#and finally . a bunch of highland hopes stuff

[digitalsimpsonspark]

sorry for inactivity!!! have a bunch of whiteboard fox doodles :3

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #629

Top Ten Actors Who Could Play James Bond (2024 Edition)

Dum-dada-dum-da-da-da, dum-dada-dum-da-da-da, DA-DA, da-da-dum. Yes, it’s that time again; time to needlessly speculate without any provocation about the casting of an iconic role.

This particular bout of “who will it be” is, of course, prompted by reports that erstwhile Quicksilver and future Kraven Aaron Taylor-Johnson has been offered the role of James Bond. Now, it’s fair to say that this remains a rumour; indeed, if I was a betting man, the very fact that this rumour has come out suggests to me that it isn’t, in fact, true. But it’s still got me thinking about who could be Bond; after all, the gap between the last film, 2021’s No Time to Die is ever-growing, and they usually like to be pretty speedy about these things.

Daniel Craig’s tenure as Bond is somewhat ridiculous, because even though at five films he’s not the most prolific in the role (behind both Connery and Moore), he was technically in the role for a whopping fifteen years. So long, in fact, that when Spectre came out, I actually did a list speculating who could replace him, and even that was nine years ago.

Anyway, we’re at it again; who could play Bond? And that’s what this list is all about, if you haven’t guessed. As usual, I’ve come up with some Rules, because that’s what separates us from the animals. First of all, these actors have to be British. Or Irish. Or maybe, at a push, Australian. Well, they have to be from the Commonwealth, at least. No Americans – that’s the takeaway. No Americans. Secondly, I have decided that they should be under forty. No offence to ancient people, especially the hideously decrepit 42-year-olds; but after Craig spent so long playing a variation on Old Man Bond, I think we should focus on a sprightly young chap. Presumably they’re going to be in this role for, what, six years? Ten? So I think it’d be best to plump for someone in their thirties, better to avoid Moore-style stunt-person-itis in their later films. I mean, look at Chris Hemsworth; it feels like he’s been Thor for a million years, but he’s only just turned forty. Maybe he really is Asgardian. Finally, I’ve picked all blokes. Why? Well, as much as I’m in favour of gender-neutral casting – or outright gender-swapping (if you’re gonna remake Highlander, Karen Gillan is right there) – I do feel that James Bond is, well, a bloke. The line between it not being a big deal or even positive to fuss about with a character’s gender is as blurry as the concept of gender itself, but I just feel like James Bond is a bloke.

That’s it. Now pay attention, 007…

Kingsley Ben-Adir: possibly the oldest actor here, but easily one of the most charismatic. He can be intense and brooding, with serious dramatic roles under his belt; but he’s also done more action-y stuff, big Hollywood stuff, and been a romantic lead. And he’s a Ken. Come on! He danced at the Oscars! Plus he had to be in Secret Invasion, he could do with a break.

Regé-Jean Page: he’s got the suave part down better than anyone (Bridgerton), he can do commanding and authoritative (Dungeons and Dragons), he’s even dabbled in action with The Gray Man. He’s done his bit in the Brit TV coal mines and has proven his acting chops. Look, just picture him in a tux with a martini. He’d rock it, shaken or stirred.

Henry Golding: absolutely nails it in the looks-good-in-formal-wear stakes. He’s tall, he’s attractive, he’s done his share of romances. And he kicks ass like the best of them; of all the guys on this list, he’s probably the closest to being a proper flat-out action star. And if you were hoping Bond was a Henry Cavill type, he’s the best of the bunch.

Dev Patel: the first three guys are broadly similar, in that they ooze traditional suavity. Patel, I think, possesses a looser, fuzzier air; think of the out-of-place charm he brings to the likes of Slumdog or Best Exotic. He’s so naturally charming, you’ll always root for him; but he can really bring the edge, the darkness, the rage. From the looks of Monkey Man, he can bring the thunder too.

Robert Pattinson: tall, lantern-jawed, traditionally gorgeous, with immaculate hair. He’s a superb actor, he can wear the hell out of a suit, he can be funny if he needs to be, he’s not afraid to puncture his own aura, and he’s cool in a Vintage Brad Pitt kind of way. However: can a person be both Batman and Bond?

John Boyega: arguably a bit shorter and scrappier than the other actors on this list, Boyega nevertheless is both a tremendous actor and a ball of screen-incinerating charisma. The Force Awakens really showed how, when put to good use, he can charm anyone off the screen – even, just about, Harrison Ford. I’m not really sure he’d want to be Bond, mind, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask.

Connor Swindells: possibly one of the lesser-known names on the list, and also one of the youngest; he’s part of the ensemble of Sex Education, where he’s very good indeed. He’s also a big, broad, square-jawed fella with a look of John Cena about him; he’d definitely convince as a buff, tough Bond. But he can do sweet and vulnerable incredibly well.

Will Poulter: like Daniel Craig, he probably wouldn’t be everyone’s first thought when it came to Bond; but like Craig, he’s got depths and charm galore. He can be supremely likeable very easily, but also play layers of depth and darkness. And I don’t know if you’ve seen him lately, but he’s hench now. If he’s not Bond, they really need to give him an Adam Warlock solo movie.

Paul Mescal: Mr. Flavour-of-the-Month, he’s the hot new star on the rise. He’s young, good-looking, charismatic; he has a glint in his eye, oodles of charisma. He’s about to star in the sequel to Gladiator, when he’s sure to look ripped with his shirt off and garner even more fans. In fact, it’s quite likely that he’s so hot right now, that there’s no way he’d do Bond. But he’d be good at it.

Nicholas Hoult: what can’t he do? Everyone’s favourite War Boy has the tall, lithe physique, plus a playful, flirtatious sense of humour that makes him convincing as a romantic lead. He made being a zombie sexy, for flip’s sake. And he can do the action stuff. In short, he’d be terrific, but he’s probably going to be too busy terrorising Superman for the foreseeable.

[hawkland]

My (mostly) Destiel Recs, Round-up #6

Well, between working like crazy on my DCBB fic and GISH and injuring my neck last month I haven’t kept up with my rec posts, so this one is going to be LONG and have a LOT and I’m going to try to break it up into sections, from oldies but goodies (some things I found on very old rec lists) to smutty delights to just tasty little bits of fluff, hopefully there’s something or everyone here. Most of these are not super-long, largely in the 10-25k range, though there are a few beyond that. With all the stuff I’ve had going on I haven’t wanted to lose sleep diving into 100k epics (especially when I’m writing my own right now, lol.)

“Oldies” but Goodies:  Here are two great fics written some time way back when but that still definitely slap.

Theodicy by manic_intent (11k) - Probably the most brilliant Godstiel fic I’ve read to date. One of Cas’s first acts as the new god is to make a new archangel. Dean isn’t exactly on board with having his soul re-sculpted into wings he hates on sight (especially as they seem magnetically drawn to Cas), but he isn’t exactly given a choice. He, Sam and Bobby struggle with how to handle their former friend suddenly becoming a vindictive deity - trying to make plans to kill him if they must, which is pretty hard when it seems like Cas is always one step ahead of him. Can Dean hold on to enough of his humanity to provide a conscience to Cas and try to steer him toward good acts instead of destruction? This is one that I can’t say has a perfectly happy ending, but it’s a hopeful and imperfect one that’s just right for how the story plays out. 

My Eyes Are An Ocean by entanglednow (10k) - Season 5 AU where Dean averts the apocalypse through a spell that “powers up” all the angels and he sees Cas’s true form - before being rendered blind. Dean tries to adjust to his blindness, Cas tries to deal with his guilt, and it’s just a lovely little read with an ending that’s... *chef’s kiss*

Lots more recs below the cut:

More great reads from some of my favorite authors I’ve recced before:

The Cabin on the Lake by DeanRH (21k) - This may be my new favorite DeanRH fic...at least for the moment. The year is 2152, Sam and Dean are long gone to Heaven, while Cas - stuck somewhere between mortal and angel - remains on Earth keeping vigil, keeping up the hunt, assuming he’ll never see either Winchester ever again. But when he starts hearing things, and imagining Dean visiting him as an angel himself, he starts losing grip on what is and isn’t real, and whether he can trust anything he sees or believes to be the truth. This is one hell of a psychological rollercoaster that kept me guessing right along with Cas until the very end. It also has some super-creepy horror elements, a novel “monster of the week”, and the hot-as-sin smut scenes I always expect from this author.

X Marks the Scot by DeanRH (15.9k) A fun little romp through history in one of this author’s great not-quite-au fics. Crowley sends Dean and Sam back in history to the Scottish Highlands to stop a monster, and while there they meet a blue-eyed clan chief who makes Dean weak in the knees. There’s something familiar about him, too. a very clever au that ties back to canon for an unexpected fix-it. Also, Cas in a kilt. Enough said.

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon by DeanRH (12k) - Sweet and slightly angsty AU. What if Dean was a gardener in ancient Babylon when a strange dignitary came to warn that the tower under construction was to be destroyed by angels? Lush, romantic and sexy with some wonderful tie-ins to canon characterizations (of Dean, Sam, John and of course Cas).

sufficient for thee by angelfishofthelord (21k) - This is a beautiful Cas angst-fest and character study that reimagines how angel grace works, particularly in regards to healing others. It covers the whole of Cas’s arc from Season 4 through a post-series fix-it, is absolutely stunning and features some great world-building in regards to the angels. (One important TW: those with cutting/self-harm issues may wish to skip or at least proceed with caution). I love that I can always count on angelfishofthelord when I need a good dose of Cas!whump and pain.

And laugh at gilded butterflies by ireallydidthistomyself (13k) - another great Dadstiel fic from this author featuring one of my favorite angsty subjects! I don’t know how I missed reading this one before. An AU where Cas is raising (baby)Jack on his own until the angels find the two of them and prepare to seal Jack away in the Ma’lak box. Cas begs them to let him go with Jack, so at least Jack won’t be alone for eternity. Meanwhile Dean is frantically trying to find what happened to Cas, and he gets some unexpected help from Crowley.  It’s sad and sweet and all the characterizations are great. A+ Crowley use here, too.

what stays (and what fades away) by dothraki_shieldmaiden (64k) - a fabulous read with some great art, too, that started me reading a bunch of fic from this author. Cas goes missing, and when he’s found he seems deep under a spell. When they finally manage to awaken him, he doesn’t remember anything of this life with Dean, Sam and Cas in the bunker. The last thing he knew he was a nurse living with his wonderful husband, Dean, and their two adopted children, Jack and Claire. What I loved about this one was the clever twist as to who was behind Cas’s curse and also how well-developed his AU world/existence was. I’m not generally keen on mundane aus or the one-dimensional way a lot of djinn dream fics tend to go for them, but this one managed to capture a believable version of Dean and Cas living a “normal” life without monsters without making it sugary/too-sweet. 

before knowing remembers by dothraki_shieldmaiden (14k) Post 15x04, a wonderful fic that plays with some meta topics in a clever way. Dean and Sam are happy - they have free will and they’ve won against Chuck, even if they suffered some big losses along the way (including Jack). But Dean can’t help but think he’s forgetting something...or rather, someone. Yet every time he thinks he remembers, the name and face of that someone slips from his mind. 

weights on my ankles by dothraki_shieldmaiden (9k) Post-15x03 where Cas ends up going back to the Gas ‘n Sip and working with Nora after leaving the bunker. A bitter sweet divorce-arc AU and what I love the most is how it ends - not perfect, not tragic, just very real and believable. 

15x18 and Post-canon fix-it fics:

Orbital Velocity Around a Celestial Body by LeverDrift (26k) - An angsty but lovely fix-it fic, one where it gets worse for a while before it gets better. Dean pulls Cas from the Empty, where he’d been living in a fantasy world with a dream!Dean who was giving him everything real!Dean is certain he can’t. Dean has to struggle with wondering if Cas would have been better off with dream!Dean instead of him. This is one that will break your heart before putting it back together again as Dean struggles with his self-worth issues.

so good at crashing in by Wintertree (36k) - Another post-finale fix-it where Cas is back, the world is saved, and things are still...not as easy as it should be for either Dean nor Cas. Monsters are gone, there’s no more hunting to be done, and Cas wants to move out of the bunker somewhere closer to Claire, to move on with a proper human life. Dean thinks he can move there with Cas and stay as “best friends”, even to the extent that Cas encourages him to go out and have sex with others/women. (And wants to hear about it after the fact!) But can Dean figure out what he really wants, and what Cas wants as well? A refreshingly unique take on what a post-series life could have looked like for them.

Delicious smut:

Empty by squirrelofcelestialintent (43k) - Every day this fandom makes me rethink my previous squicks and DNWs in fanfic. Here I find myself enjoying quite a bit more dom/sub elements than I normally ever would! I think because I was absolutely drawn in by the breathtaking first chapter, capturing beautifully the emotions of Cas returning from the Empty in Season 13 if he and Dean had confessed their feelings right then and there. But Dean’s self-worth is all fucked up, he feels there’s no way he can be good enough for Cas, especially when his sexual desires run a little bit...let’s just say outside the vanilla and he’s struggling with shame over doing sex work when he was younger. This was HOT and POOR SAM really gets stuck in the middle of, well, hearing more about his brother’s sex life than he ever needed to.

He's My Mate by Hatsonhamburgers (22k) - This fic manages the delightful combination of humor and extreme hotness perfectly. Dean and Cas catch each other in some questionable masturbation situations. This leads Cas to decide he needs to buy Dean some proper sex toys. He’s just helping his best friend out, right? Sure. As I said, hysterical AND hot as hell. 

Generals by nanoochka (9k) - Cas/Dean, Cas/Balthazar/Dean, implied past-Cas/Balthazar. An old LJ fic I found on an ancient rec list that is just scorching hot and a brilliant character study of Cas and Dean. Balthazar decides to invite himself in when he catches Dean and Cas engaging in some frisky business, and it turns into a bit of a power-play between the two soldiers of Heaven. Cas gets DP’ed and it’s all...well. It’s fucking good, read it.

The One With The Preening by HolyFuckingHell (5.5k) Can I do a rec post without including some wing!kink/wing!grooming in it? No, I can’t. (I also really enjoyed some of the other fics in this author’s series including The One With Dean's Horny Movies).

