#I'm physically incapable of playing that kind of character or playing along with it

[bigbuffelves]

I find the BG3 villains/villain run quite boring tbh

lust-for-power villains are the least compelling villain to me

[thefringespod]

It seems to be about time for another character introduction, don't you think? Today I'd like to introduce you to Orestes, a helpful friend who will appear in episode 1 of the season

Orestes' name comes from the fact that I'm physically incapable of shutting up about Classics. For my degree I did a lot of classes on Greek theatre, especially Greek tragedy, and the Oresteia was one of my favorite series of plays that I read for my degree

As a character on the Fringes, Orestes serves as a kind voice to guide Silver onto memories that have lost their edge. Orestes is being played by the wonderful @/Xander_Dragoon! Elyjah did such a wonderful job with this character and I can't wait for you to meet him

Season 2 starts in 15 (!!) days!! Be sure to follow along as we meet the rest of the characters and the lovely cast who play them :)

[icannotreadcursive]

pls Harvest Moon people you'd marry. I'm one of those Stardew Valley people so it would be interesting to compare

Y'know, I have Stardew Valley for my Switch but completely stopped playing because I am physically incapable of fishing in that game. I have some mild disabilities with my hands but it's enough that I cannot do the fishing minigame, so I can't progress in the story, so I gave up less than 1 game-year in. I know there are mods for the PC version that change how fishing works, but that doesn't help on my Switch and I don't want to buy a game that I'm really not sure I can enjoy twice. All that said, I do have some familiarity with Stardew but because I never got that into it, I don't really remember characters' names even if I remember their sprites.

Anyway.

Harvest Moon!

There are a lot of Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons games (they're the same franchise, except for when they're not, but that's another story) and I've only played so many of them.

My favorite game(s) in the series is A(nother) Wonderful Life, which I have put more hours into than possibly all the other videogames I've every played combined, and I spent years with only the version where you play as a boy, and this was before the games allows same-sex wooing, so I have Actual Opinions about which girls from this game I'd marry lol

All 3 original bachelorettes are honestly great--Celia, Muffy, and Nami. I do think I'd get along better with Celia and Nami than with Muffy IRL. And Nami canonically really just wants to marry you so she has a stable place to stay without having to leave town and go home to her alcoholic father, and I am very here for that. Would absolutely marry her, even as a straight woman, cuz she's cool, I think we'd get along, and she deserves better.

if we open up to non-romanceable characters, the woman to marry is Vesta. Big, boisterous, caring, good attitude, fiercely loyal and protective of the people she cares about, runs her own successful farm. Vesta is great. She doesn't get enough love from the fandom.

The bachelors in this game are kinds lame, tbh. I usually marry Marlin when I play because he's the least......something. If he got some damn therapy I could see actually marrying him. But really, Griffen, the guy who runs the bar--non-romanceable in AWL (I think he might be in the DS port/sequel), but he just seems like a nice solid dude.

In other HM/SoS games the guys to marry are Vaughn, the grumpy repressed rancher who barely talks (gee, where else is there a character like that who I love....), Chase the cook who's very cute and kind once you get past the slightly prickly because he's definitely coping with anxiety exterior, and Jack the relatably bored with life but upbeat shop keeper's son with a loving-yet-often-antagonistic relationship with his much younger sister.

So yeah.

That's my thoughts 💖

[confetti-cupcake]

2021 Fic Year In Review

Aw, thanks for the tag @reallysmartladymariecurie! ❤️

Okay, this might be a little difficult to do because I haven't technically published anything yet 😅 But I did do a lot of writing this year, so I'm just going to talk about my two main WIPs here!

Total Number Of Completed Works: 0 (My goal is for this to change in 2022!)

Total Word Count: I started writing The Perfect Match (my Buddie Are You The One? AU) in mid-July and my current word count is 45,677 and climbing! I probably wrote a similar amount for Thirty-Nine Days (my Survivor AU) this year but I did a terrible job of keeping track of exactly how much I added.

Fandoms I’ve Written In: 9-1-1, 9-1-1: Lone Star

Looking Back, Did You Write More Fic Than You Thought You Would This Year, Less, Or About What You’d Expected?: Definitely more. I didn't expect to write any fic this year after deciding to stop writing Thirty-Nine Days. The idea for The Perfect Match had kind of always been percolating in my mind, but I was having trouble fleshing out a cast for it, since it's a dating show and everyone needed to be age-appropriate for Buck and Eddie. Thankfully 2021 introduced a lot of characters that fit the bill for that story and I got re-inspired to write Survivor!

