A3! Seasonal Event - Anniversary Game: Episode 1

Azami: …

???: Oooi, Azami!

Azami: Hm?

Kumon: Good work today!

Azami: Kumon. And Tsuzuru-san and Juza-san…

Juza: Hey.

Tsuzuru: Are you on your way home from school too, Azami?

Kumon: What good timing! Let’s go home together, Azami.

Azami: Sure.

Kumon: Yay!

Azami: Why’re you so happy about this.

Kumon: I mean, it’s been a while since we went home together! And your uniform’s making me nostalgic.

Azami: Huh, it hasn’t even been that long since you graduated.

Tsuzuru: But when he was still in high school, you went home together often.

Azami: ‘Cause Kumon kept coming to my classroom to pick me up…

Kumon: We often went to family restaurants, ramen shops, and the batting center on our way home!

Juza: Kumon also came to pick me up after my lecture today.

Azami: You haven’t changed at all, even though you’re a uni student, have you.

Kumon: Who cares, why would I let the chance slip by, now that I’m in the same uni as Nii-chan!

Tsuzuru: But aren’t you lonely without Kumon around, Azami?

Azami: Not really.

Kumon: You say that, but I bet you really are lonely!

Azami: Haa!? No I’m not!

Azami: But, well… My school life has probably gotten quieter than it used to be.

Tsuzuru: Ahhh, I feel ya.

Tsuzuru: When Fushimi-san graduated, I started feeling lonely, even though I saw him at the dorm every day.

Juza: … Right.

-

Kumon: We’re baack.

Sakyo: … You really are a formidable opponent, Arisugawa.

Homare: No, you’re pretty good too, Sakyo-san. Have you improved since last time?

Tsuzuru: Oh, you’re having a chess match.

Kumon: Wow, seeing you play chess is so cool!

Juza: Who won?

Sakyo: Arisugawa. He’s like a beast at chess.

Azami: What, you lost, shitty Sakyo? How lame.

Sakyo: The hell did you say?

Tsuzuru: Now, now.

Homare: Sakyo-san was pretty good himself. It’s just that I was better.

Sakyo: What kinda follow-up is that…?

[Door opening]

Izumi: I’m home.

Juza: Welcome back.

Tsuzuru: Welcome back, Director.

Izumi: Oh, you’re playing chess! What timing…

Homare: Hm? Timing?

Izumi: Ah, no, it’s nothing…!

Kumon: By the way, can you play chess, Azami?

Azami: The rules are pretty similar to shogi, so I get what’s going on, but I wouldn’t say I can play.

Kumon: I see! But that’s still awesome! I wanna learn how to play chess one day.

Kumon: Should we look for some chess for beginners videos next time?

Azami: Sounds easy enough, why not.

-

Azami: (Gotta go to the music room next.)

Azami: (... Before, Kumon would call out to me as I walked through the halls.)

???: … I-Izumida-senpai!

Azami: ?

masterpost | next episode

[loftec]

Weekly Wednesday Saturday tag

Thanks to my pals @the-rat-wins @deedala and @wehangout for the tag! I had to wait until I got home from a work trip to do this, so I wouldn't go insane trying to format this beast on my phone <3

Name: Lofty

Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? (or you): Sweden

Ok, so this week we are going to snoop into your google search. Type in each phrase and tell us what the first suggestion is that google gives you!

What is the best way to… lose weight (not me.)

Where can I…watch (haha I ruined this one by accidentally googling "where can I watch" two seconds earlier because I thought it was part of the prompt)

How old is… Eminem (pfffh not me.)

How long does it take…to learn Japanese! (I don't think I've searched this because I know the answer (your whole life lol) but at least it's relevant to my interests).

How many… seconds in a day (interesting but not me.)

Who set the record for… the fastest time to reach one billion views on YouTube? (Extremely not me.)

When did… Russia invade Ukraine (...okay, also not me.)

What does it feel like to… be in love (actually not me.)

Can you… run it (What does this even mean? Not me.)

When you… say nothing at all (Not me, but now I've got this song stuck on my mind.)

Why do… es Sweden have so many islands? (Do we have an abnormal amount of islands? Not me.)

Is there a way… to save Karlach (whomst??? Oh, from the video games. Not me.)

How old do you have to be…to play fortnite (most definitely not me.)

Where do the… sturniolo triplets live (now you're just making things up, not me.)

What is the best time to… post on instagram (I might have searched this for work but not on this computer.)