A Single Point of Light by Destina (2.4k) - This is a gorgeous Cas/Dean/Benny Purgatory short! A delicious balance of the two each caring for and caring about Dean in their own, protective ways, definitely a delight for any fans of this threesome.

Short and sweet, fluff to angst:

Snugglebird by almaasi (5.3k) - So, so soft and sweet and snuggly, just like the title. Dean’s things are disappearing from the bunker...and so, suddenly, has Cas. What’s going on? I do love my nesting!Cas fics, so...yeah. If you need a smile this is a good one to read :)

And Cleanse Me From My Sin by thisisapaige (1.6k) - another one for my beloveds who also enjoy wing grooming and sweet Dean-taking-care-of-Cas fluff.

Needle and Thread by Misachan (4k) - Season 5 wing!fic hurt/comfort. Cas’s wings are badly injured, Dean doesn’t quite know what he’s doing, but he’s stitched up Sam and himself enough times. He can do this. If you love caretaker!Dean and vulnerable!Cas don’t overlook this little gem.

Deceptive Preludes by sp8ce (2.7k) - One of those stories that delves into some of the difficulties Cas might have after coming back from the Empty a second time, especially in regards to accepting what’s real or not, understanding Dean, and how both of their communication issues can add to their struggles. Painful but hopeful for the future, felt very believable as I read it.

[snowwhitelass]

New Outlander Game Coming – Talking with the Game Designers

By:  Erin Conrad, June 15, 2021

Gamers Corner, TV News

Outlander game, Sony, Starz Outlander, Variable Outcomes

Who wouldn’t want to dash around the Highlands with Jamie, trying to be his favorite, and rescuing him from trouble on the way? That definitely sounds like a fun time, even if all you can do is dream about it. Or IS that all you can do?

NO! Sometime this fall, a brand new board game will debut – Outlander The Series! Designed by the husband and wife team of Matthew and Ashley Killeen, the game will let you play with a bunch of your friends, meeting familiar faces along the way, and getting in and out of all kinds of scrapes. The game will be available for holiday shopping, so you can start to set up your Outlander game nights now. I had the opportunity to talk with Matthew and Ashley about the development of this new game, and learned some details.

From the game’s marketing information: “His fate is in your hands! Step through the stones of Craigh Na Dun and run through the Scottish Highlands with the handsome Jamie. The year is 1743, and the outlaw James Fraser is at your side as you navigate the thrills and dangers of the Highlands. Use your wit, reach the right locations, make the right friends, and gather the items you need, all while keeping Jamie out of the hands of the many who would do him wrong. The gallows await fair Jamie (or worse!) should you fail. Fulfill your destiny, and win his heart. Only then will victory be yours!”

Outlander is the Killeen’s first big franchise game. “From a business point of view, it’s something I always wanted to do,” Matthew said. “I enjoy games with an IP license attached, TV show or movie, and I have designed prototypes that might be good for Ghostbusters or Star Trek. I really wanted to get into that.” Ashley knew Matthew was interested in trying a licensed game, and said “I’ve been watching Outlander, you should make a game based on that.” Matthew hadn’t yet seen the show, so he said “you do it” – and she did.

Ashley didn’t get into the show until season three. “The first version (of the game) was based on the book, because I thought that might be the avenue to go. But it ended up being more layers to secure the book rights than TV. We heard back from Starz/Sony quickly, and the show and book were similar enough that I didn’t have to change too much from initial design. I swapped out characters and items that didn’t translate from one to another. Jamie still has same event encounters, the same enemies. It’s nice to look at both sides, to really put in all those little hidden tidbits from show. I’m hoping that fans of the show will enjoy all those subtle things that I’ve put in. But the other thing we wanted to make sure was that it was not dependent upon being familiar with the show, because the last thing you want is a game with Outlander masked on top of it that doesn’t play as anything on its own. And having a lot of friends who knew nothing about Outlander, how could I get them to the table?”

Matthew said, “One of philosophies for the board game stuff was that I’ve seen games that were maybe like a movie spin on top. Is this fun or exciting because of the game, or just because of the movie or tv show tie in? And one reason, the biggest reason why I got excited was when I first played it, I had never seen the show. I knew nothing about it. I had never seen the characters, and yet, I still enjoyed it. It was a good game.” Ashley added, “He has since seen the show.” Matthew continued, “That’s another thing that’s always bothered me. I feel like if a certain publisher or game designer makes something but doesn’t know the back story, that’s lazy. As soon as I found out we were going to do this, I watched the show. I know all my lore now. I was obviously able to play the game again once I knew the show and the lore, and it made the game play better.” “You understood my decisions,” said Ashley. “Exactly,” said Matthew. “Whether you know the show or not, it’s a good game.”

Ashley discussed their process: “I started December 2019. This past December, we were finally able to go forward. We got the contract from Sony in November. It was a long process! We got approvals for the design of the game, and access to the virtual library. We could figure out images that would go with the components we had.” Once they had that, Matthew figured out the graphic design for the game.

Was Sony/Starz helpful? Enthusiastic? Ashley said, “They were enthusiastic. They didn’t really have a board game. They had Destiny Dice, but that wasn’t the same thing.” (For my review of Destiny Dice, a game that came out a couple of years ago, click here.) I’ve had reservations about this previous game, so I asked how they overcame the failings of that one to make this new game. My concern with a platform like this is that the show is so big and layered – a group of women will come together over a glass of wine or three, and are they going to be able to figure it out easily enough to have a good time in an evening? Ashley feels that the new game will let us do that. “The idea behind this was that we wanted to bring everybody to the table – people whose board games lives consisted of Scrabble for their whole lives, and those who have played campaigning, like Mage Knights, epically, every week. We want to bring both those sets to the table. It should be intuitive enough once you’ve figured out the first turn order. It’s the repetition of that, it’s just your personal strategy that changes on what you choose to do, but the game play isn’t going to change on you as you go.”

She added, “But there’s enough in there that if you are an experienced board game player, you’re not sitting there bored waiting for the next thing to happen. That was our goal, as many people at the same table as possible enjoying it at the level they’re at. You can have the game player who knows nothing about Outlander, and you can have the Outlander fan who doesn’t play board games, and they will have a good evening. We also tried to be strategic about the length, because you don’t want to have just a tease of a game, because then you can’t be really invested and immersed in that world, but we also know, especially being parents now, you don’t have time to spend four hours on a game. That’s not going to happen any more. What’s a good length? If you can watch an episode of Outlander, you can play a round. So we wanted to find something that made sense. A lot of these pieces, once you apply a little logic to it, they fell together really nicely.”

This is the first “franchise” game the Killeens have designed. The fascination with board games started in 2004, and in 2011, Matthew began to design games as hobby. “I enjoyed playing, but in between then I was going to school and forgot about it. As school was winding down, I really got into it. I created an educational game called Witchful Thinking. We’re both teachers, and when doing practicum, the teacher (that he was working with) had kids doing games for math. but they were really boring, and the kids didn’t like it at all. I remembered I had a game that worked for this! I started looking at my business from a professional point of view, filling in gaps in the market. I wanted to bring people to a table they hadn’t been to yet. Witchful Thinking is a card game – witches brewing potions, teaching math – subtraction, addition, pre-algebra, and more advanced math. It was a great educational tool.” The company has more ideas – they have an upcoming Kickstarter for a game called Tennessee James, an Indiana Jones parody (learn more here). Matthew says that the company expects to bring out many more titles – “Between the two of us, we have a backlog of designs.”

When do they expect to have this out? Matthew said definitely for the Christmas season. “I am working with manufacturers right now, trying to iron out some of those details, but we’re going to be moving into manufacturing right now. It depends on how long it takes to do the mass production plus shipping, but I would estimate this would maybe in stores (or online retailers) by October. That’s probably a good estimate.”

Did they do a lot of testing? “We needed especially non-Outlander fans to play this game. The Outlander fans, it didn’t take a lot of convincing to get them to play,” said Matthew. “Even before there were pictures on the cards, they knew the board, they knew the characters. So even if you had a blank piece of paper that just said Murtagh on it, they know what it means. I wasn’t worried about the Outlander fans, and the game play is pretty intuitive, once you go through the steps. So once you’ve done a round, you can keep going around, no problem. So we were just like, ok, you don’t know what these names mean and where these places are, but you’ve got a bit of the information, are you on board? And so far the reaction has been, yes, I feel like I’m playing a game, even if they don’t know who Jamie is or anything like that.”

He continued, “The tall and short of it is that this that this has been play tested thoroughly. It’s not broken, and the most important part is that it’s fun.” Ashley added, “It’s a nice balance of cooperative, nobody wants Jamie to come to any harm, but you still want to be his favorite. So you can get a little catty, and that’s what makes the fun. You’ll be adding something a little stronger to your tea nights once you start playing that way.”

Matthew said, “One of my strategies for play testing is that I like to try different strategies each time and see what works and what doesn’t .Ashley laughed, “You played mean one time.” “Yeah, it’s my wife, I’ve got to play nice, right? But one time, I didn’t play nice, and I took a competitive edge, and it was awesome,” he said. So players, remember that!

“When I was working on Witchful Thinking, I was looking to put it into Walmart and Target. But they don’t want to talk to the independent company, they want to make sure they’re getting multiple products from the same distributors. So we want to make sure that the distributors that we get are also trying to get the game out there. I do have distribution in the US for Witchful Thinking, and they’re excited to take on this one.”

What was your favorite part of the game, as you play it, I asked? Ashley said, “I like the QuickSave. This is a component we have because Jamie is always going to move in a predictable pattern, and the three villains he’s trying to avoid – Black Jack Randall, the Redcoats and the Watch – those are all the Meeples that are going to be moving around. As you are collecting friends along the way, if you happen to be en route to an Encounter, you can use the special abilities from your friends. So maybe it’s Dougal who is going to be discarded, and that will be a Quicksave to put Jamie back in hiding, so the game’s not over, you haven’t captured him yet. I like that idea, the Quicksave. So you’re strategizing, not just for what’s going to give you a lot of Favor from Jamie to try to win his heart in the game, but where are these people going to help me if Jamie is in a pickle. Because he’s going to get himself in a lot of pickles.”

As he does on the show, I said! Ashley continued, “And as a designer, that’s a fun way for me to tie in the personality of the characters. There’s a reason why they have the values that they do. There was a little argument between us in the design phase, because I made Willie – Willie Mackenzie from the first season – he has this hidden kind of superpower that most of the time, he’s a bit weaker, but when the danger level’s up, he’s strong. Matt was criticizing that, ‘he’s a minor character, why is he so strong?’ But you haven’t been paying attention. Because when Jamie’s in Wentworth, it’s Willie who’s willing to go. So that’s his power, when things are toughest, he’s the one that can save the most. I was having fun finding those little nuggets, the lore, that fans love, and if you’re paying attention to how I’ve designed it, you’ll start seeing like why you get more Favor in some places, or more Wit, or why you have the saving abilities.”

The women playing will like seeing that, I agreed. “I think that we’ve got it so that your favorite characters, from S1 at least, this is just in the Highlands, you’re going to see them, I think they’ll do you proud,” Ashley says. “We’re still excited about it, even though it’s been a year and a half doing it, so I think that says something about it, that we can still be passionate about it, little choices like that, I think the game has life.” Ashley told me that she has ideas for additional Outlander games to follow each season, so this may go on for quite a while!

As their cute kids came into the room, I asked if game design was full time, or is this an extra job? Ashley said, “I’m a full time teacher, so I’m squeezing this in between the report card writing and the classroom stuff. With a bunch of changes with Covid, it’s made more sense for Matthew to stay home, so we decided to go all in, make this run for itself.” Matthew said, “I can speak from the graphic design standpoint – I didn’t design the gameplay, Ashley did that, but I offered suggestions here and there, it was her decision on things, and she made some great decisions. And between that, I did the playtesting and the graphic design in January and early February, I’ve put in hundreds of hours, not just with the graphic design, but also the business stuff too, figuring out social media posts, getting things approved by Sony, talking with the distributors. So this has been not just like a full time job, but overtime, I’ve put in some serious hours for this.”

Since this is the company’s first big license, I asked if is this something they want to continue. “Absolutely,” Matthew said. “And I knew that when I turned this into a hobby back in 2011. I enjoy making board games. I enjoying making movies, watching movies, reading books, all that stuff. I needed some sort of creative outlet. And this was it. I enjoy tabletop games, so I found a business that I’m passionate about. But I found over the years, since I am a small business, I had to learn everything. I can do the game design, I can do the graphic design, the IP stuff, social media, the PR, distribution. I have all those experiences, so if I can continue this, I’ll be very happy.”

Price point for the game should be $48.99 CA (US equivalent is about $40). And it will be available in the US, and more – Matthew says, “The territories we have with Sony are Canada, USA, UK, Australia and France. We’re a small family run company, but at the same time, this is a big license. So we want to do the fans proud, we want to do this IP proud, so we want to give the biggest reach that we can.” Ashley said, “We’re limited because we’re not the distributors, so once we put it in those hands, it’s really up to those stores that want to put it on their shelves. So until we know where they’re placing it, I can’t tell you ‘oh, pick it up here.’ ” Matthew agreed. “I have experience with all of that, so when I made Witchful Thinking and released that, I had a hard time getting distribution. So I went store to store, city to city, and I made those contacts myself. For me as a business owner, I’m not just one of those owners who throws money out and does it. I have experience in all these aspects. So when this game comes out, let’s say that distribution doesn’t have as far of a reach as possible, I’ll make it happen. With Covid especially, the online market is important.”

“From a business standpoint, we’re a new company,” Matthew said. “It seems that we’re very new to this but that’s not really the case. This game has been been in development for a long time, and between the two of us we have 20+ games in prototypes. So we definitely know how to make games, and make games fun. And the fact that we’re both teachers, I think makes it even better. Because as teachers, we have to know how to sell to an audience.” ” And explain the games,” Ashley added.

PRE-ORDER THE GAME RIGHT HERE! Three if by Space has the game available for pre-orders in our Collectibles shop!! Click here to go to the pre-order page!

