#The Formation of Hybrid Souls | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mushr90 · 2 months ago

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mush's ultimate fic rec guide!

𓍊𓋼 a masterlist of all my favourite works made by various creators here on tumblr. most of these are series', but i've categorised them by 'series' and 'oneshots' just incase. i've made sure to tag them, link the posts, and add a brief summary for each, so y'all can digest and enjoy too! i'll also be updating this regularly (*ᵕᴗᵕ)⁾⁾

𓍊𓋼 please read through all of the tags listed for each fic carefully as i am not going to be listing them here! you control the media you consume.

𓍊𓋼 updated: 25/05/25 🔔

𓍊𓋼 key: ✩ = ongoing / ✮ = completed

Red Dead Redemption II

⟢ coming soon!!

⟢

Baldur's Gate 3

⟢ coming soon!!

⟢

The Last of Us

series

⟢ 'daddy next door' by @cavillscurls (dom! joel miller x sub! fem! reader) ✩

summary: "its summer in texas, and when the dashing joel miller moves in next door, your less than favorable life gets completely turned around."

⟢ 'of rage and ruin' by @corazondebeskar-reads (werewolf! joel miller x omega! fem! reader) ✩

summary: "joel miller made it twelve years into the apocalypse without getting bit. he turns into a much different kind of monster than he expected, though."

⟢ 'Waiting Game' by @gutsby (dbf! joel miller x fem! reader) ✩

summary: "joel miller has mastered the art of self-control in all areas except one: not fucking his friend’s daughter. a cross-country road trip home from college takes a hard turn when he’s forced to share a motel room with you."

Resident Evil

⟢ coming soon!!

⟢

Call of Duty

series

⟢ 'Cherry Red, Crimson Blood' by @soaps-mohawk (tf141 x omega! fem! reader) ✩

summary: "task force 141 operates successfully without an omega, at least that’s what price has been saying since its formation. two alphas and two betas balance the pack just fine, and they have the numbers to prove it. it works for a while, until the omega initiative is born and the 141 find themselves having to adjust to the sudden addition of an omega to their pack. fresh out of an institute, you’re hardly fit for their secretive, dangerous world, or so price thinks."

⟢ '𝚂𝚎𝚛𝚟𝚒𝚌𝚎 𝙳𝚘𝚐 𝙹𝚘𝚑𝚗𝚗𝚢' by @void-my-warranty (simon riley x fem! reader x johnny mactavish) ✩

summary: you and simon have been together for years, but, unable to give you what you truly want in the bedroom, what you need, he decides to bring in the only other man he trusts to do the job -- johhny. as feelings grow and troubles arise, will this arrangement come to a crumbling head, or will there be an alternative solution?

⟢ 'AS NEEDED' by @novemberheart (tf141 x omega! fem! reader) ✩

summary: after having previously been rejected by task force 141, their decision to finally accept an omega into their pack comes with many troubles and uncertainty, and your new place here might not be as permanent as you think.

⟢ 'Jaws' by @alkalineapparition (simon riley x hybrid! fem! reader) (this one is on ao3) ✩

summary: "alone and half feral in a dirty cell, ghost finds you during a raid beneath a military research lab. it quickly becomes clear that something isn't right with you, your behaviour more beast than human. a result of horrific human experiments, you're a failed attempt at making genetically modified soldiers with killer instincts and keen senses. instead they produced you - a mutt. ghost is assigned to be your handler, to help you heal and shape you in to the 141's very own attack dog. but the bond between a handler and their beast eventually turns into something more..."

⟢ 'In Limbo' by @ilium-ilia (mafia! simon riley x fem! reader) ✩

summary: "joining the mafia is no different than selling a soul to the devil, and it's something simon riley is all too willing to do if it means keeping his family safe. it isn't until he meets you–the girl who runs from everything–that he realises there are much worse things to be caught up in."

⟢ 'Daughters with Soft Underbellies' by @ilium-ilia (outlaw! john price x fem! reader) ✩

summary: "all your life you have known nothing but the word of god and your father's short temper. every day, you are forced to turn the other cheek for minor mistakes you make within your father's gaze. yet, as a devout follower to god and your father, you have no one else to turn to. when the owner of the saloon tells you about some strangers lurking around town, you decide to take your chances with these wayward men in the hopes that they'll save you. but they are dangerous, conniving bandits; a fact you learn a little too late. you should have known that sheep who stray too far from the flock are at the mercy of the wolves. better sharpen those teeth of yours, little lamb."

⟢ 'anatomy of us' by @bi-writes (alpha! simon riley x omega! fem! reader) ✩

summary: "in an attempt to tame an unruly alpha, you are given. he did not come with warning labels. but neither did you."

⟢ 'Breaking Bread' by @softaestluv (simon riley x fem! reader) ✮

summary: "simon riley who is quite the anomaly of a man, or human, rather. your lieutenant who has only spoken a handful of words to you. simon riley who happens to be sat at the only open table in the mess hall."

⟢ 'Grease & Grime Won’t Break Your Bones' by @softaestluv (mechanic! simon riley x fem! reader) ✮

summary: "you never thought you were attracted to grease and grime, sweat and exhaustion, definitely needed a shower and scrub, but no one has worn it like he is."

⟢ (1) 'RETURN TO SENDER' (original) / (2) 'IN CONTEMPT' (sequel) by @sai-int (criminal! simon riley x fem! reader) ✮

summary: (1) "it was a joke. A letter to a criminal—uk's most wanted. you told him he was hot. told him you were a virgin. left your address, because it’s not like he’d ever get out, right?" | (2) "you tried to move on, but no one quite measures up; not to the way he touched you, not to the way he ruined you. but when he reappears, you can feel him even before you see him. the past has a way of punishing disobedience, and now, it’s here to settle the score."