What’s Your Own Favorite Story Of The Year?: Oh man, I'm really really excited for everyone to read The Perfect Match. It's been so much fun to write and I've put so much time and planning into making readers able to "play along". It's quickly becoming my pride and joy 😊

Did You Take Any Writing Risks This Year?: I don't know if this counts as a risk, but I went into writing Thirty-Nine Days in 2020 with a certain winner in mind. This year I decided to completely scrap it in favor of another winner, which required a lot of re-tooling of the finale chapter. But I'm much happier with the new ending and feels much more natural for the story I'm trying to tell.

Do You Have Any Fanfic Or Profic Goals For The New Year?: Yes! To finally publish something. My loose goals are to complete The Perfect Match by about mid-Season 5B, and then to complete Thirty-Nine Days by the time Season 6 begins. Those deadlines might be a little ambitious, but I'm going to try my best to hold myself to them.

Most Popular Story Of The Year?: N/A

Story Of Mine Most Under-Appreciated By The Universe, In My Opinion: N/A

Most Fun Story To Write: I've had a lot of fun writing both of my WIPs, but The Perfect Match definitely takes the cake. I love mysteries, and it's been so fun sprinkling little hints and red herrings about who the perfect matches are. It took literally a month to plan the logic out in a way that would fall in line with the story I was angling for so I really hope that people like and play along with the logic puzzle aspect!

Most Unintentionally Telling Story: N/A

Biggest Disappointment: The fact that it's been more than a year and a half of writing 9-1-1 fic and I still haven't published anything 😓 lol. But I'm a perfectionist to my core, and I refuse to publish anything until it's fully complete. And since I'm physically incapable of not writing longfics, completing something is naturally going to take a while.

Biggest Surprise: To find out that there is a sizable crossover in fans of 9-1-1 and fans of Survivor. Part of the reason I shelved Thirty-Nine Days in 2020 was because I didn't think anyone would read it for the amount of time it would take to write. But my trailer for Thirty-Nine Days got way more traction and people excited for the fic than I ever thought it would get! I really hope the final product ends up being worth the wait!

My Favorite Part Of Fandom This Year: Honestly, just joining it in the first place! I've been watching 9-1-1 for so long and had been lurking on Tumblr almost equally as long. Finally giving into the urge to make an account of my own and being able to interact with all the lovely people on here was probably one of the best decisions I've made all year. ❤️

Tagging: @adventuresofprettyboyandthekid @ashwinmeird @strandnreyes

[somepinkthing]

wrt to tsukki and kags never getting along, i feel like the animosity is more from Tsukki's end? Like Tsukki may seem lowkey, but Kags even said something like "you can underestimate him," and even when they first met all Kags did was ask for his height before Tsukki suddenly started to get rude to him. Maybe Kags is extra rude to Tsukki as his way of defending himself? idk, some silly thoughts. Also, i really love ur meta's and analysis! i always find myself like :) when i'm scrolling thru

Eeeeeeeehhh idk about that. Not anymore anyways. The one who started it was definitely tsukki but at this point they kind of have this uneasy truce that’s equally as uneasy on both ends. Also, it’s not like they actually have any real animosity between them anymore. The part I always fail to mention is that their relationship has made quite a bit of progress; it’s not like the two of them are actually totally incapable of getting along. It's more like they're currently stuck in this weird mix of being friend-ish teammates and mortal enemies and they haven't quite figured it out yet.

Tsukishima pushed kageyama abnormally hard in their first meeting and honestly the reason that makes the most sense would be that furudate had to expose kageyama’s past somehow and tsukishima, a newcomer who happens to dislike kageyama anyways, was chosen to do the exposing. And also, tsukishima and yamaguchi’s characters weren’t yet set in stone (which I think furudate might have said somewhere) because by the seijoh practice match they’re already kind of different people than before. But yeah, whatever the case the starting point came from tsukishima, but neither of them have any intention of doing anything about their relationship so it’s kind of settled into the uneasy truce I mentioned. Like they don’t fix it, but they also don’t make it worse–immediately following their first meeting/match tsukishima pretty much backed down on any heavy topics and won’t say anything terribly out of turn anymore (lending credibility to the theory that part of it was just a writing thing), and on the other end kageyama hasn’t physically attacked tsukishima since then either. So it is a truce, but they definitely still push at each other’s buttons.