[just-call-me-the-intrusive-thot]

Au in the Percy Jackson world (logicality 👀)

@patton-cake I’ve also never read any of the books, but I’m a lot more familiar with the basics of series, and I’m working on an AU that deals with Gods and such anyway!  I’ve got a little bit of ad-libbing to do so lemme know how this sounds!

- Patton is a the son of a mortal mother while his father is Dagda, the Celtic god of strength, fertility, agriculture, wisdom and time/fate; Dagda seemed the most fitting choice considering he’s considered the a cheerful fatherly god among the Tuatha Dé Danann. Logan is the son of a mortal father and his mother is Scáthach. the Celtic goddess of the dead, those slain in battle and the passage of the dead to Tir Nan Og; honestly, Scáthach is just a badass with an awesome weapon, Gáe Bulg, and we love that for Logan. Seriously, look up the Gáe Bulg, its not called the “spear of mortal death/suffering“ for nothing. - They both attend Camp Dé Danann (coming from the Tuatha Dé Danann, since I couldn’t find anything about a canonical celtic demigod camp on the wiki) and probably meet when Logan first arrives at Camp. The camp is probably somewhere in the highlands for the sake of seclusion and the vast areas to train in. Patton was probably there from a young age, so he’s the one tasked with showing Logan around at first. Likely, Logan wasn’t that impressed with Patton since he’s overly cheeful and not too keen on fighting, but during their sparring matches, Logan was absolutely blown away by how powerful Patton actually is. Which makes sense considering his dad is pretty dang powerful. But power alone doesn’t win battles, so while their first spar ends pretty closely, Logan takes the victory and Patton is surprisingly excited for him considering his opponients usually hate how smug he often comes across in most one on one matches. It’s not until later Logan finds out that Patton - while he’s great with his actual powers - is impossible to train for combat. He just can’t seem to pick it up. Sure, he’s won sparring matches using some pretty witty moves and tricks, but he always seems hesitant to hurt anyone. So Logan makes the spontaneous decision to try and train Patton who he feels almost weirdly protective over once he realises how careless the bubbly demigod actually is the longer they hang out.  At first he has no luck, but upon realising Patton is all about protecting others than holding his own, Logan tries a new approach; teaching self defense and putting Patton in a position where he would need to protect another.  And it works. Patton starts to get better with Logan’s help and finally manages to win a lot more matches than he loses. And of course, spending so much time together, they end up getting closer and closer. It probably comes to a head during a friendly one on one match; Patton and Logan up close and wanting to subtly show off to each other. Perhaps one gets pinned, there’s a moment of silence, then both lean in for a kiss. Also I know you wanted just Logicality, but I love mythos stuff, so for approval, some more basic ideas for the other sides (and Remy and Emile) as demigods: Camp Jupiter: - Roman is the son of Apollo along with Remus, but he’s blessed by Venus and chooses to attend Camp Jupiter over Camp Half-blood so he doesn’t have to deal with Remus..... he does kinda miss him tho. You can pry Healthy-If-A-Little-Competitive Sibling Creativitwins from my cold dead hands. - Virgil’s parent was hard to nail down, but Jupiter sounded most interesting (also can you just imagine Roman trying to show off around camp and Virgil just being like “oh just wait til I tell dad about this guy..”) - Janus.... okay listen, we can sit here all day and debate, but lbr, his dad is Janus sr. I like to think his mortal mother had like, a bunch of names picked out but Janus sr just went “nah, lets call him Janus jr.“, which is probably why Janus doesn’t like giving his name out. Camp Half-Blood: - Remus is the son of Apollo, as stated, but he’s blessed by Posiedon, because you tell me that man would not appreciate Remus’ love of the ocean and eccentricities. Most of the time he’s just vibing and having fun, though he does miss his brother. - Emile would be the son of Psyche, I think. It’d be an interesting idea to explore and I love the idea of Emile having motifs to do with the soul and the mind. - Remy’s mother is Nyx, you cannot convince me otherwise. Remy gets to be a scary bitch because I LOVE him and also because let’s be real, him having dream powers is a given and being the personification of the night? Hell yes. (But yeah thats what I have, I hope this at least made for good reading from someone still an outsider to the source materials but very much interested in reading them if I get the chance sometime!)

[groovegalaxxxy5]

The Art School AU nobody asked for

I’ve had this idea for an emercury AU fic kicking around in my head for a while now, but I have so many other projects on my plate rn and nowhere near enough time or energy to write it. So instead I’m just gonna post all the deets in the hopes that one day I’ll be able to come back and actually do something with it.

Emercury Art School AU Summary:

“Emerald Sustrai may have managed to get into the dance program at one of the most prestigious art schools on Remnant, but she has one big issue – after just one year of study, she’s barely managing to stay afloat even with two part-time jobs and her grades have been suffering for it. Fortunately for her, her school offers extra credit to any students who are cast in the school’s yearly exhibition performance.  Unfortunately, this year’s production’s theme is “passion” and the only spot up for audition for sophomores in the dance program is for a couples’ dance performance based on said theme.   

Enter one Mercury Black—a fellow dance student with a reputation unsavory enough to overshadow his considerable talent, and quite possibly the last person on Remnant Emerald would ever want to work with…He also happens to literally be the only other person she can find to pair up with her for the show.  Somehow, improbably, the unlikely duo actually make a pretty good team once they finally start to work out their differences, but as they perfect their routine for the big audition, Emerald finds herself in a whole new predicament: She may have set out to steal the show, but if she’s not careful she might just end up getting her heart stolen in the process...”

So yeah…as you can see, the basic premise is that Em and Merc are classmates at this school for the arts, but both of them are having trouble earning passing marks in this one foundation course they both need to graduate—Emerald because she is completely on her own and has to work a lot to pay for her living expenses and studio fees and stuff even though she has a pretty decent scholarship, and Mercury because he keeps really odd hours and misses class quite a bit for unexplained reasons.  Noticing that she’s struggling even though she is a gifted dancer, one of Emerald’s teachers suggests that she try out for the big show that their school puts on every school year, since anyone who makes the cut receives a bunch of extra credit and each faculty also gives a grant to the students who they judge to have put on one of the top three best performances.  The problem is, there are only a limited number of spots up for audition for each graduating year of each concentration course due to time and resource restraints, and this year’s 2nd year dance spot happens to be billed as a couples’ performance.

Emerald hits up everybody she can think of, but they're all too busy or can't commit to the project for other reasons. Pretty much out of options at that point, she’s just about ready to give up when she has a chance encounter with a classmate, one Mercury Black, after school.  Through some sort of clerical error they managed to book the exact same practice studio for exactly the same time, and since they both really need the extra practice time and neither one is willing to back down, they end up sharing the room for a few hours.  When they do, Emerald is really surprised to find out that Mercury is actually a really talented dancer, she just never noticed before because even though they have some classes together he comes in very irregularly.  After a long, sleepless night contemplating doing something really, really ill-advised, she ends up approaching him at school the next day to propose that they team up and audition for the big show together since they appear to both be failing the same class and need the credit really bad, and to her surprise he agrees rather easily.

Thus, the two of them become reluctant accomplices. However, once they start working out the choreography together, they just can’t seem to see eye-to-eye on anything, which doesn’t bode very well for their performance considering that it’s supposed to embody the show’s theme. Emerald is more of a ballet dancer, while Mercury is more of a street dancer, having started out with breaking and had almost zero classical training before starting school.  After a while (with a lot of practice and a LOT of unsolicited intervention from their nosy friends) our two favorite mayhem children finally start to bond and find some common ground, and naturally, lighthearted romantic hijinks ensue and sparks fly between the unlikely duo as they struggle to cooperate and put together a passionate couples’ dance good enough to get into the final production.

The Supporting Cast:

Em’s peeps -- Cinder (in the class above, sort of her mentor and was the one who encouraged her to apply to school in the first place), Weiss (met in freshman year, in the same ballet, jazz and contemporary classes this year, snarking buddies), Blake (ended up in most of the same classes together this year), Coco (upperclassman in the design course, loves dressing Em in different outfits and often forces her to stand in as a house model for her when she needs to work late into the night to meet a deadline)

Merc’s peeps -- Sun (met in class in freshman year, breaking and sparring buddies), Neptune (met thru Sun, in pop class together this year), Scarlet (ditto), Blake (in a few classes together, waits tables at the same diner where he works), Yang (met at a stunt training camp the Summer of freshmen year, waits tables at the same restaurant, fellow gym rat and occasional sparring partner)

Salem -- Headmistress of the most prestigious arts school on Remnant; has a bitter love-hate (mostly hate) relationship with her ex

Oz -- The headmistress’ ex-husband who runs a very successful Circe du Soleil type show and recruits a lot of his performers from her graduating classes

Glinda -- Chair of the dance department; Contemporary and ballroom dance instructor; is so so weary of her faculty’s incessant bickering

Winter -- Ballet instructor; came up in a rigid traditional Atlesian ballet school and generally looks down on all the other dancing disciplines and their instructors (”What they do can BARELY be described as dancing”); wishes the dance department were as disciplined as the music department

Qrow -- Jazz and tap dance instructor; doesn’t think that what his sister does really counts as actual dancing; jazz hands, rain hands and double dream hands and he’s dead serious about em

Raven -- Acrobatic and contortion instructor; thinks jazz hands look really stupid, just like Qrow and his corny, goofy ass dancing; was actually trained extensively in traditional Mistralian Highlands step dancing from childhood alongside her brother and used to perform internationally before switching disciplines

Tai Yang -- Hip-hop and pop dance instructor; specializes in pop and lock; Raven's ex; constantly catching strays from Qrow and Raven’s feud; just happy to still have a job tbh

Arthur & Tyrian -- Co-chairs of the theater department; Arthur teaches classical acting and Tyrian teaches method acting and they both think the other doesn’t teach “real acting”; somehow their department is actually really popular and all the students love the yearly musical theater production, which is the only time they ever seem to agree on anything

Hazel -- Long-suffering theater production instructor; works really hard to keep things running smoothly in the background despite the department heads' antics; hates the headmistress’s ex with a burning passion

Ironwood -- Chair of the music department; runs his department like a well-oiled machine and has put the fear of god into all his students; has won the national marching band championships seven years running

All the other students are in various departments at their school—e.g. Ruby plays the sax, Yang and Jaune are both acting majors, Oscar plays the cello, Nora and Ren play the tuba and the erhu respectively, Pyrrha is a triple threat etc.

A bunch of random plot points:

-Merc, Em and their friends are all in the same foundation classes together and the two of them start off vaguely aware of one another mostly owing to the fact that all their friends are friends, but they don’t really know each other (…or DO they??? *DUN DUNNN DUNNNNN*)

-Most of the faculty at their school can’t stand each other and the different departments have been engaged in bitter rivalries for years but somehow they all work really well together because at the end of the day they’re all professionals who are good at their jobs

-All of their friends are convinced that they’re secretly dating or hooking up at the very least, because they suddenly start hanging around each other a lot, holing up in the practice studio together until all hours of the night and showing up school at the same time the next morning and are constantly snipping at each other whenever they interact.  Merc’s squad is actually v supportive and (against his wishes) are doing their very best to try and help their boy lay down the mac (Sun: “Hey Merc! Thanks for letting me drive the convertible last weekend!😉👍”) , even though they all generally acknowledge that he’s way out of his league and is headed down the path to utter destruction. Meanwhile, Em’s friends are pretty appalled by her abysmally low standards (Weiss: “Emerald, you’re dating down....WAY down.🙁”) and think that shes going thru some kind of self-destructive phase or something.  They’re convinced she’s about to have her life absolutely ruined by that one smirky fuccboi type from their grade who has super sus habits and “reeks of criminality” (also Weiss).

-Almost everybody including most of his friends are convinced that Mercury is doing something really, really shady for cash on the low because he keeps super odd hours, misses class a lot and is always showing up with all these bizarre, unexplained injuries.  In reality, Em finds out that it’s all because he’s been training as a stunt-man outside of school and works a lot of weird hours at his part-time job so that he can pay off his prosthetics, finance his extra courses and pay for his own living expenses, etc. Although he actually was involved in some serious criminal activity in the past, he’s been trying his best to stay on the straight and narrow ever since he finally cut ties with his scumbag dad, and now just works a lot of nights and weekends as a short order cook at the local greasy spoon.

-Once Mercury realizes that Emerald is like...constantly on the brink of starvation because she’s a destitute vagabond baby but has too much pride to ask for help, he starts subtly bringing her leftovers from work, which she grudgingly accepts (because he owes her for putting him onto the whole extra credit thing, so it’s not really charity...definitely NOT because she is extremely susceptible to offerings of food and her partner also happens to be a surprisingly good cook).  

-Cinder is in the year above them and has known Emerald since they were in the foster system together as kids. She’s a prodigy at ballet and also a very accomplished acrobat and contortionist (as in, like, can easily shoot an arrow into a bullseye with just her feet while her legs are bent backwards all the way over the top of her head and stuff).  At some point she sits in on one of Em and Merc’s rehearsal sessions and ends up dragging the hell out of them both for being way too stiff and exhibiting almost zero chemistry despite the “obnoxiously obvious sexual tension” between them.  She basically ends up barking directions at them until they alter their choreo a bunch and finally start to look somewhat like an actual couple ("For fuck's sake... Lift her like she's the most precious thing you've ever laid eyes on and you're about to make sweet love to her, you idiot, not like she's a frigging sack of potatoes you're bringing home to peel!!!" "This man is supposed to be the moon to your stars...if you don't loosen up and melt into his arms like your soul is on fire, I will flip ALL this shit over and burn this wretched studio to the ground with both of you trapped inside!!!" ), after which things gradually start to get all awkward and messy between them because they start thinking about one another differently.  

-They get into a bunch of compromising situations by virtue of the fact theatre and dance people are just kinda naked  a lot and don’t care.  At various points in the story their friends will walk in on the two of them in some sort of really eyebrow raising situation, get the complete wrong idea  and run away, which in turn makes the two of them start to feel awkward as hell toward each other.

-Coco forces them to wear matching outfits that she made just for their performance.

