#and i actually found that to be. really insightful. and also fun? because i got to spot differences

[asvidema]

just finished watching the last duel because i needed to try watching a medieval movie. i will say this. fuck

[senseandaccountability]

HR department romance plots

I just… beyond the surface level of enjoying a new game with new relationship dynamics to explore, I really can’t feel much about the DAV companions or their romances.

They all just seem so disconnected from the story, from Rook (who in turn is entirely disconnected from all kinds of feelings because Rook is just Employee Of the Year), from the world, from themselves. I feel like Cole here, looking at them and saying in my gentle, fleeting voice: even the dwarves don’t really remember dwarves. It really feels like the interpersonal relationships are written by the HR person who sits with you as union rep to tell you that you should use a positive language, that "we are all simply employees here, it doesn't matter what title you have", give a little pep talk about teamwork and how to get the job done. That's what we're here for. Everyone's equal. We all want the same thing here, your boss is your friend. Have you tried talking to this person, see their side of things, mmmm? It's just... yeah, they're cute, all of them. But why do they like each other? Why do they want to be with Rook? Who are they even in relation to the world of Thedas, what do they believe in, what have they overcome, what do they hate, what sort of prejudices do they carry around? I have no idea.

And since I’m also replaying DAI again, I wanted to compare these romances to my canon romances in DAI.  With Blackwall, you immediately get a sense of attraction and a sort of flirting on his part that suggests this is something he falls into quite easily - “you know a lot about girls” to quote Cole - BUT it’s also something he really, really thinks he shouldn’t be doing now. Why? He is tied to the Warden plot, if you bring him along you get a sense of a man hiding shit but you don’t really understand what, and he still comes to see you (flying/climbing up your balcony wall idk) because he can’t step away. You get to tell him he’s a good man even though you know shit about that at this point, like with Anders in DA2 you can give your PC over to this passion/love despite knowing that there’s something off, something potentially harmful or dangerous. There is conflict, there are things that jar, that can even make you uncomfortable. 

Blackwall as a character is open and compassionate. He approves of mercy, shows mercy, he isn't judgmental of others. In sharp and delicious contrast Blackwall’s crime is vile. He isn’t bound by any sort of oath, he can back down, there is no greater good whatsoever in his actions. It’s inexcusable. And yet. YET. You can CONTINUE THE ROMANCE. He killed a wagon full of kids, THEN RAN AWAY AND LET HIS MEN TAKE THE BLAME and hates himself so much that he tries to become someone else by erasing his previous self from the face of the earth. You can still kiss him and tell him you want him to live and redeem himself. It’s fucking incredible to think about this in the light of Veilguard actually. Your LI, the child murdering coward. 

With Iron Bull you have the doubts all spread out on the table. He’s a spy, how could you ever trust him? He also doesn’t respond to your flirting, why the hell not when you hear through ambient dialogue that he’s fucking half the chantry, isn’t he supposed to be a fuckboy? But he’s fun, he’s a mystery, he’s got fascinating banter with everyone, he’s brought his found family along, he’s a Qunari who at least somewhat believes in the Qun - he’s got AMAZING conversations with Solas that characterizes Bull as deeply intelligent (and Solas as much more caring than he’d let on) and knowledgeable about surprising things like architecture. Cole, as always, gives us more insight into Bull’s mind along the way and even before the offer to ride the Bull, the idea of him has been through some adjustments. You change his idea about a lot of things and in return, Bull challenges your idea of him, your idea of the Qun, your idea of the world and possibly, depending on how you react to his romance, your idea of intimate relationships. The game’s writing allowed me to imagine a rather frumpy circle mage in her mid 30s reluctantly forming a friendship with this strange fellow, only to find herself very much attracted to him, only to find herself being cared for in a way she would never have let anyone do before simply because Bull told her that was the only way he’d be with her. This is how we’ll do it, are you in? Your LI, the service top Qunari spy who is terrified he’ll run mad without his belief system to dictate his actions. 

And Solas. I mean mythical love stories culminating in mythical endings aside, what I really fell for in this relationship was the refreshing dynamic not of enemies to lovers but of two souls just sort of connecting instantly during strange events, taking a few hard looks at each other and going oh shit it’s you, you get me HOW is it possible you get me when nobody else does? There’s so much external drama surrounding them, which is why I personally LOVE and ADORE how calm their internal connection actually is. They know, so early in the game, that this is it. You’re my home, you understand the bones of me, you ask questions no one else thinks of asking, you care about the world in a way I haven’t seen anyone else do. He is LITERALLY the only one who understands your Lavellan when they make her the herald, when she protests and they keep pushing and pulling and sing their song after Haven, and Solas is there to be sarcastic about it. If nothing else, I'd fall in love with that. And there’s this sense of impossibility from the very beginning, a sense of it being almost unreal because the first kiss is in the Fade, the second is in a frenzy where Solas goes from 0 to I LOVE YOU, MY HEART and then leaves and you know, you know how this is coded and YET - he seemed so wise and kind and sad, it goes like this, the fourth, the fifth. And even with this connection of souls, things chafe - he’s an absolute bastard about certain things, he mocks your heritage and you don’t know yet that it’s because a huge guilt blanket rests on top of him since thousands of years back, you can just argue back and receive his disapproval. He says it’s selfish of him to start anything with you yet he does - WHY DO YOU DO THAT, SAD EGG? Your LI, the ancient god of rebellion, treachery and lies, depending on the story. 

Even beyond my favourites, there are conflicts. Sera is A LOT (affectionate) if you're an elf, with Cullen you get a substance abuse story-line tied to his general dismay about his past as a really fucked up templar, Dorian has personal trauma and cultural prejudice he struggles with for the entire game, Vivienne is so complex half the fandom hates her and has very awkward and uncomfortable banters with almost everyone (save for Bull because he treats her like he would a tamassran), Cassandra is constantly challenged in her personal beliefs, very clearly reflected in her conversations with Solas and Cole has a whole personal plotline about deeply existentialist matters. What does it mean to be alive? Who is a person and who gets to decide that? He could have been a person, Varric says. Isn't he already? Does this unit have a soul? Not to mention that Cole functions chiefly as a speaker of truths, bringing a lot of complexity to the others. 

DAI is not perfect by any means but I feel like I know these bastards. I feel like my PC or even I could actively dislike some of them, because they are written to create dynamic conflicts inside and outside of their own arcs. I can write fic about them, I can imagine what they're doing during the events of DAV because I know them.

Because they are written like actual people in a world where some people have power over others and some people have been raised with a certain belief system and some people just have shitty takes on society, may they learn. 

[mmani-e]

Hello! After all this effort, behold:

DANGANRONPA DEMIX, THH EDITION!

Dr Demix 2

Finally got the talentswap designs I have for the THH characters one and done with! You can click through the read more section for some fun design insights. I'm intending on uploading a doc containing short lore bits about them eventually.

Kyoko Kirigiri - Ultimate Affluent Progeny

So Kyoko's design was both kinda simple, kinda not, wanted to give her a very fine and regal kinda attitude to her but not arrogant as that's very much Byakuya's thing. Her story is that she loves her dad more than the family business and her grandpa so she abandons detective work and just uses her brain to help her dad out.

Makoto Naegi - Ultimate Novelist

Makoto is a wonderful guy, just great all around. He loves writing children's books and happy stories. This is his main coping mechanism so he doesn't have to process any negative emotions he gets, the rest he can't process… well they go into a murderous psychopath alter.

Aoi Asahina - Ultimate Lucky Student

Shoujo protagonist Aoi. Cute, headstrong, affective, competitive, these are all the traits that make her fight for her friends and clash with Kyoko (and more often than not Byakuya) in the killing game, even when all hope seems lost… she pushes through, unafraid to let tears spill from her eyes for all those lost, but pushing all the same.

Byakuya Togami - Ultimate Detective

This one, I wanna go into more lore territory, cause I kinda memed around his last desc I gave him so here goes:

"A disgraced heir of the Togami household, Byakuya lost the competition that would've secured his riches. Disdainful and bitter, he sought out to get to the bottom of why he lost, uncovering a rabbit hole in the process. By the end, he proved his sibling a cheater, but it didn't matter because by the end as he found the sweet satisfaction of uncovering secrets and crushing liars and cheaters under the weight of their hubris far more satisfying than any inheritance."

Sayaka Maizono - Ultimate Spirit Medium

So Sayaka isn't a clairvoyant at all like Yasuhiro, in fact her entire skillset is completely different, first of all she is like an actual psychic, and I based her design off of the japanese Itako, quite loosely. Very interesting group, look it up, also she'll never use these powers in the killing game because I dunno how to even approach these rituals or what they look like or how to write them while remaining respectful, so she won't do it in a killing game for the express reason of her not having the right tools available and not wanting to disrespect her traditions.