As far as who pushes each other’s buttons harder, I wonder. Tsukishima pushes them with more frequency but I feel like kageyama is more likely to go for the things that really irk tsukishima (whether he means to or not). Tsukishima pushes and teases, but he’s careful not to make an impact. Even in the recent chapters where he straight up called kageyama out for reverting and being admittedly rude, he didn’t step too far out of line; he wasn’t saying something tanaka or hinata wouldn’t and it wasn’t anything that struck too deep, which is the pattern. Tsukishima is still abrasive towards kageyama but he hasn’t really overstepped since their first meeting. And on kageyama’s part, he is allowed to be every bit as abrasive right back. So, intentional or not, I can’t really say who makes the other angrier.

The difference really is in the fact that while loud and abrasive is sort of kageyama’s default, this new level of ill-temperedness is really abnormal for tsukishima. Meaning that kageyama is pushing at tsukishima’s buttons in part because that’s who he is and he doesn’t see anything wrong with it (which might actually just make tsukishima angrier at him tbh). However, tsukishima has to know to some degree that his behavior is totally out of character for him and he either doesn’t care or just loses control. Either way, for some reason kageyama bypassed all his normal rules of interaction right from the first meeting. Kageyama doesn’t like tsukishima so he turns his intensity up around him. Not ideal given that his normal intensity is already pretty intense but what are you gonna do? But with tsukishima it’s basically a total switch.

Tsukishima manages to get along with just about every other character. He is distant and still has an attitude, but his default is polite and respectful. Around others, he’s happy to play the role of an observer, occasionally throwing in a snide yet mild taunt or maybe his own carefully worded opinion. With kageyama, that’s not the case at all. Around kageyama he is blunt, vindictive, and more talkative than I ever see him anywhere else. On their bad days, if he’s not avidly avoiding kageyama, he's arguing with him. I have actually never seen tsukishima in an altercation that did not involve kageyama in some way. Again, that’s abnormal. Kageyama picks fights with others all the time. Tsukishima does not. So its odd that a lot of their fights are picked by tsukishima and it’s odd that he perpetuates the fights when he’d usually choose to back off or limit them to trading simple taunts. So even if tsukishima dislikes kageyama, it’s weird that he’s so insistent about it. I mean, he didn’t like tendou either but that was totally different (though he also spends a lot less time with tendou so). He should be able to be satisfied with just judging kageyama from a distance and keeping his distance. So I can’t really judge who makes who angrier, but I can say that tsukishima is the one acting weird here.

Why? What about kageyama generates such a strong reaction in tsukishima? That’s anyone’s guess. We don’t know yet. Honestly, I do think it’s got a big part to do with personality. If you think about it, they perfectly clash.

BUT I feel I should give the two of them more credit too. Their current truce is uneasy but it also works extremely well and hasn’t broken yet. They respect each others’ skills and have a strong on-court relationship that can endure some pretty rough shit: kageyama’s little fit and subsequent change after the national youth training camp didn’t break it, tsukishima’s initial attitude and his change didn’t break it, none of their matches so far have broken it. And tbh they are (very tentatively) getting along better personally too. They even spend downtime together, albeit with a group. And all they needed to get to where they are was time. Maybe all they really need is enough time to settle in with each other. I know I keep making it sound like they absolutely hate each other’s guts but idk if it’s that simple; their relationship just keeps improving with time and we have multiple examples of them actually getting along in canon. So its not like their relationship is unsalvageable. Rather, I think something about kageyama rubbed tsukishima the wrong way right from the beginning and somehow, despite the fact that he can allow their relationship to move forward and has even bonded with kageyama, he can’t seem to get over whatever it was about kageyama that made him so reactive. And for kageyama it’s a little bit of their shared dislike and a little bit of his own natural reactiveness. Those things started and continue to perpetuate their squabbling even though they’ve managed to move their relationship forward. It’s almost like they’re holding onto their initial reaction to the other just to be stubborn at this point. But whatever it is that they refuse to drop for whatever reason, I don’t think their interactions can be classified as animosity anymore. They still don’t always like each other and we still don’t know why it started, but they definitely don’t hate each other anymore.

And thank you for liking me rambling on and on! Always appreciated!