#I beat the game and honestly the best game I’ve ever played!!!!

[stars-on-fyre]

Beat Disco Elysium and 1) because Kim was shot I had Cuno and he became a junior detective, 2) I’m so upset that Kim wasn’t with me for that fucking Phasmid so we could’ve had a picture of it for my best friend Lena :’( and 3) this is the best game I’ve ever played

[boobabietch]

Chapter II: "A Rookie’s Obsession, A Legend’s Indifference: Is Diana Taurasi ready for Victoria O’Hara?” | Diana Taurasi x OC

Warnings: fight fight fight!! And a tad bit narcissistic Diana

A/N: I’m having a shitload of fun writing this lmao, so here’s another chapter I hope you like. As always English is not my first language so if you find something wrong tell me so I can change it asap, I can’t wait for y’all to read this and the next chapters I’m so excited. Likes, comments (!!!) and reblogs are highly appreciated and my ask box is always open. Love Sof :))

Making headlines masterlist

There’s a funny thing about being the best in women’s sports. People either love you or wait for you to fall. But when you’ve been around long enough, it doesn’t matter what they think. You know your place. And you protect it.

That’s what I’ve been doing since my debut in the WNBA. Owning the court. Owning the pressure. Every game, every season, everyone expects the same thing from me: perfection. Winning is never enough because when your name is Diana Taurasi, nothing is ever enough.

Then, she showed up.

Victoria O’Hara. The rookie everyone wouldn’t shut up about. Reminded me of me, hungry, talented, a little too much attitude for her own good. The first time I saw her was just before our game against San Antonio. I’d heard her name, knew she had something. But there’s a difference between hype and reality.

May 19, 2017

Game day. I could feel her eyes on me during warm-ups, it was cute honestly, I could see the gears working hard on her mind, probably wondering what it’s like to be me, to dominate the way I have. They all wonder. But what she didn’t know yet is that being good in college doesn’t mean shit here. Welcome to the W, kid.

I didn’t give her a second glance. What was there to say? Another rookie trying to prove something. I’ve seen it all. I’ve been that girl. But this one, this woman, had something extra in her. I could see it the minute the game started. Every time she took a shot, it was like she was aiming at me, if I didn’t know she wanted to rip my throat out I’d say she was in love. Every drive, every step, was a challenge.

I could hear the yelling in the crowd, I’d hear her teammates tell her to relax, feel the energy shift. People loved watching us, golden veteran vs. golden rookie. A fucking classic. O’Hara wanted to make a statement. I could tell she was on the edge, burning herself out just to prove she belonged. And every time, I’d remind her, I’ve been there. I’ve fought harder battles. If she wanted to be the next big thing, she was going to have to earn it. She was good, but I wasn’t worried. I’ve dealt with players like her before. They rise fast, burn out faster. But this one... she kept pushing.

Every game we played after that, it was like she had a personal vendetta. I couldn’t walk on the court without feeling her eyes drilling into me. She was obsessed. It was funny, really. This kid was trying so hard to beat me, to make me see her.

I saw her. I always see them coming.

July 7, 2017

We were in San Antonio. Close game. O’Hara played her heart out, I’ll give her that. But we still won. After the game, I found her slumped on the bench, wiped out. I should’ve just left her there. But something in me couldn’t resist. The kid had fire. I respected that.

“Not bad, O’Hara. Keep it up, and you might actually be a challenge someday.”

Her face said it all. She was rattled, but she had that spark. I liked seeing it. She looked at me like she was trying to figure out if I was serious. I was. Kinda. Then, she shot back:

“Someday? I’m already a problem for you.”

I almost laughed. Her confidence was impressive, misplaced, but impressive. I glanced down, smirked. Let her have that moment.

“Of course you are,” I said, walking off.

Sometimes I wonder what things would be like if I never said that, lucky for everyone I did.

July 30, 2017

Maybe I overestimated how in control I am of everything; the game, the rookie, and my body.

We were playing again, tensions running high. It was bound to happen. O’Hara wanted her moment, wanted to prove herself. And me? I wasn’t giving her an inch. Then, somewhere in the third quarter, it happened.

I saw her coming, her eyes locked on me with a mix of defiance and determination. She made a quick drive, cutting to the basket with an intensity that almost made me respect her. But I wasn’t about to let a rookie get one over on me. I slammed into her, blocking her path with enough force to knock her off balance. She hit the floor hard, her elbows scraping against the court. The whistle blew, and for a moment, I watched her lay there, her frustration almost palpable.

“Get up,” I muttered, standing over her. “You’re gonna need more than that to take me down, rook”

I saw the anger in her eyes as she pushed herself up, pressing her chest on mine. Damn, was she this tall the whole time? The way she glared at me, it was almost as if she was daring me to push her further. “You think you’re untouchable? Just fucking wait.”

My smirk didn’t waver. I’d seen that fire in rookies before, puffed up, ready to prove themselves. “I don’t think, O’Hara. I know.” I said with the most arrogant tone I owned.

“Oh you’re just a fucking bitch, aren’t you?” Before I could react further, she shoved me hard. Everyone erupted into chaos. I felt the rush of adrenaline as I moved to shove her back, but the moment I lunged, my teammates were already there, hands gripping my arms and holding me back.

O’Hara wasn’t any better off. Many of her teammates were swarming around her, trying to pull her away from me. I could see the frustration in her eyes as she struggled against their hold, her fists clenched and ready to throw.

Fun fact about fights: when you need the strength of 4 pro basketball players to hold you back, it makes you look really fucking dangerous.

We both tried to break through the human barriers restraining us. I could almost feel the impact of our fists connecting, the unfinished fight burning in my veins. But with every struggle, every strained push against the hands holding us back, the reality set in: we were not going to get to finish this here.

I didn’t care. I didn’t care about the cameras, the refs, or the impending technical. All I cared about was feeling that fire she was throwing at me. I wanted her to know what it felt like to face me, to try and break through the wall I’d built around myself.

Eventually, the refs managed to get us both under control, leading us to opposite sides of the court. As I was pulled away, I couldn’t help but glance back at O’Hara, her eyes still blazing with that same fire. Despite the chaos, a small part of me felt a twisted respect for her, a rookie who was not just willing to challenge me, but was ready to throw down if necessary.

The arena buzzed with excitement and disbelief as we were separated, but the fight between us was far from over.

That was the moment I knew this kid wasn’t going anywhere. And maybe, just maybe, I’d finally met someone who could keep up.

Little did I know.

Fucking Victoria.

"Rivalry Ignites: O’Hara and Taurasi Get into Fiery Altercation During Friday Game"

"San Antonio Stars Victoria O’Hara Adidas Grey and Black Edition Player Jersey | SOLD OUT"

Requests are Open!

Masterlist

[arc-misadventures]

For the Vtuber Au (if that's gonna be the name of it for not)

...has our dear Errantry Paladin ever played Dark Souls/Soulsborne/equivalent genre of games, if so how much rage has Jaune ever expressed in any form, if at all

Bonus question if you'd like to answer:

What his cute Vtuber model look like?

No, that’s gonna be the name of this, AU.

The VTuber: Of Bugs, and Rage

Errant: Hello everyone~! And, Welcome to the stream!

The Errantry Paladin started his stream with a smile across his avatars lips. People often marvelled at how expressive his avatar could be, only adding to help humanize the digital creation in their eyes.

~~~ Steam Chat ~~~

: Whoo! It’s beginning!

: It’s starting!

: What are you playing today?

: Hi everyone!

: There’s that winning smile that we all know, and love!

: How are you this day my liege?

:🥳🥳🥳

: He’s as handsome as ever!

: Sire my babies!

: Any thoughts on growing a beard yet?

~~~~~~

All as perusal for one of, Errant’s streams.

Errant: So I was asked… a lot. Honestly it more like begging, and pleading with me really to play a, Souls game. Like, Dark Souls, and the like.

~~~ Stream Chat ~~~

: We didn’t beg you.

: Suggested.

: Encouraged you.

: Certainly didn’t beg

:❤️I beg for you babies!❤️

: I beg for cake!

~~~~~~

Errant: Well, at least some of you are honest… or, claim to be…

Errant shot his chat a skeptical look before address the screen, and what game he was going to play today.

~~~ Stream Chat ~~~

: Aww he looks like an upset puppy!

: Who’s a good boy!

: Who wants the ball?

~~~~~~

Errant: Stop that! Ahem… So, in honour of your request, today we will be playing, ‘Hollow Knight!’ Now this is a game I’ve been looking forward to playing for a while now, I just haven’t had the time to do so. I stumbled across someone saying how great the soundtrack is, gave it a listen to myself, and fell in love with it, so I wanted to give it a go. And, since you asked me to play a, Souls game, and this game has been described as the, ‘Dark Souls of Metroidvania.’ And, since I’ve never played a Souls game, a Metroid game, or a Castlevania game before either. Well, three birds on stone.

~~~ Stream Chat ~~~

: Oh Hollow Knight hell yeah!

: It’s not Dark Souls but he will rage.

: This game is brutal.

: This game makes me sad.

: The music is damn good!

: Hed probably just curb stomp everything in a Souls game honestly.

: Id like to see that!

~~~~~~

Errant cheekily shrugged his shoulders as he gave a coy smirk as he explained his reasonings. Many in the chat we disappointed that he wasn’t playing a, Souls game, but what many truly wanted was to see their calm, and collected, Paladin rage. For the rage unleashed by the calm, and collected was a true sight to behold, and they were all looking forward to see it for themselves.

Errant: Enough stalling lets start it up. Lets see… Eh? Classic, Steel Soul, and Godseeker? Must be their names for the level difficulty. No wait… Classic: Normal Play mode. Steel Soul: No reviving. Death is permanent?! Is there a one life mode in this game?!

~~~ Stream Chat ~~~

: Yep!

: You gotta beat the game first before you can play that mode though

: Good luck

~~~~~~

He looked at his chat, then to his game with a shock look in his eyes. People played on such a difficulty, and won?

He could help, but wonder what it was he was getting himself into.

Errant: And, the last one: Godseeker: Challenge the gods of Hallownest. Is that a boss battle royal type of thing?

He looked to his chat, and saw people typing ‘yes,’ or the equivalent of that throughout the chat feed.

Errant: Okay… How many bosses are in this game then?

~~~ Stream Chat ~~~

: A lot

: Too many

: You’re gonna love them!

: Mantis Lords are the best!

: Grimm King is evil!

: 😍Mantis Lords😍

: all hail Gorb!

: You’ll die at least once to each boss

: Most likely

~~~~~~

Errant: Oh… Well now I’m scared. No matter, lets delve into, Hollow Knight then shall we?

///

Do you guys think this is a good way to integrate the stream chat reply? I think it does, but…?

Well, I ask for your thoughts after all.

As for giving, Jaune a cute, VTuber model. How about something more…

Ruggedly handsome? Roguishly charming? Somethings like that, he needs a different air about him.

Don’t you think so too?

