#instead of just like normal cool

[turnipen]

i think one of my goals for mainblog is to get maddy to follow me back one day

[fennthetalkingdog]

Sometimes I forget I'm a therian. Then I get the urge to bork bork and shake out my fur and lick my muzzle, lol.

[dreamofbecoming]

i’m thinking about that one post that talks about how the ring doesn’t make the wearer invisible, but actually enhances whatever the wearer’s natural strengths already are- it multiplied sauron’s powers of control and raw destruction, hobbits are naturally sneaky, etc. basically how the reason the story tells us it’s an invisibility ring is because bilbo is the one telling the story, and he just assumed his experience was universal. isildur didn’t go into the river invisible and uninjured, only to get shot when the ring abandoned him and he became a target again, he already had multiple arrows in him when he went into the water, but only succumbed to his injuries when the ring stopped magnifying his numenorean longevity and damage resistance.

so i’m thinking about hobbits, right? like yeah, they’re small and quiet on their feet and invisibility totally tracks for them, but what if that’s not their most impressive skill set?

i’m thinking about how all five of the hobbits whose stories we hear in full traveled enormous distances on foot with minimal difficulty. they all managed extreme altitudes, rough terrain, heavy snowfall, almost lava???, swamps, trees, jagged rocks and gravel, and just about every other possible terrain, not to mention hundreds of miles, without seeming to flag heavily or (genuinely) complain overmuch. despite being used to at least seven meals a day, they were able to keep up their pace on minimal rations, on foot, without losing stamina until the very end, which arguably had more to do with the ring than the trip itself.

my point being that hobbits are almost unnaturally good at traveling massive distances on (bare!)foot, and what if the ring picked up on that instead?

what if instead of going invisible, bilbo could teleport?

[neonhellscape]

fuck you un techs your priest [bc giving him his flesh back as body horror is fun to me]

[your-stranger-halfblood-things]

Billy always loved the stars. He loves connecting the stars and making patterns. Maybe it had to do with his always-moving hand or maybe because he had experience, but he graduated from inviting Stu over for a stargazing sleepover. He now carves the stars into Stu's skin, licking them up and sinking into them. He wants to be part of Stu's galaxy, wants to be a black hole that destroys him

[ghostreblogging]

Damian stands before the corpse of his brother.

Is it a corpse? He doesn't know.

They had come to this lonely stretch of land that was once called amity park because something something. Damian hadn't really cared. It was supposed to be a simple get in and get out situation . They were already much busier with their own cases .

Eerie ruined houses and buildings seemed to paint a rather depressing picture. Because you could feel that people used to live here. Half drunken bottles and stollers were out. Just like if everyone just disappeares while walking. But the rotting flesh In the strollers seemed to suggest that darker things have happened here. The everyday norm seemed to frame the gateway to hell. The green glow was the only thing that was truly out of the ordinary.

Perhaps it's just an opening to another Lazarus pit.

But It doesn't feel like a normal Lazarus pit . Damian would know that better than anyone. It somehow felt brighter. And an electric buzz permeated the air. It felt sickening. The destroyed sign makes somewhat of an archway for the entrance. It says Fen- something something? The letter had long fallen off from the elements

"God, bloody hell. This place just reeks of infinite realms," the laughing magician commented before pulling another cigarette from his pocket.

"Infinite realms?" Father grunted

"Don't get your panties twisted. There's a reason I didn't tell you about them, the more you know the harder they are to deal with"

There were more mindless chatter between his family. But Damian ignored that in favor of staring down the archway . It felt like a cold shiver on his back and a horrible burning sensation on the palm of his right hand. Weird.

Damian knew that what awaited him was death. He didn't know whose though.

"Do you feel that?" Damian asked before he could stop himself

Grayson turned to look at him, raising his eyebrow. "Babybat, what? What feeling?"

Damian knew he already walked into communication.

"The cold shiver, and the burning sensation on your right palm"

"Ha! Just sounds like your scared demon brat"

"Forget it"

And they promptly walked into hell.

