#I will never be normal about this game

[shinobicyrus]

Was really tickled by Small Saga's spin on making loot chests more dangerous. Instead of a shapeshifting mimic, it's a big spider! Like a trap-door spider that uses the chest like a protective shell and uses money as projectiles.

As we also saw in the game, they're intelligent and can be reasoned with! Offer them a bit of food and not only will they not attack, they'll make it rain.

So, like the nerd that I am, I decided to try and translate it into D&D 5e. Gonna surprise the heck out of my little level 2 players. Sure, everyone expects a mimic, but no one expects a spider in a box!

These unusually intelligent arachnids nest in chests or other containers. They wait patiently for prey to surprise, paralyze with their bite, and drag into their little lairs, adding to their collection of treasures. Clever nobles and minor crime lords bribe avarice spiders to be guards for valuables, with careful instructions about who – and who not – to devour.

[pyr0peyt]

Susie and Kris's friendship drives me fucking NUTS bro oh my GODDDDD

[atwas-meme-ing]

Thinking about the first half of the Rhea Island theme, and how the percussion sounds like running footsteps, starting to run and then stopping suddenly, then starting again, like the person running is struggling to remember where they're going and why; and how the piano rises gradually and then falls sharply, over and over and over again, evoking the image of someone stumbling and falling and getting back up and stumbling and falling and getting back up...

[anotherdarkiboi]

List of Astarion's Terms of Endearment

This is for the fanfic writers haha. Tell me if I'm missing any so can add it in!

Darling (his most used)

My love, love

My sweet

“You sweet, generous thing”, “you sweet little thing”

Lover

My dear, a dear, dear

Beautiful

Cheeky little pup

My little treat ("-with their cheeks all flushed")

Sweetie

Pet

You wicked little thing (affectionate)

"You're a sweetheart", "you sweetheart"

Delectable little pet (not directed towards Tav but it easily could be)

My friend (yay, we're his friend)

My favorite traveling companion (not a pet name but it's nice to be his favorite)

My leaking blood-bag (technically you refer to yourself as that first and he calls you his one after, but it counts)

You little scoundrel

Edit: Thank you everyone in the comments for adding the Dark Urge ones!

Bhaal-babe (I'm dead, this silly pun I swear)

My sweet, bloodthirsty friend

My precious little Bhaal-babe

My conflicted villain

My dagger-happy friend

Bonus: Ascended Yandere Astarion

My pet, pet

Little love

Precious thing

My treasure

My consort, My Dark Consort

My favorite spawn

Insolent little- (the Dev's notes say that the full line is "you insolent little brat" which, um...)

Insolent little pup (the line was in EA, although I’m not entirely sure if it’s Ascended Astarion. Full line: “you are an insolent little pup, aren’t you?”)

"You ingrate" (When you try to break up with him. It's not really a pet name, but-)

"Property I cherish, but still my property" (his thoughts)

[krazieka2]

Fe3h did not have a beauty pageant sequence, but if it did I'm 99% sure this is how it would go

[theminecraftbee]

today i am thinking about the entire mayor of hypixel skyblock incident with technoblade because i still like to imagine, since it happened during one of the big dsmp story gaps, that he was like "oh i'm going to head off for a bit phil don't worry about it" and phil's like "bye mate" and ranboo is like "i wonder what he's doing. probably intense training or something. he's so cool."

meanwhile techno is yelling at an entirely unruly crowd about anarchy and being made mayor while beating up like, it was a weird giant slime if i remember right? and he has a whole "bond of rivals" moment with squidkid, like, they have this whole "there's no one i could trust to have my back more... than you... my most favored enemy" thing going on in that video it's SO funny.

all of this with the world's most absurd numbers outputs because hypixel skyblock is an endgame mmo. just COMICAL levels of firepower. like, everyone is an end-of-series shonen character. this place is like the naruto world was after it had jumped the shark a bit and there was a moon goddess attacking. about like that.

and then he's like. my work here is done. thanks for electing me mayor. i don't see this is contradictory to my anarchy at all btw it's like, a symbolic thing, on account of me beating up the old dictator mayor. and just dips again, presumably to be forever seen as a weird potato-themed legend around those parts.

i like to imagine he gets home and phil is like "hi mate" and techno's like "sorry i had things to handle at home" and ranboo is imagining like, WILD battles and what technoblade's home must even be like. and whatever he's imagining doesn't really compare to "technoblade's home is an end-game mmo no wonder he constantly assumes he's weak here he can only do earlygame levels of damage, forever".

and technoblade, being technoblade, says nothing about being mayor of hypixel now, until like, after the finale or something when squidkid just sort of swings by to ask how they're all doing after that nuke thing, huh. and everyone loses their shit.

and this is one of my favorite stupid technoblade headcanons thank you for coming to my ted talk.