[judewrld]

right through me [kylian mbappe]

⟶ 𝑠𝑢𝑚𝑚𝑎𝑟𝑦: first time with your boyfriend kylian

❥ 𝑝𝑎𝑖𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔: boyfriend!kylian x f!reader

❥ 𝑔𝑒𝑛𝑟𝑒: nsfw, 18+

❥ 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑑 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡: 2.5k

⟶ 𝑤𝑎𝑟𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠: slight swearing, dirty talk, soft sex, penetrative sex, vaginal sex, nipple play, fingering (f receiving), soft dom!kylian, sub!reader, unprotected sex, scratching, oral (f receiving)

⏤ 𝑎/n: soft sex with kyky, yes please.

there are possibly almost a hundred stalls at the ice cream fair. some sell gelato, some sell frozen yogurt, some sell soft serve ice cream. you and rebecca, phil foden’s girlfriend walk

through rows upon rows of pop-up stalls. you had met her last year at the man city vs psg champions league game. it was your first official appearance at kylian’s game as his girlfriend and you had met rebecca on your way out to the stands. while your boyfriends played on opposing teams, the two of you bonded and forged a friendship that has only grown over the years. 

you want to eat almost everything, but you know that it’s impossible. rebecca can tell that you are eager to eat everything, but she reminds you that the two of you should probably just buy a flavor from several stalls to share between you to get the maximum amount of ice cream and time to still shop. you quickly agree with her idea.

there are a lot of people despite it being a weekday, so you hold onto rebecca's coat, trailing her like a puppy. you stop by several stores to take a look at the ice cream flavors.

“so, how are you and kylian?”

you look up from the selection of ice cream to answer her question, “we’re getting on fine how are you and foden?”

she smiles, “things have been a little tense now with two tots and all but we’re making it work.”

you clap your hands together in excitement at the mention of her adorable children, “how are the little monsters?”

rebecca giggles, “they’re doing great. lovely kids really, just the biggest cockblocks i’ve ever met.”

you snort, “you and phil are the biggest nymphos i know. there’s no way you’re complaining about your sex life?”

“you don’t get it! we went from having sex anywhere at any time to having to tiptoe around our own home just to kiss!”

“you chose motherhood.”

“yes but that doesn’t mean i was ready to say goodbye to my voracious sex life.” the two of you giggle at her comment and continue your way down the stalls, “so what about you and kylian? has he put it down yet?”

you blush and play with the string of your hoodie. “um no, not yet.”

rebecca stops in her tracks and stares at you mouth wide open, “what? why not?”

you shrug, “i guess the right moment just hasn’t arrived yet.”

rebecca hums, “and what exactly counts as the perfect moment for you?”

“i’m not sure, but kylian knows i’m still a virgin so he doesn’t discuss sex much in fear he might be pressuring me.”

rebecca nods slowly, “well, do you feel any pressure to lose your virginity?”

you take a moment to think through her question, “honestly? i really love and trust kylian, i wouldn’t mind losing my virginity to him…i guess i just don’t know how to approach the topic?”

“i think you should just tell him you’re ready. no beating around the bush, the more transparent you are the better for the both of you.”

you sigh, “i’ll definitely try my best. it’s a bit of a sensitive topic.”

rebecca smirks, “i’m sure it’ll be worth it in the end.”

you surprisingly don't blush at that, too preoccupied by the ice cream to actually process her comment. for the rest of the time at the fair, you share between eight servings of ice cream.

you’re holding onto the last cup of ice cream following rebecca to her car, she ushers you into the vehicle and quickly enters the driver's seat to get out of the cold, she turns on the heater once she’s settled before driving off.

"where are we going now?" you ask, finally finishing up your ice cream.

"shopping of course!"

7:45pm

“how was your day out with becca, mon amour?”

you cuddle up into kylian’s side in your living room as you divulge details about your day to him. “it was fun! we went to the farmers market downtown before we did some shopping. how was practice?”

kylian reaches for the scotch bottle on the coffee table and pours himself a glass. you suck your teeth, “that bad?”

he hums and takes a sip of the scotch, “things are still tense between neymar and i. it’s throwing off the team dynamic completely.”

you pat his thigh in comfort, “the events that transpired between the two of you were pretty serious but i’m sure with time things will get better. this won’t be the end, he just needs time.”

“i’m not so sure things can be fixed this time.”  he replies simply before taking another sip of his scotch.

“i have faith in the relationship you have with neymar and you should too. he loves you like a brother he’s just hurt and that’s understandable.”

he turns his head to smile down at you, “maybe you’re right. i guess i just miss him.”

you smirk and flip your hair, “of course i’m right.”

kylian pinches your side, “when did your ego get so big?”

“i learned from the best.”

“was that a jab at me?” kylian asks, trying to hide his growing smile.

you shrug, “if the shoe fits.”

a hearty chuckle escapes your boyfriend lips and your heart swells at the sight of the bright smile occupying his face. your mind slowly drifts off to the conversation you had with rebecca, be direct and transparent.

“hey, kyky?”

he hums and polishes off the last of his scotch. “yes my love?”

you clear your throat and pull away from him for a bit. “i…i think i’m ready.”

kylian pauses. “oh- um, what brought this about?”

“i’ve been thinking about it for a while now but rebecca and i discussed it while we were out. i feel most comfortable when i’m with you,” you pause to look up at him to see how he’s taking in this information. “it’s almost as if you’re the only person who sees the real me and makes me feel appreciated. i can’t see myself trusting someone else with my body the way i trust you.”

kylian’s eyes rake your body, desire burning in his irises. he shifts his eyes to stare at your lips and begins to lean in. he takes his time, giving you the opportunity to pull away but you don’t. you want this.

he leans forward and allows his lips to graze yours, the faintest of touches. “are you sure you want to do this mon amour? we don’t have to.” kylian asks softly.

you shyly nod your head and lean in to close the gap but he pulls ways and shakes his head, “no love. i need to hear you say yes.”

“yes, i want to do this kylian.” you push forward allowing your lips to touch. he groans once your lips make contact. you’re unable to focus on anything other than the feeling of his lips on yours.

you can faintly taste the scotch he had just drunk on his tongue. he sucks harder on your lip and brings one hand down to your jeans and begins to undo the button and zipper before pulling them down leaving you in your underwear and hoodie.

he lets his eyes drink in the sight of you before leaning down to pick you up. you let out a yelp and grasp onto his biceps for protection, “w-what are you doing?” you sputter.

“i can’t make love to you properly on the couch, chérié.”

you blush at his words and bury your face into his chest, after a few strides kylian is opening the door to your shared bedroom and gingerly placing you on the bed.

he gets onto his knees and straddles your hips before reaching out to help you out of your pants and sweatshirt. you breathe in deeply savoring the way he feels pressed against you. the feeling of his warm fingers moving under the hem of your sweatshirt across your stomach. he lifts it off of your body and tosses it across the room.

“thank you for trusting me with your body.” kylian says before leaning back in and places his lips on yours yet again.

you moan into the kiss before he trails kisses down your jaw to your neck, his teeth brushing over your skin and making you shiver regardless of the heat being provided by kylian’s skin pushed up against yours. you close your eyes and relish the feeling.

with his lips still pressed against your neck, he whispers, “what do you want amour?”

your eyes flutter open as he slowly pulls away to look at you.

“i won’t do anything until you tell me what you want.” he reiterates before placing his lips back onto your neck, biting down making it harder for you to form a coherent sentence.

“i-i don’t know.” you say breathily but he chuckles in your ear, “yes you do amour, tell me what you want so i can make you feel good.” he says as he gently tugs at your underwear, you whine and raise your hips off the bed to allow him to take it off faster. he tisks, “i need to hear you say it.” you look up at him to meet his gaze, “i want you to touch me.”

his gaze hardens, “spread your legs chérié.” he orders.

he shifts his position and allows you to spread your legs before slotting himself in between them. he taps his fingers against your hips silently asking you to raise them. you shyly lift them to the best of your ability and let him pull them off of you, your arousal clinging to your underwear and clit.

once you’re completely naked, he brings his lips to your chest and roughly kisses your skin, his tongue probing at your nipple. you whimper when he bites your left nipple, the feeling overwhelming. he pulls back and looks at your bare body.

“fuck you’re so beautiful.” he mumbles before leaning down to toy with your pussy.

“you’re so wet too. did our kissing turn you on so much, love?” kylian asks, smirking down at you. your face heats up at his words but you don’t respond. while you are a virgin, you have engaged in other sexual acts with kylian, fellatio and cunnilingus  being the main two.

he looks back down at your pussy and shifts his position so he’s laying down in front of your pussy. he lets his pointer finger circle your clit for a little before running it along the slit of your folds. you let out a mewl at the feeling wanting more. “p-please ky..” You moan.

“patience amour.”

he dips one finger into you and you hiss at the feeling. it’s been a while since you’ve been touched down there by anyone and you’re extremely sensitive. “you’re so tight,” he says, pushing his finger deeper until the entire digit is buried snuggly inside you. you close your eyes and tug at the bedsheets, loving the feeling of him fingering you.

you’re a moaning mess by the time he manages to slide his whole finger into you. you clench around his fingers as he slides them in and out of your snatch and grasp onto your bedsheets. “does it feel nice to be stuffed with my fingers?” kylian asks.

you know your voice will fail you so you adamantly nod your head. kylian picks up the pace and your hips move to his strokes. kylian licks his lips when he feels your walls clenching tightly around his digits.

“i-i think i’m close.”

his fingers curl inside of you which causes your hips to jerk upwards. “are you cunning?” he asks cheekily.

you nod eagerly, “yes!” your eyes snap shut as you enjoy the feeling, “o-oh my god” you cry as you feel him kiss the inside of your thighs. he trails the kisses upwards until he’s face to face with your pussy and places a soft kiss on the nub before sucking on it, his tongue flicking around. he pulls his pointer and middle finger out so he can eat you out freely.

he licks the slit of your folds and firmly grips the flesh of your thighs most likely leaving marks.  arks that would remind you of this moment later on.

kylian picks up the pace, he’s going so fast that you let out a quiet scream. you fist and unfist your sheets as you rock your hips against his face and come.

your orgasm hits you so hard that tears fill your vision.

kylian allows you to ride out your high before coming up from your private parts and leans back down to place a chaste kiss on your lips.

“are you feeling alright love?” he asks as he strokes your hair. you’re heaving, trying to catch your breath.

“yes.”

“do you want to continue?”

you nod but then remember kylian wants verbal responses, “i do.”

kylian wastes no time in removing his shorts and boxers and gently moves up your body. you wrap your arms around his neck. “c-can you be gentle?” you sheepishly ask.

your question sends an immediate reaction to kylian’s dick, he swears he could have busted a nut right then and there. “of course chérie, i’ll be gentle.”

he tentatively strokes your folds with two fingers, eyes darting back up to yours to check your response. you hiss, still a bit sensitive. “is this okay? are you sensitive?”