Leon Kuwata - Ultimate Swimmer

I really wanna draw him again, all these characters again tbh, and I wanna show off the patterns on his wetsuit. It's a whole coral reef under there, that anemone and clownfish bit is only one part of a whole reef stretching his midline.

Sakura Ogami - Ultimate Programmer

Sakura has installed chips into her body to help optimize her body processes and also cause why not. As for the muscles, she's an Assembly programmer, the programs she's made can run on calculators she loves it.

Chihiro Fujisaki - Ultimate Martial Artist

Chihiro's design here with the two belts is an explicit nod to his preferred martial art - Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, so unlike Sakura in canon who'd be easy to imagine cracking someone's skull in half with a chop, Chihiro's approach is more crawling onto someone and bringing them down to the floor with grappling like an angry halfling monk. As for the belts themselves, on his head is his final junior belt, while around his waist is his current belt, he's not a black belt yet because he's still too young for it.

Celestia Ludenberg - Ultimate Baseball Star

Celestia actually isn't a legend in this AU, Taeko is. Celestia hates that and wants to start a baseball career going international, whatever the hell that means is up to her own definition, but she wants to be remembered forever as Celestia, not Taeko. Also extra sentence, but this is the SINGLE hardest design I've ever had to deal with here, I think in the future I'll be drawing all her little accessories and I have an alt costume for her I have in mind.

Hifumi Yamada - Ultimate Pop Star

So I changed Hifumi's story as I originally outlined in the OG post with him. He was friends with Aoi all his life, pretty much his only friend at all, and ever since he was little he had an obsession with writing songs, because he was obsessed with stuff like anime openings and was content to just keep the songs to himself. It wasn't till Aoi convinced him to share some of his songs that he started his journey to success, but bc he's not traditionally attractive, his first hits were literally just… his voice being played over other more attractive singers and it wasn't until very very recently that he even performed a song of his for the first time.

Toko Fukawa - Ultimate Fanfic Writer

So while Hifumi was clearly a Doujinshi but due to weird translation, ended up as fanfic creator, Touko is straight up a FF then Wattpad then AO3 girl, who would get obsessed with this really shitty, tripe manga that she didn't even like reading. It did however have super hot dudes in it, so she wrote good stories of those characters when she got frustrated with the actual authorial content - which was always.

Yasuhiro Hagakure - Ultimate Gambler

Quite LITERALLY the never stop gambling meme personified into a guy. He can lose 3 mil on slot machines but always comes out fine because it means if he keeps gambling he'll eventually run into his 1/3 and win giga millions, what he needs to pay off his debts. It isn't just with luck though either because his personality and lack of intelligence or understanding of most the rules of the games he plays means he'll never react the way he should when getting a good hand in poker or a bad draw in blackjack, so he wins those games almost always through just… stupidity.

Mukuro Ikusaba - Ultimate Biker

She's number 16 in her gang, and is easily the most loyal enforcer and taskman of the gang. She does anything she's told, to a grim and disciplined degree not typical for hooligan bike gangers, she doesn't really desire a seat as top dog of the gang though, after all she's got school to worry about, and her sister.

Mondo Owada - Ultimate Warlord

So his relationship and Kiyotaka's is gonna be interesting, because I don't want him to be exactly like Mukuro at all, who was just sort of an all-obsessed Yandere. It's more like he's always chafing under Taka, who is less than friendly with him in this AU, really the main way he even lets Taka boss him around is because he pays incredibly well and helps keep his gang members from devolving back into the unstructured, chaotic criminal life, the same that took his brother years ago.

Oh and yeah, he still looks like Guile, as he should.

Sparkling Justice - Ultimate Killer Killer

Yeah it's a reference to Killer Killer, sue me I love the manga. He has Hajirahara's ahoge, and I thought it'd be cute to also give him a mask just like the other Makoto from a Kodaka game series (Raincode.) Also, while Genocide jack stuffs all her scissors in her skirt, Makoto keeps a truth gun with "truth bullets" as his main weapon, the gun he stores inside the big book in the chibi of just Makoto, and the bullets kept on his person as the red buttons all over his body, which he pulls out when he needs to reload.

"Kiyotaka Ishimaru" - Ultimate Fashionista

Unlike Mukuro and Junko, Mondo absolutely cannot hide the fact that he acts nothing like Kiyotaka, though this is surprisingly fine to everyone else, because unlike Junko who plastered herself onto literally everything, Mondo always obfuscated himself from the public spotlight, at most showing only his suits while he hid his face behind something conveniently placed. Which played primarily to his vision of an ultimate fashionista, who was above everyone and catered to the rich and powerful.

Junko Enoshima - Ultimate Moral Compass

This was a fun one, I decided to let her have her red hair because I believe it to be the "natural" look of her hair, while attaching little clips of dyed hair to her buns as a replacement to keep her shape sorta and keep the strawberry blonde somwehere on her. Understand that while she is the "moral compass" she is still pretty deranged, and the only reason she focuses so much on keeping everyone on their best behavior is because it's endlessly entertaining to her to make her fellow moral committee members upset when she blatantly makes a mockery of the rules while still keeping kids on their best behavior to make a point.

Kiyotaka Ishimaru - Ultimate Fashionista and Tyrant, the Iron Hand of Despair

Taka's design I wanted to sort of focus on this sort of, holier-than-thou idea, where I wanted to make him look a lot fancier and upper-class than Junko does in his standard highschool fit compared to him. I wanted him to have an upper-crust sort of look

If you're reading this after reading this all, thanks! You're a wonderful person :) Signing off...

Mani

[starsworldd]

Solar Observations pt. 7

readings are open! ⛓️

please take with a grain of salt ⛓️

I used orbs of 3 degrees for aspects from whole signs ⛓️

👾 some of my best sr years have been the years where i’ve had the same sr venus as my natal

👾 looking at the persona chart of your profected year lord can give you a lot of insights for the year ahead i’ve found

👾 chiron on the mc (both solar or natal x solar) shows a year of yearning for something very badly (most likely to be career/goal/experience related)

👾 having positive mercury-saturn aspects (including conjunction depending on sign) is a year where you are on top of your shit, maybe you feel like you conversations with others are thwarted in some way but better than most you’re preparing for something bigger, plans, plans, PLANS!!

👾 saturn conjunct mercury is a really interesting aspect actually for a solar return. it maybe harder to categorize and to process the world around you in a productive way, but you may also learn new subjects/wisdom.

👾 having venus at 28 degrees can indicate an exciting love/crush/relationship happening for that year

👾 moon at 29 degrees can show that from that year on out you will approach life from a very different mindset to what you had before. this mindset can last for a year or your entire life but either way it’s an anaretic degree so BIG STUFF! the sign can show what mindset you’re “ending” (ex: i had moon at 29 degrees in taurus in 2020 and from that year on out i really prioritized productivity and worked to stop my lazy/indulgent habits)

👾 planets at 20 degrees and what house those planets are in can show what themes/events prove to be very mystical or witchy that year. (ex: i had mars and neptune at 20 degrees with mars in the 7th and neptune in the 11th and that year i got back with my old friend group out of random chance and went on my first date with someone from that group😭😭 not me telling you guys my life tea. dating within friend groups is weird and would not recommend btw! but to each their own🩷)

👾 planets at the 1st degree + their houses show where you’re ambitious and what you desire, expect lots of action in these areas

👾 1st house ruler in 1st (aka your chart ruler in one of its domicile places) may mean that your by yourself or more alone, but most likely NOT in a bad way!! (self-care, self-improvement, reflection, etc…). check other houses that the planet rules to see what other important themes are emphasized that year (ex: libra venus in 1st house —> 8th house themes are important as well because taurus rules over the 8th)

👾 going off from the previous observation, planets in angular houses (1, 4, 7, 10) will ALWAYS be prominent throughout your year especially if they’re in domicile/exaltation/detriment/fall.

👾 a lot of celebrities have gotten big time famous the year where they had their 11th house in their 11th (ex: megan thee stallion, doja cat, billie eilish, etc…)

👾 just a tip, but make persona charts of your solar planets! if you don’t know how, go to astro.com, charts and calculations, extended chart selection, blue plus sign in the top right corner then fill out info from your solar return chart. after making this, click the “natal chart” tab, scroll down to “persona chart” :)

👾 jupiter/sagittarius in the 3rd or jupiter-mercury aspects show a lot of activity for the year ahead. fire/air = adventurous/fun activity, water/earth = self-growth/learning related (but arguably the themes can overlap), mercury in the third house is also indicative of a busy year!

👾 when i had mars in my natal 12th house last year i stayed up souper late almost every night regardless of weekend/weekday

👾 planets at 5 degrees show where there’s a lot of exciting things happening (ex: venus at 5 degrees -> lots of interesting meetups with friends, starting new hobbies, etc…, juno at 5 degrees -> partnerships open up new feelings of happiness, feeling loved, etc…). creds to @astrosky33 for this one!