And to finish us off…What comes up when you type in Shameless?Shameless cast (not me!) (Whenever I search Shameless things I always write [thing] shameless us, as in: "Ian Gallagher shameless us" when I need a reference image or something.)

Wow okay I think what I've learned today is that I never search things using standard question formats, so here are 10 random searches from my history, for free:

vermillion

off centre chau gif

is this a butterfly meme

sue charlton

Average temperature chicago september

farenheit to celcius

pysgod wibbly wobbly

running through a field

daffodils svenska

loftec cake potato

The few times I google as a question look more like this: WHY THE FUCK DOES IT SAY MY POST IS MADE WITH AI ON INSTAGRAM AND HOW DO I REMOVE IT?????? (recreation of a thing I actually googled yesterday) (answer was I probably accidentally ticked the AI box myself but also fuck off fuck off fuck off)

Not tagging anyone because it's Saturday, but also tagging anyone who wants to do this!

[tornioduva]

A thought on Botw's items

So, first of all, if you were left dissatisfied and somewhat angry by Totk, go watch this wonderful video and enjoy your catharsis:

So, after watching this my mind started to fix upon this godforsaken series again and, a thought about how the wild saga handles things and why.

Now, i'm not a seasoned game designer, i don't know shit on how to deliver these massive projects, and i'll admit i haven't done proper research like in interviews, manuals, artbook, ecc., this is all very much a stream of consciousness.

What i reflected on is how many of us struggled to really bite deep with criticism into the structural exploration systems of this games, because it apparently "works", and in a somewhat elegant and cohesive way. It's much more difficult to critique the decision of adding shrines, of the dungeons, of the pad tools, of the rewards, because it easily justifies itself with the various "time limits, sacrifices needed to be made, streamlined exploration" and so on; it's much easier instead to go to the throat of the story, or characters, or the durability, because it's a much more direct frustration i think.

But then again, thinking about Botw: was giving the player all of their tools right away really the only right decision?

I honestly think that having the player roam around hyrule, letting them explore and find obstacles for which the tools are required, and then giving them said tools, would've been much better. You would accumulate small frustrations here and there, places to return to, for which you would use those pins in the map, and then you'd have the satisfaction of having finally found the solution to your troubles and a unique reward from wherever you might've taken them.

"Sure", you might say, "but then all the major dungeon and "story areas" should take into accoutn wether you have them or not". ....Yes. what's the problem in that? maybe a character, like one of the descendant could say something along the lines of "if only we had a way to freeze the water to resolve this issue that i feel might be present in the divina beast" or similar, that way the beasts would be centered around fleshing out one mechanic. i guess that might make them a bit more monotonous, but i think not; they are already kind short and boring, they might as well be a a dungeon designed around fleshing out just one of your tools in a satisfying way.

That to me would've resolved a good amount of issues i have with it with the game already, because part of the joy of exploring, at least in the first like 10 to 20 hours, would've been the anticipation of finding a tool and to finally use it! and i'd have something more memorable to remember while roaming around than just pretty sunsets.

Also, this would resolve the B I G issue i have with the intro of both of this game, of it being an unskippable slog. If you remove all of the tutorial aspect out of it, and outsource it to a later, further away area of the game, you can reduce all the time the plateau takes out of you to like, an introduction to combat, crafting, effects and that's it, you're free after that.

plus i always found stupid that the game won't let you have the paraglider before finishing it. like, just leave the tutorial there if someone wants it, but le me find the paraglider as an object and then let me go down, it's not an essential item, just a convenient one; plus, if players went around hyrule without the paraglider, you could just remind them in other ways later on that they might find one on the plateau, or let them find another one in other areas of the game. that could've been fun: "where did you find the glider? here? really? wow, these devs really thought of everything, i found it there instead, and mike down south".

i dunno, i just don't want to think about botw as the only correct way of doing this kind of game.

[disneyparksattractionstournament]

Disney Parks Animatronic Tournament: Bracket A/Tier 1 Round 1

Belle and Prince Adam: Enchanted Tale of Beauty and the Beast(2020-current) - Tokyo Disneyland

Propaganda:

"That entire ride has so many incredible and impressive animatronics but these two (which are joined so I’m counting as one) are dancing and lifting feet and wow" "The animatronics from the ride are so incredibly expressive and life-like, and the dance and transformation are my two favorite moments from the ride. How the dance works in particular, making it look like the beast is really was really walking through the steps, is just incredible.