“i’m fine,” you assure, “go ahead, i’m okay.”

he nods, gathering some of your wetness and smears it on his cock, a moan of relief leaving his swollen lips. “i’ve always wondered what it would feel like to be buried inside of you,” he says, angling himself better and positioning his cock near your entrance.

“please,” you whimper, biting back a cry once his length breaches your entrance. kylian lets out a guttural growl, slowly sinking into you and bottoming out letting you adjust to his length.

“you’re so beautiful.” kylian says , rolling his hips torturously slow. “you were made for me, amour. just for me.”

you open your eyes, taking a deep breath. “i’m ready, you can move now.”

kylian leans forward to place a kiss on your cheek, then on your jaw, and then on your neck. as kylian busies himself there he slowly begins to thrusts in and out of you.

your hands are all over him; clawing his back, gripping his biceps “amour,” he whispers, “you feel so good.”

The sound of your bodies slapping against each other plus your loud wanton moans and the creaking from the bed is all that can be heard reverberating around in the home. he thrusts two more times, his hips stuttering before he chokes out, “mm gonna cum.”

you scratch at his chest and bite your lip to suppress your moan, “m-me too.”

“you can cum amour,” kylian coos. he wraps his arms around you and hugs you closer to his body, the feeling of your chest pressed against him and his dick pounding into you is enough to send you over the edge.

“i’m cumming!” you mumble into his skin. kylian groans at the feeling of you cumming on his dick before his hips still and he comes inside you.

his lips are on your shoulders and neck, softly sucking on patches of your skin and murmuring sweet nothings as you calm down.

“i love you.”

[simply-ivanka]

"The only man who could have caught that ball just hit it." - Remembering Willie Howard Mays

“Mays is the only man in baseball I’d pay to see play.” — Ty Cobb

“Willie Mays is the greatest ballplayer I’ve ever seen. I never saw Joe DiMaggio play, but if Joe DiMaggio was better than Willie Mays, he belongs in Heaven.” — Roberto Clemente

“Outside of Joe DiMaggio, Willie Mays is the greatest all-around baseball player of my time. Certainly, he’s been the most daring. Mays would steal home, a tough play and one in which you’ve got a great chance to look bad. Willie didn’t even think of that, he’d just go. Nine times out of ten, he’d make it.” — Mickey Mantle

“You used to think if the score was 5-0, [Mays] would hit a five-run homer.” — Reggie Jackson

“[Mays] scooped the ball up at the base of the 406-foot sign, whirled and fired. It came in on one bounce, directly in front of the plate, and into the glove of catcher Tom Haller, who put it on the astonished Willie Stargell. It was described by old-timers as the greatest throw ever made in ancient Forbes Field.” — Bob Stevens, San Francisco Chronicle, August 25, 1965

“I couldn’t believe Mays could throw that far. I figured there had to be a relay. Then I found out there wasn’t. He’s too good for this world.” — Willie Stargell

“They invented the All-Star Game for Willie Mays.” — Ted Williams

“Willie Mays, to me, was the best ballplayer I ever saw in my life. …Nobody in the history of baseball is going to see anyone like Willie Mays. Everybody loved Willie in the clubhouse. Willie used to do a lot of things for different players, especially the rookies. Willie used to take players to clothing stores to buy them clothes. Sometimes he would get free clothes, shoes, and stuff, and give them to the players. He was like the mother of the team.” - Juan Marichal

"Willie Mays was to me the greatest player I ever watched. People ask me that, and I don't hesitate....he could have been an All-Star shortstop, that's how good an athlete he was...he could run backwards as fast as he could forward." - Don Zimmer

"If somebody came up and hit .450, stole 100 bases, and performed a miracle in the field every day, I'd still look you right in the eye and tell you that Willie was better” - Leo Durocher

"The best Major League ballplayer I ever saw was Willie Mays. Ruth beat you with the bat. Ted Williams beat you with the bat. Joe DiMaggio beat you with the bat, his glove and his arm. But Willie Mays could beat you with the bat, with power, his glove, his arm and with the running. He could beat you any way that's possible." - Buck O'Neil

“Hopefully, they can say, ‘There goes the best baseball player in the world.’ I honestly believe I did everything in baseball that a baseball player can do, and I did it with love.” — Willie Mays

[feathered-serpents]

So. In both God of War games Atreus/Freya are coded to follow the player right? In any game with companions the companion is obviously basically glued to the player and in a lot of games (Dragon Age for example) the companions will interact with the environment as best they can, climb letters, jump over stuff, etc but if the player gets to far away they will just teleport to their location so you don’t lose a companion

In God of War this doesn’t happen. Atreus/Kratos always follow you by naturally interacting with the environment. If you climb they climb, if you jump they jump, they never teleport. That’s because God of War’s AI is so good there’s almost never a need to, they’re really good at not getting stuck or left behind

But

Sometimes. It still bugs out. and the results. Are incredibly funny

I’ve had this happen to me twice, once in the first game, once in the second game. Both only with Atreus, never lost Freya which tracks honestly

In the first game I lost Atreus in Ivaldi’s Workshop and if you don’t know what that is because you don’t play GOW but still read the posts I make about it (I love you) Ivaldi’s workshop is an ever changing labyrinth filled with saw-style booby traps consisting of death propellers or 20 foot saw blades or classic “just fucking squish’em” the ceiling falls down traps AS WELL AS thick ass fog that makes it so you can’t fucking see and also it’s POISONOUS so if you stand in it for too long you straight up die and I have lost my kid in it

And suddenly I went from playing God of War to playing a “Lost my kid in the mall” simulator except the mall is a death trap filled with toxic fumes and ever changing walls aka any suburban mall. I am walking down all these halls trying to find this dumbass and the only thing I have to go on is sometimes I can hear his voice distantly through the mist. Far away. He’ll just say something and I’ll walk in that direction and he won’t be there. It was hell. It literally sounds like Kratos’ hell. I never found him I had to reset the checkpoint

The second time I’ve already talked about but it was awhile ago and it’s still one of the funniest things that ever happened to me in a game so I’m talking about it again.

I was doing Surtr’s trials and was getting to the last six (?) trials at the very end. If you’ve done these, you know if you do all of them in one go rather than leaving and coming back you get REALLY methodical at it. Arena one, arena two, main arena. Arena one, arena two, main arena. Again and again and again

The thing is, at the start of each of these fights the arena gates slam shut. Which makes sense since it’s supposed to be an arena. Arenas have gates and they’re usually shut. Well. I managed to move from arena two to the main arena so quickly that Atreus didn’t have time to get out of the first arena and got locked in behind the gate

I didn’t even REALIZE he wasn’t there until I tried firing arrows and nothing happened. Finally I turned around and I couldn’t see him. Then I heard a tiny, distant “Watch out father!” And got cleaved in half by a draugr. I would’ve had to restart either way several enemies you NEED Atreus with you to beat and he was in JAIL

Just the image of Atreus on his toes, locked in another arena with his face pressed against the bars screaming at the top of his lungs “FATHER!! BEHIND YOU!! HE’S BEHIND YOU!!!!!” Is the funniest thing in the world

This absolutely actually happened in my mind. Atreus thinks both are funny now, Kratos does not

[bloodbending]

spoilers for bg3 act 2. not a big story spoiler but a great character interaction i had (i know this game has been out for a while but just in case lmao)

i naturally love the astarion character. him being a sultry vampire with a hidden agenda/dark past/self-protective “act” and an amazing VA who is clearly having the time of their life… it was over for me before i even picked up the game.

i’m not romancing him in my first playthrough for many reasons..

1) i’m a goody goody character and i’ve decided to try and play naturally the first time without worrying too much about maintaining my morals and romancing him at the same time

2) karlach is my lawfully wedded wife

so instead, i’ve gone for the next best thing— good-naturedly irritating the absolute fuck out of him, lmao

i’ve enjoyed imagining him and my Tav nurturing a sibling rivalry. it started in Act 1’s grove party, when he insinuated he wanted to have some fun with someone. when my character said “are you saying you want to ‘have fun’ with me??” he turned his nose up at me and said “absolutely not, i have STANDARDS” with his full chest. i swear i could hear that VA smiling. which, oh my god, absolutely SENT me… Astarion set my Tav up so bad LMFAO

i leaned in. in my head, my Tav lowkey understands that Astarion isn’t actually cruel, but guarded, so she doesn’t take his remarks personally and is more invested luring out his bluntness (like i am as a player).

his relationship meter is solidly on “good” tho, so it’s not like he actually hates me, thankfully. every time i switch to him for traps or locks, i love imagining my tav pulling at astarion’s arm and using the most grating voice possible to say “astarioooooon, there’s so many traaaaaps, please won’t you lend me your special standards and help out?” and him being like “🙄 really?” and i love it lol.

in my head Astarion is doing a bit. the “i will not stop complaining to hide the fact that i actually really enjoy being part of this team” bit. love that for him.

it’s important to note that up until yesterday, any time i’d talk to him to add him to my party, he would say the standard “well what can i do for you?” or “… yes?”

now! yesterday, i made it to the blood elf lady in moonrise who wants astarion to bite her. i’m woman enough to admit that i was 1000% mesmerized by her dom energy and was willing to let her drain me to the last drop. both the writers and the VAs deserves one million dollars for that scene

but the second she started treating astarion like a thing, assuming i was his “owner” or whatever, she shattered the vibes! i was instantly defensive 😭

astarion refused to bite her, and when the lady asked me to command him to bite her, i obviously chose the “he’s a person (you fucking dick!) and he said no” option

i had genuinely been moved to drop my own teasing relationship and defend him as my friend. i didn’t even want to chose the dialogue option that would’ve fit how i’d played it so far (something like “you DON’T want to bite her, Astarion? i’m a bit surprised”)

ever since that one interaction, Astarion’s voicelines have changed completely!

i was so taken aback when i chatted with him after and he said “Hello my dear (genuine)” or “How can I help you, my friend?”

i thought maybe it was serendipitous— maybe that approval just so happened to nudge my metered relationship w/ Astarion across a certain threshold— but i’d checked his meter before and it didn’t change significantly at all. definitely not enough to warrant this 180 flip, i don’t think

that was fucking rad! i like to think that from astarion’s POV, my tav had gone out on a limb and showed she does genuinely care for him. and maybe now he can start seeing her as a true ally and friend. even though i am annoying, of course.

i’m struck by what a great character moment that was. honestly kudos to the writers and devs for making that a pivotal beat in the astarion/tav relationship, regardless of it being platonic or romantic. this game is full of moments like that — it makes it so addicting and satisfying!!

[specialagentlokitty]

Lestrade x reader - wasn’t expecting that

- Lestrade x Reader - best friends to lovers, set after Lestrade's wife cheats - @mxacegrey 💜

It was late, and you so wanted to go home but you couldn’t, you had so much paperwork to complete, and since Sherlock basically forced his way into your case, you now had twice as much.

Looking at the clock you groaned a little seeing how late it was and looked at your empty coffee cup.

You wanted more, but you didn’t want to get up, so you settled for resting your head on your desk with a small thump, letting out another groan.