⟢ 'RASPBERRY GIRL' by @peachesofteal (dom! simon riley x sub! fem! reader) ✩

summary: captain! simon riley takes an interest in the sweet and docile little bakery-worker and vows to make her wholly his.

⟢ '𝐋𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐚𝐫𝐤' by @cinnamonghostcrunch (simon riley x fem! reader) ✩

summary: "where in you move to manchester to start fresh, only to cross paths with a mysterious local who changes everything. what started as an unexpected encounter soon evolves into something much more, growing increasingly complicated as his secrets and your doubts cast shadows over everything."

⟢ 'INK & NEEDLE' by @gloomwitchwrites (tattoo artist! simon riley x fem! reader) ✮

summary: "a night out in london to celebrate your friend’s upcoming marriage ends with a quick hook-up in a club’s green room. you don’t expect to see your masked man ever again, and you leave it as a one-time thing. three years later, you’re back in england, and find yourself facing the man you walked away from at that club. he's running a tattoo parlor just down the street from where you’re staying. over time, your paths cross and cross again until the two of you are tangled up in a messy web. will it last? or will one of you walk away?"

⟢ 'Martyr in the Making' by @eilidh-eternal (tattoo artist! simon riley x fem! reader) ✩

summary: he's an observer. notices the way you use getting tattoos as a thinly-veiled coping mechanism. he has a better way for you to cope though, things he can teach you that don’t involve needles, but would still leave his mark on your skin.

⟢ 'houndtooth' by @bitterrfruit (simon riley x fem! reader) ✩

summary: "you're the pampered wife of a russian warlord. ghost hunts you down and finds a use for you."

*major credit to all the creators mentioned, and to the ones i'm yet to discover! you guys are so talented and i love you ( ๑ ˃̵ᴗ˂̵)و♡

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sordidmusings · 7 months ago

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Welcome🤍

Thank you for stopping by my blog! I hope you enjoy the clown show lol right now I'm keeping this chatty section real sparse to get this out but hoping to make it (and this whole list) more robust and comprehensive with time! One of the first things on the list is to have fic summaries instead of just titles and better formatting for multiple parts. At least this works atm haha For now, just know this is both a sfw and nsfw blog and nsfw will be tagged with #thirst hours

I hope the reading guides you on good daydreams and fantasies 💜

Daily click for Palestine

NSFW ☄️

Fluff 🌕🌖🌗🌘🌑 Angst (how much easy vs. harsh emotion)

AU 🪐

Non-canon elements in focus ✨

Tender Love and Care

Hair Care 🌖 Massage 🌖 Part 1 Part 2 and Part 3 - Coming Soon

Switching Up Roles 🌕☄️ Part 1 and Part 2

Loose Lips

Thirsty Thursdays ☄️

With Pissed Off Buggy With Lucky Brat Buggy With Insecure Buggy

Comforting His Partner on Their Looks 🌕

Age Gap Headcanons 🌕

Punk Buggy with a Tongue Piercing☄️ - Riff off of @hey-august's wonderful Punk Buggy

Let Go and Grip Me Tighter 🌖☄️

Mihawk struggles with guilt from the nature of his fantasies about you and begins pulling away. You won’t let that happen and both of you find the fantasy is more fun together.

Fixing What Ifs 🌗

Meeting with Mihawk for a drink wasn’t the most uncommon, but the bittersweet air certainly was. You’re swimming through memories of him, wondering at his feelings and intentions until you finally let your tongue loosen. Is this not enough for him either?

Well Earned Praise 🌕

On the heels of a hard won accomplishment, Mihawk shows you that he notices and cares. Just in his own ways.

How He Deals with Falling in Love 🌕

Jealousy Ficlet 🌕

Hickey Headcanons 🌕

Thirsty Thursday

The Hat Stays ON

Fireside 🌖 - coming soon

Bonding Exercises ☄️ - coming soon

Jealousy Ficlet 🌕

How to Break Rules 🌖

Jealousy Ficlet 🌕

Hickey Headcanons 🌕

Give (In) and Take (Me) ☄️

The Wrong Rest 🌑

Across the Great Divide 🌘 - Coming Soon

These Hoes Depressed 🌖 - Coming Soon

Brushing Souls 🌕✨

You've warned him just as much as the others how intimate and overwhelming it feels to touch another soul. Still, he's intrigued. Over time you've come to trust him enough to give him a taste of the soul magic of your home and he immediately accepts, equal parts eager and nervous. Nothing you said prepared him for all he feels at simply being surrounded by You. ~3.8k

Coronary Tale 🌗✨

Face Sitting ☄️

Hickey Headcanons 🌖

Eventually this will mean poly BUT for now it is where headcanons with LOTS of characters are until I have more fics under more characters (so Its not just a fuckload of headers all with the same fic under them lol)

Cuddling Headcanons 🌕 Straw Hats and the Three Unwise Men (Buggy, Shanks, Mihawk)

Cuddling Ficlets 🌕 Straw Hats and the Three Unwise Men

X Marine Reader Headcanons - Coming Soon

Straw Hats and the Three Unwise Men

Bonus Characters (Ace, Sabo, Law, Kid, Killer, Sir Croc, Doffy)

Sweetly Scented Secrets 🌕✨

These are ones I add to and build off of instead of it being just something for a one-shot. Currently a placeholder but wanna get posting for these soon! Gotta organize the massive thought dumps I have down first lol

Modern AU (Coney Island inspired)