-Their act ends up being this spicy contemporary couples’ dance that incorporates a lot of elements of acrobatic dance, breaking and ballet, essentially blending together both of their unique dance backgrounds.

 This story idea has absolutely nothing to do with canon and Remnant is a lot like modern-day Earth with some exceptions, so there are no semblances etc. There’s no antagonist; in fact everyone around them is generally supportive and wants them to succeed--the main conflict comes from Emerald and Mercury only having three brain cells between them and not being used to caring about someone else in a lovey-dovey sort of way. I got the idea when I was watching dance videos online and started remembering all those cheesy dance-themed teen movies from the 90’s and early 2000’s.  It’s pretty much just a wholesome little meet-cute/will-they-won’t-they type school romance in that same vein, where Em and Merc are forced to team up out of necessity, start to fall for each other and then have to deal with all the awkwardness that ensues...all with a bunch of help from their extremely eccentric, meddling-ass friends who are all convinced that the two of them are either already dating or about to be and are trying to keep them both from getting their hearts broken lol

 Whew! Guess that’s about it for now...I’d like to try and flesh this one out more and maybe even publish it as a legit fic one day, but first I’ve gotta get back to work on *signal lost*

[selfawarejester]

HALO: SHADOWS OF REACH — A REVIEW BY A SOMEWHAT ENTHUSIASTIC FAN

Alright, so after forever and to much demand (okay, that's a lie, no one asked for this), I've finally finished my review of the newest installment in the Halo novels: Shadows of Reach. Obviously, there are spoilers inbound.

RATING: 8/10

This could've easily been a ten if not for some parts of the story that irked me, but overall a fun read— I'd read it again.

A VERY LONG SUMMARY (OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD, SO PLEASE TELL ME IF I MESSED SOMETHING UP)

Welp, the first half is just John being very emo about Cortana and pretty much ignoring his teammates' emotional states (a large part of the book is that, actually), and introducing old wise man Major Van Houte, no nonsense Crew Chief Stella Mukai (who made John laugh, huzzah!!) and Lieutenant Maks "Hotshot kid" Chapov (don't get too attached). They perform intricate aerial maneuvers and the likes to avoid being spotted, but they are and they crash.

After a couple close encounters with Banished banshees that act like Keeper banshees for some odd reason, three-quarters of Blue Team gets their cans kicked by actual Banished banshees and get separated from Linda-058 and Special Crew (which are the flight crew btw). Whilst heavily wounded, they are held at gunpoint by the Viery Militia who also make fun of them while at gunpoint. (Rude, but also very funny). Militia Leader Lady assumes that they're there to help them liberate Reach (and refuses to let John tell her otherwise) and gets pissy about it afterwards - but she's under a lot of pressure, so it's fine - and Fred is Concussed™, leading to ridicule and shade from John and Kelly for pretty much the rest of the book.

There's a lot of stuff in the middle about the Viery Militia, so hightlight reel: John manages to ask his doc a personal question (Go, John!), and he and Kelly are driven to meet the commanders of the Militia by sweet Bella Disztl, five time winner of the Tantalus-10,000 (don't worry if you forget, they bring it up in every scene she's in). I like Bella, partly because she looks like my OC, but in general. Unfortunately, she falls prey to the Halo driver curse and bites it later on in the book.

Despite a lot of angst and distrust once the commanders find out BT is not there to help free Reach, they decide to take the Armory from the Banished and call in reinforcements from Infinity.

As they launch the assault on the Banished armory, everyone without MJOLNIR (and Chapov and Van Houte who are out of range) gets knocked out due to lack of breathable levels of oxygen in the tunnels (and they talk about the brain damage that's caused when your oxygen is cut off for a few minutes, which makes me and all the other RvB fans sad) and the Spartans are forced to do it alone, shocker. Chapov saves the day with an innovative tactic to take down massive amounts of Banished vehicles, go Chapov!

We finally get to see Halsey (who finally has a prosthetic arm), Lasky (who likes to say heck) and Palmer (who is still Very Done with basically everyone), so that's cool.

There's a second attack on the armory as the Banished try to take back what is theirs, and here is where Bella dies :( But, on the other hand, a hundred and twenty Spartans (which is still super shocking to me) save the day. Palmer and Blue Team have a very odd interaction wherein Palmer is treated like she's in the wrong despite being perfectly reasonable?? (I'm just going to read this part one more time because the first time around was at 2AM) Anyways, Palmer takes over freeing Reach and the Spartans go to the Highlands to finish their actual mission.

So, I've neglected to mention Castor's arc in the book because it's basically all the same thing, so highlight reel: There's a badass Sangheili called 'Gadogai who works for Escharum. This dude is the right hand man of Atriox, aka the big boss. Anyways, Deukalion (where are my TW fans at?!) and Ballas are dokabs of two of the other Banished clans who are fighting over the pioneers' land, like a bunch of bitches, instead of doing their jobs and Castor's really mad about it. Castor continually demonstrates his cleverness but as always misses a key factor and his plans get screwed. Also, Orsun's son is around, so that's cool. There's lots of Jiralhanae politics and crap that I'm not really going to go into here. Also, Veta Lopis and the Ferrets are there with their kick-ass hairstyles. Escharum shows up and Castor's ploy to let BT guide them to this Portal to the Ark finally works out and things are going good for the Keepers' Leader.

BT finally makes it to the mountains, and after a fun aerial chase, Chapov is mortally wounded and manages to take out, like, four Banshees before he dies. The Banished go for the Portal while BT rush for SWORD base, there's another large scale fight with Jetpack Brutes and Longswords and Broadswords, but BT makes it to SWORD base, and Fred goes check out the corridor to the Portal (which they get into after a lot of events). They grab three cryo-bins and a box with a sabre symbol on it, and John manages to mess up his wounded legs and is very nice to Kalmiya's fragment. Sweet.

The Freta reunion is painfully brief, and leaves Fred with confusion and a message capsule. The Portal is opened, the Keepers turn on the Banished, but ultimately no consequences are reaped (shocker) and Gadogai jumps ship over to the Keepers. Cortana is alerted by the Portal and a Guardian is showing up and everyone hauls ass away from Reach.

Captain Veronica Dare is still alive (yay) and gives Fred part of the message because "it's none of ONI's business" which is amazing and awesome and once again, yay. Halsey is pained by how much Blue Team had gotten beaten up (which I am still confused by) and Palmer and the rest of the UNSC forces are stranded on Reach.

FINAL THOUGHTS

It was definitely lots of fun, I'll give Denning that. They finally brought in that slipspace crystal from First Strike which I've been bitching about forever, which is cool.

However, lots of elements from his previous books touch over in this one, like continually getting the badass, untouchable Spartans absolutely pwned and the subtle traces of sexism surrounding his treatment of Kelly, Linda and now Palmer get on my nerves.

One thing that bites at me was that Kelly got shot in the goddamn chest and she was just doing perfectly fine. Her coping with it was not shown at all. It gets more and more obvious with each book that Denning is pretty much clueless on what to do with either of our badass Spartan ladies, which is discouraging, especially compared to the amazing force-of-nature that is Veta Lopis!

And I really didn't like the fact that John was just sad about Cortana. I mean, there's no actual conflict about the fact that Eviltana (who I will always think about as a different person from my blue bby) is a mass-murdering fanatical bitch. Like she's just misunderstood and not an actual dictator. And he doesn't seem to give a damn about any of the Spartans obvious signs of trauma over any of this stuff. He just dismissed Kelly's valid concern about saying Cortana's name, which is kind of OOC, but okay.

That being said, they better not make another Cortana model, because that was something Actual!Cortana was very messed up about; being replaced like that. If they do, they better make it very clear that she's a different entity, like Kalmiya.

Congrats and thank you for reading through all of this stuff! Hope you enjoyed, and feel free to hit me up regarding anything Halo!

[maetheday98]

Will things get better?

For the past few days I've been on such a long search for any good news about traveling to the UK. I've joined Facebook groups, followed bunch of paged on twitter, joined discords, signed online petitions, and shuffling through multiple news websites... I was just back to back to back looking through each one reading so much stuff and making myself more paranoid...I feel like I'm going crazy...😪 I read so many different peoples stories about how long they have been together and how they haven't been able to see each other because of the travel bans.

Again I know why there is travel bans. It is so important that they still have them for a lot of countries and places that aren't looking so good. If you are new to my page I'm from the US and I'm fully vaccinated. My boyfriend is from the Highlands, Scotland and is getting his first vaccine next Wednesday. Can they change the rules a little for vaccinated travelers or at least make the rules easier to understand would honestly be great too.

I'm just tried of bad news. I'm just so tired of all this reading and false hope.

The #lovenottourism has a good heart. It's not just those people that just want to go on vacation without being vaccinated and responsible. There are real people on that hashtag that just wants to see their loved one. Like I've read some stories and there are kids without their other parent that is so unfair. If I could just spend the ten days in quarantine with my boyfriend without going anywhere I would be just fine. But they are making it so hard just to do that. When will it change?

Receiving the text from my boyfriend that he is getting his first vaccine next week made me cry tears of joy. Like FINALLY something that will give me just a little bit of hope that we will be together soon...even though I kinda doubt we will be able to this year though. But I would rather not think about it and just hold on to the one good news I have at the moment.

[waitineedaname]

And Did You Know That You Were Always Like A Fantasy?

happy late birthday @notedchampagne! also on ao3

---

If someone had told Jon two years earlier where he would be and who he would be there with, he would have scoffed. Really? With him? It would have been too absurd to consider. If someone had told him two months earlier, he would have been scared to believe it. Really? And we’re safe? It was too perfect to even hope for. 

But here he was, standing at Martin’s side in the kitchen of a Scottish safehouse, rinsing the soap suds off the dishes Martin handed him and swaying gently to the soft music playing off of Martin’s phone.

The peaceful domesticity scared him sometimes. He would catch himself getting too comfortable, and he would be seized by a sudden terror that it was a trick or that it would all be yanked out from underneath him, that some fearsome monster was waiting for just the right moment to strike him down. He would count the doors and stare at the cobwebs in the corners and avoid his own gaze in the mirror. It couldn’t be real. After all that had happened, after all he had done and become, he couldn’t have this scrap of happiness.

It was real, though. Martin, if nothing else, was real. It was hard to deny that fact when he had Martin’s warm body brushing against his side as they went through the domestic motions of washing the dishes together. It was hard to deny the memories of Martin’s soft kisses on his cheeks or the victorious laugh Martin let out when he discovered a long forgotten bottle of wine in the cupboard or the dozens of pictures in his phone of Martin posing next to indifferent Highland cows.

Even if the worst was yet to come, it was hard to care during mornings like this, when everything felt still and quiet. Not the still quietness of a world holding its breath, but the peace of waking up naturally to light filtering in through curtains, with the arm of the person he loved around his waist.

Martin roused him out of his thoughts by leaning across the sink to turn up the volume on his phone. “Oh, I like this song.”

Jon huffed out a soft, fond laugh. He couldn’t help but think the song was the same as the last dozen he’d played; apparently Martin’s fondness for “lo-fi charm” extended to soft indie music Jon had never heard of, but he couldn’t bring himself to mind.

Jon didn’t realize he was singing along until he felt Martin staring at him. “What?” He said, caught off guard.

“I didn’t think you knew this song.” Martin said with pleased surprise.

“I don’t.”

“...Ah.” Martin said. “Well, I guess there are worse things to Know?”

“I suppose.” Jon sighed, unhappy despite the relatively innocuous nature of the Knowledge. It would never become less unsettling to suddenly Know things he didn’t ask for. Martin gently bonked his hip against Jon’s, distracting him from the downward spiral that seemed imminent.

“I’ve never heard you sing before.”

“It’s not like we hosted karaoke nights.” Jon smiled wryly.

“I’m fairly certain Tim planned one, but it never happened for… whatever reason.” Martin steered the conversation away from another uncomfortable subject. “You have a nice voice, you know.”

“I’m flattered.” Jon said, a sarcastic tone covering genuine happiness at the praise. “Would you believe I was in a band while at Uni?”

“No, I wouldn’t believe that, actually.” Martin’s expression was of surprised delight.

“We were quite eccentric.”

“Now that I do believe.”

Jon allowed that a self-deprecating huff of laughter. “A bunch of dramatic Oxford students singing about space pirates and cyberpunk Frankenstein and Arthurian legends retold as sci-fi westerns…” He smiled fondly at the memory.

“Jon.” He looked over to find Martin looking at him with restrained glee. “Please tell me you have recordings of this somewhere.”

“What, currently? No.”

“You don’t understand. I have to hear this right now.”

“I can’t help you! It was over a decade ago.” He laughed at Martin’s exaggerated pout and leaned up to press a kiss to his nose. “Sorry, darling.”

“It’s fine, it’s fine. I’ll just lose sleep knowing there are probably pictures of my boyfriend dressed as a space pirate, and I can’t see them.” Martin heaved a great sigh, but there was a smile playing at his lips. He dried his hands and turned to place them on Jon’s hips. Jon followed suit by taking off his dish gloves and draping his arms over Martin’s shoulders.

“There are certainly worse things to lose sleep over.” Jon said, playing with a tuft of hair that curled over the back of Martin’s neck.

“I guess so.” Martin pressed his face into the top of Jon’s head, and when the song on his phone switched to something with a quicker tempo, he could feel Martin’s smile. He started swaying, hands still on Jon’s waist.

“Martin,” Jon said with a warning in his voice, “What are you doing?”

“Nothing. I’m not doing anything.” Martin replied innocently. He stood up straight and smiled down at Jon.

“I’m fairly certain this is something.”

Martin rolled his eyes fondly. “I’m dancing. You know, that thing people do where they move in time to music? Surely you’ve heard of it.”

“I know what dancing is, I’m just- I’m not very good at it.” Jon protested, even though he was already matching Martin’s movements with only the slightest stutter.

“You don’t have to be good at it. Come on.” Martin stepped back and took Jon’s hands, pulling him into the middle of the kitchen. They weren’t even dancing, not really. It was more of a combination of sways and shimmies that made Jon laugh and shuffling footwork as they avoided stepping on each other’s toes. Jon felt more than a little ridiculous, but if he was completely honest with himself, he would do any amount of ridiculous things to keep that happy, adoring look in Martin’s eyes. An adoring look that morphed into one of mischief as Martin said, “I’m going to spin you.”