(Video is already set to start at the point of the animatronic! If it doesn't, go to 7:29) 

Tiana: Tiana's Bayou Adventure (2024. Note, this ride has not opened yet, but we do have a little preview of one of the Tiana animatronics) - Magic Kingdom Disney World and Disneyland

Propaganda:

"Princess and the frog is such an unsung gem of a movie!!" "Super expressive and fluid movements"

[pocket-gems]

Question, how are you so good at art? I mean, it’s all subjective really but your specific art and colour combinations really tickle that itch in my autistic brain.

I've been drawing since I have memory. One of my earliest memory was at maybe 5, drawing Spyro. I started drawing gems at 15 maybe? A lot of the gemsonas from that era are lost to time, but I do remember they were requests (wow, me doing free art? Unheard of!).

Started taking art more seriously when I started this blog, at 2019. I have no job and by the time I was dealing with some serious depresssion shit so when I was sad I took drawing as a therapy. I drew a lot. So I still draw a lot since it's what I'm used to do or else it feels weird haha. I can guarantee your skills will improve on a speed demon level if you have no job and aren't the type of person that likes going outside.

Now more seriously, between 2019 and 2024 a lot of time happens. Art takes a while and one can get mentally burn, so while my hands rest, I can take my time to improve and get stronger. Mindlessly drawing can make lineart and coloring faster but designing can get weirder in the sense of not knowing what to do and just overcomplicating things. Here's my favourite example, good 'ol Blizzard! And I'm still not happy with the damn thing! Art can be personal, art can be a challenge, art can be fun, depends on how you take it. All you have to do is not to give up.

Art feels like a beast to dominate, you need to understand it to break it (I say this as a self-taught artist). No one, and I repeat, NO ONE, starts drawing good. If you don't draw good at the first time, don't give up. You don't like it? Too bad! Art is subjective and just because you don't like it, it doesn't mean someone else won't either. You don't like it because you saw the full progress, of course it doesn't surprise you. But it can surprise someone else!

This drawing right here is the FIRST digital drawing I made (I already drew a lot of paper, I'm sure you can tell haha). I used no layers because I had no idea they existed. Same gang ages later. And they still need to be updated!

Art is constant practice. A commission? Oops, it's actually practice regardless of how serious it is because in the future you will get better, you just have to not give up.

About the whole colouring part, I usually don't overthink it much. If it fits, it sits. BUT I do put it to a test. Does it have a lot of neon colours? Does it look cool? Then I have a problem because if I put that to greyscale and I can't see any difference because it all becomes a grey mass that's an issue. That and limiting the palette, depending on the character's complexity.

Per example when I draw on my art-style (hiii new followers who don't know my art style), I have to play with greyscales a lot to make sure all details can be seen.

I'm sure you get the point by now. I really want to do a video someday reacting to my pile of sketchbooks full of old drawings and do more lessons and all that stuff haha. It's not just about "drawing a lot since old age", that's boogus. It's more about "drawing a lot, having patience, learning from mistakes, research about art and keep drawing".

I'm sure I missed a bunch of things to say, hope that helps anyway! ^^

[a-student-out-of-time]

Hello there its been a while since you heard anything from me eh? Well I’ve been busy with life and stuff, also Palworld is a massive distraction but that’s neither here nor there, but on more important news I’m making progress on the ASOOT Video Game draft idea. Inspiration struck me so I’m not only getting the writing out of the way but also the drawings of the various enemies and bosses.

And as a sneak peak, here’s one of the enemies, a early Quantum enemy I call the Clock Roach. You see enemies are divided into variious categories and as you can imagine Quantum enemies are in the vast majority of dungeons due to the very nature of the Quantum Zone. Its easier the list the dungeons they don’t appear in which off the top of my head is two and they’re tutorial dungeons.

All Quantum enemies will be based on various time travel concepts and tropes. I figured the Clock Roach is a good weak early enemy for Hajime and co to squish. Though as you would imagine from a loathsome insect they have some decent evasion, especially on higher difficulties. As the game progresses, they will phase out as bigger, nastier Quantum enemies come along. (I’ve been eying a certain beast from the Cthulhu Mythos which is said to hunt time travellers which would make a fantastic mid-late game enemy.)

Anyway this your enemy sneak peak. My next sneak peak is of a more important character, but this is something to whet your appetite before the draft comes out. Hope to see you all soon! - Review Anon

//Oh wow, that’s really cool! Ty for sharing ^^

//I love the little clock faces : P

//If you want another idea for a common enemy type, I’d suggest Time Flies, in reference to the saying “Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.”