👾 pay attention to the aspects made to your vertex for the year! and also what house the vertex falls in in your natal house. a couple years ago i had venus in my solar 4th trine my solar vertex in 8th conjunc turanus and was able to spend more time resting and doing fun things at home because unexpectedly (uranus) responsibilities/burdens placed upon me were lifted

👾 mars in the 12th house (including solar x natal) can show that you’re trying to break out of bad habits

👾 moon in fire signs can show a time of unrest or lots of physical activity at home, you have a lot of energy to do activities whether they’re serious activities or not

💜🤍💜🖤💜🤍💜🖤💜🤍💜🖤💜

hope you enjoyed!

[ironunderstands]

Fu Xuan X Qingque is fucking peak IN THIS ESSAY I WILL-

Today I’m gonna yap about how underrated this absolutely incredible ship is, and why I love it, so sit back and enjoy because I have THOUGHTS. Also, thank you so much to @cosmicquilt on tumblr for providing me their own insight into it, as well as a place for me to begin, I really do appreciate it! 

Before I go in depth on them, I think their status as *package deal do not separate* is really funny and cute, and I’m surprised people don’t point it out more with just how obvious it really is.

Here’s some example’s I’ve collected (thank you quilt for the first two screenshots!) 

This is from the food event in 2.0, and to me it seems like Fu Xuan bought it out of curiosity, then Qingque had some and got messy because of it.

They are also together in the Penacony mural thing (just like Aventio hehe), and you can see Qingque reaching towards a gambling machine while Fu Xuan pulls her back, as if she predicted the other would immediately make a beeline towards the machines, and had to prevent that from happening. 

Today Is Another Peaceful Day is the name of the lightcone shared between them, whose description is quite comical.

Fu Xuan did infact find her again, she is angry and the sweets Qingque bought to placate her don’t seem like they are going to do much 😭.

Qingque also makes an appearance in Fu Xuan’s trailer, which only tends to happen when characters have an established close relationship or connection (like Dan Heng appearing in Blade’s)

Their team joining voicelines also match perfectly- in fact they tell a pretty funny story of yet another time Fu Xuan goes to look for Qingque, who’s supposedly slacking off again.

This also implies that Fu Xuan knows Qingque well enough at this point to guess accurately where she would be hiding and when she would leave, which is adorable and honestly really funny. 

Overall, on a surface level, their Looney Tunes dynamic is incredibly entertaining and endearing, making their relationship rather lighthearted and sweet. Girlboss X Girlfailure is always fun to watch and a personal favorite in ships for me is when one character has to deal with the other’s antics (you know who :3). I also think it’s a good way to set up a developing relationship, as they get closer and closer together each time they play this game of cat and mouse, which is something that is demonstrated by the game.

So, let’s look at them a little deeper now.

Within the quest, Omniscient Inquiry of Arcana, which is found within the main Xianzhou quest line, we see firsthand how much Fu Xuan actually trusts Qingque. 

Even if Qingque is often unreliable, Fu Xuan is not at all surprised that she is the one who helped bring the Nameless to her, as Fu Xuan knows she can bet on Qingque to come through with her responsibilities when she needs to.

The thing is, Qingque is lazy, but she is by no means incompetent, and gets all her work done on time. Moreover, Fu Xuan knows this better than anyone, especially considering she’s the one who has to go looking for Qingque when she slacks off 90% of the time (something which she doesn’t have to do, she could delegate someone else to do it yet every time Fu Xuan personally sees the matter done). 

So, even if Qingque is just a librarian, instead of fetching someone else to help, Fu Xuan also has her restart the base terminals for the Matrix of Presence, because she knows and trusts Qingque to be capable of it, almost without a second thought. 

Even if the task at hand isn’t particularly difficult, and Fu Xuan could easily do it herself, she lets herself be lazy and trusts Qingque to do so, as I will get into further, they are far more similar than Fu Xuan realizes.

In the quest line prior, Qingque also describes just how much she in turn believes in Fu Xuan, stating that even if the sky were to collapse, she could count of Fu Xuan attempting to hold it up- and she makes fun of Fu Xuan for being short despite being of similar stature.

A remark such as that illustrates how time and time again, Qingque has witnessed Fu Xuan put her all into protecting the Xianzhou and its people, which has earned Fu Xuan Qingque’s utmost respect, even if that doesn’t stop her from slacking off from time to time.

As funny as their dynamic is, the genuine trust they display in one another is heartwarming, and as much as they annoy one another (or really as much as Qingque bothers Fu Xuan with her antics), they truly do have faith in each other. Continually, Qingque’s awareness of the burden’s Fu Xuan has to carry slots her into a unique role of being one of the few people who could support her in a time of need.

Which is exactly what we get to witness in the Heliobi event.

Fu Xuan gets possessed and fire’s Qingque because of it, who isn’t too upset about it as admittedly her tendency to slack off was waisting her life. 

However, she attempts to give a speech to drag Fu Xuan out of her possession, attempting to mask it as her desire to not be fired disgracefully, but really she just wanted to break Fu Xuan out of the illusion. 

Unfortunately, Fu Xuan isn’t having it, and spouts a lot of stuff to the ghostbusting gang, expressing that her former attempts to change the Xianshou’s fate were futile, and that destiny is unavoidable and unchangeable, and that human’s desires to resist it are pointless.

Then, she makes the squad + QQ play a puzzle in which she controls all the outcomes, just to demonstrate how pointless the choices humans make, as they will always lead to the same result. To possessed Fu Xuan, choice is merely an illusion, a waste of time, and she cannot be convinced of it otherwise.

Until Qingque steps in. And perhaps the greatest demonstration of just how much she CARES for Fu Xuan plays out.

Qingque starts out by saying that the game Fu Xuan made them play is not an accurate representation of reality, and that the universe doesn’t have puzzles for them to solve. People have free will, and even if Qingque uses that will to slack off, those choices are still hers and still CHOICES. 

However Fu Xuan isn’t buying it, and this is when the core of why she was possessed in the first place gets revealed.

Qingque’s choices don’t have consequences, at least not far reaching as Fu Xuan’s do. But every action, every decision, every minute step in any direction that Fu Xuan takes could plunge the entire Xianzhou into chaos, and ruin EVERYTHING. 

So, Qingque proposes a new puzzle, hoping to be able to change Fu Xuan’s mind this time.

Qingque fails again this time, however Fu Xuan is starting to get an idea of what she’s getting and, and Qingque reiterates that there will always be more choices to make, even if the puzzles appear to only have one solution.

Therefore, she tries one last time.

Qingque shoves her own solution into the puzzle, her own way by drawing on the help of the ghostbusting squad, but still Fu Xuan cannot be convinced, believing instead that the thousands of different paths people take all lead to the same destination, so making choices is pointless.

However, that’s not what Qingque is getting at, and in perhaps the most heartfelt speech given in this game so far, she saves Fu Xuan, and demonstrates why her choices DO matter. Moreover, she does it in the most Qingque way possible- by explaining it through a comparison to Celestial Jade.

It’s not winning or the outcome that makes Celestial Jade fun, it’s the choices you get to make while you play it which is what makes it enjoyable. However, much like how even if the outcome of a game is predetermined, just because the universe’s destiny could be predetermined doesn’t mean people are aware of it, or that it even matters. Like in a game, in your life , you cannot control all the outcomes, but how you react to the twists and turns it throws your way, and the choices you make because of that, is what makes living worth it.

And if Fu Xuan’s choices didn’t matter, she wouldn’t be making them in the first place.  Perhaps she can’t prevent everything, and perhaps the universe really is weighted against her and the Luofu, but every day Fu Xuan makes decisions that help it stay around a little longer, that save a few more people, that buy a bit more time. The universe isn’t a game, and you can’t just determine your decisions to be meaningless because of some threatening ending that might never come to pass, and like Qingque says, Fu Xuan wouldn’t suffer the effort if what she works so hard for doesn’t mean anything. 

By reaffirming that destiny is an illusion, Qingque saves Fu Xuan and breaks her out of the Heliobi’s possession. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA 

PROTECTIVE QINGQUE AAAAAARREAAAAA GRRRRRR TJEY ARE SO IN LOVE GRRRRR R SNANAKMZS AAAAAAA

Qingque tries to get out of work for good but Fu Xuan reminds her that Qingque reminded her that she had choices, and Qingque gets flustered and accepts her defeat.

What do you mean by that Fu Xuan, what do you mean by that, hmm? HMMM??? ELABORATE FU XUAN ELABORATE??? Sesbian lex???

So Qingque is in love with her boss and we all cheered, but don’t worry, and QQ also happens to get possessed by a Heliobus, and the way Fu Xuan behaves towards her is just as sweet and hilarious.