Damian I've missed you so much! But it's dangerous here. You'll get caught by him

Inside Damian felt as if he was walking for years. All with that , horrible disgusting smell. Burnt flesh and plastic. So overwhelming that his eyes stung even through his mask. He had to wake with his eyes half closed. Stumbling his way through the uneven terrain.

Winding corridors made out of crushed rubble.

Damian , be careful there is sharp glass there

Eerie glow that never seems to get closer.

Damian? I really don't like the Lazarus pits

It was dark and an encompassing ceiling above him felt like spiderwebs, a trap. But beyond that you could see the sky.

Hey Damian? Let's go stargazing again!

Hey Damian please don't go further

Something kept bothering him but he didn't know what. But he kept on walking.

And eventually they found themselves in a big chamber. Lazarus pit waters filled the caver like a lake. Beautiful flowers that seemed misplaced grow up to the sky.

The sky.

Maybe that was the source of the discomfort?. They came in at dawn.

It shouldn't have been dark .

And the stars were wrong. How long did they walk for?

Long enough. Just go please

There was a huge rift. Beyond were Lazarus green lands with floating landscapes. Sometimes you could see something big float by . Damian wonders if they were living or just a part of the landscape.

Beautifully enchanting. Like freedom, feeling of wind on your ski-

And then Damian's eyes fell on the thing. How could he have not noticed that.

Please get away that is not me that is not me that is not me that is not me

Like some kind of a lost puppet it was hung in front of the rift. That was the source of the smell. A white suit that once had been sterile, burnt and fused with the flesh below. Dark burnt hair that hung and thankfully concealed the empty eyes.

For once Damian was thankful he couldn't see something. He just felt that if he saw the thing's eyes, he would never recover.

Because that face.

He knew that face

It was one of he had forgotten a long time ago.

Damian please that is not me plEase. I aM LOSiNg my SeLF

A brother that went missing during a mission.

"God what the fuck is that" Grayson's voice broke Damian's trance.

Damian frowned. It didn't feel appropriate to talk here.

Hide. Hide hide hide hide

A voice broke the silence soon after.

"I advise you to leave immediately" a familiar voice. From the oh so familiar corpse . It grated against his ears. And the corpse moved in tandem. Exaggerated and cartoonish but in a horrid way like a machine struggling to run in their later years. It felt like it was coming from everywhere at once.

Hey Damian let's not go here

Damian it's not a good idea to be here take you family and leave

Damian, let's go another route

I can barely maintain luciedicy please listen to me

"I advice you to leave immediately" just like clockwork. The exact same tone, the exact same horrid little dance.

"Well we can't. Well we can't before we know why In the everliving earth there is a direct portal to the infinite realms here." Constantine seemed to have nonchalance as he spoke but Damian saw his cold sweat. And eyes darting , trying to look anywhere but directly at it .

The corpse directly ignored Constantine. It turned to him . Each movement sharp and gutted.

"Damian we are finally together again :) "

[kolechiart]

* god my all time favourite running joke in this show has to be bishop catching diabolical strays unprovoked. it's never when he's attempting to be antagonist and therefore it would be warranted no it's always when he's just sat there quietly minding his own business.

like how in mitchell junior one of the first things mitchell does when he enters the late class is to call bishop ugly by saying he's aged terribly despite the fact the guy hasn't uttered a single word. something about it always makes me laugh that poor thing is always in the cross fire

[bitchfitch]

Tbh this is more me bitching about once again wasting money on a game I probably won't be able to finish due to cripple-itus but we're going to pretend it's a serious discussion on game design.

So to preface: my vision is fucked. Irrevocably. Like get discounts on insurance levels of fucked. But games, even very difficult ones still Often very doable and fun.

One of my favorite genres is "white dot goes on a combat platforming adventure" Ie metroidvania/soulslikes that either Are hollow knight or heavily inspired by hollow knight

And I just want to compare a Good white dot, against an extremely irritating white dot.

This is yi. He is an edgy cat boy. he is a good white dot.

No matter the amount of bullshit on screen or the background color, you can always quickly find the white dot that is Yi or his lil robe.

This Bo. They are a bad white dot. they look like they'd be a Good white dot, what with the really clear silhouette of their ears and strong red markings

This is Bo in the game.