“Still here?”

You looked up and Lestrade and nodded your head with a sigh as he walked into the office.

“Joys of paperwork, why’re you here?”

“Was just going to stay here tonight and sort out a hotel room tomorrow.”

“You still haven’t found somewhere?” You asked him.

“No, and got fed up of Sherlock rambling. I’d much rather get a hotel room at this point.”

You chuckled a little nodding your head and looked at him again, looking at the large bag in his hands.

“You know you can stay at mine for now? Right?”

“It’s fine don’t worry, I don’t want to intrude or anything.”

Laughing, you shook your head and stood up, pulling your jacket on, you grabbed your keys and bag, throwing the papers into a desk in your desk you turned of your lamp.

“You won’t be Lestrade, it’s fine. I’ve got a spare room you know that, till you get back on your feet.”

He looked a little relieved and gave you a thankful smile as you followed you out of the office, closing the door for you.

“You got your car?”

“Go a taxi.”

You nodded and lead him to your car, letting him toss his bag in the back you jumped in the drivers seat and waited for him.

You guys talked a little on the way to his, and you showed him the guest room, letting get settled in as you showed him where everything is.

“Hate to be rude, but I’m beat, I’m gonna get some sleep, you should too.”

With that, you offered him a smile and wondered away.

Lestrade woke up before you the next morning, he decided to to make you breakfast and looked around you kitchen which was pretty empty.

“Bloody bell what do you eat…?”

He settled for just ordering breakfast and set your stuff on the table when it arrived.

“Damn you actually found food…”

He turned to the doorway of the kitchen where you were stood rubbing your eyes and letting out a loud yawn.

“No i ordered some. Why’s your kitchen so empty?”

You shrugged a little and sat down, rested your head in your arms and he laughed, pushing your coffee towards you.

You grumbled a little and he smiled, patting your head as he sat down on the opposite end side of the table and you sat up.

“Thanks for breakfast.”

“No problem but since we’ve got the day off I am begging you to go get some shopping.

You smirked a little and shrugged your shoulders, sipping the drink before grabbing one of the pasties from the bag.

“Yeah I guess we can.”

“Thank you, I would prefer to be able to eat. I’ll start looks for places today as well.”

You waved your hand dismissively as you shook your head.

“Don’t rush it, take as long as you need.”

“Thank you, honestly.”

Lestrade helped you around the flat, he cleaned and you took turns cooking, when you forget he would get the shopping and remind you to keep a list of things for when you ran out.

Days turned into week and eventually he had been living there for a half a year and it was a safe to say that you two were best friends.

You decided since it was so hard to get a flat in London he was just going to stay with you, you guys would split bills and such and if he ever changed his mind or found somewhere he liked he could move out at any point.

It was a good little arrangement and it made life easier when you two were working the same case.

You had a weeks holiday, so you passed the time sleeping, playing games and sometimes going out to meet John or Mycroft for lunch when Lestrade was busy.

Humming to yourself, you stood in front of the mirror looking at the outfit you were wearing and frowned trying to figure out if it was what you wanted to settle for.

“Hey (Y/N) you still here?”

“Yeah I’m in my room!” You called back.

Lestrade padded over and knocked on the door before pushing it open slightly, keeping his head turned away.

“You can come in.” You laughed.

He smiled and opened the door fully, walking in only to stop when he saw you dressed up.

You weren’t dressed too fancy, but he would have to admit you definitely looked nice.

You wore jeans, a white shirt with the top button undone, and a black leather jacket, you hair had been done in your favourite style and you had a few other outfits set out on the bed.

“Does this look nice? Is it too casual?”

“Depends. For a work meeting, yes, for meeting friends, no.”

“How about a first date?”

Lestrade felt something in him when you said date, he couldn’t quite place what it was. Was it sadness? No, no it couldn’t have been.

“Date?”

You nodded your head and turned back to look in the mirror with a frown.

“Yeah, I’m meeting a guy for drinks. A friend of Molly’s actually.”

“Right, right.”

Lestrade stared at you back.

“Yeah, yeah it looks nice. Good for a first date.”

You smiled and turned around, walking over you out everything else away again and grabbed some shoes from the corner of your room and pulled them on.

Heading over over to the door, you smiled at Greg again.

“Thanks, I’ll be home in a few hours.”

“Be safe.”

You nodded and left the flat and he just stood in your room for a second before he left and closed the door behind him.

He sat in the sofa, nursing a beer as he idly flicked through channels on the tv.

He couldn’t get it out of his head.

You on a date. You, going out dating. He couldn’t believe it.

He knew it was stupid, of course you would be dating people, you were single, you wanted to meet people, get out there and maybe find someone to settle down with.

You were a few years younger than him, you had been friends ever since you joined the force, but he’d never actually seen you with a partner.

He thought maybe you weren’t interested in dating, and since moving in with you? His marriage having fallen apart and his divorce having just been finalised it made him realise he didn’t have anyone now.

Did he want to start dating again? Did he want to put himself out there again?

He never really thought about that, he just assumed he’d be with his ex wife for the rest of his life and now he didn’t even have that.

He had you, John, and as much as he hated to admit it, Sherlock, that was it. You were us only proper friends that he spoke to.

Lestrade shook his head, maybe he was overthinking it, he didn’t need to worry about that right now, he just had to focus on himself at the minute, dating shouldn’t be a priority.

A few hours slipped past and even though he was turned he didn’t want to go to sleep, he wanted to stay awake, make sure that you got home safely.

He looked at the time and frowned.

“Jesus (Y/N) you should be home by now.”

He went to call you, but you came stumbling through the door not even a minute later, you came padding into the living room and looked at him.

Lestrade just blinked, looking at your wobbly form, the lopsided grin on your face as you walked over and pretty much fell on the sofa next to him.

The moment you dropped down he could smell the alcohol seeping from you.

“Bloody hell did you drink the whole bar?” He asked.

You pat his thigh and laid down, using his leg as a pillow as you dangled you arm over the edge of the sofa.

“I… I think.. two…?”

You sounded confused and you words were slurred.

Sighing, Lestrade placed his hand on your head which made you hum a little as you closed your eyes.

Looked down at you, Lestrade just smiled and shook his head.

“You can’t sleep there.” He whispered.

He pushed you up, and stood up, helping you get into your room and sat you in your bed.

He took your jacket off and placed some more comfortable looking clothes he managed to find on the bed and looked at you.

“Get changed, I’ll get you some water and bowl.”

He left the room, and he grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, some pain meds and large mixing bowl from under the sink and walked back into your room.

You had changed, the clothes you wore out tossed all over the room and you were laid on the floor staring at the ceiling.

“(Y/N)?”

Lestrade crouched over you, and you moved your eyes to look at him.

“You want some help to the bed?”

“N.. no…”

“You’re going to sleep here?”

You nodded a little and he sighed, setting the things nearby, he grabbed the pillow and placed it under your head, then grabbed the quilt and gently covered you up.

He crouched next to you again and you carried on staring at the ceiling.

“I.. you stay here…?”

“You want me to stay here?”

“Ye…”

He smiled and gently pat you cheek as he stood up.

“Give me a minute then.”

Lestrade went to get changed and came back with his pillow and his own quilt and laid next to you both of you just staring at the ceiling.

You soon fell asleep, Lestrade falling asleep not long after you.

You woke up to the sun coming through your blinds, and you groaned a little really feeling the hangover you slowly sat up and looked around.

Finding some water and meds you quickly and gratefully took the meds and downed the water before taking a break for breath.

You looked around the room again and stopped when you saw Lestrade on the floor next to you.

Putting the cap on the bottle you set it aside and looked at him, trying to figure out when and how exactly you ended up in your room but you couldn’t.

You tried to figure out why he was sleeping in your floor but you came up with nothing.

Shrugging, you laid down again needing more sleep.

You looked at him, arm tucked under his head, his other arm holding the quilt close to his chest and you smiled.

He looked pretty cute like that.

You closed your eyes and easily drifted back asleep, and when you woke up again Lestrade was already up and gone and you sat up again.

“Hey you’re up.”

He stopped walking and stood in the doorway, and you smiled nodding your head.

“Thanks for the water and meds.”

“No problem how’re you feeling?”

“Like a train wreck.”

You held out your hands and he walked in, helping pull you up before helping you out everything back and you guys headed to the living room.

“How much did you drink? You were pretty much gone to the world.” He laughed.

“I may as well have drank the whole bar, honestly the whole night is just blank. I remember meeting the guy, then we bumped into so random women and then I think we went in and out of a bunch of clubs?”

He laughed again and shook his head at you, handing you a controller and taking the other one of the table.

“Sounds like you had a pretty good night.”

You hummed a little and nodded your head.

“Hey were you sleeping in the floor with me?”

“Yeah you asked me to stay and I was worried about leaving you to sleep alone.”

“Thanks.”

“So you think there’s gonna be another date?”

He was nervous, unsure about what he wanted to hear but he tried to hide it from you.

“Yeah, we’re going out for dinner tonight actually.” You beamed.

Lestrade felt fallen at that, of course the guy would want a second date why wouldn’t he?

He pushed the feeling away and focused on the game.

Over the next few weeks you went on a lot of dates with this guy, and Lestrade had to accept the fact that he wasn’t okay with it.

He was actually sad about it.

But who was he to stop you? You weren’t his. You had a right to date.

You were actually on a date right now, and he was trying to work through the things he was feeling and pushing them away.

While he was lost in his head he didn’t notice the door opening, but he noticed it slamming shut.

Immediately his head shot up.

“(Y/N)?”

Lestrade got up and went straight for you room and looked around, finding you throwing your jacket on the floor and sitting in your bed, holding your face in your hands.

“(Y/N)?”

He slowly walked in, kneeling down in front of you, pulling your hands away from your face to hold them as he looked at you.

“What happened sweetheart?” He asked softly.

“That bastard was making out with some other woman.” You laughed angrily.

Lestrade’s blood boiled, how could anyone do that? Especially to someone like you. Yes, he was angry when his ex wife cheated on him but knowing someone did that to you? He was furious.

He shoved his emotions down and took a deep breath.

“Am I just someone to talk over? Am I not pretty enough? Did I do something?”

You rambled your insecurities and worried to him and he stood up, pulling you up with him he quickly hugged you and you more than happily hugged him back.

“No, no don’t think about yourself like that okay? Don’t let some asshole of a man do that to you sweetheart. You aren’t someone to walk over, you didn’t do anything wrong.”

Lestrade took a small deep breath.

“You’re absolutely beautiful (Y/N), and if he can’t see that he’s stupid.”

You sniffled a little, nodding your head as you carried on hugging him.

“I just… can I just.. I want to go to bed…”

“Alright, get some sleep okay?”

He let you go, wiping your tears with his thumbs and he kissed your forehead.

He went to leave but you stopped him.

“Stay…?”

The small crack in your voice was enough for him, he nodded and tucked you under your quilt and he laid on top of it, wrapping you up in his arms.