Hybrid AU

ABO AU

On Their Feet - current priorities (Most have coming soon and up on Masterlist to kick my ass into gear atm lol)

Lifeline - in brain and touching on

Purgatory - letting them happen when they happen

Hell - uncertain if they will ever happen 💀

Random ass shit that doesn't have a spot yet wHOOPS

Now and For Always - One Piece Rendition

Andddd a reminder to myself to possibly link sketches eventually andjkjaskda

Enjoy the hot mess in progress LOL

#masterlist #one piece #one piece fanfiction #one piece headcanons #my writing #reader insert

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forsaken-headcanons · 1 month ago

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Lalalalala i promised 1x lore so heres 1x loreee yayyyayy

Again, copy pasted from discord so it might be formatted weirdly

Ok so after joining the admins, shedletsky tended to crash out a lot and throw tantrums because of all that godly power still laying dormant. He even gets violent sometimes, whipping out a sword from who knows where. One day builderman had enough so he made a little robot thing and shed (who was tired of the pretty much daily freak outs) agreed to use the power of fuckall to put his negative emotions inside the little robot freak.

Alakazam alakazoop your pants are filled with poop evilness gone.

However Shedletsky began feeling paternal instincts towards the android child because technically a part of him was stored within the robot. From that day onwards he was almost never seen without the robot. Shed was also noticeably happier. Very rarely would he get annoyed, but even then he would handle it calmly. Whenever the air was tense, he would crack a joke to break the silence. He was much more pleasant to be around. The robot wasn't hostile like current 1x is, but just follows shedletsky around. That's all it's programmed to do. No more than a vessel for the hatred. Shed would talk to the robot a lot, despite it never talking back.

Eventually, Shedletsky was forsaken. With him came the robot. The Specter tried to figure out how to twist the thing so it would make the “show” more interesting, and decided to use the soul of a fourth dimensional entity. Once they merged, the robot began to twist itself, eventually becoming a mangled, unrecognizable mess, but it quickly stabilized into the 1x1x1x1 we know today. Under the influence of the negative emotions left behind, it grew to hate the third dimension in which the entity is trapped in, and it ESPECIALLY hated Shedletsky due to its direct connection to him.

When they encountered each other in a round for the first time, Shedletsky didn't recognize 1x, despite still feeling the connection. 1x, on the other hand, knew exactly who Shedletsky was. 😈😈😈😈

Yayayyy yayyyyyy ^^ more god lore eventuahlly. I had the thought to even try coming up with an entire religious text for them. Im not sure if im gonna do that but for rn im likr. For some reason im currently fixated on the concept of gods in forsaken smiles uhh yayy

— hybrid anon

Oh my goodness. This is amazing, I love the 1x and Shedletsky lore. I’ve always wondered how 1x and Shed would act pre-forsaken, and this will be sitting in my brain for a while./pos

#forsaken headcanons #forsaken #forsaken roblox #roblox forsaken #shedletsky forsaken #1x1x1x1 forsaken #hybrid anon #mod missletsky🍗⚔️

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grumboweek · 1 year ago

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Grumbo Week 2024! (March 24th-30th)

A week dedicated entirely to celebrating Mumbo and Grian!

Guidelines:

There are no requirements to participate every day! You're more than welcome to do one prompt, or a few, or even all of them! The choice is yours!

Each day has two different prompts to choose from (with the exception of day seven). You can do one or both prompts, but you are not required to use both prompts, nor do they have to be related!

All kinds of fanworks are welcome! Creativity has no limits, so long as grumbo is your focus!

If you are posting your works to AO3 please consider adding them to the Grumbo Week 2024 Collection!

If you'd like your fanworks reblogged on the grumbo week blog please use the main tag #grumboweek, as well as a tag to indicate what prompt you are using in the format #dayoneprompt, #daytwoprompt, #daythreeprompt, so on and so forth. Also, to ensure that we see your post, tag the grumbo week blog! :D

Prompts are listed below <3

Day One, March 24th - Souls/Reunion

Day Two, March 25th - Hybrids/Date Night

Day Three, March 26th - Nightmare/Sleep

Day Four, March 27th - Past & Present/Sun & Moon

Day Five, March 28th - Respawn/Sick Day

Day Six, March 29th - AU/Alternate SMP

Day Seven, March 30th - Free Day

We look forward to seeing what everyone creates! :D

#grumbo #hermitshipping

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veebs-hates-video-games · 5 months ago

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It's that time again where I make an entirely too long summary of every game I played this year. There were far too many of them this time around (well over 100, but some of them I only played long enough to know they're not my thing, and a bunch are weird short little things), so I'll try to keep it to a sentence or two for most of them. On the off chance anyone's interested in more of my thoughts they should nearly all have at least one other more detailed post on here somewhere, hopefully all properly tagged at this point and everything.

Also hopefully the formatting makes it easy to skim through, broken into categories and with each individual game bolded, because I would be astonished if anyone actually reads the entire thing. It's over 180 games and 7500 words, so, uh...good luck?

I think I'll just stick with the same categories I've used in the past couple years. On average the categories further down the list have things I liked more, but there are things in one category that I might've liked more or less than some things in the categories next to them, and they're mostly not really ordered within each category.

So with that said, let's start with the worst gaming experiences I had in 2024:

Bomb Dolls: Probably more fun with other people, but it was borderline unplayable for me so I didn't want to subject anyone else to it.

Sayonara Wild Hearts: Anything that feels like it was designed in a lab to give me seizures and migraines simultaneously isn't allowed to place higher than this.

Gwenblade: It tries to do something interesting, but it has a pretty profound lack of polish that makes it just not work.