“Y- Oh!” Jon didn’t even get the chance to question it before Martin was guiding his arm around in a spin. It wasn’t exactly the most elegant maneuver, and he almost lost his balance for just a second, but it startled a laugh out of him all the same. Martin looked delightfully smug when he faced him again. Well, two can play at that game. 

Martin must have seen the look in Jon’s eyes when he decided his next move, but he only had half a second to look inquisitive when Jon slid his hands around Martin’s back. Martin leaned back with him as he was dipped, and Jon relished the surprised awe in Martin’s eyes for just a brief moment. 

And then they simultaneously remembered Jon’s limited upper-body strength. 

Jon’s arms gave out and Martin yelped as he fell, grabbing onto Jon, who let out a shout as he went tumbling down too.

The two of them fell in a heap on the floor, Martin letting out a soft “oof” as he took the brunt of the fall with Jon collapsed on his chest. Martin groaned quietly, and Jon scrambled upright. 

“Oh- Oh god, Martin, I’m so sorry. Are you alright?” Jon’s heart seized with panic as he saw Martin sling an arm over his face and start shaking. Oh god, was Martin crying? Jon would never forgive himself. Wait, no, not crying-

“That was so stupid.” Martin managed to say through helpless laughter. He slid his arm off his face to reveal bright eyes and a brighter smile. Jon gaped intelligently at him. “I’m twice your size, how could that have possibly gone well?”

“I…” Jon stammered for an excuse. “I thought it would be romantic.”

“Oh, it was romantic, sure. Really stupid, though.” Martin was still giggling weakly up at Jon, and some of the anxiety slid out of him. Still, he had to ask.

“You’re sure you’re alright?”

“I’m fine, Jon.” Martin rolled his eyes. “I’ve dealt with worse than a bruise before.” 

Jon slid back to sit on Martin’s shins as Martin lifted himself into a sitting position. He touched the back of Martin’s head gently, and Martin stalwartly did not flinch. “I can get you some ice.”

“I said I’m fine.” Martin grabbed his hands before he could get up, a laugh still playing in his voice. “You don’t need to fuss.”

“I’m not fussing.” Jon protested. Martin gave him a look, and he huffed. “Besides, that’s rich coming from you.”

“Alright, fair.” Martin smiled and kissed Jon’s knuckles, still not letting go. “If you really want to make it up to me… you can find your college band’s stuff?” He asked oh-so-hopefully. Jon laughed softly.

“I’ll see if there’s anything on YouTube. Satisfied?”

“Yes.” Martin looked pleased with himself as he finally stood and pulled Jon to his feet with him. “Now come on, we have dishes to finish.”

The peace might be deceptive, the happiness a trick to convince him to let his guard down, but when he shot Georgie a text requesting concert pictures from their college days while Martin chatted politely with a shopkeeper later that afternoon, Jon was convinced he wouldn’t trade it for anything.

[thebmatt]

Welcome

HI there. Welcome to the tumblr where I share all of my final fantasy XIV writing, screenshots, and other fun stuff. 

Writing will be hosted both here and at the following locations Your Quest Log is Full - I also write about my thoughts on other gaming I’m doing. Mostly MMO related. There’s some World of Warcraft Short stories as well. Archive of Our Own

You can also check out my twitter, if you so desire Before we get started, some general links My Glamours on Eorzea Collection FF XIV Write 2021 Master Post FF XIV Write 2022 Master Post

And without further ado, let’s meet my team of Warriors of Light

Aleister "Old Man" Franks  Highlander Hyur

Summoner/Scholar/Machinist/Paladin/Reaper

Birthplace: Lordaeron, Azeroth

Franks loves magic, technology, and the science behind both. If he'd been born Sharlayan, he'd probably have multiple Archonates by now. He used to be very reticent about his past as a Forsaken on Azeroth, but time with his new found family, along with the return of his believed-dead wife, have caused him to open up more about his past as well as hope for the future, a hope he’ll now always fight for.

For more character details, click here Character Layers Ask The Old Man’s Current Weapons of Choice Tumblr Tag

Rheika Aliapoh Keeper of the Moon Miqo’te

Bard/Monk/Red Mage/Gunbreaker/Viper

Birthplace: The Black Shroud, a small Keeper community close to Gridania 

The team’s nominal leader. Rheika is charming and charismatic...most of the time. If you’re bringing pain and suffering to others, however, you’re gonna learn just how vicious a fighter she is. Rheika grew up facing the worst of the Gridanian culture’s discrimination, and she’s dedicated her life, and her choice of combat disciplines, to fighting oppression and protecting the innocent.

For more character details: Click here Character Layers Ask Rheika’s current Weapons of Choice Tumblr Tag

Fearless WIllow Sea Wolf Roegadyn

Warrior/Astrologian/Samurai/Dancer/Black Mage

Birthplace: Aerslant 

Fearless grew up in an emotionally abusive home, always told she was never good for anything. She learned to fight well with an axe, and fled home to Eorzea to make a life as an adventurer, adopting her “translated” name to hide from her family and to symbolize a new chapter in her life. Turns out she’s actually great at a lot more than that when surrounded by encouraging and caring friends.

For more character details, click here Character Layers Ask Fearless’ Current Weapons of Choice Tumblr Tag

Dahkar Darkspear Xaelan Au Ra

Dragoon/White Mage/Ninja/Dark Knight/Pictomancer

Birthplace: The Azim Steppe 

Dahkar’s tribe was slaughtered by beasts when he was young, and his mother took them to Eorzea to begin a new life in the Shroud. Though a Far Easterner by birth, he knows very little of the ways of his people. Somehow, despite his often destructive means of combat, he’s generally the straight man of this ragtag bunch of misfits. 

For more character details, click here Tumblr Tag Finally, I’ll list below a few other character development surveys I completed for the whole team below Hard Mode! FFXIV-Specific Hard Mode!

[farleydiana]

red queen hogwarts au :)

so i’ve finally decided to bring this idea to life..... shoutout to the @redqueenetwork discord for coming up with cool headcanons and help with character sorting!! 

this is also my first fic ever DONT be mean. plot is basically mare goes to hogwarts forthe first time and makes friends its very happy. this was super fun to write so hope y’all enjoy.

arrival

Mare had always wondered what lied on the other side of the wall. 

Every year, since she was six years old, she’d seen her brothers run straight into it and fade into another dimension, to a secret platform and the train that would take them to Hogwarts. She’d heard insane stories about the place, stuff that belonged in fever dreams or myths. Staircases that moved, forests home to deadly creatures, a gigantic squid on a lake, ghosts that roamed the halls, portraits that could talk… it didn’t sound real. It couldn’t be. But when her letter appeared in their small mailbox one friday in August, she realized maybe her brothers weren’t toying with her after all… that this magical castle hidden in the highlands did exist, and that it housed all those things that came from your wildest dreams and nightmares. And now, she was going to be a part of it all. That didn’t feel real.

She was finally going to cross the wall. 

Her mother, Ruth, hugged each of her sons tight, one final goodbye before they left for school. They all hugged Gisa too, Tramy even lifted her up. He was getting stronger, playing that quidditch sport. And off they went. Bree first, pushing into the wall with force. He disappeared. Then, it was Tramy’s turn. Then Shade’s. 

Mare’s heart raced, this was really it. Her time had come. She said a quick goodbye to Mom, Dad, and Gisa, and grabbed her cart, which contained a trunk filled with books and a broom, and, with all her strength, pushed straight for the wall. 

Out of instinct, she expected a collision that would make her trip into her cart or maybe fall headfirst into the floor, but instead, she emerged in a bustling platform. Her brothers were waiting for her, and they cheered when she came out, high-fiving her. This whole thing was starting to feel like an adventure. 

They moved along, making space for new people who entered. Platform 9 ¾ was at its full capacity, with countless families saying goodbye to their children. They were all strangely dressed, in robes or very colorful dress suits. Mare found herself almost clinging to Shade, as Bree and Tramy went to meet their friends. They both stood awkwardly in the middle of the platform looking like lost children, searching the train’s entrance. Mare took this chance to look around. Her eyes landed on a woman, with blond hair elaborately tied in a low bun and a long blue coat (in summer!) whispering to a boy who was undoubtedly a first year like her. The woman stood up, and Mare could notice those around her standing a little straighter. Her icy eyes found Mare’s, and she too tensed.  She must be a really powerful witch, Mare thought, she certainly looks like it.

“Come on,” Shade said, grabbing her wrist and pulling them through the crowd. Maybe Shade noticed her staring at the woman.

“Who is she?” Mare asked. She figured she needed to know. 

“Elara Merandus. Works for the Ministry-- wizard government. Not one of the good ones there.” Shade explained. 

She wanted to know more, to know what the Ministry did, and why she wasn’t “one of the good ones”. But the crowd to the train was moving along.

They entered quickly, and the mumbling from the platform was instantly replaced by the sound of train engines and excited teens. Shade walked along the train, to check for carts they could sit at. Some were full, others had kids much older than them, and others had one or two kids with unfriendly looks on their faces who always answered “sorry, it’s taken” when asking if they could sit. Then, they came across a boy looking absentmindedly through the window. 

“Excuse me,” Shade said, “are these seats taken?”

The boy jumped, not having expected a visitor. “What? Oh, no… it’s not taken,” he said. He had hair the color of wheat and very green eyes. Mare and Shade entered the cart, seating in the bench opposite to his. There was an awkward silence for a few moments, Mare turned her attention to her worn sneakers. 

 The train started moving. A bunch of kids screamed last goodbyes, and Mare kind of wanted to join them, but she had already left her parents behind. Instead, she gripped the edge of her seat a little tighter at the sudden movement. 

“I’m Kilorn,” the boy said, “Kilorn Warren.”

Mare laughed a little on the inside. What kind of dumb name is Kilorn?

“I’m Shade,” her brother said, “and this is my sister, Mare Barrow”

Kilorn didn’t bother to hide his laugh. The same can be said about our names, she thought, a bit embarrassed. 

“Are you first years too?” Kilorn asked. 

“I’m on my second year, Mare’s a first year.” Shade replied before she could.

Kilorn turned all his attention to Mare. “This is all so crazy, isn’t it? The, you know… the train, the school… it’s magic,you know?” He was ecstatic, words spilling from his mouth, and Mare grinned at his enthusiasm. “I thought this was some prank when I got my letter, but… it’s not.”

Mare nodded, remembering when Bree first got his. A strange man with blue robes and close-cut white hair had appeared in their house one morning with a letter, and explained to her parents what this whole wizarding school ordeal was about. They were… shocked, to say the least, but would never refuse the opportunity of free education at a boarding school with all the amenities covered. So, the man had taken Bree to Diagon Alley to get his wizard things, and the Barrows sent him off on September 1st. Everyone after him had gotten just a letter. They were all surprised when Tramy got his, and convinced that everyone in the family was in some way magical when Shade got in too. Mare kind of felt she was, with the way her surroundings seemed to act weird whenever she felt angry, which was more often than she’d like. For that entire year Mare tensed, afraid of being the exception, of not getting her letter. Her parents already treated her like less than her sister, who was beautiful and ladylike… she would not stand the humiliation. 

“I was so relieved when I got mine,” she said. “All my older brothers got one. It would be kind of embarrassing if i didn’t”

“Wait, so you’re not… Your parents aren’t wizards?” Kilorn asked, brows furrowing in confusion 

“No..”

“Our parents are muggles.” Shade said.

“They were born… normal, but their kids are all magical,” Mare continued. 

“You know what, I’m convinced at least one of them is a sorcerer in secret,” Shade said.

“If they were, they would’ve already thrown thousands of jinxes at us.” They both giggled. It was certainly strange, how all of them had magic inside them. Maybe magic just liked the family. 

“Are your parents wizards?” Shade asked Kilorn.

A long pause followed. Mare felt the answer before he said it out loud. 

“I don’t know who my parents are,” Kilorn said, his voice sorrowful. 

Mare’s whole body sank. She didn’t know what to say to this… ‘i’m sorry’ felt like too little. She had never met an orphan, but she could clearly imagine how sad it must be to grow up alone.

A grim silence settled in. Mare watched as the lush green hills passed by, taking her back to when she was younger, running around the prairies of home with her siblings.

“Uh, hello,” a boy suddenly said. He was at the cabin threshold, half hidden. Mare recognized him as the boy the woman was talking to. He had the same deep blue eyes. 

“Can I sit with you guys?” he asked. 

The three children looked at one another. Mare furrowed her brows at Shade, who was thinking the same thing she was. Associating with this kid was probably not good. But, it would be mean to not let him in. 

Kilorn, for his part, didn’t seem to notice their doubt, and said “sure! Come along.”

Reluctantly, the boy sat next to Kilorn, though a few inches apart. There was silence again, and Mare felt a bit… intimidated. But, why? The boy looked just as nervous as she was. 

“Are you a first year too?” Kilorn asked. 

“Yes,” the boy said. I was with my brother, who’s in his third year, but I didn’t like his friends very much. So I left.” 

“Oh,” Mare said. “well, hello.” She tried to smile, but it was an awkward fake smile. 

“Hey,” he said, “I’m Maven Calore.” Mare assessed him. He was wearing very nice robes, which made Mare feel kind of off in her old, overworn clothes. He was looking at her, too, though Mare couldn’t figure out what he was thinking. 

“Calore…” Shade said, with an inquiring look. “You’re Cal’s brother?”

“Yes…” Maven said with a sigh. “Unfortunately.”

Kilorn giggled. 

“Who’s Cal?” Mare asked Shade.

“He’s this Gryffindor guy…” he said, annoyed. “And all the girls in my year are obsessed with him and his fire-colored eyes.” He spoke in his mocking voice. Mare laughed. 

“That’s my brother.” Maven said. 

“And his name is… Cal Calore?” Mare couldn’t contain her chuckle this time. Why does everyone here have ridiculous names?

“No, it’s Tiberias.” Maven Answered. “Tiberias the seventh.”