In her illusion, there’s a bunch of Fu Xuan clones who praise Qingque, much to the annoyance of Fu Xuan, who gets flustered and angry over it. Honestly I love just how many romance tropes that are displayed in their relationship, with this as a prime example. Like making a bunch of clones of your crush to praise you? Having Fu Xuan bear witness to exactly what makes Qingque happy (her praise)? The boss-employee dynamic getting reversed? I love it give me 500000. 

The nickname??? Oh you just know Qingque was waiting to call her that, infact she probably had it in her brain for a while, but just didn’t feel confident enough to do it in her previous power dynamic with Fu Xuan, so I wonder what else Qingque holds back from Fu Xuan because she doesn’t believe they are close enough for that. 

Ooh she’s mad mad GET ITS ASS FU XUAN YEAAAHHHH YEEAAH THATS WHAT YOU GET HELIOBUS HAHAHAHAHAH 

What if I ascended to another dimension? What if I left this mortal plane? What if Honkai Star Rail what if? What do you mean Fu Xuan is fussing over Qingque like a wife when her husband returns from war, what do you mean she goes, “As long as you’re okay,” then immediately is like “get back to work,” because she realized she was being too soft. What do you mean she fucking PATS QINGQUE ON THE HEAD AND LEAVES LIKE THAT???? 

I’m actually insane about this like how does nobody talk about them? The most peak relationship ever right there and I see NOTHING??? Like not only is it fucking hilarious with their game of cat and mouse they having going on with one another, but they truly just understand and adore each other even if both of them haven’t exactly realized it yet.

If I were to be 100% honest if you told me that speech Qingque gave to Fu Xuan in the Heliobi event was a confession one, then I would believe you because that was the most romantic shit ever. Like telling your companion in a time of need that their choices DO mean something and that they are such a capable individual whom everyone relies on, who YOU rely on?? If I was Fu Xuan I would have proposed right there I would have summoned up a ring I don’t care.

It’s just, I love relationships where two characters just GET one another inside and out, and FuQing is such a perfect example of it. Something about a trust that runs so deep that the two people who forged that bond don’t even realize it because of simply how long it’s persisted, like they’ve just acclimated to it because it’s been such a fixture of life for so long.

They are each other’s safety nets, and when one of them is in need, the other always delivers and UGHH IM INSANE ABOUT IT.

HOW DID THIS FLY UNDER PEOPLES NOSES??! HOW DID EVERYONE DO THE 1.5 EVENT AND NOT IMMEDIATELY START RUNNING LAPS AROUND THEIR HOUSE BECAUDE WHAT??? Literally that speech Qingque gives to Fu Xuan is one of my favorite scenes in the game, perhaps right behind the 1.6 Ratio-Screwllum scene and if you know me then you know how absolutely bonkers I am about that scene. It’s just so earnest and funny and it encapsulates the themes of HSR perfectly, with Qingque reiterating the overarching theme of the game: Trailblazing, ie moving forward with life no matter the destination (destiny), as it’s the choices you make along the way and the journey you take that matters.

Moreover, that’s what makes it so fucking good; it meshes perfectly with the overall story of the game. Despite how busy both of them are, despite how they often have higher priorities or could just go to other people or whatever, Qingque and Fu Xuan consistently choose one another, for both the most trivial and the most dire of situations. 

The road ahead for the Xianzhou is uncertain, but no matter how the path twists, Qingque and Fu Xuan will travel it side by side, and for that I will always adore them.

Thank you so much for reading! I fear I couldn’t be as intelligent about why I love this ship as I wanted to be, but I hope you at least got the idea a little bit haha. Maybe I’ll be able to me smarter about them one day but for now all my thoughts about them circle back to incoherent screaming. Honestly it’s probably because I like their dynamic far more than I like their characters standalone, so I can’t really bring that into the discussion, but perhaps with time I will be able to add onto this. For now though, all I’m hoping for is the wedding they deserve lol. 

[daretoassume]

Hello , I hope you see this.

I might be a bit desperate.

So 2 years ago I wanted to kill myself but then I had a huge “spiritual awakening” where I say things beyond human comprehension. And from that moment I decided to give life a chance, I knew that life actually had a meaning and that was for me to discover what was beyond what I could think. It gave my so much clarity of the world around me and who I was. From that moment I also started to randomly consciously manifest things without knowing about manifesting. I’m not kidding when I say this but in that time I manifested 6 million overnight while I was just kidding about being a millionaire while listening to my rich music and then when I woke up my parents had the good news. I also manifested others things that I thought where extremely special. But I didn’t really put in effort it was just fun experimenting with my powers.

So then I decided to deepen myself in the laws. I started with law of attraction. And I ended up meditating so deeply everyday that I was so passionate about finding the ultimate truth of reality inside me, that I was extremely depersonalised from my 3D and basically lived inside my brain. I could ask things and receive answers on my questions, like the one time i asked how to invent something that could end humanity ( I still have a full doc on how to build to most effective machine that could end humanity in less than second) I also got the answer of questions about reality and my vessel. So that’s when I realised there was nothing but me. And that I was experiencing myself from the experience of myself ( if that makes sense!) I found that there really was nothing and everything at once while I was giving meaning to it. So that’s when I started with extreme anxiety and depression because I struggled so much with intrusive thoughts, not being able to ground myself in this reality and being so so scared of my thoughts. Still to this day my thoughts scare me so much that I can’t help but experience anything other than fear from myself. It’s like I’m living in a constant nightmare. I have watched so much law of assumption post and videos dedicating every second of my day on being focused and disciplined to affirming and being in the state of having what I want, but it makes me so fuckiyn angry and I don’t know why. Everytime I see a post I feel depressed because deep down I know everything but everyday I wake up in the same reality where everything fucking sucks ( I have been forcing myself to be kind self love gratitude letting go void state visualisation whatever exist I’ve done it all) and when I finally have build up that trust that everything is working out in my highest favour and I always get what I want and the 3D can’t tell me nothing yk I can delude myself into knowing I have it but it’s been over a year and I just can’t bear this reality anymore I know I’m meant for another reality and there’s just nothing for me to find here anymore. And I really don’t know what to do anymore I feel like I’m stuck in this reality where everything seems to get worse. And my thoughts are also getting worded everyday for the last year but whenever I tried manifesting a better self concept mindset etc it got worse when i don’t even want to be the person that is in conflict with themsef because that’s just a idiotic thing to do. But can you help me out?🫶

what you experienced, everything that you learned, was so profound. it is truly a gift to have such insight, so treat it as such. try to examine why it scares you so deeply. there is something within that fear that is asking to be understood.

you have seen how effortlessly you created before, simply by being playful and detached. you were experimenting, having fun with it, and not placing too much importance on the outcome. that is why there was no resistance. things flowed into your reality flawlessly. you already understand the law. you know how to apply it to your life. you do not need another blog post or video to teach you what you already know.

what you need now is to go deeper within yourself, to truly understand why you feel this way. these feelings are not here to torment you but to guide you toward something deeper. perhaps there is a message waiting for you, something significant you need to uncover, or even a realization that you are meant to share with others. your emotions, no matter how overwhelming, are part of your journey. they may be pointing you toward a greater understanding of yourself and your purpose.

if you feel an inner pull to create something meaningful, to express yourself, or to pursue something that sparks joy, do not ignore it. act on it. even if it feels small or insignificant at first, do it. follow what excites you, even in the simplest of ways.

i know it’s easier said than done, especially when it feels like the weight of the world is on your shoulders. but remember, we both know the truth—what we focus on expands. even a small shift in focus toward what you prefer can create change. we often feel so much these days that we forget to acknowledge what we can be grateful for. take a moment and ask yourself: what are you truly grateful for right now? your family, your friends? doesn’t it bring you some happiness to know you’ve learned so much already? i am not saying you are ungrateful. i am suggesting that maybe starting with gratitude, even in the smallest way, could help shift your attention, even just a little.

as you take time for introspection to truly understand what is behind these emotions and why you feel the way you do, you might also set some goals for yourself. try doing something that excites you, even if it’s small. i know this reality can feel limiting, and maybe that’s why you feel like you don’t belong here. but if you see it as a curse, then that’s the experience you will live out.

what if you see it as an opportunity to discover something profound within yourself? what if the very limitations you feel are only reflections of the state you’re currently in, waiting for you to shift?

you don't have to force yourself to change everything all at once. just start small, day by day.

you already know how powerful you are.

[some-triangles]

I found a video essay which is about Neil Gaiman but is also a critique of fandom culture from the left. It's fun! My guy dresses up as Death from the Seventh Seal and talks about Roland Barthes in rhyming couplets. It's too long and overly pleased with itself but hey, leftists.

I took a break while watching it to go on a milk run to the bourgeois grocery store (might as well not abbreviate it under the circumstances) and saw this:

Given that the video was just talking about Gaiman being more a brand than an author I took this as a sign to share my two cents.