Neither of you said anything, but even after you fell asleep he didn’t move, he stayed there.

He made sure to get up before you and make you breakfast and you didn’t say a word, you ate silently and he decided to give you some space.

He did everything he could, but it took you a while to feel better and he was there with your every step of the way.

“Do you think I’ll find someone Greg?” You asked one evening.

He looked up from where he was sat on the floor.

“Of course you will, I know you will.”

“Doesn’t seem like it…” you mumbled.

You got up and walked into the kitchen and he quickly followed you.

“Look, you’re smart, okay? Your smart, creative, funny, brave, absolutely beautiful. If you don’t find someone then this world has gone mad.”

You turned around and set your cup down.

“Really? You mean that?”

“Of course! Of course I mean it (Y/N) because it’s true. Everyone who hurts you, everyone who doesn’t decide to stay with you they’re absolutely stupid because you are amazing in every sense of the word.” He smiled.

You smiled and nodded your head, taking a sip from your drink before you set it back down.

Lestrade walked over and stood in front of you, placing his hand on your cheek, letting you lean into his touch as you closed your eyes.

“I know there’s someone out there who’s going to always think the world of you.”

“How do you know?” You asked softly.

Lestrade thought for a moment before he took a deep breath, closing his eyes for a second before he looked at you.

He couldn’t stop this anymore.

“Because he’s looking at you right now…” he whispered.

“Greg?”

You opened your eyes and he cupped your face in his hands.

“I’m sorry I can’t keep holding it back anymore. Seeing you get hurt like that, seeing you crying, I can’t stand it. You’re too beautiful to cry, you’re too beautiful to be treated like that sweetheart. I promise you now I’d never do that to you, if you’d give me a chance that is.”

You just stared at him and he quickly backed away, heart racing in his chest realising what he just did.

“I.. I know I’m a few years older than you and I’ve been married and my divorce was finalised a few months ago…”

“Greg…”

“If.. if you don’t want to that’s okay too!” He panicked.

“Greg.”

He quickly turned around, running a hand down his face.

“Oh crap I’m so sorry I shouldn’t have said anything.”

He carried on rambling and you walked over, placing your hand on his shoulder you turned him around.

He stopped talking and looked at you.

You looked at him back.

Placing your hand on his face, you ran your thumb along the skin of his cheek.

“(Y/N)…” he breathed out.

You moved your hands and lightly grasped his collar and pulled him closer.

Lestrade cupped your face again and leant down nose brushing against yours.

“Greg…”

“I need you to say it…” he whispered.

You smiled and instead of speaking you leant up and that was all the permission he needed.

Quickly he kissed you back, letting all the emotions he had been feeling for a while came pouring out.

It felt like forever, as if the world slowly down and finally he pulled away, eyes half lidded and you looked at him with a smile.

“You talk to much…” you whispered.

“Maybe I need a reminder why I shouldn’t talk so much?” He smirked.

“I think you do.”

You smirked back and quickly pulled him down to kiss him again, pulling him closely to you and he smiled into the kiss.

He definitely wasn’t expecting that

[treasure-mimic]

Felt like messing around in photoshop today, so, what started as a want to create some franchise icons for Smash turned into full character mockups, so I put together my 10 most wanted characters for Smash Bros., whatever the next game looks like, and I’d like to post them and talk about them a bit.

Quote is I think my most wanted newcomer to Smash, I really like and appreciate everything Cave Story has done, and I think if you’re talking about indie games, Cave Story has probably had the most influence on the industry. Kids today probably don’t know much of anything about this game, but trust me when I say there’d be no Hollow Knight, no Ori, no Celeste, without Quote.

This one might be a little obvious nowadays, but I am fully behind the Waluigi train. Just one point of contention, I think people undersell his potential by just having him reference different sports games and spin-offs. I think the real play is to come up with a wholly original kit based around being a dirty cheater and trickster with a penchant for explosives.

I’d much rather have Paper Mario than Dr. Mario if I’m being entirely honest with you.

This one’s a bit weird, because I don’t have a huge fondness for Excitebike the game or Excitebiker the character, I’m just enamored with this concept of a fighting game character who fights entirely from the back of a motorcycle. I just think that’s wicked as hell. I’ll take it in whatever form I can.

Metroid Dread is in strong contention for my favorite Metroid game ever, and it did finally give us a character with a body plan and toolkit that lends itself to Smash, outside of Sylux and the Hunters, whom I’m not the biggest fans of. I’ve had some contentious history with the way Smash fans talk about Metroid, so I guess I’ll put it out now that I think if, at this point, you’re not vouching for Raven Beak, you don’t know what you’re talking about.

Love me some DS VNs, Professor Layton I think at this point has the strongest ties to Nintendo and, since Phoenix Wright got to play in Marvel 3, it should be his time to shine, though I wouldn’t be opposed to any of them.

Honestly, every generation of Pokemon there’s a couple of new mons that I think would make sick Smash characters, and will inevitably get passed up for a lame starter. Nihilego deserves a spot, dammit, she’s more plot important than any number of fire/fighting muscleheads. But if we’re shilling for the most recent gen, you can’t go wrong with a giant hammer.

The Heavy is commonly in talks around Smash Bros. wishlists, especially here in the West, but the obvious problem rears its head pretty quickly. He’s a giant, lumbering, immobile mass whose main weapon takes several seconds to start up and then chews through anything it hits. This is my counterproposal, I think the Scout is just as iconic as the Heavy, comes with a lot of fun weapons and abilities, and actually has some mobility. Imagine using a downward Force-A-Nature shot to recover while spiking someone into the blast zone!

This is for sure a weird one, but once the idea came to me I started getting really attached to it. The number of Enderman variants from Minecraft Dungeons gives the Enderman a surprising amount of variance to pull from, and the Ender Dragon could be its Final Smash.

For the final suggestion, this is for sure a “there’s no chance in hell” but also “it would be really funny”. Scorpion, I think, best represents the aesthetics of Mortal Kombat, a ninja with fire, bladed weapons, and the ability to teleport, which centers him more than Sub-Zero who uses ice, Raiden who uses lightning, and Liu Kang who’s just a martial artist. Leaning heavy on the fire aspect is also a good way to nerf MK’s hypergore for a Rated E10+ game, though that really is the central appeal of Scorpion, trying to shove this edgelord into a kiddy cartoon beat-em-up.

[smash-64]

2022 Game of the Year Countdown 2. Panel de Pon Intelligent Systems Super Famicom, 1995

Yeah! FAIRIES!

In early January, @studentofthors​ said she wanted to try this game. I’m not into puzzle games, but I said I’d give it a shot. Between being completely lost and being stomped into the dust, I somehow developed a love for everything this game offers. Gorgeous visuals, overflowing charm, bright colors, funky bass guitar, and a depth to gameplay that far outreaches my humble skills. Panel de Pon is the greatest puzzle game I’ve ever played, and nothing else even registers on the scale.

Let’s start with the visuals. This game is so gorgeous, it’s hard to believe it’s a Super Famicom game. It has highly detailed and animated sprites, each one distinct from the others and displaying each fairy’s personality with the many reactions during games. The backgrounds are also gorgeous, and I just cannot understand why new Puzzle League games have removed this sort of thing. Just look at them!

Everything about this game is charming and upbeat. Positivity is kind of my thing, so seeing a character like Lip is really fun for me. And all of the fairies have detailed and colorful backgrounds.

Even the bad guys have a sort of charm to them. Thanatos is supposed to be scary, but some of his sprites are just ridiculous.

I cannot get enough of the music from this game. Neris’ theme is calm and relaxing, with a really funky slap bass beat when the panic theme kicks in. Flare’s theme is probably the most invigorating tune. Ruby has a great theme, too. And Walking on a Rainbow is one of my all-time favorite credits tunes. It’s just so calming and reassuring.

So, as everyone likes to point out, this game came West as Tetris Attack, rebranded as a Yoshi game. There was an N64 sequel planned, which ended up being rebranded as Pokemon Puzzle League, and while it did eventually get released on a Japan-only puzzle collection for GameCube, it seems like the developers had only one goal in mind for the series: remove ALL charm from sequels. No fairies anymore for Puzzle League games. This is supremely sad for me and honestly kills all desire for me to play the newer versions. I do like the actual puzzle gameplay, but the rest of the game was what really enticed me to begin with.

I cannot even begin to describe the gameplay to this game because it is so deep and complex. However, the basic concept is so simple, you can grasp the goal of the game in mere seconds. Yet, even after a year of playing this game, I’m probably considered barely even intermediate level. Watching tournament finals absolutely blows me away every single time. I’d lose to these people in literally 10 seconds. It’s absurd.

The VS mode is probably where the most fun can be found, as you can do the story mode against CPU opponents, or fight your friends. But there is an endless mode where you can go for a high score, and there is also a 1P puzzle mode where you are given a puzzle and must solve it within a certain amount of moves. There are an astounding 120 levels to this 1P puzzle mode. This game is 27 years old. I love it.

With the addition of this game to the Nintendo Switch Online subscription, you can play it online against anyone in the world. This was how I initially tried the game out, and it’s probably the best thing that ever happened to Panel de Pon. So many people are discovering the game this way, and are able to play against other people online. I even ordered a physical copy from Japan and swapped the board for a donor cart to be able to play it on my SNES. I brought it into work and we’re currently working on an interdepartmental tournament on break time! 

In the past year, I have gotten no fewer than seven people hooked on this game. I guess it’s similar enough to Candy Crush that people took to it quickly, but then stuck with it because it was more interesting and deeper. Take a break from your normal game rotation and check out something different.

[fragileizywriting]

Adrien sags against Luka, limp like a wet paper bag. “I can’t feel my balls.”

“Oh, you’re fine.” In fact… “You know, more than fine, actually. A normal demon would be out of it for the next few hours; the fact that you’re talking is amazing.” 

Luka looks… worried. Sort of. Like a man who’s been told that he’s allowed to touch gunpowder, aware that someone right next to him is holding a match, there’s a bit of a daredevil streak in his eyes, lit up by the candlelight surrounding them. “What? Seriously?”

“Oh, yeah. Maybe it’s his age that’s helping him, who knows?” Marinette confesses, before turning back to Adrien who is doing his best not to let his gorgeous green eyes go cross. “What’s it like being this young? Really, tell me, I’m curious. It’s been so long since I was your age; how are you dealing with the fact that I’m essentially stealing magic from you?”

“It’s kind of like you’re pulling a drain plug from a bathtub and all the water goes rushing out,” Adrien slurs out. “Like… the contracts I have in my chest are getting sucked out of me.”

“Like your dick is a straw.”

“I hate that analogy,” the Prince groans, but makes no effort to prove her wrong. “You’re one dangerous woman, Marinette.”

She pinches his cheeks. “And you are the cutest little demon Prince I’ve ever snacked on. Oh, I could eat you right up!”