Survivors of the Dawn: It must get better later on, but it felt so sluggish and unsatisfying at the beginning that I couldn't be bothered to find out.

Neverwinter Nights 2: I guess I still really don't get along with RTwP and most CRPGs.

Persona 5 Strikers: This finally convinced me to give up for good on the SMT/Persona games, because I clearly do not click with their pacing or storytelling conventions in general.

Mouthwashing: The most profound sensation of boredom I experienced all year. Extremely not my thing, but I'm pretty picky when it comes to horror.

On to games that weren't the worst but still completely failed to live up to whatever (possibly incorrect) expectations I had of them:

Strawberry Vinegar: Weird miss for ebi-hime, with characters that felt awkwardly written and like they didn't suit their ages.

Scanner Sombre: Incredible tech demo, frustrating game.

CrossCode: I liked most things about it except for the actual gameplay, which was really not my jam.

Nier: Automata: Somehow feels substantially worse to play than any other Platinum game I've ever played, and the story and characters completely failed to grab me in the first half dozen hours.

Death end re;Quest 2: Huge let down after how surprisingly interesting but flawed the first was. They dropped almost everything I liked about the original, and even though they thankfully toned down the visual fanservice, the character writing was enough worse to counter that.

Dead Cells: Seems like probably a pretty good game, but having pretty obvious influences from Dark Souls in your gameplay mechanics is usually a good way to make me not have a good time.

Owlboy: It's pretty? Not much else going for it.

Night in the Woods: I did genuinely like a lot of stuff about it, but it just felt like it wasn't really going anywhere, and some of the night scenes were impossible for me to see with my weird/bad vision without turning the screen brightness to retina-searing levels.

Her Name Was Fire: What if 20 Minutes Till Dawn except everything was slightly worse?

Final Fantasy XIII-2: The first half was great and felt like a weird hybrid of Radiant Historia and Pokemon with a Final Fantasy skin, but the closer I got to the end the worse everything about it got until I quit in the final area. A contributing part of why the entire FF series is now banished.

Muse Dash: It's alright? The UI is a nightmare about a trainwreck though.

Final Fantasy VII Remake: I love the metanarrative of the story commenting on itself and how much more fleshed out the characters are, but as a game I didn't have a very good time playing it, and I continue to not vibe with the way Nomura/Nojima tell stories. The other main reason FF is now banished.

God of War: I was pretty hopeful about Dad of Boy, but I just don't like how it feels to play. A contributor to why I'm increasingly skeptical of giving most AAA games a shot.

It gets so lonely here: Second person is not a valid POV (for me personally).

Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor: The mining mechanic is pretty neat, but otherwise it's one of the less interesting/satisfying things I've played in the genre.

Spider-Man: Most stuff about it is...fine? But aside from the great movement nothing else really makes it above fine other than the typical stuff that comes with throwing lots of money at making a game. Another major reason why I'm increasingly wary of buying or playing most AAA games.

Vampire Survivors: Ode to Castlevania: The least fun I've ever had playing Vampire Survivors, almost entirely due to it not having its own separate adventure mode to introduce stuff on its own terms in more digestible chunks.

Neva: Not bad, but basically everything about it that's different from Gris is different in a way I don't personally like as much.

Once on a windswept night: see: It gets so lonely here

Stray: I only lasted a couple hours before getting bored. I don't even mind that it's mostly a walking simulator since I've enjoyed plenty of those since they were first a thing, but aside from the novelty of being a cat nothing about it really clicked with me.

Next we have games that I liked what they were doing overall but they're just not really my thing:

Gorogoa: Good art and a clever way to structure the puzzles and how you navigate them/between them, but it's not really my kind of puzzle game.

Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights: Probably the closest I've come to liking a game with Souls-like influences. Well put together metroidvania that feels good to play, but the combat got exhausting the further I went.

Snakebird: The addition of gravity and puzzles make Snake a lot more interesting, but I wasn't into the flow of it enough to want to finish it.

Please, Touch the Artwork: Good framing device and clever way to turn recognizable art styles into puzzles, but the individual puzzles didn't stay interesting enough to me after a while.

Super Mario Bros. Wonder: It does some really clever stuff, but I think I just don't really jive with how movement feels in modern 2D Mario games anymore compared to the ones from the 80s and 90s (but I still love the 3D ones). Also maybe kind of a victim of how sometimes Nintendo polishes their games almost too much, and the removal of any rough edges ends up detracting a bit from things I personally like.

Toodee and Topdee: The dimension/perspective swapping is neat, but it wasn't quite enough on its own to pull me through the entire game.

Tens!: Reasonably satisfying, and a pretty polished presentation, but this one also didn't hold my interest all the way through.

The Shape of Things: Another one with good presentation and decent (but slightly janky) puzzle mechanics that didn't quite hook me.

OscarWildeCard: Excellent name, and card battles to determine who has the gayest dinner party is a fun idea, but it's not really my style of card game in the end.

From Ashes, Bloom: I really like the creature and how it moves and interacts, but in the end it's a tower defense game, and those have never been my thing.

Cypher: I really like Matthew Brown's puzzle games in general, and I liked this too at first, but once I got to the point where I couldn't mostly hold the puzzles entirely in my head anymore I lost interest. I probably would've had a great time with it when I was younger and had more patience for taking my own notes though.

Manifold Garden: It looks good and has some good ideas, but kind of like Antichamber I feel like it'd be more interesting to me if I didn't instantly already wrap my head around the way it messes with space. The burdens of having an intuitive understanding of unusual geometry, I guess.

Burly Men at Sea: Seemed like it had potential, but the UI is awkward enough on the Switch that I didn't feel like finding out.