The cents are these: beyond considerations of fandom, parasocial attachment, Death of the Author and capitalism, which the video covers admirably*, can we posit that the art you find yourself the most attracted to as a teenager might not be stuff you should be buying as an adult?

*(they do quote an Alan Moore article from The Fucking Guardian in which he says he hates the growing trend of treating authors as "part of the costumed entertainment" without pointing out that the man wears a costume at all times, which is part of his branding, just like Gaiman. Also maybe given the company he keeps we should start asking more questions about Lost Girls. But I digress.)

Do you want to live in the moral universe of C.S. Lewis? J.D. Salinger? J.K. Rowling? J.R.R. Tolkien? (Maybe going by one's initials is the problem here, actually.) A grown person who thinks for a living shouldn't be going around saying that Neil Gaiman is one of their heroes. Even if you like his books, you've got to admit that the dude's mostly style and reference, that his actual insights don't go beyond those of a bright teenager. It's commodified rebellion for rebellion fans, sitting on the shelf next to Rowling's commodified conformity for conformity fans. We can still have fun with pop but we have to understand that the people who make it are in the sales business. (Yes, even Kendrick.)

The reason this stuff is constantly sold back to you is that it's really easy to sell things to children. The less like a child you become, the harder it is to market to you, so it's in the interests of money to draw you back to your childhood in a million different ways. So: grow up and get some esoteric, contradictory tastes, just to fuck with them. Cut out the hero worship - don't respect people for their "talent" any more than you would respect them for being rich. This will make you less likely to be starstruck enough to follow around a third-rate tumblr daddy dom who thinks he's a wizard.

(no, not me)

Finally, because I'm also a leftist, here's the overlong and self-satisfied part. I read a lot of Gaiman in high school but I also read a lot of one of Gaiman's heroes, Harlan Ellison. He was my favorite! I liked him because he was stylish, aggressive, arrogant and brutal. Teenagers like power and he had it. The fact that none of his stories had real people in them and that he seemed to have a problem with women in particular was nothing to me in the face of his Muscular Prose. Then I went to college and met some people who were smarter than me.

I ended up dumping Ellison for what was in his work, long before I knew much about all the other stuff. Same thing with Gaiman. So if you're worried about being let down by one of your heroes, I suggest looking at all of them carefully. Particularly at their feet. (Not for horny reasons.) And then maybe stop looking at them at all and go do something else.

[acheronist]

went digging thru the rmg images website and found a slightly nicer quality version of this page for freeeee (the best price for a peglar page) so i spent my afternoon off doing a quick transcript & here's what i have hesitantly landed on

as always: italics are words that were confusing to discern, bold are words that were written in forwards english

3 has my littel bark* wos drifting down i was shot a bly and ggit one of konnell** tertell came swiming sloley by my crew got up and gripped him and lug him in my boat off we pull quite marely*** to that gallant bark a float (there is a short vertical zig-zag squiggle pattern here, likely to act as a break between the verses) sir the wate to th[…] littel worter bird in of parade**** the dragres***** of made a splended ton dinner off shore this prime littel fellow [incomprehensible]t [incomprehensible] tertell

*= henry probably means 'barque', as in the style of small sailing ship, and is spelling it phonetically with a london accent. here's a picture of one i found on google that i thought was really charming. shoutout to the visual learners of tha world...

**= this whole line has been bamboozling me sooo badly if anyone has more insight for what the hell this means hmu. i think konnell might be a phonetic spelling of 'canal', as in a water canal the barque was sailing thru, but fuck if i know!!!

***= henry probably means 'merrily', as in the adjective, and is spelling it phonetically with a london accent ****= i have no clue what this word is LOL... i suspect "parade" but i also think it could be "paradise" as in 'bird of paradise', which would make sense if this poem is set in a tropical location (somewhere with tertells) because there's the plant which grows in hot humid environments but also the actual bird which is native to (you guessed it) hot humid environments. historical context fun fact time: henry had previously sailed in a couple various geographic places where he might have actually seen the plant / bird before! :-) *****= i also have no clue what this word is LMAO... i suspect its an odd spelling of "draggers", as in the previously mentioned crew who had dragged the tertell aboard, OR "regards" which makes less grammatical sense? unless we're getting the regards of the birds of paradise who watched the tertell get dragged aboard? i dont know???

[charlidos]

Here's an extract from an interview with Orlando in a French magazine, in 2003 (translated by me). All these paragraphs contain information that I've rarely or never heard before, so I thought it was intriguing.

Did being in New Zealand help you get under the skin of an Elf? Yes, the country is very green and is full of great sites, it inspired me to do a lot of sports and have a very balanced life. I did a lot of swimming. I also stopped drinking coffee. At one point, we filmed during the night, for nine weeks straight and at the beginning, when I arrived at the set, I had drunk two big cups of espresso while doing make up. But as a result, I was completely over excited. When I saw the results in the dailies, I found I was touch much on the screen. So I decided to stop drinking coffee. Little by little, I could transform into an Elf. I drank herbal tea with lemon. I also tried to stop smoking. But, whatever Viggo may say, I didn't start eating only berries and nuts!

First, I want to know: did Viggo ever publically say Orlando only ate nuts and berries? It's such an hilariously surprising segue; sounds like something Viggo was teasing him about back then. Viggo maybe couldn't imagine being vegetarian? Or maybe he was worried that Orlando, being quite hyper and having a very physical role, would collapse from exhausting and malnourishment? It's a lovely little insight to all the ribbing going on.

It's also intriguing how Orlando describes his progress from bouncing off the walls (from too much coffee, youthful enthusiasm, nervousness and probably ADHD) to finding calm and his inner elf. Can't help imagining Viggo introducing Orlando to yerba mate and meditation. Viggo is often described has having endless energy, but he's also very focused and serene. And considering how much Orlando says he observed Viggo and learned from him, I can see that this must have been one of the things he learned: to channel your energy to when you need it, to control it.

Did you experience any mishaps on set? A lot! For example, I was in a car which got stuck in mud for many hours with Sean Bean and Viggo Mortensen. We had gone to the countryside to buy Christmas presents for our families. There were a lot of great handicraft shops on the way, but the roads weren't very good.

Is this a completely different story than the one so often told, about Sean & Orlando getting caught between landslides and having to stay over in cottage for a couple of days? Because that tale also contained Christmas shopping... But the story normally lacks Viggo, and they were never really stuck in any mud, only in a random cottage. If it's a different time, how many times did they drive around buying Christmas gifts? And if they got stuck in the mud "for hours", how did they get out? And did the three of them have a good time in the car while waiting? Hehe.

I'm forever intriguied by the myths created around the filming of LotR. The lore seems to have a life of its own, regardless of what actually happened.

Did your family spend Christmas with you in New Zealand? Yes, my family, my girlfriend at the time and my friends made the trip. I love celebrating Christmas and I organised a big party with lots of presents for everybody. It was summer in New Zealand so it was quite unusual to celebrate Christmas in the sun. The New Zealanders love to barbecue crayfish at that time of year. It was very special Christmas food! The other actors went home for the holidays, but I decided it would be more fun to stay. I had a brilliant house on the beach and I invited all my closest friends and family. They all loved New Zealand. We took a trip to the North Island by car and it was magnificent. Actually, I have cousins who moved to New Zealand, so I now have relatives there.

Seems Orlando's whole family came over for Christmas in 1999, including Orlando's then girlfriend. I mostly find this interesting because firstly, there were a lot more people visiting and being around from time to time than you'd think, if you just read the "official" lore. Secondly, this girlfriend story is always different; according to one she stayed in NZ with Orlando for seven months - "and then two more", before they broke up. In another, she came to visit briefly, but they broke up because of the long-distance thing. He's at one point engaged but mostly she was erased from the stories. And obviously, not all those things can be true at the same time. For me, it just shows how much we are NOT told about life on the set, and how much info is a little unreliable (including this).

[sha-brytols]

yeah, i've never felt like your dav crit posts had any ill will or were mean spirited or w/e! (tho also i forgot that veilguard was going to come out or what any of the characters were until october....) and honestly your criticisms and love for davrin have actually made me want to replay to just experience his romance (and maybe with a character race that actually has any competent writing, so please any opinions would be nice on that)!

i originally did a qunari mage/lucanis(and /spite... in my heart and mind... where he is more than just like... a vague plot point... i love characters with wings) run and it was... not terrible but i also was pretty quickly playing to dissect the story to understand why it wasn't working for me.

like. for how quickly i was picking apart the story and analyzing its parts -- i figured out the varric ~~twist~~ before i even met bellara

but yeah! your dav crit to this vaguely neutral to "it did make me cry about bellara's bro so i do have a fondness for some of it" liker don't come across as mean but as just. very intelligent and insightful!