“‘Snacked on’,” he wheezes. Face flushed like he’s catching on to what the predicament is, about how Luka has him in a tight grip and Marinette is taking all she can from him. His chest expands so quickly, sucking in air, attempting to level his heartbeat in a way so that his heart isn’t beating erratically in her ears. Is he nervous? Excited? Worried? That crook in his brow, is that because he’s trying to concentrate? Or is it because he’s trying to plan an escape route. “Oh, I get it now, you’re playing with me because you think I can’t last until you’re full!”

“Uhm, you can’t?” This guy. Oh boy. “It’s kind of the whole point. Succubus, and all that.”

“I can do it.”

“You can not.”

“I absolutely can.”

“Not to play Devil’s advocate here,” Luka interjects, and it is kind of funny, how he’s rock-hard and sweaty yet still managing to have a normal conversation. ‘Normal’. “But you’re aware that she’s— quite literally— capable of ripping out all the magic you have if she wants to. At this point, the fact that she’s taking it bit by bit is because she’s treating us like finger food. She’s sampling. We’re the buffet table.”

Marinette sighs. “You’re such a breath of fresh air, Luka. Thank you for being the wisest guy in this room.”

“I call bullshit. I can do it.”

Oh, god, don’t blame her for rolling her eyes! “Do what, exactly?”

“Keep up.”

“What’s the end goal?” Oh, he’s got her interested now. Marinette’s always loved games, ever since she was first brought into the world. Games and playing, always having some sort of rules or law. “What are you trying to achieve?”

“I’m going to prove that not everybody just gives in to you so easily; you’ve just been picking your lays wrong.”

“Wait a minute,” Luka replies, “that means that if I don’t do that, I’ll be considered weak. What if I don’t want to get my ass handed to me?”

“Then don’t play.”

“What will this prove?” Marinette asks.

“That I’m better.”

Luka barks out a laugh. “Oh, Jesus.”

“I am,” Adrien lobbies. “I’m not some normal loser demon, I can stand up to you.”

“You can not,” she snorts. “You’re going to bend and you’re going to get your perfect ass handed to you, and you’re going to whine and complain about how unfair it is.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Really riveting stuff, you two,” Luka drones in, humor still glinting in those eyes. “Love to see it, honestly.”

“I dare you to try to make me submit to you.”

[rsedits9420]

Ok so this is like my first time writing, so don’t mind the grammar lol, but…. I just wanted to try it out because it honestly looks fun. So here’s my first fic ig? 🤷🏼‍♀️

Feelings.

Mark Estapa x reader

Btw y/n/n =your nick name and y/c = your color!

Theme- Mark and y/n have been best friends since they were kids. She moved with him to u-mich. Mark and y/n start to have difficulty finding their feelings for each other. That causes them to drift. Until one of them finally makes a move.

Word count: 2.0k

Y/n

I hate frat partys. It’s all so stupid. Who wants to go hang out with a bunch of drunk people who can’t control themselves? I guess Mark does. He drug me here, so he wouldn’t be “lonely”. This kid. He acts as if he has no game. He could easily get a girl on his hip. That for sure wasn’t the problem. Mark and I have been besties for almost 15 years. We meet in my backyard after he accidentally shot a puck into it. He climbed the fence just to meet with little ol’ me. He asked if I wanted to join him, and me being me I took the invite. Ever since that day on we have been inseparable. I went to every single one of his hockey games. Home or away. He never missed a Sunday night movie with me. We did everything together. He was even my date to all 4 homecomings and 2 proms. Our families have always said we will end up with each other one day. Oh god, I hope so. I’ve always thought mark was cute, but it really got terrible as soon as we got to college. How couldn’t I have known how attractive this guy was? I feel like a fool, because in no way will he ever feel the same. I stare across the room to see mark up against some sorority girl. She practically eating his face. I can’t help to feel a sense of jealousy. Then reality hit. He's a D1 hockey player and future NHL player and I’m just me. A girl is now sitting alone at a party staring at her best friend with another girl.

“Y/n come on I need you for pong!” Eddy yells. Ethan is the only one who knows about my true feelings. After Mark and him became roommates I spent a bunch of time in their dorm. Ethan is one of the most genuine people I have ever met. “I'm on my way Eddy!” I replied. Maybe this will help me take my mind off Mark.

As I walk up to Ethan, I'm met with the sight of Nolan doing a keg stand. These hockey boys have no shame. Moyle’s overall strap is currently falling down, starting to fall onto his face. That’s when he face plants right on the hardwood. I can’t help but laugh. “ Yo Moyle dude you okay?” Dylan ask. Nolan sits up looks at me and eddy and says,” Can I play y’all in pong now?” Never a dull moment with this crowd that’s for sure.

After Eddy and Dylan set up the game, I can’t help but wonder where Mark is. I turn to look to where I saw him last and notice he is nowhere in sight. All of a sudden Nolan yells,” Hey y/n are you ready or what?” I snap back into reality and grab the ball.

I’ve just downed my second cup, when I feel two hands grab a hold of my shoulders. “Y’all winning?” A familiar voice says. I turn around to be met with Mark’s gorgeous dark brown eyes. Ethan gasp offendedly. “Stop Sign you know me and her kick serious ass every time we play. How could you even ask if we are losing” he says sarcastically. Mark and I turn toward each other and chuckle. Eddy’s right. We are currently 7/7 and are beating Nolan and Dylan by a shit ton right now. I bounce the ball and it falls into the final cup. Ethan jumps up and grabs me while saying,” How the hell did you get so fucking good at this game? Seriously I need answers.” Truth be told it was Mark. At our first high school party he taught me how to play. Granted he taught me, but I’m still better. He hates that I’m better than him at something he taught me but I just think it’s ironic.

After the game, me, Eddy, and Mark all head to the living room. The three of us sit next to eachother on the couch, while talking about next semester. Its our last semester before sophomore year. Mark, Eddy, Dylan, Mackie, and Luke are all planning to get a house close to campus to stay at, while I am just trying to find an apartment away from people. I'm not a people person that's for sure. It took me a while to get closes to Mark’s friends and his team. Luckily all of them love me. I’m like the team's little sister. Or at least that's what Mark tells me that's what they say. Mackie walks into the room with Luke by his side and says,” Y/n come on! We got somebody who wants to meet you!” Mackie’s hand sticks out inviting me to go with him. I grab his hand a let him lead me down the hall and out that back door to reach the backyard. I’m met with a man about 5’11 with brown hair and he’s wearing a Michigan basketball jersey. “Okay so y/n this is Will, Will this is y/n!” The brown-haired man sticks out his hand and I capture it. “ Me, Hughsey, and Mack are in the same Sports Management class. I saw how bad yall beat the absolute crap out of Duker and Nolan. I'm going to be completely transparent here. It was hot.” A blush crept onto my cheeks. “Um, thanks,” I respond. Damn an attractive guy just flirted with me and all I could say was “Um thanks”. I want to shake myself. “ Well I was wondering if maybe you wanted to go get coffee sometime?” Will asked me. “Sure I would love to!” I say back. He quickly grabs a pen out of his back pocket and grabs a napkin and starts to write something on it. Soon after he hands me the napkin with his number on it. A cute guy just gave me his number. Is this a dream? I sure hope not because I've never felt this good.”

Then Mark’s tall frame appears right next to me and says,” Hey y/n/n we should probably leave if we want to make it to town by 10 tomorrow.” I look at Mark and then at Will. Mark was right we were going back home for the weekend to see our families. “Oh yeah. We probably should.” I turn back towards Will and say,” It was nice meeting you! See you soon!” And grab Mark's hand and head out of the frat house.

Mark

What the hell. Are Mackie and Luke trying to piss me off?

That’s all I can think of, as I’m walking out of the frat party hand in hand with y/n. Mack and Luke tried setting her up with Will Martin. Fucking Will. Everyone knows his games. He will act like a great guy on the outside, but on the inside he’s a huge womanizer. So why the hell are they trying to set him up with y/n. They know what she means to me. How much I care for her. And yet they still did it. I make a mental note to get them back at practice.

As me and y/n make it to my car, she looks up at me and says,”Hey Stops you okay bud?” Stops. The nickname she gave me the first time we met. And somehow it stuck. I look at her soft relaxed face and sigh. “ Yeah I’m okay. Just tired you know.” Hopefully she buys my lame reply. She just nods and gets into the car. I follow, and crank the engine. “So who was that guy you were talking to?” I say acting like I didn’t care. “I don’t really know. Mack and Hughsey said he was in one of their classes. His name is Will, but that’s pretty much all I know. Oh and he plays basketball.” She says pretty nonchalantly. “Oh and he asked me out for coffee.” She says shyly. “Isn’t that a good thing?” I responded. She looks at me with glossy eyes and says,”Well I don’t really think it will work. I mean look at him and then look at me? I’m nowhere near his league.” What?!?! Is that what she thinks? Because I think a hell of a lot more than that. If anything she’s out of HIS league. I try to calm down before saying,” Y/n, no. I know you might not think it, but you're beautiful. Don’t let anyone make you feel differently. And also if anything you're out of his league. Not the other way around.” She looks at me and smiles,”Mark, I don't know what I’d do without you.” I’m pretty sure I’m blushing after her comment but I’m not going to look. I can’t have her knowing my feelings. She wouldn’t ever feel the same. I will be just the boy next door who was like a brother to her.

And it was painstakingly obvious. Basically our whole highschool knew. And just after two times of meeting y/n, all the guys here knew too. I’ll get chirped about it for probably the rest of my life. Mark Estapa, the guy with some of the most penalties in the big 10, is too scared to tell the girl he’s been in love with for 8 years that he loves her. And I do love her. Not like a friend, but more. But I know that she can’t say the same.

I think about her and Will, all the way back to my dorm room. Her small frame slowly follows from behind me, as we’re going down the dorm hallway. I open the door and she stalks her way in. She goes straight to my dresser and picks out an old storm shirt and a pair of sweats. “Can I wear these tonight?” She asked. “Of course. But be careful with the sweats, the drawstring is broken, might have to roll it a couple of times, shorty!” She gives me a glare before throwing a sock of the floor at me. “I’m not short, you're just huge!” She says. I give her a skeptical look. “Uh huh. Sure.” I say as I go to the bathroom to brush my teeth. When I walk out she’s on my bed scrolling through her phone, not paying any attention at all, so I decide to jump right onto the bed. My actions cause her to almost fling off of the bed and right onto the floor. Lucky for her she doesn’t. She playfully slaps my chest and says,”So you think your funny Stops?” Uh yeah I do. I’m hilarious. I take off my sweat shirt and shoes and climb right next to her on the tiny ass twin bed. I grab her to pull her close. I take in her sweet smell and it reminds me of the hood she has on me. We’ve been snuggle buddies since we were 5. She and I kinda just did everything together for the first 3 years. We wouldn’t be able to sleep unless the other was next to us. It causes our parents some trouble, but who really cares? Not us, that's for sure. Over the years, after her Sunday movie nights we would either stay at her house or go to mine to sleep. It’s just been our thing. And once we got to college it happened more. Her roommate is definitely an interesting cat. She’s super sweet,but definitely not someone I would be able to hang out with for 8 hours a day. That’s why y/n comes to hang out with me and the guys. Eddy loves her like a little sister and the others treat her as one of us, so she’s always hanging with us. Nobody minds, we actually love the company. Me a little too much but I won’t tell her that. I get one good look at her beautiful y/c hair and y/c skin and drift off to sleep with the image of her in my mind.