Railbound: Another puzzle game where I liked learning how it works but didn't feel like sticking around beyond that.

Rabi-Ribi: It seems cute enough, but I didn't click with how movement feels and the pacing was a bit off for me.

Cureocity: Has a good premise, and I liked the idea of the combat system, but I felt like I wasn't getting enough out of it for what I was putting in.

Parallax: The core puzzle concept is solid, but it gets a little tedious having to run around the map to actually put solutions into action. Also the most broken default controller layout I've seen in a long time.

Kero Blaster: Nothing really wrong with it, but it didn't hook me. Definitely not another Cave Story.

Nora: The Wannabe Alchemist: There's almost something there and the art's pretty decent, but the Switch version is Not Great, and it feels like it could use a bit more work in general.

Psychopomp: Seems like there could potentially be something interesting going on there, but it's borderline unplayable with a controller.

Press Any Button: This one also might eventually go somewhere interesting, or at least it definitely hints at it, but the gameplay segments started getting pretty tedious before I found out.

stitch.: Great presentation of the puzzles, crappy mobile game presentation for the menus, and solidly average actual puzzles.

Thumper: Pretty unusual aesthetic and music style for a rhythm game, but I don't have the reaction time to keep up with it when brain no worky like lately.

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom: I can appreciate what they're going for, and it definitely addresses some of the issues I had with BotW/TotK, but I'm still having a really hard time getting as into it as older games in the series.

Spitkiss: I'm into the idea, and the presentation is really fun, but I bounced off somewhere in the middle as the levels got more heavily focused on tighter timing of actions. Seems fun for someone more into that sort of thing though.

After those we have the ones that are the most "fine, I guess" of the year that I had mixed feelings about:

Townscaper: More of a toy than a game, but I got it in a game bundle and messed around with it on a Steam Deck. It's fun briefly to see what you can make with it, but that's about it.

Little Noah: Scion of Paradise: Most of my time with it wasn't actually this year, but this is the year I concluded that even though the characters are cute and the way you build combos is kinda neat, the game itself is only ok. Also the Switch version doesn't run great.

Star Ocean: The Second Story R: The first 2/3 or so of it is great. The art style used in the remake is gorgeous, and the characters and running around doing typical JRPG stuff feels like all the things that made 90s JRPGs great. Then I got to what previously would've been disc 2 and it all fell apart into what makes 90s JRPGs so hard to go back to sometimes.

Fallow: I like most stuff about it except for actually playing it, which was kind of frustrating. Her music's still great though.

Ape Out: It's alright. I'm not very good at it.

Downwell: It's fine. I get what they're going for, and it feels like they succeeded, but I didn't stick with it super long.

Looking Up I See Only a Ceiling: This one gets an award for suffering the most from a bad translation or not being written in the creator's native language. It'd probably be pretty decent if that was cleaned up.

Astronomical Club for Queers: Dialogue's a bit awkward, but overall it shows potential for making something decent in the future.

Hardcore Cottagecore: This one has serious student project/game jam vibes. With some polish and balance they could make something alright though.

A Little to the Left: Deserves an award for "game that most makes me want to go replay Unpacking instead". Fine, but I lost interest after a while.

Twilight Survivors: I've definitely played worse bullet heaven games, but at least when I tried it this one didn't have much unique about it good or bad.

Geometry Survivor: It's close to being pretty decent, but it just doesn't quite feel good enough to play to me to stick with it too long.

Ikenfell: The characters are good and the story is ok, but I could've done without the gameplay. The "instant victory" button was one of my favorite buttons I pushed this year and saved the game enough for me to actually finish.

Star Ocean: First Departure R: It probably would've been more fun if I'd played it in the 90s. Significantly less compelling than SO2R but not actually bad or anything.

Cats Organized Neatly: Presentation's alright, but the process of solving the puzzles isn't the most satisfying for me.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom: Fixes a lot of the issues I had with BotW, and the abilities feel a lot more polished and like they complement each other better, but I still ultimately don't love the way these recent Zelda games play and am probably done with them until the next major franchise overhaul.

The Average Everyday Adventures of Samantha Browne: It's fine. There's just only so much it can really do in like ten minutes.

Jewel Match Solitaire Summertime: It's a perfectly competent solitaire game, just like all the other Jewel Match Solitaire games. Good for when brain no worky, but it doesn't stand out in any way.

Xenogears: The first time I tried playing it was before Xenosaga was even out. I tried going back to it to finally finish it, but I forgot how rough the translation was and how janky some stuff like the camera is. At least now I remember why I've never finished it.

One Deck Dungeon: It plays out in an interesting way with the way everything is built around dice rolls, but it just didn't grab me enough to get me to keep playing.

the static speaks my name: It was just strange enough to be a little bit interesting, but not strange enough to stick with me at all for more than a day or two.

Stray Cats in Cozy Town: Might be my least favorite Devcats game I've played because the different angle makes it harder to come up with a good search pattern.

TREE: Another ten minute free one. I liked it more before replaying it to get the last achievement.

Witcheye: Pretty unique movement and fun for a while, but the difficulty increase later in the game didn't feel like it fit as well with what the controls let me do.

RYB: Some pretty good puzzles, but the more mechanics are introduced the less well it reads visually.

Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia: I've tried more than once to go back and finish it, and while I still like most things about it, the map design and a couple enemy types annoy me enough that I finally had to accept I'm not going to beat this one.

Graceful Explosion Machine: Surprisingly well balanced and an interesting gameplay loop swapping between weapons, but sometimes I lose track of enemies in the visual clutter. Also it's physically painful for me to play some of the later levels.