Mare raised her brows at that. “The seventh!? What happened to Tiberias one through six?”

Maven laughed. “No, it’s this dumb family tradition. Our father is the sixth and his father is the fifth and so on.”

“Oh, so you’re like… the Royal Wizarding Family or something?” 

That Maven wasn’t expecting. He blushed, taken aback, and for a second Mare wondered if that had been too mean.

“They kind of are. I mean-- they’re pretty famous.” Shade said. “They’re famous cursebreakers or something.”

Mare nodded a small ohh. Kilorn raised his brows at the word “cursebreakers.” Maven just shrugged.

“And what kind of curses do they break?” Mare asked.

“I don’t know, like…” Maven furrowed his brows, thinking of a way to explain. “There are like, laws, on how to use magic, and they work in enacting that. They’re not all cursebreakers. Some are aurors.”

“Magical police.” Shade clarified. 

“They’re kind of annoying, if you ask me.” Maven said, “Everyone says i’m different to them. I’m not, like, super sporty and stuff. My dad says I should be more like my brother.”

“Oh, my mom’s the same,” Mare said. “She’s super proud of my sister because she can draw really well,and I’m not particularly good at anything”.

They fell into easy conversation, talking about sibling frustrations and family wishes. Kilorn and Shade, for their part, talked about the school, Shade explained the houses and house points and what Quidditch was. Kilorn decided he would like to play, it sounded fun. Mare eventually joined in, saying she’d like to play too (all her brothers did), beating balls while flying sounded fun. Shade also talked about the professors, who was nice and who wasn’t. He seemed to like Julian, the history of magic teacher, who was also head of the Ravenclaw house, which was, according to Shade, the best one. Part of Mare hoped she’d be sorted there just to be with her brother, but she felt she wasn’t brainy enough. There was also Anabel, the potions teacher, who wasn’t that nice to students that got on her ugly side. 

“Basically you have to one, be smart, or two, be a slytherin, if you don’t want her to be hard on you,” Shade explained. 

“Looks like she plays favorites.” Mare said.

“Yeah the slyths are quite literally snakes. Really. That’s their animal.”

Mare decided in that moment that she didn’t want to be in slytherin. 

Shade kept going over the teachers. There was Carmadon, the funny herbology teacher, and Davidson, the Defense against the dark arts teacher. According to Shade, he was really strict in class but outside class he would talk with the students, and was very nice.

The rest of the ride passed quickly, and soon it was time to change into their uniforms. The castle came into view. It really was huge, with bridges and pointed towers. Dark, yet strangely welcoming. 

All over the train, there were cheers and gasps of surprise as they got closer. Mare watched the school approach through the window with Kilorn and Maven, thinking woah, this really is real…

The descent from the train is hurried and messy. Shade leaves for his friends, a group of boys dressed in the same blue robes, and the trio of first years is left to be carried by the crowd. Maven gets lost, and Kilorn and Mare end up joining the cluster of other first years, who are indicated to follow a big man named Hagrid. He gives a brief tour of the castle grounds. They were at the Great Lake, where the huge squid resided. on the other side a little to the left was the forbidden forest, which Mare kind of wanted to enter, to find why it was forbidden. At second thought she decided it’d be a terrible idea. Then, very far on the other side, the quidditch pitch. The place was gigantic.

In small groups, the kids crossed the lake in carriages pulled by invisible horses. Mare and Kilorn boarded one with a boy named Thomas and a girl named Sonya, who didn’t seem to enjoy sitting with any of them. 

Once they were on the other side, the thirty-something first years continued into the castle. Mare couldn’t keep her jaw from dropping as she walked through the oak double doors and into a torchlit entrance hall. There was a grand staircase in front of them, and she could hear muffled talk from somewhere. She didn’t have much time to take in her surroundings, as the party was quickly moved to a room at the right.. Before she entered, she glimpsed four hourglasses filled with glittering stones, one for each house, she guessed.

So this is the Great Hall. It was the biggest dining room Mare had seen in her life. Her eyes went straight to the ceiling, it was open… bewitched, Mare remembered, from one of Shade’s letters, to look like the night sky. It was just as beautiful as she’d imagined. 

The great hall had four long tables, each occupied by students from different houses. Mare recognized them by color. The closest one was the green one, slytherin. Then blue, ravenclaw, where Shade was. Then came yellow, Hufflepuff, which was Tramy’s house. And the farthest one was Gryffindor, Bree’s house. 

The kids hurried to the right wall, where another long table stood on its own platform, overlooking the other four. The professors’ table. Right in front of it, there was a small stool with a very old hat sitting on it. 

Mare knew what came next, and it made her heart race. The sorting ceremony. The moment that would determine where you belonged in Hogwarts. Excitement flood the room, as hopeful students cheered for their houses, and the newcomers breathed heavily, a mix of nerves and adrenaline.  Mare spotted Bree smiling at her from his table and couldn’t help but smile back. The students stood in front of the teachers’ platform and the headmaster, a wizard with a long, white beard called Dumbledore, welcomed them with a speech. He was weird, Mare concluded. Even by wizard standards. 

Then it was time for the sorting. It opened with the hat singing a very off-key yet catchy song about the houses, how they were founded and what each house meant. Mare had no idea where she might end up. Maybe Gryffindor, people thought of her as brave-- but she definitely didn’t see herself as similar to Bree in any way. She had always been more like Shade… but she wouldn’t fit in Ravenclaw; she didn’t have a passion for knowledge and wouldn’t say she was creative. She wouldn’t deny she was smart, though… so it was a possibility. Hufflepuff was completely scratched, she was not hardworking nor kind. The only one left was slytherin… her brothers had joked she’d end up there, with her little revenge plans she pulled off whenever Bree or Tramy decided to get on her ugly side. Well, it was always her idea and Shade’s execution. But, from what she’d heard, a house of pretentious rich kids and mean teachers wasn’t that appealing to her. She ended up deciding to leave it to the hat.

The first kid to go up was Alice Zhang, hufflepuff. They were calling the kids in reverse alphabetical order, which meant she was going to be one of the last ones… great, she thought, mentally rolling her eyes. She wanted to get over it quickly but no, she’d have to wait. 

Kilorn was next. He grinned wide when the hat announced “Hufflepuff!” He had been eyeing the house, hoping to end up there. And so, one by one, the students stepped forward and sat in the stool to have their houses chosen. Most of them were happy with their new school family. Some had expected it. Others hadn’t, and were pretty shocked from it. But also the students didn't care about most of the newcomers.

The attention was on two students: Maven and Sonya Iral from the carriage. Mare couldn’t help but listen at people’s muttering about them.

“... with a family like that I bet you five galleons she'll end up in Ravenclaw or Slytherin”

“That boy’s definitely a Slytherin”. “How are you so sure? Every Calore ever has been a Gryffindor.” “He just looks like one. I can see it in his face.”

“... with a mother like that…” “I’ve never met Elara, but I hear that she could defeat he-who-must-not-be-named with her stare only.”

Mare’s eyes were suddenly very open. Who was this he-who-must-not-be-named person and why didn’t Shade tell her about him? It was certainly important. 

“Sonya Iral,” The professor, McGonagall, called.

The girl walked toward the stool. She looked like one of the mean girls who would call your shoes ugly in fourth grade, with long black hair straightened to perfection and deep tan skin, and moved with the grace of a ballerina. 

“Slytherin!”

Mare startled at the loud cheers behind her. She would cheer too, she thought, if she had one of the richest people in the school in her house. 

“All the posh kids are making it to slyth,” she heard, coming from a table to her left. 

“It’s always the rich ones in slytherin… I don’t think I’ve seen a muggleborn in that house in years,” another student said.

“I mean, nowadays being a muggleborn in slytherin would suck…”

Mare swallowed hard. Maybe I could end up in gryffindor.

A few more students passed. Ravenclaw. Gryffindor. Gryffindor. Slytherin. 

Then, “Maven Calore.”

Maven walked slowly to the stool, all eyes on him. People were still betting on his placement, which made Mare mentally sigh in annoyance. She glanced at the Gryffindor table, all of them on their toes. Her eyes focused on a guy who was maybe thirteen, and had eyes literally the color of fire. That must be Cal the seventh, Mare thought. He was staring hopefully at his brother, hands clasped in front of his mouth. 

Maven, to his favor, looked calm. 

“Slytherin!” the hat declared. 

Gasps traveled through the whole hall. Jaws dropped to the floor and eyebrows shot to the ceiling as Maven walked to his house, which, to the shock of everyone who knew the Calores, was not Gryffindor. He was almost… proud? Or, looked like it, with his back straight and his strides long and confident. The green table roared, welcoming his new student, son of some… really powerful people. Mare was starting to think the Slytherin house wasn't a house of like-minded students, but an exclusive club of trust fund children. One she certainly could not belong to. Or could she?

She was about to find out. 

Mare felt her blood run down her veins like sparks, suddenly feeling very anxious. Rachel Brown, Ravenclaw. She breathed in, breathed out. Felt her leg shake. Edward Bennett, Hufflepuff. She braced herself. This was it. 

“Mare Molly Barrow.”

She hurried to the stool, hearing murmurs about her potential house. “Gryffindor, for sure.” “She looks a bit Ravenclaw to me.” “No, I know it. That’s a Slytherin face.” “She has the same look as Farley, definitely a Gryffindor.” 

McGonagall put the hat on top of her unruly head. She cringed when she felt the hat speak inside her mind. It’s looking through my brain…

“I see quite a bit of nerve in there…” it said. “Oh. oh, yes, you are a courageous one, child.” 

She smiled. Gryffindor, then? She couldn’t help it, bt a bit of disappointment fell on her shoulders at that. 

“No… i see that, while brave, you are twice as cunning. Intelligence sharp as a viper’s” Her eyes sparked, quickly assessing the room, finding Maven’s by chance. 

“It could not be more clear… SLYTHERIN!”

Mare grinned and walked toward her table, her house, while cheers surrounded her from all sides. A part of her sank when she realized the slytherin table was the one cheering the least. 

Still, they welcomed her with smiles as she sat. “Hey!” Maven said, shocked as was the rest of the house, whispering among them and giving her looks that ranged from confusion to plain disgust. Some, like Maven, were actually happy she was there. A girl with silver hair and dark grey eyes was surveying her intently. Mare couldn’t figure out if it was curiosity or malice in her eyes. She wanted to feel welcomed, she really did, but from what she’d heard about her new house, she wondered if she ever would. Everyone looked so composed and elegant… and there she was, straight out of a muddy village. She felt small, and off, so she decided to distract herself from her thoughts and focus on the ceremony… which was ending. 

“Hello! Welcome to Slytherin,” a voice said, taking her out of her gloom. A girl was standing over her, she had bright red hair which reminded her of Gisa’s, and wore a wide, welcoming smile. “I’m Mariella Haven. Prefect. If you need help with anything, you can come to me or any other Prefect.”

Mare smiled. She seemed… genuinely nice. “Hey, thank you,” she said. Mariella gave her and Maven a polite smile and walked back to her seat, which was near the edge of the table. 

“I feel strange here,” Mare whispered to Maven, as the table suddenly got filled with all kinds of foods. 

“Me too,” he whispered back. A small pressure released from Mare’s shoulders, knowing she wasn’t alone in her feelings of inadequacy. 

Eagerly, students started filling theri plates, and she did the same, helping herself to Turkey and a very colorful salad. This must be the most appetizing food she’d seen in her life, and her eyes sparkled with excitement. 

As the start-of-term feast went on, the six first years of Slytherin chatted eagerly about the train ride and what the hat had said and how happy they were to be placed in the best house. For some, it was a family tradition, almost. Sonya and Maven both said they felt kind of good for going out of their family’s norm. Mare didn’t speak much, but still she could feel a tight bond of loyalty forming between her and her housemates, no matter their differences. Maybe she’d make a place for herself here, after all. She had to. 

[shiro-0197]

aw shiro, my love, don't worry about it!! i only hope you're okay and safe :d please only reply when you're free, and don't feel bad about it!! >:(

my day yesterday was okay, i've just been relaxing, and studying occasionally. went out to explore a nearby town too, it's so pretty there. and much colder (since it's a highlands) of course!! Today was great too. I bought doughnuts (they're amazing?? I love doughnuts), and I had instant ramen, but it was SO spicy I nearly died. (Three bottles of water later, because someone finished all the milk in the household *cough* me *cough*) and I'm still just reeling. Sucks having such low spice tolerance HAHA. I'm listening to some old school hip-hop rn, while typing this out :D how were your two days?

here are some i'll be using to teach english :d and that would honestly be much appreciated, he's getting on my last nerve rn. (I included the first few, what do you think?)

thats such a priceless feeling i so totally agree. you're so precious 🥺🥺 i'm sure they're prouder thank you imagine. you're so dedicated!! i'm sure all that extra research you've done will definitely pay off. it's good that you know what the job is roughly like, so you'll be really prepared when you finally do start it. you know that one scene, in the 2nd season of the great pretender? when the chinese mafia boss emphasizes the importance of a translator in literally everything? (like that book award example) i may be getting the thing muddled up, but i found that so cool. like yeah, a book or speech could be absolutely beautiful, but if everyone can't enjoy it due to it being a different language, it would be such a shame. i just find translators really important. sorry, i'm really dorky haha 🥺🥺

awww but i think your personality type is wonderful. a lot of my favourite characters are intj (they're all so precious istg grrrr) yes!! i was in a tooru brainrot yesterday too 😭😭😭 (saw a bunch of couples on my walk, and I was like "if only Tooru was real grrrr") and yes?? there'd be so much to learn from each and every one of them. dedication from hinata, savage lines from tsukki, kindness from yams/yachi, how to be a dork 101 from atsumu. aaaah 😭😭i'm sorry they're all so wonderful.

No pftttt I totally feel you. I saw some people without masks today and I was like "bro wtf" and just really loudly said "I sure hope everyone starts following the rules so the cases don't increase" because I'm a lil bitch like that xD

awww okay!! I'll definitely keep that in mind. Mayo makes everything better, tbh >.< aww that's understandable! I don't have specific preferences but hearing the phrase "soggy cheese" makes me want to cry somewhere :( I don't like nuts in chocolate. I'm very passionate about that? XD ikr??