Let me know how it was!!!!

Pt 2 ⬇️

[waywardangel-wilds]

Here's a piece of what I wrote this morning:

“You’re medically trained?” Haymitch said, but it wasn’t really a question. He came over to sit on the couch to our right, drink in hand. “Any other skills between the two of you?”

I glanced up at him. His mocking tone had been changed for neutrality. I returned my focus to Peeta’s face.

“Katniss is a hunter. The very best.” Peeta said, opening his eyes. “She can take down anything, big, small, whatever. Get’s them in the eye every time.” I looked down at the kit. I wasn’t all that experienced with closing facial wounds, but maybe I could just use the butterfly bandages?

“That’s good. We can work with that.” Haymitch nodded. I pulled out the bandages. “How about you? What can you do?”

“Not much,” Peeta said honestly. “I’ve worked in a bakery my entire life. You don’t learn how to kill in there.”

I scoffed but continued working on his face. “Don’t sell yourself short.” I looked over at Haymitch. “Peeta is strong. A great fighter. He just won the wrestling tournament this week by throwing a guy over his back. He lifts hundreds of pounds in bags on flour almost everyday.” My eyes returned to Peeta’s wound. “The only people who’ve ever beat him in a fight are his own brothers.”

“Very good,” Haymitch was saying but Peeta started talking over him.

“She’s also a great tracker and trapper. Can climb anything. Oh, and she can swim.” I leaned back from him to glare, and he shrugged in return. “She’s got the highest shot at survival between us.”

“No, don’t—” I cut myself off and turned to face Haymitch myself. “Peeta’s the smartest person I’ve ever met. Perfect liar, great manipulator. He knows how to play people. He can beat this game.” I closed the medical kit. “He doesn’t need a bow and arrows; he can think his way out.”

“Well, that’s just not how this works,” Peeta sounded annoyed. “Listen, she’s the best bet.”

“Will you shut up—” I was saying.

“Okay, that’s enough.” Haymitch interrupted. “I’m the one that makes that decision. Now let’s talk strategy.” He put down his drink on the coffee table. He hadn’t even taken a sip. “How are we playing this?”

“Playing what?” I asked. Peeta put his hand on my leg.

“He means our relationship,” he clarified. “Everyone knows we’re married.”

Oh, right. I thought about that. What was there to play? We were sixteen and a couple, what else was there to say?

“I’m assuming you want to be a team?” Haymitch didn’t wait for verbal confirmation. I frowned, offended. “Okay, so what’s the story? Tragic young love? Childhood sweethearts? Fast recent and overwhelming? Happy to be together, in it to win?”

“What?” I looked at him. “Who cares?”

“I’m sure you remember this is a T.V. show, sweetheart.” Haymitch sneered. “You need an interesting storyline.”

Here's a link to the currently published work :)

[wordy-little-witch]

CoS Incorrect Quotes hours the brain rot is rotting the brain lmaoooooooo

P.S. While spoilers are limited, I also Refuse The Ending and so 95% of stuff is in my own little made up parallel reality bc ShepNax Sparks Joy

Kana: What's the most illegal thing you can do with one gold?

Shepherd, running on VERY little sleep: Exchange it for a hundred coppers, put them all in a sock, and then beat someone to death with it.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Professor Clayton: Your smug self-assuredness is revolting.

Sarnax: I think we need to validate self confidence more, lest you end up angry at others for having even a sliver of it. I have done nothing wrong and I have a heart of gold.

Victoria: I think this message is extremely valid, but also Sarnax has implied wanting to set off the Yellowstone supervolcano, so what's the truth?

Sarnax: I want to set it off.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Victoria: Let’s not Professor this into a worse situation than it already is.

Clayton: Did you just use my name as a verb?

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Shepherd, completely deadpan: Well, needless to say. Uh-oh Spaghetti-os.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Professor: A mosquito tried to bite me and I slapped it and killed it.

Professor: And I started thinking.

Professor: Like, it was just trying to get food.

Professor: What if I went to the fridge and it just slammed the door shut and snapped my neck?

Victoria: Are you ok?

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Victoria: We need a way to lure in Vistani assistance

Kana: Perhaps we could arrange an entertainment event.

Sarnax: We could give them Shepherd's bath water.

Shepherd: ABSOLUTELY NOT!

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Kana, to Shepherd: You drink too much, swear too much, and your morals are highly questionable.

Shepherd: …

Kana: You are everything I’ve ever wanted in a best friend.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Shepherd: I like to think of myself as a semi responsible adult here.

Kana: Sarnax is 70% of your impulse control and you know this Shepherd.

Sarnax: I feel like Shepherd is the more responsible one of us two though.

Shepherd: We are both 70% of each others' impulse control.

Sarnax: that is a fair assessment

Shepherd: Just two bastards in pinwheel hats spinning on the merry-go-round at dangerous velocities, holding each other’s hands so the other doesn’t fall off.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Professor: I refuse to apologize for being weird or off-putting. That’s actually your problem. I’m having a fantastic time!

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Sarnax, to Victoria: you are harboring a deep wickedness....

Shepherd: whooooa, buddy, I didn't expect this from you!

Kana: yes, Sarnax, I had not expected you to be homophobic.

Sarnax: wh- no? I am not homophobic!

Professor: sounds like something a homophobe would say - especially after such a blatant call on her rights to love who she wishes!

Sarnax: ...... I do not care if you enjoy kissing women, love is love, but I draw the line at Strandanya

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Victoria: In my defense, I was left unsupervised.

Kana: Wasn’t the Professor with you?

Professor: In my defense, I was also left unsupervised.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Shepherd: I like to play this game called nap roulette. I take a nap and don’t set an alarm. Will it be 20 min or 4 hours? Nobody knows. It’s risky and I like it. There might be dragons.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Shepherd: If I say yes am I joining a cult?

Sarnax: From a certain point of view.

Shepherd: I’m in.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Victoria: Hey, aren’t you Professor Clayton?

Professor: You a cop?

Victoria: No.

Professor: Then yes, I am.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Sarnax: Honestly, I am so ominous and off-putting. So full of dark, cultish knowledge. I feed on the souls of the enemies I strike fear into -

Kana: You cuddle with a lantern nightlight to sleep.

Sarnax: Gherix is a protective and warm God, you're just jealous.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Shepherd: Life keeps fucking me and I can't remember the safeword.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Victoria: You don't need my blessing to go kiss Sarnax. In fact, I was pretty sure you were already kissing Sarnax!

Shepherd: Nope.

Victoria: In that case, as the archbishop of Shepherd's fully awakened gaydom, I give you my blessing to immediately leave and rectify that as soon as possible! Go now, my child, and kiss Sarnax right on the scaley lips!!!

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Victoria: Do you have any skeletons in your closet?

Professor: Literally or figuratively?

Victoria: I have to specify?

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Shepherd: alright, anything you'd like to add, Sarnax?

Sarnax: there are several things I would like to add-

Shepherd: -anything not involving Gherix?

Sarnax: in that case, no.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Shepherd: *banging a pen on the table out of frustration*

Sarnax: Do not do that, Shepherd. How would you feel if I banged you on the table?

Shepherd: I—

Shepherd: I don’t know the correct answer to that question.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Professor: Respect my trans homies or I’m gonna identify as a fucking problem.

Shepherd+Victoria: :)

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Professor: Who hurt you?

Shepherd: *snorting* What, do you want a list?

Professor: ...Yes, actually.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Professor: HYDRATE OR DIE-DRATE!

Professor: *aggressively throws water bottles*

Sarnax: Uh... what is the professor doing?

Kana: He us attempting to yell mental health and wellbeing into us.

Professor: I APPRECIATE ALL OF YOU!

Victoria, crying: It's working.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Kana: It's pretty cold outside.. wanna hold hands? We should stay close.

Victoria, blushing: Okay.

Professor: It's fucking summer.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Shepherd, trying to comfort Victoria: What's the problem? Anxiety? Low self-esteem? Obsessive thoughts of random arson? I've been there.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Victoria: Well, if you're not at least a little bit gay for your friends, then what kind of friend are you?

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Shepherd: Do you support gay rights?

Victoria: I’m literally gay.

Kana: She's avoiding the question!

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Shepherd: To be honest, I'm kinda pissed that I'm not asleep in bed next to the love of my life in a cottage with no obligations other than waterin' my vegetable garden and tendin' the herds.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Arabelle: so I saw a bunch of older kids running around and being weird, will I be like that when I get bigger? Is that what puberty is?? Puberty is weird if that's what it's like.

Shepherd: puberty is really weird, kid, take it from me - i did that shit twice.

Clayton, choking on his tea: OHMYGOD-

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Tommy, upon learning his dad Shepherd is trans: oh. Can I ask a question?

Shep: yeah buddy, what is it?

Tommy: so if you're a man but had to make yourself comfy like this, then can I get horns like you? The same way?

Shep, mildly emotional: ah, not quite like that. But we can certainly make you a headband, bud.

Tommy: YAY

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

BONUS

The Doc: I've only had Silas for a day and a half but if any of you fuckers come for him, I'll burn this whole gods damned continent to the ground.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Shepherd: *trying to buy a Father's Day card*

Shepherd: Excuse me, do you have any that just say "You are my dad"

Associate: Well, I-

Shepherd: How about "You're stuck with me"

Associate: No...

Shepherd: You know what, I'll just get a blank one.

Shepherd: *writes* You are a father. This is a day. Here is a card. XOXO no refunds...

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Doc: Yes, I'm adopting Shepherd and you cowards can't tell me no!

The townsfolk: Doc, you can't-

Doc: WATCH ME

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Shepherd: whatever doesn't kill me vetterstart running, because now I'm fuckin' pissed

Doc, who taught him everything he knows: THAT'S MY BOY

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Baby Shep: I made this friendship bracelet for you.

Doc: You know, I’m not really a jewelry person.

Baby Shep: You don’t have to wear-

Doc: No, I’m gonna wear it forever. Back off.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

[best-underrated-anime]

Best Underrated Anime Group G Round 3: #G3 vs #G1

#G3: Slime farmer kid travels around helping people

#G1: Golf made interesting by the power of anime antics and yuri

Details and poll under the cut!

#G3: By the Grace of the Gods (Kami-tachi ni Hirowareta Otoko)

Summary:

Deep in the forest, far from any human contact, there lives a child named Ryouma Takebayashi. He engages in the rather strange hobby of keeping various types of slimes as pets. Furthermore, despite his young age, he has a sturdy physique and good compatibility for magic. All of this is because, having endured much hardship in his previous life, three gods grace Ryouma with a second chance to pursue one goal: savor the wonders of life.