DWARFMANCE DAVRIN RIGHT NOW!!!!! datv was genuinely the MOST fun i've ever had playing a dwarf in dragon age. there's soooo much reactivity i genuinely was not expecting. it's not perfect but like. listen the other three games kept forgetting dwarves aren't supposed to be able to dream ok LOL i'll take Anything. i loooved dav's romance and i'm really enjoying it with a grey warden rook as well. it actually gave me so much nostalgia to when i played alistair's romance for the first time and kept having to pause cus i was blushing LOL

i also really enjoyed playing dwarves because the reaction you have to the titan reveal was actually really sad. harding sounds utterly betrayed while (mine at least) rook is genuinely Angry. you also get special dialogue as a dwarf when confronting mythal that actually made me burst into tears it was so unbelievably funny . oh my god i forgot theres also unique dialogue for grey warden dwarves in reaction to the blight. it's just good.

and i'm so sorry 😭 another victim of the lucanismance.... and i heard from poppy that the qunari rook was written in such a way that it genuinely felt like the game forgot you could be one LOL so i definitely recommend playing again with a different rook. from what i understand, emmerich, neve and davrin have the most(?) content in regards to the romance so i'd definitely recommend one of them (davrin)

and the varric twist was very funny because i knew he was gonna die the moment i found out he was in this game LOL. when that one screenshot of varric in the lighthouse got leaked and everyone was like "see. he isn't dead." i was like. no that's for sure a spirit or something. there is no way his ass is living to see the credits.

and there are a lot of really emotional parts of the game that i did enjoy a lot. siege of weisshaupt is literally one of my favorite quests in dragon age ever. i talked the first warden down and actually audibly went "NO" when ghilan'nain aborted his kill mid-stab i was sooo invested. and the regret sequence with varric made me cry like a bitch LOL i really enjoyed the "that was my choice. mine. you can't take that from me." it's just really profound to me in the context of anders and Maybe a hawke left in the fade.

sorry. yapping. thank youuuu ❤️ please update me if you do davrin's romance please please

[cyborgsara]

Buck and Tommy are endgame and Buddie is dead as a doornail. In this essay I will - (no but really there's an essay under the cut lol)

No one's gonna read this but here I go:

So I decided to take my shipper goggles off (mostly, I still love them sue me) and go back to watching as GA member, starting from s7. And it's certainly interesting to see things in different perspective.

Firstly Buck's storyline with Tommy was definitely tied to Eddie from the start. Yes he wanted Tommy and only Tommy but up until the Madney wedding I think they could have gone either way if they actually wanted to do Buddie. Like to me the bachelor party is the break off point. Tommy and Buck weren't that serious yet and if anything were to happen between Buck and Eddie it would have happened there I think.

There was the Buddie karaoke scene and a lot of things were cut from the episode and it also struck me as very odd the way Eddie was sassing Tommy at the bachelor party. I don't know how these things are filmed but in my mind since this was LFJ's "last" episode from his 4ep contract they could have gone the route of "Tommy was just the first and very passionate and fun but not a long term partner for Buck" so you know Tommy shows him the ropes and dips and that opens the door for Eddie to have his gay awakening and then Buddie becomes the canon ship. Add to this they could have done a storyline where something happened at the bachelor party that made Eddie question if his feelings were just platonic etc etc. (Eddie is also surprised Tommy is gay but doesn't seem to be surprised about Buck so that leads me to believe he knows Buck's been flirting with guys for a long time. The "go for the title" kitchen scene also reads to me as Buck is flirting with Eddie but Eddie is not reciprocating it and just kinda scoffs about it.)

None of that happened tho and looking back on in now, to me that seems like the cut off point for Buddie.

If we look at Bucktommy on the other hand they are living a romcom. We don't see a lot of them in s7 but after the wedding episode it's mentioned that they are still together and Buck seems the happiest he's been in a long time. We also get the stamp of approval from Bobby and a little teasing from Henren to show us that they are actually going pretty strong and the found family is glad about the relationship.

I also think Tommy was ready to try for a full relationship from the first date before it got ruined. After he realized Buck hasn't actually dated a man before he probably course corrected to try to be the best first male relationship for Buck and conditioned himself to not take it too seriously. But he hadn't met anyone like Buck before. He gained a perspective into who Buck is through their second chance coffee date and he was baffled by his speedrun through coming out and actually wanting him to go to a wedding where all his most important people will be attending. I personally think Tommy was extremely hesitant but also so awestruck by Buck that he just made sure Buck actually want's to go with him "are you absolutely sure", and when Buck said yes he thought fuck it I'll make the best of this for however long I have it. So he is content to just go along for the ride even when he doesn't think his relationship with Buck is that serious or that it has an expiration date.

So they have their cute little dinner dates and talk a little bit about their pasts but the tone is still very light and the conversations never really go that deep because one or both of them just want to bask in the happiness of the relationship.

But then Buck has a whole meltdown about his relationship that he doesn't even tell Tommy about and overcorrects with the moving in thing and that's when we gain the insight into Tommy. He is not just this cool pilot guy, he has a hell of a lot of baggage and is a runner, so that's what he does. Even though their breakup hurt like hell (which is partially to blame for all the shit that came afterwards) it was necessary for their story or relationship to have any kind of real merit compared to the other main couples.

Watching the last episode I was actually 70% sure we wouldn't see Tommy and that the "leaks" was another scam to make the bucktommy shippers look stupid for believing it. If I had only watched as GA before it aired I probably would have expected it more but that was the reason why I went back and watched the episodes for what they were. And that leads me to believe that Tommy and Buck are it for eachother. A lot fo things are still up in the air but their story is at such a delicious point right now where we just wanna know more! We know they both care about eachother (love confession around the corner???) we know about everything that Buck has gone through but we still have so much to learn about Tommy. I'm not at all concerned about Tommy's comment about him being Eddie's competition. No matter how he meant it, it's Buck's feelings about Eddie that really matter here. And he isn't pining for Eddie. He isn't in love with Eddie. Eddie is his brother and best friend. I'm very curious to see if they'll address Tommy's comment on tonights episode and what Eddie's take on it will be. But I'm not worried that either Buck or Eddie is pining for the other.

Ofcourse I can't say I'm 100% sure about them being endgame but from this point on people aren't gonna care about another potential relationship for Buck because; intentional or not Tommy is IT for Buck. You can't make a more perfect LI for him if you made them in a lab. And buddie isn't happening, that ship has sailed (see the reasons above and also RG doesn't want to do it). So from this point on if the creators want GA to care about Buck's romantic life in any capacity, it's Tommy or nothing.

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk, peace out!

[queenofmalkier]

Moiraine being 70 vs 40

(Alright this one took me a minute because corralling my thoughts is a challenge in the best of times.)

To begin with I will admit... I am one of the people who was indifferent towards the age change in the beginning. They're Aes Sedai, they live nice, long lives, and I wasn't like, emotionally attached to a younger, canon-aged Moiraine. It does make her early years more poignant, but I'll touch on that later.

Primed for older Moiraine, the show started and after two seasons I can safely say I am so gung-ho for 70 year old Moiraine I might actually be feral.

Here's why I, personally, think it was an excellent choice: Rosamund Pike is 44 as of writing this, so she visibly fits into the book age. As an audience nobody is really questioning her age - a few show-onlys I watched season 1 with actually remarked on how refreshing it was to see an older female character allowed to just exist and be part of the narrative without trying to sex up and/or grandma-ize the role.

Little Did They Know.

So you've got an audience that's mostly accepting of this character being in her 40s, and then you hit them with "Oh she's 70 and lets explore just how horrific that fact actually is together, it'll be fun!"

It was not fun, it was gutting.

One of my main critiques of the book has always been how we have these long-lived women, powerful women... but we never really take much of a look at the reality of that concept. Nor are we given POV characters who are really old enough to remark on it. Pevara at least thinks about her family, but Cadsuane doesn't give two figs about hers.

And here's the thing... they're Aes Sedai, but they're still human. What happens to them as they get older, but the people who fill their life are the ones aging? How does it feel to watch a mother, a sister, a child, friends, acquaintances, EVERYONE succumb to time in a way you won't for a very long time after?

That has to be impactful and I wanted to see those stories - and the show delivered. Seeing Moiraine with Anvaere? Chilling, horrifying, heartbreaking. Liandrin and her boy? A kick in the teeth. Even Alanna with her family, knowing very well she's probably the oldest one sitting at that table.

The point is, being an Aes Sedai means being powerful and respected, but it also means living through a very specific kind of suffering and trauma. They're basically vampires in terms of lifespan and we should see how that shapes them.

In regards to Moiraine being older and therefore not basically a child during the foretelling, it does change that particular hit... but by no means did the show let the viewers not understand how that moment altered Moiraine's life forever.

Instead of her being sort of an unformed girl hardened and honed by a lifetime of searching for Rand, one who never got much chance to be anything else, we get a woman who was already beginning to build her life, who had achieved the shawl, found love, and was exactly where she wanted to be.