I'm surprised too, I usually never pass on murder, but I guess you're just special like that 👉👈 sir I'd get married to you as many times as you'd like 😼 oops sorry for being cheesy, but—you like cheese ;)

U

I won't ask why, don't worry. Since I kinda feel the same about Malaysia tbh. It's a love hate relationship, I think HAHA but yeah 😣😣 i don't look up to US at all, and it sucks because people generally do. And I'm just like ;-; why (no offense to Americans tho lol)

is that even legal omg they're so chaotic?? XD how cute tho. Angel does stuff like that all the time too, but I'd never know that when I first met her (she has the most perfect exterior, and then when you get to know her; she's the biggest dork) Schools opening on the 20th, I can't wait to see her then :] (I can, however, wait for the exams which are scheduled for the 25th ugh)

peanut butter is indeed yellow, not up for discussion hehe :) here's my favourite hues!! I love gentle, soft hues like these (pastels) , for yellow; I don't have a favourite. they're all wonderful

ahhh no that's so precious of you!! :)) I'm smiling rn.

yeah skdhskdjsk I'M JUST SO GRRR. Whenever someone goes "hey Ari can you ______" and we both respond?? The tension?? In the air?? Bro skdjskks. 😔🤚 You share a name with one of the most precious characters too tho!!;

This is Shiro from Voltron hehe. I love him so much, just like I love you (tho I'm sure we both know I love you more <3)

I share a name with a book character. His name is Aristotle Mendoza, but his crush-turned-boyfriend calls him "Ari" (which has been my nickname since I was 12). Reading it for the first time was the BEST feeling ever. It's also my favourite book, "Aristotle and Dante discover the secrets of the universe".

—Ari :D (no pfttt I love the tag so much. I have my own tag, that's like the best thing ever 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺)

Heyyy I'm so sorry for answering so late!! I know you said not to apologize but..... well hmm no excuse I just feel like apologizing, but either way thank you for your patience!!♡ This is the third time I'm rewriting this, and this time I'm doing this in my notes because fuck it😔

Im glad to hear that!! Highlands are always so pretty. Wish we had those here, but it's only steppe here:( Boring~ ooh, donuts!!! They're really good. I havent much, but I tried them like 3 times and they're so good. I really hope I will get to eat more<3 also WHAT'S THOSE NOODLES' NAME I WANNA KNOW- Are you feeling okay now, though? XD

My days were nice!!! Felt as if I had been hiding three bodies, but I've been feeling better lately. We had online school yesterday so I'm excused from the errands for the half of the day, thankfully. But your messages make me very happy. Though I dont always feel like writing a response (or I get stressed because it doenst save) so very sorry for that😔

Ohh those look so pretty!! I'd totally join to just look at them. The colors are so nice🥺 it looks like one of our olympiad prep slides, though better. I dont have the screenshots sadly😩 Either way I really love the little details like the squiggly thingies or the Ж .... they seem unnecessary but the energy changes a lot without them hehe

I really hope they will be🥺 that'd mean a lot to me. And I'm also really hopeful itll work out. I really don't wanna disappoint my family, which is literally just one person. The less people there are, the more it hurts, you know?

Yeah, that scene meant so much to me!! I dknt remember much, but I was very happy they said something like that, because I've been told being a translator wont work out for me. Now look at me, I'm about to tell them to fuck themselves<3 I was also so surprised to see Laurent know that many languages ..... I aspire to be like him😩 And honestly, I havent though so deep of that but you opened my eyes and now I'm about to float off into the next universe😭 dont apologize though, its very cute!!!♥︎♥︎

Heheh, I guess you're right.. every single anime INTJ is a silent sexy mastermind and I love them . ... YEAH every single time I see a passing couple i cry because I dont have anyone 😡💔 and sometimes when I see people doing something amusing (which includes people failing cuz I'm evil) I just imagine one of the characters doing that and I smile all the way xD Honestly, I'd sell my father on black market for a single day with one of them:( though that may sound like a really low price because his cigarette filled lungs wouldnt cost a lot... I sound like my 7th grade self again I'm so sorry

BAHQHHANEJWJD I HOPE THEY WERE EMBARRASED. I HOPE THEY FELT AWKWARD AND OTHER PEOPLE DID TOO, they deserve it. Like, learn your lesson bitch, it's been a year!

Yeah!!! I love mayo, not to the point where I would gulp it down from the package, but it does make dishes taste good. Same, soggy cheese on itself sounds like a dish served in the ninth circle of hell. You should try nuts in honey!! Like, just straight up dip them in honey. Sounds weird, and it doesnt always taste NEJFJKSKF (depends on the honey)but I think it's worth trying xD Walnuts are the best with honey I think

That was so funny ... TOO FUNNY, I LAUGHED FOR LIKE . 3MINUTES STRAIGHT and I do not laugh when I'm tired. You really are special 😭😭😭😭 cheesy ... HAHRNFJJSF

I'm so sorry for being a bully like that but it's so funny how you left a single U there . Its so mysterious, was it in purpose? Or were you lost in the excitement if messaging me?

I was one of those people, honestly 😭 but mostly because I wasnt aware of its political condition, I guess. Maybe theres more than just politics that's bad about US, but honestly, it has more opportunities than this hellfire. Though now I'm more into Norway and Japan. Really wanna travel there :(

Heheh, yeah, we never really show off to strangers at first. I dont know what exactly I mean by we, but you get my point ♡ Good luck though!! I hope it goes well for you<3

Oh they looks so pretty!! They're really wonderful. Like bubblegum and cotton candy and literally anything sweet... it's so cute !!! And I totally agree, there isnt a bad yellow.

HAHAH, honestly, that reminds me of how there were 4 people with the same name in my class, and whenever the teacher did the attendance thing, they would all stand up. Teachers usually dont say the last names, so we always gotta ask which person they mean if theres more than one person with that name, so yeah.. That happened on accident at first, but then they just did it for trolling xD

OH MY GOD HES SO PRETTY? HES SO PRECIOUS?? HUHHH??? I gotta thank Kuro for this wonderful opportunity of sharing a name with someone like .... him🥺

Oh that's so cool!! Also, he has a boyfriend ... I really need to start reading xD it's so cute though! It sounds like such a good book, I'm glad you share a name with him, hehe!!

I also share my real name with one of the characters in a kids' show, and its SO ugly, I'm in pain. Every time my friends see one of those on TV they go

Which is a pain in the ass, it's so embarrassing...........

Awh, okay!! I'm glad you love it, cuz I do too. Because it's your name.... cuz I love u. That was so lame PLEASEJWJDJSJF I HOPE YOUR DAY WAS GREAT !!! LOVE YOU

[thebutlers]

shopping ban reflection

Hello all! I hope you’re enjoying your time indoors, relaxing, dreaming, working on the things that matter to you. I’m an introvert so I’m loving this time of social distancing to just slow down and catch up on reading, sleeping, and family time.

I wanted to share my thoughts on my shopping ban that ended on March 8. It’s been a few weeks since it ended and I’ve had time to really put my thoughts together about what happened.

First, I got tempted a lot to go thrifting because all our tour team loved thrifting. Our team would go about once a week and find some real gems. But, as time went on, the temptation died down. I came to realize that they were dissatisfied with their own wardrobe because they were bored. They didn’t go shopping out of need for new, unique pieces to really enhance their collection. They went because they were bored. I realized that I went thrifting so much because I was bored too.

While I couldn’t shop, I started to see the things I gravitated towards in my wardrobe. Even though my wardrobe was limited because I was using a carry on bag, I used certain pieces waaaay more than others. I realized that when I did go shopping, I needed to look for pieces that were similar in style, comfort, and color palette.

Third, I realized that if wasn’t comfortable and not in my color scheme, I didn’t wear it. I used to buy things that were not comfortable but super cute. And although I liked looking at it in my closet, I would avoid wearing it because I knew I wouldn’t be comfortable. Now I know to not even waste my time. If it’s not comfortable I won’t buy it.

After my shopping ban ended I went another week before I finally went shopping.

I first went to Buffalo Exchange, a thrift store in Denver, and sold a bunch of stuff from back home that I had saved that I realized I wouldn’t wear. Things like jeans that didn’t fit right, shirts that showed my stomach, and shirts with patterns I didn’t like. I got trade in money and used part of it to buy a pair of simple, plank leather sandals and a Zara floor length sun dress with an open back that will be great for nicer events I’ll be attending this summer.

Then I went to another thrift store called Plato’s Closet in Highlands Ranch and got a pink, crushed velvet, puffer jacket for the winter. It is a nicer coat that will go great with nicer outfits in the late fall, winter, and early spring. I also got two swimsuit tops that are more appropriate for the way my body looks now.

I went back to Plato’s with more stuff to sell and got trade in money. I spent it on a pair of platform black sandals, a pair of striped blue and white jeans, and an off the shoulder velvet sweater which will go well with outfits this spring and over my swimsuit at the beach when we move back out to HB. I bought a casual style cheetah print dress, a Van’s neutral striped tank top, a black crew neck, a basic American Eagle gray shirt, a cheetah print skirt, and a black jean skirt with skinny white lines. I also bought one of my favorite items I’ve ever bought, which is a floral patterned, ruffled, long sleeve, above the knee dress that will be great for a ladies night out or a date day with Mak.

In total, I spent $60 on all of those pieces combined. I feel very confident that these purchases not only will be used, but make me feel stylish and put together for any event I go to. This ban really showed me that shopping is not a solution to being bored, to really think before I buy, and to appreciate the things I have for as long as I can. I use to think it wasn’t a big deal if I only wore something a few times because I thrifted it and didn’t spend a lot of money on it. But, even if that is the case, I need to buy with intention or else I produce clutter in my life, waste my time shopping every few weeks, and waste my money buying new used things because I didn’t really think through my purchase in the first place.

“Think twice, buy once”, is my new motto.

xoxo, db

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

COMMANDER LILITH

THIS NEWS @ ME AND THE VINE COMP

LETS GOOOOOOOOO

BEST NEWS FIRST

IT’S SUPPOSEDLY FREE AND COMING OUT NOT THE 11TH BUT THE 9TH LIKE THIS MONTH THE 9TH LIKE IN 4 DAYS

I FEEL BAD FOR THE PEOPLE GOING TO E3 CAUSE NOW THEY CAN’T PLAY THIS DLC UNTIL THEY GET HOME, F IN CHAT FOR THE BOYS

HOLY SHIT THIS IS REAL OKAY

EVERYBODY STAY CALM

SANCTUARY IS UNDER SIEGE

TELL ME SOMETHING I DON’T KNOW, BABY

THE VAULT MAP HAS BEEN STOLEN

OH WE’RE OFFICIALLY CALLING IT THE VAULT MAP NOW, OKAY, CALYPSO TWINS CONFIRMED TO HAVE TAKEN OUR OLD KEY

YOU KNOW WHAT’S NOT CONFIRMED WHATEVER THE FUCK IS GOING ON WITH ALL THESE GODDAMN PLANTS

YOU GUYS REMEMBER THAT OLD CANCELED TPS DLC? OF COURSE YOU DO, THAT’S WHAT THEY ARE APPARENTLY USING AS A BASE FOR THIS ONE

REMEMBER THE “INFECTED” STATUS EFFECT? WELL, I’M ASSUMING THAT’S WHAT THE TOXIC GAS IS

“A DERANGED VILLAIN HELL-BENT ON RULING THE PLANET” SO WE’RE NOT FIGHTING THE CALYPSO TWINS?! SOMEONE UNDER THEM??? I ALMOST WANT TO BELIEVE IT’S SOMEONE ENTIRELY DIFFERENT- JUST SOME RANDOM ASSHOLE WHO WANTS TO RULE THE WORLD AND THE TWINS SHOW UP AT THE END OF THE DLC AND WIPE HIS ASS OFF THE MAP FOR US AND YOINK THE VAULT MAP THAT IS RIGHTFULLY OURS AWAY FROM UNDER US

NEW LEVEL CAP 80?? HOLY FUCK?????? AND WE CAN START PLAYING IMMEDIATELY AT LEVEL 30 OH MY GOD I COULD KISS WHOEVER DECIDED THAT WAS NECESSARY I LOVE YOU

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR OP LEVELS? AM I GONNA BOP IN WITH MY OP8 ZER0 AND END UP FIGHTING ENEMIES AT LEVEL 88 WHEN I FINALLY LEVEL UP??? WHEN MY GEAR IS LEVEL 80 (AS THAT’S WHAT OP8 DOES) BECAUSE OH MY SWEET JESUS I DON’T WANNA GRIND MY HIDE OF TERRA AGAIN AHHGGGGGG

okay im gonna take a breath now

we’re calm

we’re good. this is good, we’re okay, i have to type everything 5 times over so its coherent but you know what this is okay this is happening, we’re cool.

i have to be the bearer of bad news as well but i don’t know if those screencaps of the ship from bl3 are what we’re seeing here in the new dlc (as much as I want to be right lmao). the screencaps of the ship definitely seemed like a insect infestation, not a plant one, ya know?