Frincess&Cnight: Good pixel art and fun interactions between the two characters' abilities, but the increasingly tight timings and need to start levels over for any mistake got a little annoying at some point.

CARS: More interactive art than a game. Fun to poke at for a bit, but probably not leaving a lasting impression.

VOYAGER: Slightly more of a game than the previous one, but mostly it's just tracing out fun patterns with your orbit while pretty good music plays.

Dragon Quest XI S: I played the demo on Steam a while ago and loved it, but having to replay the entire opening dozen hours when I got the full game on the Switch was painful enough to make me lose interest. There's so much stuff it does well, but It sure does start slow.

Project X Zone: I do enjoy a lot of stuff about it, but there are so many levels that each take so long to finish that after a while it got kind of tedious.

A Slug's Dream: Pretty good puzzles and presentation, but at some point I drifted away and never went back.

Puddle Knight: Same as above.

Please Fix the Road: Also same as above.

Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness and the Secret Hideout: The most atrociously paced intro ever before suddenly becoming very good a few hours in, but the tediousness of needing to replace all my stuff at once toward the end of the game instead of stuff opening up more gradually killed my enthusiasm before finishing it.

Otoko Cross: Pretty Boys Mahjong Solitaire: A friend gifted me Pretty Girls Mahjong Solitaire years ago as a joke, so I impulsively got this on sale in memory of that. Totally fine but nothing special as a game, and if they toned down the horniness a bit some of the character designs/outfits would actually be pretty cute.

Death Becomes You: Some decent ideas and an interesting world, but some of the writting is kind of off-putting and some of the endings feel kind of abrupt and unearned.

this morning I decided to die: I get what they were going for and can appreciate it, but it didn't entirely land for me.

Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age: One of my favorite mainline FF games since the 90s, and I did genuinely have a pretty good time with it a lot of the time, but every time I got back into it it would pull some annoying crap to pull me back out again.

Tales of Berseria: I liked a couple of the characters enough to keep me playing for a while and the story is fine, but I got bored of the actual gameplay eventually and gave up.

Tales of Arise: Feels better to play than Berseria, but even though it hints at something interesting going on nothing in the first couple hours hooked me enough to get me to keep going.

KarmaZoo: I love the idea, but it doesn't get to go higher than this because it requires other people to play and I couldn't find any when I tried.

Margo: Definitely a fan of the art style, but the overall experience was only ok. It was probably somewhat negatively influenced by it being a pain to get it to run on the Steam Deck and still running terribly when it did, a very rare experience for me.

Berserk and the Band of the Hawk: It continues the pattern of most Musou/Warriors games that aren't affiliated with Nintendo in some way just not really being as good these days. It's ok, but it's noticeably more clunky and less polished than even the original Hyrule Warriors was and just doesn't feel as good to play.

Moving on, next we have games that were pretty good and generally met my expectations:

Luna's Fishing Garden: I didn't love either difficulty option for the fishing minigame, and it dragged a bit toward the end, but overall it's pretty cute and chill. Special mention to the "you got a fish" animation for being great.

Kuukiyomi 2: Consider It More! - New Era: I apparently never mentioned this in a post anywhere, or at least I can't find it. Anyway, it's more of the same from the first one, which is a good thing for the most part. It's basically WarioWare, except the minigames are about being considerate (or being a jerk if you'd prefer) in various situations. Cheap, short, and a decent way to be amused for a little while.

TET: Cute, funny, includes recipes. A good use of ten minutes and $0 if preparing food for Vietnamese Lunar New Year sounds like a good time. Also feels much better with a touchscreen.

Clickolding: Like I said earlier this year, it's the most about sex work anything's ever been without explicitly stating it's about sex work, and it will do its best to make you vaguely uncomfortable about that. Didn't leave quite as much of an impression on me as their other game I played last year, Can Androids Pray, but still pretty good.

An Arcade Full of Cats: Not my favorite Devcats game ever, but still enjoyable. As someone old enough to remember arcades it was fun seeing all the terrible cat puns on old games, and they did a pretty good job of capturing the general feel.

Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore: Most of my time with this was before this year, but I finally made it through the last third of it. I have some issues with the dungeons dragging on too long and the almost non-existent quest tracking, but the characters and story and combat are mostly fun, and it's the only SMT/Persona-adjacent game I've actually enjoyed other than BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle.

Glitchhikers: The Spaces Between: It didn't hit me as hard as the original over a decade ago, and a couple sections just didn't really land for me, but when it does work it does some interesting stuff. The train section was probably my favorite because it actually gets to expand on its ideas a bit more there.

The Fairy's Song: What if La Belle Dame sans Merci but make it yuri? Nothing revolutionary, but it does everything well enough to be enjoyable, enough that I'll probably get through the sequel one of these days too.

Bury me, my Love: Manages to capture both the surreal horror and mind-numbing mundanity of being a refugee seeking asylum and does a fairly effective job of it. The lack of typical VN QoL features kept me from going through again to see stuff I missed though.

Takorita Meets Fries: Fluffy nonsense about merpeople in search of french fries, and I mean that in a good way.

GOODBYE WORLD: The story and art were just enough to keep me going through the annoying platforming sections (which make narrative sense to be there, and even for them to be bad, but still), and the way it all came together in the end is what bumped it up as high as this.

Blackberry Honey: Yuri that's mostly cute and fluffy and fun while it lasts. I have Questions about the way the main character's boobs are drawn though. What's wrong with your boobs?