And then all of that is taken from her.

It's devastating to watch the double-barreled whammy of Siuan and Moiraine giggling about being fishwives and walking into what was in many ways their deaths. Because the Moiraine and Siuan they were before walking into that room were gone forever. They would never be able to go back to the women they were before. They never even had a chance to mourn that loss. Moiraine went hunting and Siuan set her sights on the Amyrlin Seat.

I do understand for a lot of people her age is a sticking point, and that is completely fair and valid! It's a change that I fully agree did not need to be made... but by making that change we're given such a stark insight into the lives of older Aes Sedai who are just beginning to experience what it means to outlive everyone they know, watching one by one as cherished friends and family members pass on.

Soon all they have left are the children and grandchildren of those people, fractured mirrors that are just enough of a hint at the original that it must be painful to know them - which explains even further why so many Aes Sedai cut off contact entirely with their families. It's too painful to keep them in their lives.

[felassan]

Mark Meer: "Dropped by the @/Modiphius booth at @/Gen_Con to check out their new @/masseffect board game! Thanks for having me, folks. 😎 #/GenCon2024 #/MassEffect" [source] Modiphius: "It was a pleasure having you stop by! So glad you liked the minis" [source] --- Calvin Wong Tze Loon, board game co-designer: "hi devon! hope we can meet one day, was lovely working on the game" [source] Devon Gardner, Consumer Products Licensing Manager at BioWare Edmonton: "I hope so too! Had so much fun working on the game, your knowledge and revence for the Mass Effect universe was/is inspiring. :) Surreal to see it all out there with people playing!" [source] Calvin: "listen how else are we to spread the gospel of calibrations" [source]

Some more from the upcoming Mass Effect board game, which had playable demos at Gen Con this weekend just past. :) the rest of this post is under a cut due to length.

The game will be $50 (they were aiming for $40 but didn't make it) and is co-op but also one player. the game contains 12 dice, 2 books, 5 character sheets, like 40 cards, 6 minis (for painting if you like), tokens and a rulebook. the game will also be available in Spanish. the game includes calibrations hh. they hope to release in "Novemberish"/Q4. it also sounds like they plan to create expansions for it!

it sounds like everyone who played the game at Gen Con during the demos loved it! co-designer of the board game Calvin Wong Tze Loon (who designed things such as abilities and lore for it) shared some insights about the creation of the game, and the feedback folks who played it at the con had, on Twitter:

"'even people who didn't play mass effect liked it' this makes me so happy because this was one of our target audiences. people who enjoy games but aren't necessarily fans of the series. aaaaaaaaaa" [source] "'solved many problems the genre typically struggles with' also really proud of this. as huge tactics nerds Eric and I are always trying to sand down issues that get between the player and the game. clunky line of sight. long set up. lots of admin and bookkeeping." [source] "'got to do [classic thing favorite character does] what more can you ask for' i put many, many, many hours into the character abilities. this was really hard. asymmetric but balanced. accurate to the video game but simple and intuitive. play well off each other, replayable..." [source] "'the mechanics and paragon/renegade represent mass effect so well' one of the biggest compliments i got is that everyone who's worked on this game whether at modi or bioware cannot wait to get their copies so they can keep playing it." [source] "there's a type of person who will see this box and go fuck yeah take my money, no questions asked but we still wanted them to feel like they got their moneys worth with it. we crammed this box about as full as we could but we worked super hard to make the experience easy and fun" [source] "we worked really hard to make the game as replayable and enjoyable as possible whether on playthrough 1 or 10. we know mass effect players love to replay the game over and over so we built that in from the start." [source] "when we started making the game out target was actually 40 dollars so it would be so absurdly cheap people would just impulse buy it but we didn't manage to get there" [source] "seriously i can't wait for people to play it" [source] "mordin was planned but we had to cut him because dev time was pretty short and also we ran out of space for his mini on 1 mould :(" [source] "god i spent SO many hours on the ability design but it's one of my favorite things to do so that's fine. i'm so glad it paid off. shepard's ability alone had like 20 versions" [source] "one of our goals for this game was to take the things we personally found were 'getting in the way' from tactics games and present solutions. 'find tile 13A'->map book. make campaigns short&replayable instead of 'see you in 6months for mission 2'. super long teaches." [source] "eric paid super extra attention to the graphics cause the game is pretty complex we wanted minimum friction in terms of ux" [source] Gavin Dady, Senior Project and Process Manager at Modiphius, also commented - "We also wanted to make not just a Mass Effect game, not just a good game, but a good Mass Effect game. Everybody involved said early on that it had to be an authentic Mass Effect experience and, gosh darn it, I think it is." [source] "We have review copies heading for the local relays in the next couple of weeks. Some are already in transit with Quarian fast couriers using hot-tuned drives." [source] "We've worked very hard to make sure it's not just a good game, or a Mass Effect game, but a good Mass Effect game. It's a franchise that is close to my heart too (I'm the project manager and visionary) so we spent a long time making sure we got it right." [source]

[other post sources: source, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen]

[itsmelloww]

bit unhinged over og MW games

Thought to post an update for my own sake on a post i made a while back where i was noting my thoughts on CoD , cause i came across it just now and it was fun seeing how i felt at that time

It's been some time now i've been in the fandom and honestly..... i've gone backwards. Literally. Yeah, MW was great --- Now, let's talk about the OG MW GAMES.

I can't even care about the reboots now, I am neck. deep. at this point into the original games its not even funny.

Ill just say this: the Girls love St Soap MacTavish.

💋THE WOMEN YEARN FOR CAPTAIN MACTAVISH.💋

YALL WOULDNT EVEN BEGIN TO UNDERSTAND THE CHOKEHOLD MR CAPTAIN SIR HAS HAD ON ME OVER THE PAST MONTH.

HOW IS HE SO BAD?!???? I m not even kidding id risk everything for this man. Deadass looked at my friend the other day and was like 'Scottish Accent is so hot' -- not an objective opinion; i have a MAN in mind when i say this.

Hes just... A MAN?. LIKE, A MAN. thats all ill say.

And then..... fuck me.

Makarov?

I remember first time i saw the OG i was like damn. (apathetic)

Terrible to admit it, but this man has such a fucking charm no wonder everyones been thirsting over the 'OG' makarov. I get yall. I understand!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ill make a sep post on him though cause genuinely his 'designs' go from feral to mr suave and i think its so fun. Theres 0 consistency and i live for it. one moments he's mr good looks, the next it's giving angry small dog.

I also found his voice lines and hes so UNHINGED in them. literally crushing out in your ear, i was so amused, i was doing skin care the other day listening to him go 'GO. GO. GO. GOOOOO' voice cracking and all and i was like yup, this is white noise 🤍

Then, Price. Now, i am a reboot Price enjoyer. Never going to change that. But OG Price... feels like such a ... beast?

He.... idk, he has this vibe to him. Idk if yall had these uncles growing up that were always a bit rusty and crusty and had a bit of a feral vibe to them, yet they were always fucking STRONG and COMPETENT out of nowhere? Like you knew that if uncle pulled up it was game over, hed walk everyone like a dog. thats the vibe OG Price gives to me. i know this descriptions sounds dumb, but just like those uncles, i fucking love Price. OG Price has grown on me soooo much, literally such a dad, and his relationship with Soap is just -- ackk 💔

I also need to say this for anyone who may read this who is an Reboot Soap fan but is into captain Soap as of late --- READ. THE JOURNAL. WITH CAPTAIN MACTAVISH IN YOUR HEAD. It just CLICKS so much more and makes the captain even more fascinating.

First time i read the journal i had reboot soap in my head and rereading it and connecting it to the captain's actual experience and thoughts is just chefs kiss. Sounds obvious, but have a feeling certain peeps may do the same thing as me.

In the journal you get so many insights of soaps care and devotion to Price and it just adds so much... depth. and its very endearing to read.

I love the reboot characters but the OGs are just so... endearing overall. they really stick to you. and personally theyve stuck to me way more than the reboot ones, even though i love the reboot, dont get me wrong.

Lastly -- Roach. This guy..... u just hear him grunt, and yet somehow still manages to get you. For me its also reading soaps journal, the way he refers to him, looks after him, describes his achievements and struggles, you see Roach fleshing out in that way too. And hes just interesting, and i think its so great they integrated this character alongside Price and Soap who youre already so familiar with and care for - cause when in turn THEY care for Roach, it makes Roach really stand out.