Bo breaks the number 1 rule of being a white dot: they end up the same color as the background because neat light effects which do look Great, were more important than the ability to find you're guy while doing minute long don't touch the ground style parkour sessions.

Like Hollowknight and Nine Sols, Path of the teal lotus uses a lot of forground and back ground layers to create a very nice sense of depth. However the foreground layers frequently completely cover the lower half of Bo's body. often making them a light colored dot on a noisy light colored back ground.

The fact background and play ground elements are often the same color does not help. Nor does the fact the camera is . Bad. it just is. It zooms in and out in the middle of a screen making it extremely difficult to keep track of an already hard to follow character in a setting where. losing track of your guy means getting sent back to the beginning of a tedious boss fight or a prolonged parkour session (which to be clear, would be good if you could track your player character. not the bosses though. They are. bad. they need to attack faster, have more than 2 attacks, or at least have a fraction of the HP they do. so you're not just standing around waiting for them to decide to start up another attack to open a vulnerability window.)

And I'm just going to say it, Someone on the team knew the game had this issue. Because they gave you a fix that doesn't work. You can adjust brightness, contrast, and saturation. None of these fix the issue of Bo disappearing. The game is so blown out that no combination of settings produce a result where bo is consistently visible, and also you can tell whats background and what's something you can stand on.

Anyways Demos are an accessibility feature, and when they're not available don't be lazy like I was and just pirate it. If the devs aren't going to give you a way to check if their shit is busted or not, you'll just have to find one yourself.

Anyways anyways tldr absolutely Gorgeous game, Should've been a silent animated movie instead because it's nearly unplayable and the translators either did a Really bad job, or the writers just didn't get why the jokes they're copying were funny

[lulu-draws-stuff]

Summer vamp refs now :]

[front-facing-pokemon]

[junietuesday]

hardwon surefoot is the funniest bisexual character of all time to me bc jake seems fairly committed to playing cishet men. as in all his other pcs in naddpod are men who jump on opportunities to express attraction to female characters but not really male characters at all. but naddpod being as horny a podcast as it is murph will describe a male character and emily or caldwell will make the joke of him being hot and you can Hear jake jumping in as a comedian/improviser, only for like emily to go "hey. hey hardwon are you being fr right now" and murph to make the character earnestly match or even go above and beyond hardwon's accidental flirtatious energy. forcing jake to commit to the bit. which has resulted in hardwon kissing so many men in the show. even tho jake only ever initiates hardwon talking abt women- and even funnier more specifically Failing at talking to women. hardwon has had one singular girlfriend ever and completely bombed even the smallest of flirtations w every other woman hes been into. only one (1) time in the 99th episode out of 100 does hardwon kiss a woman or even have any sort of attraction reciprocated bc most of them think hes weird and lame. but not only has hardwon expressed physical attraction to an equal amount of male characters as female characters. he has successfully kissed several men and fully made out w i think at least two. happy pride month to hardwon surefoot specifically.

[anghraine]

Speaking of GW1 and GW2 ... I've had plenty of complaints over the years about how GW2 has chosen to handle and retcon human-centric GW1 lore, the framing of the human gods, etc. That said, I've recently been appreciating that GW2 has retained a particular element of GW1's treatment of humanity and their gods that I've always really liked.

Humans in the GW universe are not really generic everymen, as humans so often are in fantasy settings. Nor are they so wildly varying and unpredictable that there's no sense of humanity having its own distinct flavor like the other playable species do. In many ways, they occupy a vaguely "elvish" position in the world—they've been on this world for a very long time and used to be a major power, or rather, made up many major powers with various warring factions that sometimes found common cause.

But in more recent eras, many of the ancient human civilizations have dwindled and/or suffered various atrocities and/or lost their minds. And culturally, humans tend to have a strong affinity for the mystical and even more for the divinely mystical, which their political power in previous eras was directly tied to. The vast majority of humans in this world are faithful worshippers of a human pantheon of six gods (formerly five).

Not all humans are magical or religious, to be sure, but a lot of them are, to the point that this seems their most distinctive cultural quality. Minor NPCs tend to have background dialogue invoking the gods ("By the Six!"), or referencing one of the gods (often but not only the goddess Dwayna, leader of the Six). The main human NPC of the core game, Logan Thackeray, continually references the gods, as do most of his military fellows.