Voxelgram DLC #1: One one hand it's good because more Voxelgram is good, but on the other the larger puzzles are mostly just more tedious. Still good enough puzzles to get my poor ADHD brain to focus on something while listening to podcasts or whatever.

rat chaos: A replay of something I played many, many years ago. Not my favorite of the Twine boom back in the day, but having an "unleash rat chaos" button makes it memorable.

Theatrhythm Final Bar Line DLC: Still not my favorite style of music/rhythm game so it doesn't go higher, but there's some good music in there, and it was still enjoyable enough that I had fun going through everything.

A Hero and a Garden: Cute, fun characters, good music (including the unlockable remixes after you finish the game), and somehow made in Ren'Py, which is not intended for this genre at all.

Hide & Dance!: I like it for similar reasons to the other games I played by hap (which will be further down this list), but it doesn't have quite as many opportunities for the silly humor that makes their games work.

Subsurface Circular: "You are a robot detective solving robot crimes by talking to other robots on the subway" is a great premise, and I was not expecting Thomas Was Alone (still my favorite Mike Bithell game I've played) to be canon.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land: It was genuinely great for a while, and they did an excellent job translating what makes Kirby fun into 3D, but I kept finding more minor annoyances the closer I got to the end, and I gave up entirely on the postgame stuff pretty quickly because it wasn't doing it for me.

Clear Skye Thinking: More cute yuri fluff that won't leave a lasting impression, but it was a good palate cleanser.

Regency Solitaire 2: Basically just Regency Solitaire again, which is fine with me. These always feel a bit more substantial and more polished than the other solitaire games Grey Alien publishes, so it's nice to have another of these after years of mostly just Jewel Match Solitaire.

Zenzizenzic: Good bullet hell game with good music, and everything is so many squares. Sadly not available anywhere anymore, and neither is the soundtrack. Also sadly I'm not very good at it.

Wedding Witch: I got it mostly as a joke after it popped up in a Steam friend's activity, but it's actually pretty competently made. I wouldn't mind seeing some of the stuff from this in a little more substantial game that's somewhat less horny.

A Park Full of Cats: More Devcats hidden cats. If you're into it you're into it, and this is more of it.

Gordy and the Monster Moon; One of the more recent entries in the Frog Fractions Cinematic Universe. A successful attempt to see what would happen if you made a traditional Zelda game without most of the things most people think of as making something a Zelda game.

Art Sqool: I've seen people complain that it's janky and gives you bad tools for drawing, but the whole point feels like that even if you only can make "bad" art you still did something creative and made an art. Fun to mess around with if you can engage with it on its own terms.

Fire Emblem Engage DLC: I played the main game last year, but I didn't get around to doing DLC stuff like the Fell Xenologue until this year. Not quite as good as the main story (which was one of my favorite games last year), but I still overall had a good time with it.

Super PSTW Action RPG: Replay of something I played years ago, so it can't go any higher, but if it didn't break my own self-imposed rules it would be GOTY every year.

A Tower Full of Cats: More Devcats? More Devcats. See every other entry for them.

Shovel Knight: Really well put together platformer inspired by old 8-bit ones on stuff like the NES and clearly made by people with a deep love for and understanding of them.

Milk inside a bag of milk inside a bag of milk: This and the next one go together. They didn't completely win me over, but I'll give them points for managing to nether glamorize nor stigmatize trauma or psychosis and avoid having an ending that's either tragic or fixes everything. Not perfect, but they at least tried to do something interesting with it.

Milk outside a bag of milk outside a bag of milk: See above

Meet Her There: Does what it's trying to do pretty well even if the writing's a bit stiff. Content warnings on this one aren't messing around. Also it's funny how many people totally missed how full of gender it is.

Florence: Effective storytelling with almost zero text or dialogue, and they actually manage to do some clever things to tie the very minimalist gameplay into that to enhance it.

Boyfriend Dungeon post-launch content: I played the game itself right when it came out and had a good time with it, but it took me until pretty recently to go back and do the additional stuff added after it came out. I probably would've liked it more if I'd been able to do it all at once, but it was still enjoyable enough to be worthwhile.

Star Ocean: The Divine Force: Definitely an improvement over SO2R (which was great in the first half but kinda fell apart in what would've originally been disc 2). This one still stumbles a bit toward the end but holds it together a bit better. Enough characters I liked and satisfying enough combat/exploration to keep me going until the end, and the nyoom button might've been my favorite button to push all year.

Be My Horde: Or at least what of it is finished up until now. I like the idea of having your only resource being dead enemies you've killed and most abilities revolving around upgrades/enhancements of your resurrection ability. The voice acting is also surprisingly good/fun. Definitely has potential if future additions to it can build on its strengths, but we'll see how that goes.

Pesticide Not Required: Possibly the most unusual premise for a bullet heaven game I've played, crossing it with a farming sim. Somehow it actually works? Builds feel kinda samey after a while unfortunately, but it's cute enough and interesting enough seeing how farming/fishing/mining manages to work simultaneously with killing hundreds of bugs at once to be enjoyable for a bit.

Golf Club Nostalgia: I'm absolutely terrible at the actual gameplay (thank you story mode), but the story and worldbuilding told through the radio broadcasts were interesting enough and kept me going. Not subtle about its politics or who it's commenting on even though it doesn't name any names.

I commissioned some bees 0: Not really anything special on its own, but I'm a big fan of the idea of commissioning multiple artists to draw whatever they want as long as they can fit a hundred bees in it somewhere.

Point of Mew: Short enough that its cuteness and charm can carry it through to the end.

Locke(d): I appreciate that someone took a hypothetical scenario from an essay, interpreted it completely literally, and then used that setup to talk about the ideas of the essay.