THEY’RE TURNING THE CARS GAY

or at least like... Buttstallion themed... check out the little horseshoe emoticon in the back there

but it’s pride month, they totally knew what they were doing and the fact that pre-ordered copies of bl3 apparently get a buttstallion themed skin for their ...gear... guns..? iirc... that means we can have gay guns in bl3, too. gearbox is treating us so fucking right, thank you

anyway the location the car is in looks like the highlands or a hammerlock’s big game hunt-type area. mossy/grassy with boulders in the background.

it looks almost like uranus spawns in right at the start of the dlc! which is awesome, and now i understand why they boost you to 30 before you start.

im verrrryyyy interested in that shot of Sanctuary up in the sky there. you can see the drill, its surrounded by a cloud of dust, it looks like its falling to pieces. i also don’t know where exactly this screenshot takes place but my first thought was the eridium blight (because of the mountain in the back) but that wouldn’t match the sky at all. I then thought maybe the ruins of helios? but we would be able to see more rocks and shit around the edges. then i was all “maybe the highlands”? the rock would match as it has grass growing on top, and sanctuary is very close to overlook, so it’s definitely possible. im gonna say somewhere near the highlands, yeah. the WEP and Opportunity are both fairly near there and it does have some pretty mountainous areas... so. maybe the highlands.

it looks like the giant vines are reaching up towards sanctuary so i retract my previous statement. i don’t think that’s dust. i think they’re drilling away at the plants trying to grow up to it lol

“Shooting the Moon” makes me think this has something to do with Elpis (not a surprise, if you realize the dlc they’re basing this off of is an old TPS dlc called Luxy’s Space Adventure where a bunch of mutated plant people end up on the space-cruise ship) 

honestly i’m really fucking hoping they bring back the flamethrower for the final boss (elon musk’s..?)

an area where we can see exactly what this space-cruise ship was supposed to look like

we also know in the dlc that the disease was spread by some space pirates, so i don’t know if that’s going to be the case here (they board the cruise ship and start spreading disease). Loader bots are apparently ‘Hacked’ so it’s probably not Hyperion we’re going at again. I could see them throwing the space pirates at us, tho maybe changing the guys a little bit so it’s not too much like Captain Scarlett. 

there is this boss character and that logo on the bottom, possibly a logo for who we’re going to fight in the new dlc? Interestingly enough, she’s got the red and black color scheme, too. cough troy cough. god them having space pirate as a backstory would be fucking AWESOME

i have been going thru the concept art album here if you want to take a look for yourself and tbh

this pic got me thinking about that “Atlas ice cream shop” prompt the VA for lorelei released 🤔

anyway, moving on from old dlc to what’s new! because lord knows they must’ve changed a lot lol

the infected psychos on the title art

also, correct me if im wrong, but it looks like lily is standing in 2 places at once- flying sanctuary on the right and three horns divide on the left

anyway

uranus looks a lot more DAHL themed than i originally noticed, like yeah he looks like saturn, but check that color scheme. may be the work of the new baddies.

this logo may hold some importance, but i can’t recall ever seeing something like it before.

so this minimap

lucky me i extracted all the textures from bl2 a couple days ago

im very pleased to say this doesn’t look like any minimap we’ve been shown so far, although i did a very quick glance through, so if you guys recognize it, please tell me!!

i can’t believe they made the guns sparkly and gay. Thank you gearbox. fucking thank you.

the area sal is in reminds of that one place in frostburn canyon, but i doubt that’s actually where he is. likely a new area we haven’t discovered yet!!

lily

the background is uhhh disgusting, but it is giving me WEP vibes, with the windmill/lighthouse (wherever that area is where you find maya’s ECHO log) and the walls. though the texture of the ground is giving me hammerlock’s hunt vibes.

anyone know why her wings are giving off the digital pixel look angel’s did? like the digistruct vibe?

weird.

tina! she’s clearly playing a big part in this dlc. wondering if pickle and athena are also around. I don’t think this is sanctuary. the big wall in the back. perhaps where the vines are actually growing from below the mining ship?

would then pin this as somewhere near overlook.

brick! looks to be the same-ish area as tina (if the buildings have anything to say about it)

honestly the people in the ground is killing me lol. person on the left seems like some random civilian..? he’s just got pants and loafers on. maybe the cruise ship crashed on pandora and the pirates aboard are taking their changes lol

doubtful, though, considering the plan seems premeditated with the huge cloud of toxic gas and shit

now I’m just wondering if the reason the CoV psychos are wearing those respirator-like masks is because the twins showed up with them and were like “if you wear these ‘blessed masks’ when you go to fight the plant shit, you won’t die. yeah, we’re gods. join our cult lmao”.

im just really curious how this ties into the CoV. I imagine either the twins are working with the (new?) villain somehow, or they end up stealing the Vault Map away from us (and possibly killing the bad guy first) at the very end of the DLC. I do want to entertain the idea that they’re like “hey!!! we can help!!!” and then end up betraying us right at the end and toppling Sanctuary for good and taking the key.

alright, that’s all i’ve got. I’m gonna go scream into my pillows now until the 9th happens. 

btw, season 1 of vip stuff happens TOMORROW (the 6th!). hype!!!

edit:

lilith’s digistruct pack has a red accent on it now

im wondering if this is some sort of projection of Lily since her wings have the weird pixels...

[coolhiroaki]

I think pokemon might be pulling a GoT where they flip some of the geography around. People are speculating it might be an upside down UK map, making the big city at the top London and the countryside at the bottom Scotland

potentially? but the area shown in the trailer is… super english. like… it doesnt look or feel scottish at all. its a very romanticised classic looking english village. the red brick and tudor houses we see later in the trailer are also super reminiscent of england (esp the north).

additionally, on the map, there are a bunch of snowy mountains in the north, and the whole area is mountainous, smth heavily associated with scotland (considering, ykno, the highlands) ( also also theres a wall 1/3 down the way, which is probably a call to hadrians wall, a historical marker of an old scottish/english border)

im also mega concerned about where the hell wales fits on the map : s

im rly rly sick of media saying british and meaning english, i rly hope scotland and wales get a shout out in a game meant to be british. not to be like that but we ARE british. our cultures have been continuously been oppressed and considered less than, the english invaded, forced ppl speaking other languages in the countries to assimilate and learn english, and ykno. either completely colonised us or forced us into a union. history is full of active efforts from the english to erase scottish and welsh traditions and culture. now were british,,,, we dont ever get to see ourselves as such in media. they made us british and now the whole world is peddling that that means were english. british = english is such a toxic misconception. if they just wanted to use english stuff id have been fine w that if thats what it said dkfjnff

the sword/shield motif seems very arthurian, which is the mythology of all the uk, not just england, and im a little upset so far, aside from the girls tammy hat, it all seems super english. im esp concerned if theyre plonking london right where edinburgh should be - youre telling me a giant castle on an old volcano wouldnt be a dope place for a pokemon finale?

they could have just started in a scottish village in the north and moved down to the big city in london idk. 

like i said i aint gonna judge it until weve gotten it, but im a little cautious rn. pls be assured i am not spouting hate for a game i havent seen! im just concerned and vocalising it, i was genuinely so excited to see the news and i rly rly hope it turns out well. scotland doesnt get a lot of cool rep in games like this, itd be lovely to see a cute fun game that happens to be set in scotland. i rly rly hope we get that : s

the only reason im not mentioning northern ireland in this discussion is because the isle of ireland literally just doesnt exist on the map. which once again, mildly concerning but not an issue in of itself; british can mean “from the uk” which includes northern ireland, or “from the isle of britain”, which excludes it. im just worried it might highlight a lack of uk knowledge. totally get why a major game wouldnt wanna get into hot water w the northern ireland irish/british Thing but… idk. : s

[serene-gale]

Reunion Part 1: A Warm Welcome

Previous Story

A hazy fog beset the Chocobo forest as Serene walked brisky into the expansive treeline. It had took her roughly a day or so to traverse from the frigid cold Coerthan Highlands to the much more temperate, but still chilly landscape.

Serene took her time, simply too tired to rush any more, the Roegadyn took in the sights, the odd looking trees, the plethora of wild Chocobos roaming the flora, the decidedly less friendly looking bandersnatches lurking out of the corner of Serene’s eye, a fascinating place, surely, though Serene’s attention was torn between it and her stomach, the Roegadyn desiring a place to rest before continuing her journey.

Fortunately enough, her legs eventually took her to what looked like a place of establishment, a large gate, a few houses and barns strewn about, a village, just on the cusp of being a hamlet even, in the distance. Serene picked up her pace, eventually breaking into a jogging pace as she got to the village gates, throwing her hands in the air as she did so.

“Finally! A proper settlement. Maybe now I can get a proper change of clothes.”, Serene exclaimed, sighing in relief as she let her arms down, moving further into the confines of the village, where she was promptly approached by a Elezen man, surprisingly not as tall as her, with a small amount of stubble and a warm smile on his face.

“Welcome to Tailfeather stranger, not often we see Roegadyn in these parts come and go, but you’re welcome to stay a while all the same.”, he greeted Serene , who waved in turn.

“Hey! How are you? I’d be happy to stay for a bit, need a change of clothes and something warm to eat, do you guys have anywhere for me to get set up?”, Serene asked, only for the Elezen trapper to scrunch his face up a little.

“Not really missus, we’re hunters and trappers, not got much hospitality for those on the outside, but then again, we’re not wont to shove you off. We got bunks if you need to rest your head and clean up, and if you want some food I’m sure you could haggle with a travelling merchant if they happen on by or ask one of our boys if you can buy a cut of his catch. Eeh, Bandersnatch meat is shite, but it fills you up.”, the trapper explained, to which Serene nodded, beaming a smile at him.

“Hah, I’m not one to be picky, unless I’m allowed to be picky, any meat would be happily accepted and eaten in full.”, Serene said, her stomach growling as if on cue, “Mind showing me around so I can grab this meat and get myself stuck in?”, Serene asked, to which the trapper nodded, beckoning Serene over to a small congregation of other men by the river.

“Oi Esbyrne! You got any spare bandersnatch meat you can throw on the pyre for this girl here, she’s willing to pay!”, he called out, a older man, Hyur, gruff looking with a grey beard, slowly got up, nodding.

“Eyup, got some just rotting here, should be good for another day or so though, you want this dryin’ or just cookin’ lass?” the old man Esbyrne asked Serene, to which she shook her head before replying.

“Just to cook thanks, need something in the tank asap, how much you want?”, Serene asked, to which the man held up his hand, fingers and thumb outstretched.

“500 gil, not gonna go higher, this stuff is shite for ‘actual’ food, used for Gnath hunting if anything.”, he grumbled, taking the coin Serene handed over as he got up fully and picked up a slab of Bandersnatch meat, sticking a metal rod through it and putting on a heavy duty glove.

“Will be a while, rest up or whatever, I’ll get one of the lads here to call yeh when I’m done.”, Serene simply gave the lethargic old man a thumbs up.

“Will do!”, she affirmed as she headed off towards the barracks that the Elezen trapper mentioned prior.

Serene yawned, taking herself aback by her sudden onset of tiredness. A dull pain radiated from her side, the Roegadyn figuring that she was still somewhat out of it from her previous fight, nothing bad, she surmised, surely, but still something to rest on.

The room she entered was dark, with a few people sleeping in their respective bunks. Serene took off some of her more cumbersome belts and lay down on the wooden frame of the bed as quietly as she could. The bed frame was rough, but it did the job well enough for the Roegadyn to fall into a slumber. A slumber that had Serene dream about her old life, pleasant memories, memories she’d rather forget but would still treasure, as that was all that had been left for her.

An indeterminate amount of time later, a great bang had Serene jump out of bed. She rushed out to the daylight of Tailfeather, it only having been an hour or so since her arrival. Small, localised fires and continued, smaller bangs rang out all around her. For a brief moment the Roegadyn Monk pondered on whether she had been cursed to have misfortune follow her every step, though she quickly snapped out of it and ran towards the centre of the village.

As quickly as she arrived, Serene found the source of the commotion, a small group of queer, bug like entities where attacked the trappers and hunters of Tailfeather ferociously, using their improvised, crude, but effective weaponry to deal heavy damage to their humanoid opponents.

Without a word Serene leapt into action, engaging with a small group of the ‘Gnath’ that had surrounded a wounded trapper, the Elezen from before. The Roegadyn spared no mercy, sending one of the three Gnath flying into the nearby log cabin with a swift, but decisive roundhouse kick that rendered the bug unconscious. The other two turned and aimed their weaponry at Serene, only for her to lunge at the closest Gnath, grab it’s rifle and swing it and the Gnath on the other end into it’s ally, a crunching sound accompanying the crumpling of the two bodies on the floor.

Before Serene was even able to speak up, a sharp pain shot through her upper arm, a pellet of what she assumed was buckshot hit her from a Gnath behind her, who was in the process of reloading. Without hesitation, Serene aimed the gun she had disarmed from the other Gnath and fired a shot directly at her assallant, hitting it square in the chest and causing it to fall back motionless.

Dropping the now empty gun, Serene went to the Elezen, who was, despite his coughing fit, alright.

“H-help...Esbyrne, old man...’gainst a bunch o’ them...I’ll be...fine.”, he gasped, to which Serene gave a curt nod, beckoning over a nearby hunter who was looking for injured. After seeing off the trapper, Serene sprinted off the direction she was told Esbyrne was in, hoping the old man was still safe.

What Serene saw as she approached Esbyrne caused her to panic, a group of four Gnath, all of them with their rifles pointing at the old man with intent to end him. The Roegadyn’s eyes flashed for a brief second before her form was enveloped in a golden glow for again, the briefest of moments as she sped up to a speed the Gnath around Esbyrne couldn’t perceive.

One, two, three four. Serene neutralised each Gnath with a single strike for each, the first falling to a full power punch that sent it flying. The second getting grappled and slammed into the ground with such a force that if not for its thick carapace, would have broken its face. Next the third was dealt the receiving end of Serene’s boots as she vaulted on the body of her last victim to  deliver an especially powerful boot to her would be assailant. Finally the last Gnath, backing up, would be caught by a back handed strike by the Roegadyn, slumping to the floor like the rest.

“Are you harmed?”, Serene said, the aetheric glow fading quickly as she rushed to Esbyrne’s side, the old man nodded, using Serene to stand up, propping himself on her shoulder as best he can.

The two made the first step towards safety, the Gnath had their ranks broken, the raid a failure as those who were still living or conscious began to all collectively panic and run. Serene didn’t know why for a scant few seconds until a deafening roar and what felt like a piercing shouting in her mind made her all to aware of what the hive minded bugs were afraid off.

‘*noise...that noise...must stop...*’

Serene heard these words in her mind, as did everyone present as she turned to face something that gave her pause.

A Wyvern, perched on the rooftop of the Chocobo Nest, it let out another howl and took to flight, using it’s tail to smash the nest under it before launching a fireball at the nearby storage building Serene and Esbyrne were next to, forcing the two to fall to the ground to avoid debris that was launched by the firey attack.

And as soon as it started, everything was.

‘*quiet*’

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