After three years of comfortable solitude pass by, Ryouma meets people that will change his current life forever. When he encounters and helps some soldiers tend to their wounded comrade, the group convinces him to accompany them to visit the nearby town's ducal family. Ryouma agrees and soon embarks on a journey to explore the vast world beyond his home.

Propaganda:

It’s a calming, adorable anime about helping people and being fulfilled with life. Honestly, not much happens, but it’s the sort of series that you can just watch at the end of the day and feel healed. The protagonist is an adorable and levelheaded kid, people around him are NICE and everything feels good.

Trigger Warnings: None.

#G1: Birdie Wing: Golf Girls’ Story

Summary:

Infamous among those who gamble on golf games, Eve uses her exceptional skill in the sport to earn a living—by betting and winning against various opponents. Known as the "Rainbow Bullet," she vows to beat her foes and conquer the world of underground golf using only three clubs. However, the universe where Eve knows no defeat is shaken after she plays a clean game with Aoi Amawashi, a golfing prodigy that came to the country of Nafrece to enter a golf tournament. Armed with talent and born into the perfect environment for golf, Aoi the "Innocent Tyrant" calmly crushes her enemies with a bright smile on her face.

After their game-changing match, Eve and Aoi become intrigued with each other and promise to battle again someday. As Eve's aggressive and risk-taking approach challenges the elite and steady playstyle of Aoi, the two geniuses may just manage to bring golf to unexpected heights.

Propaganda:

Birdie Wing is one of the most absurd, hilarious, and entertaining anime that I’ve ever seen!! Mafia that solves infighting by betting on highly illegal golf matches, golf eugenics, a high school golf tournament feeling like a more high-stakes event than the ACTUAL GODDAMN MAFIA… It’s incredibly campy in the best way possible, and the creators embrace the wild premise of the show with open arms. It’s masterful in suspension of disbelief, as by the end of the series I was nodding my head, thinking that truly, everything is possible with the power of golf. The series also has heavy yuri overtones, which, while not quite pulling through in the end, are definitely a big part of the appeal, and Aoi is my favorite lesbian daughter <3

Trigger Warnings: Guns, Child Abuse. Mother is manipulative to her daughter, and she is used as a tool. Father arranges an unwanted marriage for his daughter.

When reblogging and adding your own propaganda, please tag me @best-underrated-anime so that I’ll be sure to see it.

If you want to criticize one of the shows above to give the one you’re rooting for an advantage, then do so constructively. I do not tolerate groundless hate or slander on this blog. If I catch you doing such a thing in the notes, be it in the tags or reblogs, I will block you.

Know one of the shows above and not satisfied with how it’s presented in this tournament? Just fill up this form, where you can submit revisions for taglines, propaganda, trigger warnings, and/or video.

[transathenacykes]

TOP TEN GAMES I BEAT THIS YEAR

In 2023, I completed 34 games, from Final Fantasy VII to Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion to PaRappa the Rapper. These are my ten favorite, in order, and a little writeup of each I had a LOT of fun doing. Enjoy!

10. DARK SOULS

It’s a game I had to want to like, and maybe more than any of the others on the list, I had to meet it halfway. I’m a fan of challenging games, and - stop me if you’ve heard this one before - Dark Souls is pretty hard. But it’s not bullshit. Mostly. I ran into some hard walls here and there, but those walls turned into my favorite fights in the game once I finally mastered them. The reason it’s so low on the list is because the back half is… Well, it’s not very good, folks. Of the four bosses you need to defeat to open the door to the final area, I could call two of them good fights, and I could only do one of those without hesitating. 

9. THE CASE OF THE GOLDEN IDOL

I love a detective game, and what makes Golden Idol really stand out is its incredible format and mechanics. Given a series of still* images, and the contents of a bunch of random people’s pockets, can you determine what happened? It feels cheap to compare games and not just speak about what I enjoyed of a game of its own merits, but I can’t talk about this game without talking about Return of the Obra Dinn, which had a similar sort of ‘fill in the blank’ approach to its mysteries. Golden Idol’s supernatural elements, twists and reveals, and charmingly off-putting art style lend themselves well to one of the most unique games I played this year.

8. SIFU

This is the best rhythm game I played this year. Finding the flow of Sifu’s combat felt like a dance, going from a steady beat to a frenetic scramble in the span of a single missed step. I’ve never hidden the fact that I’m a massive sucker for good movement in games, and Sifu’s jives extraordinarily well with its combat and environments. Really, the only problem I had with Sifu was that it felt a bit short - well, and it didn’t quite deliver the challenge I was looking for, but that’s the fault of whoever described it to me as a Soulslike first just because it has, like… a revival mechanic? Also, the first time it transitioned to a side view for a hallway fight, it basically secured a spot on this list.

7. GHOST TRICK

I tried to play through this game in high school, but got stalled out on some puzzle or another. I honestly don’t remember which, but I’m SO glad I came back to it. I’ve always loved Shu Takumi’s writing and character work in the Ace Attorney series; Ghost Trick is just as good, if not better than any individual AA game in that regard. Really, the characters feel like the ones in the AA spinoffs like Investigations, Great Ace Attorney, or the Layton crossover, which are some of the best characters in the series - but with none of the self-defeating energy of having to be largely unimportant to the mainline games. Also, Missile might be the greatest character in video games ever.

6. PARADISE KILLER

Some games make you fervently pitch their merits to friends, hoping that they’ll play it so you can chat with someone who gets it. This is the fate of many detective games, which live and die in the territory of spoilers. There are detective games that try to get around this by having procedurally generated cases or multiple endings with multiple ‘real’ culprits, which can often be antithetical to what makes a detective game truly sing. Paradise Killer’s answer is that not only is it never going to tell you what the truth is, but that ambiguity is the point. The clues never change, and the only objective is to find a truth that satisfies you. All that is made even better by the premise being steeped in synths and neon, with a vibrantly occult cast who are all just the absolute fucking worst.

5. TEARS OF THE KINGDOM

I mean, come on. It’s Tears of the Kingdom. While I’d really hoped for playable Zelda, what we did get of the character was far more moving than whatever her deal usually is. The chasm was an incredible surprise, and since Skyward Sword is one of my favorite Zelda games, I had a ton of fun with the skydive mechanics. There’s also the building system, which managed the near impossible feat of having things control basically how you’d expect them to once you slapped a steering wheel on them. It felt like there was just so much love for the previous games in the series, without being overly reliant on them. If I had to pick a favorite moment in the game, it would have to be during the Wind Temple’s boss fight, when the Dragon Roost Island theme from Wind Waker cut through the track and made me feel like I could have taken on Ganondorf with a tree branch in that moment.

4. PERSONA 5 ROYAL/PERSONA 5 STRIKERS/PERSONA Q2

Is this cheating? Yes. But hear me out. I knew Royal was going to be on the list, and then it turned out that I liked Strikers and Q2 as much, if not more than Royal. While Royal has higher highs, it also has much lower lows - Strikers and Q2 don’t engage in nearly as much of the weak parts of Royal. But they also don’t function even a little bit without it. Strikers dragged in the gameplay department a little bit, but I loved being able to play as every Phantom Thief - and Q2 was such a vast improvement over Q1 in pretty much every department. So my number four spot on my top ten games of the year is ‘every game I played this year that has Akira Kurusu in it.’ So, since I started Tactica, maybe that counts too… and if you want to be technical, I think I played a few rounds of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate in June, so I guess that has the number four spot too.

3. ARMORED CORE 6

In 2023, I really and truly entered my mech era. I built Gunpla this year, I started playing in a really fun new Lancer campaign, and I played the shit out of Armored Core 6. I’d never played one before, but I was hooked from the tutorial boss alone. I beat the game once and, at the advice of a few friends, started a new game plus run - and before I knew it, I’d already beaten it again. I’ll do a third run too, at some point. Once I learned the all-consuming power of the pile bunker, I was out there decimating the arena foes like nothing else - and, once I figured out how to time out my missile strikes, I managed to slam through 75% of the final boss’ health in a single blow. That was the single most satisfying hit of this year across any game. Oh, and - keep an eye out, because I have a hankering to write some Maeterlinck-focused fic at some point. Because I sure do love me my one-off characters.

2. SCARLET NEXUS

Up until the final entry swung through and claimed the top spot, Scarlet Nexus seemed like a complete and total shoo-in for number one. Very few games have ever motivated me to complete them to the degree I did this one, including getting all Steam achievements and a ton of the optional content in game you don’t need for that. Kasane and Yuito are endearing protagonists with cool powers, genuine flaws, and vastly different outlooks. There were some plot threads from chapter one I thought had been dropped, but as it turns out they were only really dropped in Kasane’s story, and were far more focused on in Yuito’s, while he didn’t engage with most of her whole deal until the endgame. She spends most of her story dealing with causality and time travel, and he doesn’t even know time travel is a thing at all until there’s maybe 25% of the game left. And at the end, it still manages to feel complete coming from either side. The supporting cast is extremely strong, too, and the way powers flow together make the fights feel dynamic, fun, and tie to the themes of combining disparate people to make things better for everyone - to stop holding onto the past and strive for a better future, no matter how much work it takes.

1. 13 SENTINELS: AEGIS RIM

You should play this game. There’s no two ways about it. It’s a severely underrated title with incredible art, writing, gameplay, voice acting - 13 Sentinels fires on all cylinders. It’s half visual novel walkarounds with the occasional puzzle, exploring the individual stories of the thirteen protagonists across a variety of genres. One character is doing 80s high school movie hijinks with his exposition-loving best friend, while another is trying to solve the disappearance of her best friend. Said best friend is engaging in escapades with a small alien just like her favorite UFO movies, and a fourth guy entirely is doing Blade Runner shit. At one point, there’s a character who has appeared fairly infrequently and finally becomes available to play, and when he appears on the select screen, he’s standing in front of a sea of flames while the other characters typically appear in front of schoolrooms, city streets, their own homes. The emotional beat when you click through and hear him start talking about how he’s proud to be enlisting as a Japanese soldier in 1944 is one of the strongest in the game. Each story weaves around another and provides further depth to events you’ve already seen, while the entire chronological story is combined into a single timeline of events you’re free to look at whenever. But then, on the other side of the game from the character stories, you have the fights - or, rather, the fight. Because the combat side of things all takes place within  pretty much a single day - a grueling, nonstop battle where the characters must drive away wave after wave after wave of invaders without letting even a single one through. Each has their own mechs and certain special abilities that gear them for different scenarios, and if you want to experience everything, you have to bounce back and forth between the stories and the fighting, constantly unlocking aspects of the other. The biggest problem with the game is just choice paralysis - there’s so much to do, it’s hard to know where to start. But once you’re able to bite into it, chipping away at the Gordian plot rewards you with a deeply moving story about the plight of a generation thrust into a ceaseless strife, burdened by the heavy expectations of their predecessors to finally solve it and the even heavier feeling that there just are no answers to find in the first place. And also, there are sick as fuck giant mechs. I told you I was in my mech era this year.