Most interestingly, though, if you choose to play a human, you will automatically be a devout adherent of the faith of the Six regardless of any other choices you make. In addition, human PCs are blessed by one specific god among the Six whom you choose at character creation.

This mostly has minor flavor effects in practice. A priest of the god you chose permanently hangs out in your home district, and sometimes other priests of your god can perceive some mark of their deity's favor when they look at you.

Howeverrrrr, when I say "their deity," I don't mean that they exclusively worship the god they've dedicated their lives to, or that "your god"—the god whose favor you enjoy as a human PC—is your god in any remotely monotheistic way. Humans faithful to the Six are faithful to all the Six until one of the gods falls to evil. And when that god becomes the villain of the second GW2 expansion, various human NPCs are shown going through a crisis of the soul regardless of whether he was their particular patron or not. Having a more specific personal tie to one of the gods, or being particularly blessed by one of them, or being specifically devoted to a life of service to one of them, does not in any way prevent humans from devotion to the rest of the pantheon.

Mechanically, this means that no matter which deity you choose as your particular patron, your human PC starts the game with the ability to pray to Dwayna, goddess of life and air and healing. When you pray to her, a blue image of Dwayna materializes, heals you, and vanishes. As you level up, your human-based skills will extend to prayers to the other gods.

Praying to Lyssa, goddess of illusion/chaos magic and water and beauty, confounds foes by inflicting random conditions on them and random blessings on you. Praying to Kormir, goddess of spirit, order, and truth, will free you from negative effects like immobilization. The final prayer you can use, iirc, and the most powerful, is the prayer to Balthazar, the god of fire and war who ends up going super evil. If you're playing a fragile class like an elementalist or mesmer, praying to him is actually great, because he blesses you with two fierce hounds made of flame who fight alongside you and soak up damage. (Praying to Balthazar does feel a lot weirder in retrospect, I'll admit.)

In any case, the point is that you can pray to ANY human god and receive a brief visitation from that god, because the entire human pantheon are your gods even if you're only special to one of them. A similar dynamic is at work for NPCs as well. A recurring NPC in the core GW2 story, for instance, is Rhie, a priestess of Grenth, god of cold, darkness, judgment, and death (he's not evil, just goth). Even by priest of Grenth standards, Rhie is greatly favored by him, and as a result is able to perform powerful rituals dealing with the boundaries between life and death. But there's no expectation that this means she should abjure the other gods in any way, and she certainly does not (in fact, she provides a Human Religion 101 rundown about the gods in general in her first appearance in the human storyline).

And it's so common in fantasy, I feel, that polytheistic cultures are conceptualized as giving adherents a wider choice of gods to be the one they actually worship for real, often with the implication that worshipping one god in the pantheon naturally translates into hostility or apathy towards other gods in the same pantheon. And so I do enjoy playing a religiously devout character who has a special patron deity blessing her and who is emphatically polytheistic throughout her entire original storyline.

[akkivee]

*sobs into my ketchup bottle* sasara and kuukou your duo could have been legendary

[dextermormon]

just find out that the doctrine(?) of apotheosis/exaltation is kind of taboo to talk about formally (missionary work, over the pulpit, other forms of teaching, etc.) (or at least it's considered obscure doctrine, even though everything logically points to it) and..... I cannot imagine a single reason why other than an attempt to ingratiate ourselves to nonmembers. it's rad and one of the coolest parts of our theology idk what's wrong with it other than it not jiving with the corporate mainstream christian assimilation the institution has been aiming for. y'all can tell me if I'm wrong

[geosaurus]

Get Your Life Together AU

[wolverinecore]

Begging cod stans (specifically tiktok stans) to actually go and read Ghosts wiki if ur not gonna bother watching the campaigns and learn his character and personality instead of characterizing him as a rapey abuser preditor bc ur a horny weirdo when hes literally just a normal guy who’s PROBABLY autistic AND A VICTIM OF ABUSE HIMSELF. Thank you for coming to my ted talk.