[diedoverahat]

finally, josh hutcherson has reclaimed his place as prime white boy of the month. the world is healing.

[moreauz]

big thank you to jeremy knox for finally verbalizing what we’ve been thinking for an actual decade now

[abd-illustrates]

I might’ve spoiled the plot of Natlan | Genshin Impact THEORY

In which I read so much lore that I gained the power to see the future (maybe) This ended up being a real challenge to make - but it was also really fun! Please do lemme know what you reckon of these ideas, and whether y’all wanna see me pattern-recognition my way into several corkboards worth of theories about any other topics sometime down the line! (^^)/

(also: HAPPY NEW YEAR! 🥳🎉 Here's wishing y'all every good thing for 2024)

[energeticwarrior]

[keirientez]

Pokemon trainer AU, Reborn is the champion meanwhile Tsuna is his apprentice. Tsuna’s design belongs to my friend @Cloud_Knee (Twt or X)

[featherymainffins]

I hate to say it but I might have to admit that Redditors can be pretty based sometimes

[haunted-xander]

tbh one of, if not my absolute favorite part about ffxiv, is the small little moments/sections where nothing super big or like. Plot Important happens, but that give both the characters and us, the players, some much appreciated down-time to just. Feel things. And to process what's happened and what's going on or to just. Let us exist, in the moment. In a much more grounded and human way than when there's Big And Important Things happening.

The biggest(imo) and earliest example of this is right after the Waking Sands get raided in ARR, and WoL turns to the church for guidance. The entire section of us helping them gather and bury our fallen comrades, and especially bringing Noraxia home to Little Solace so she can be laid to rest in her homeland, by her own people and in their own cultural ways, was so so important to me.

Because it wasn't just replacable allies cast aside for shock value anymore, it was real. These deaths were real and meant something. I got to actually process what just happened, and I got to watch Banana go through it right with me. And not only did it make it feel real, it also gave me a sense of closure. These people, these friends, are dead, but they also got to be treated with the respect they deserve and laid to rest properly.

And that, more than anything else, made me want to save the world. It's grounded and grounding. This world, and these people, meant something to me, the player.

And there's tons of stuff like that throughout the game, especially in shadowbringers and endwalker.

In shb we have, for example, Lyna venting her anger and frustration after the sin eater attack in Lakeland. She's on her knees yelling on the verge of tears while punching the ground, so furious at her helplessness and powerlessness, at everyone having come so far yet set back because some megalomaniacal tyrant deemed it so.

In ew we have Urianger being approached by Moenbryda's parents, who confront him about not confiding in them about his grief. When Bloewyda starts to scold him, he of course reacts guiltily, believing they blame him, only for him to be completely caught off guard when she instead goes in to hug him, telling him he should have let them grieve with him. And he just. Breaks down. He's been holding these feelings, this grief inside him all this time, and now that he is not only told it's okay to let it out, but by her very own parents at that, he just can't keep it in anymore. He cries for Moenbryda, right then and there, being held lovingly by her family.

And the thing is, these scenes aren't necessary, strictly speaking. The plot at large could go on without them, the events that happen around them are not changed by these moments in any way.

But still, they are so so important, to the world, to the characters, to the players. Everything feels real and impactful now, every death means something, every tragedy, every person, feels real.

And that, to me, is what makes this story so special.

[cryiling]

replaying botw and oh my god they make me so ill im goibg to throw up. i miss revalnk

[changdol]

Haknyeon ❤️ DAZED Behind

[dysfunctionalcreature]

i am once again thinking about Andrew/Jean parallels, and the potential for how Andrew could help and comfort Jean, since in some ways they went through quite similar traumas

there's that scene in The King's Men where Renee, Kevin, Neil and Andrew are talking about what to do with Jean now that Renee's gotten him away from the Ravens, and Andrew makes it clear that he's not willing to help protect Jean, "And I'm not taking in any more refugees" Andrew said. -page 326 TKM (which is completely fair on Andrew's part given all the bullshit he's already dealing with)

But like, I can't stop thinking about how things might have gone if Andrew had agreed to help, to protect Jean just like he's been protecting Kevin and Neil for well over a year now, to take another "refugee", like how might things have turned out 🤔