Guess i should say something about OG Ghost too -- dont got too much, but i thought i'd find him bland when compared to the reboot, but for what he is in the og games, i find him likeable. i like his voice and the personality that comes through them. because we know his past, but we also know the reboot ghost's personality, og ghost kinda stands in the middle and makes you wonder when you see this more / slightly more emotional side thats not as reserved and cold as reboot ghost. dont even know if im making sense, but bottom line is, i like og ghost as well.

anyways, i got lots to say. I really want to record more of my thoughts, in less of an unhinged way so might do that one day. i like looking back at these posts anyways. Cant evn begin to really dig deep into how exactly i feel about these characters, so itd be fun to attempt at some point.

Anyways, live laugh love Captain MacTavish. 🖤

[greenplumbboblover]

Lyra's Yearly Recap - 2024/2025

I actually forgot I did this quite a few times the last few years, but this year I wanted to look back of what I accomplished from my resolution list.

And then see if In can make some of that true this year! (and what else to add!)

2023/2024 Resolutions:

(See: https://greenplumbboblover.tumblr.com/post/738067930777059328/accomplishments-of-2023)

I'm not answering all of them, but I do want to set some record straight!

Finishing LISISV

Haha... yeah I misjudged that completely lol. I got to a point where I lost complete motivation on... well, everything. I had no motivation for personal projects, CC making (one of the reasons why some of my mods in this year were so riddled with bugs), playing games... hell, even interacting with others. Now you could call that depression, but I wasn't showing those symptoms properly either. I found myself in a weird place where, on the one hand, I felt guilty of that I just couldn't do those stuff that I wanted to do, and that then causing me to feel super overwhelmed... yet telling myself constantly that "adults don't feel overwhelmed on those tiny silly things!". I was pretty mean to myself this year, honestly... But all that sad stuff aside! I have made some personal changes in December that are helping me a lot already, before getting also some mental help for other things. But I'll save you from those details. 😉 --------------- The second thing that didn't help was that I would at some point feel a HUGE disconnect with the characters I had in my head and my actual writing. I would make impulsive thoughts, without realistically navigating how it would work out in the future. I would introduce characters, without really giving it a thought on how I wanted them to come across... how to fully tackle certain cases. So! I spent a majority of that time researching a lot of the ways writers actually attempt those issues and solving those. I was hoping to make a post to help others with that soon, since It's really awesome insight at times! And... then there was the whole posing. But I resolved that with the Pose Add-on IMO already! Chapter 10 however, is actually taking a long time because I do struggle a lot with the fact that I consider it my "old" way of writing, and I REALLY want to move on to my 'new' ideas and style. So the willpower is simply not always there.

LISIV PLANS:

Alright, now that we have all that out of the way, here are some of my plans for this year and the story: Splitting certain stories into sub-stories: My current personal problem I have with the story, is that there are some really cool characters, but with the current format, I can't explore their characters as intensely as I'd like to. I also know that I love to jump back and forth from one story to another.

How that would look like is:

Morgana will have her own "Sub-story"

I am pondering of doing the same for Dustin and Zelda.

We travel 5 years into the future, where I want to do more with Mortimer and Bella. But also the Landgraabs and the Alto's.

I am also thinking of making a separate (short) storyline for Gunther and Lolita. The moment I was making the flashbacks, I really have been wanting to write more about it.

Same as 4, but maybe for some other townies! They will be short, but I think it can be fun! :)

Figuring out what to do with Interests & Hobbies

The infamous mod of being delayed... again :p.

I guess you all are probably exhausted of me hearing "no wait! I will finish it!", and then another mod gets released, and another year passes... and personally I have that same thought.

So I am putting the mod entirely on ice. There might not be a chance that I even finish it ever.

However I do want to add something here:

I will be working much more with Stories be told

I am going to be making more hobby items in return! I have been craving that "small but cool" modding projects a lot the past few years. I just like to be ambitious and unrealistic I guess, lol

However, I will be modding WAY less this year due to other factors.

My 2024/2025 Resolutions:

I think I've mentioned this now a lot of times, but never properly done it...

Wanting to write more. Whether it's for the sims, or even personal!

Wanting to get more into 3D modeling. Mostly for myself, but here and there I could probably release some CC pieces! :)

Keep up with Simblr.cc of course!

Post more of my thoughts on LISISV and Character stuff (@nocturnalazure suggested this a while back, but the more I thought of it, the more fun it sounds!)

Doing more Sims photoshoots!

Either way! May this year be your year! Where issues get resolutions and love is all around you.💖

[sleepingdeath-light]

child reader getting turned to stone hcs ; dragon cookies

requested by ; shinydrakeon15 (10/09/22)

fandom(s) ; cookie run

fandom masterlist(s) ; hub | specific

character(s) ; ananas dragon cookie, longan dragon cookie, lotus dragon cookie, lychee dragon cookie, pitaya dragon cookie

outline ; “Could I ask for the dragon cookies with a child reader that got turned to stone by longan since they’re a cookie? If you wanna add longan as well that’s fine with me”

warning(s) ; child getting turn to stone, grief, some other general angst

none of the dragons could say what had caused their attachment to you, but they certainly had their theories — lotus dragon cookie believed it was something to do with biology (the need to protect their young), lychee dragon cookie thought it was just a matter of you being adorable, ananas dragon cookie blamed pride (the need to prove themselves as powerful by protecting something as fragile as a mortal child), and pitaya dragon cookie didn’t care enough about underlying reasons to hypothesise about any

not that any of that affected how they treated you, of course, because at the end of the day you were their child and they all adored you in kind regardless of your origins

pitaya dragon cookie’s time with you was spent being playful and adventurous — flying with you in their arms, play fighting with you (and sometimes even letting you win), tossing you up in the air and carrying you under their arm, and just generally doing whatever they can to have you positively shrieking with laughter

lychee dragon cookie is by far the most affectionate member of your new family — smothering you with hugs and kisses whenever you visit their island, bragging about how you’re ‘the most adorable child in the world’ to anyone who will listen, happily resting with you curled up in their arms even when they’re actually quite busy, and generally being a very doting parental figure who loves you more than anything else

lotus dragon cookie does whatever they can to ensure you are set up for a successful life as you grow up: hiring the best tutors for each subject from across the world to ensure that you only get the highest quality of education mortals can offer, using their servants to make sure you keep on top of your studies between sessions of lounging and play, offering their own insights into subjects like history and biology when asked, offering dozens of rewards and incentives for every success, and just generally being an incredibly supportive figure in your life despite coming across as a bit overbearing at times

ananas dragon cookie, meanwhile, instills a strong sense of pride within you and never misses an opportunity to spoil you rotten and show you how much better you are than other mortals: covering you in jewellery and fancy clothes, buying you any toy you ask for the moment you mention it to them, paying for grand outings to fun places around the world, making sure you have as many enjoyable experiences as possible as you grow up, and encouraging you to look down on others whenever you come across them (the other dragons also share that view, they’re just a bit more subtle about it around you)

really you were set to grow up loved and educated and understood in your found family of dragons… until longan dragon cookie found you

until they saw you all on your own, a tiny fragile mortal in the realm of the silver dragon

until they decided to deal with you in the way that they deemed the most appropriate for such an ‘offence’

until you were turned to stone before you could even blink; the eternal child frozen before you even had the time to scream, expression contorted with the beginnings of a terror you never truly got to experience or perceive

until your life came to a sudden, bitter, cold end — just another statue amongst the hundreds that adorned their lair

… your family never was the same after that unforgivable offence, after losing you because of some stupid oversight that led them to bring you with them to that meeting (because, surely, between the four of them they should have been able to keep you safe… should)

they blame themselves, blame each other, and of course are all furious with longan — which leads to them all burning their bridges and going in their own directions to grieve

lotus and lychee have support systems in their followers and, whilst they never truly get over their loss, they are able to live with it afterwards as the centuries go on

ananas returns to their isolation and becomes much more volatile and violent to any mortals that try and approach their lair, grief turning to anger as they relive that day over and over again — they are the one that took what remained of you after the fact and they keep on talking to it in the hopes of bringing you back one day

pitaya leaves everything behind and starts a new life in another kingdom, abandoning their draconic body and becoming an adventurer to avoid their grief — and they do so very well until they run into hollyberry cookie and her companions and end up face to face with a young hatchling that needs to be cared for

a child, so like you and yet so very unlike you at the same time, that forces them to finally face their grief and it breaks them — they are distant in their help with snapdragon cookie but they do offer advice when asked, but it doesn’t hurt any less when they see them and see your excitable face in their own

it hurts, but they will live on no matter how impossible that seems to them in the present

none of them outgrow your loss and they all grieve you and the life you should have had, but that grief manifests differently for each of your family members: pitaya leaves their old life behind, ananas festers in their grief and refuses to leave the past in the past, lotus adapts their grief and grows from it by doing things in your honour, and lychee becomes more isolated and reliant on those under their control to fill the void you left — all different, all separate, all grieving

except for longan, of course, who feels nothing for the life they took for they didn’t know or care to know of the impact that life would have despite how short it had been

you were loved

you are loved

you will always be loved

even if that love changes and grows in your absence