The Great Voyage: Not nearly as good as their second game, Vengeful Heart (which will be further down the list), but you can see how they got from here to there and how some of that stuff was already here to begin with.

CATO: Buttered Cat: Some reasonably clever puzzles, and building your game mechanics off the idea of a cat with buttered toast strapped to its back is silly enough that I can't not like it.

The Knight Witch: It didn't quite win me over enough to finish it, but what I did play of it was pretty well put together and enjoyable enough.

Peglin: It has a pretty fun loop, and turning Peggle into a roguelike is a pretty neat idea that works surprisingly well. I could see myself going back to it for a few more runs now and then.

Words Can Kill: It has a pretty fun loop, and turning Scrabble into a roguelike is a pretty neat idea that works surprisingly well. I could see myself going back to it for a few more runs now and then.

Across-Stitch: The tweaks to the typical picross/nonograms rules are just enough to keep things interesting, and I probably would've spent even more time with it if it didn't have some unfortunate color palatte choices.

memories: Another little yuri VN, this time sad. I liked the way it tied different memories to different outfits, and it's reasonably well told for what it is. It desperately needs a way to adjust the text speed though.

Next but not quite last are the ones that exceeded my expectations in some way without necessarily being better than the ones in the previous category (although some are here because they were good). I could also just have gotten more out of them than I was led to think I would:

Seraphim Slum: A VN that isn't afraid to get weird with it, and by weird I don't mean rawrxdlolrandom, I mean surrealness and strange metaphors and corruption/destruction as a form of love. I can dig it.

9th Sentinel Sisters: Seems unfortunately abandoned at this point, but what they finished of it is a fairly enjoyable bullet heaven game with a bit of a different feel and aesthetic from what I'm used to seeing. Translation's pretty awful though.

20 Minutes Till Dawn: One of the better bullet heaven games I've played, with a great monochrome-plus-one-accent-color aesthetic (the character portraits are particularly good) and different builds that genuinely feel different to play. Play on anything but the Switch if you have the option though, because it has atrocious slowdown with certain builds (although it still remains remarkably stable even then).

DoraKone: More yuri fluff about four queer girls spending the summer playing the my OC do not steal version of Pokemon GO. It's cute, and I liked the way they managed to tie the developing friendships/relationships into playing the game together in a way that actually felt like it worked.

A Time Traveller's Guide to Past Delicacies: More surreal weirdness, but this time with sock puppets too. I'm still undecided on what it's trying to say, but I really enjoyed the way it said it, and it captures both the fun and the janky parts of 90s FMV games well.

Bayonetta 2: The main reason this counts as exceeding my expectations is that the first game was full of great ideas but felt really unpolished in a lot of ways, and I wasn't expecting something that's still an entire decade old to have really fixed all that. But they did for the most part, and all the potential from the original finally came together properly.

Vectronom: Aside from pure rhythm games, this might be the first thing I've played since 140 that integrates the music and gameplay as well as it does. Bonus points to whoever decided to include some stuff with odd time signatures and rhythms later in the game.

Vampire Survivors: Emergency Meeting and Operation Guns: I liked both of these as much as I disliked Ode to Castlevania. They're much more interesting than the previous DLC was and experiment a bit more mechanically, and the adventure mode does a great job of introducing all the new stuff and teaching you the new mechanics and maps.

Lies as a Starting Point: A good example of how this category isn't necessarily better than "worse" categories in my list. It's pretty decent and the three storylines come together in a satisfying way in the end, but the translation is awful. I still got more out of it than I thought I would though.

Before I Forget: Ironically for a story about memory problems I forgot a lot of it because of my own memory problems. This nearly ended up in the best category though, and I appreciated how they made the story about who the character is as a person instead of just what's wrong with her.

Mom Hid My Game!: This and the next two are basically three parts of the same game, which is the offspring of a point and click adventure and WarioWare. Pretty short with lots of little bite-sized puzzles and a silly sense of humor.

Mom Hid My Game! 2: see above

My Brother Ate My Pudding!: see above

Soulstone Survivors: Another of my favorite bullet heaven games I've played. The addition of an active dodge and a lot of layered interactions between abilities makes it a bit more involved to play, but in a good way if you're looking for that sort of thing.

Bio Prototype: Not my favorite to actually play and the UI isn't great, but you can do some absolutely wild things with what basically amounts to a programmable build system to DIY your own weapons with very few restrictions.

20 Small Mazes: A great example of something that takes a simple concept, explores it thoroughly, and then ends without wasting time or energy on anything unnecessary.

The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe: As someone who's been playing the different variations on this since the original mod, this was a more effective story commenting on its own (re)telling and its own audience's expectations than FF7R was, at least for me.

Halls of Torment: What's this? Another of my favorite bullet heaven games? The standout for this one might be how so many of the achievements/unlocks are really well thought out to get you to approach playing the game in ways you might not have tried otherwise and are often little mini-puzzles themselves.

SeaBed: Very slow burn VN that ultimately pays off in the end even if I liked the journey a bit more than the destination.

Everything is going to be OK: On the surface it's very coping with adversity through absurdity, but if you keep digging it has more to say about trauma and depression and misogyny and the value of artists and so on.

Will The Man Get Frog: Cute little PICO-8 game/toy for creating haikus using an extremely limited set of randomly chosen words. Fun to mess around with to try to come up with anything remotely coherent.

The Indifferent Wonder of an Edible Place: Interactive poetry about being a willing participant in the destruction of history and trying to explain or justify it while also being aware of the sense of loss.

Luckily, My Arm Is a Shotgun: Nothing revolutionary, but it's surprisingly polished for something so small and cheap, and the titular shotgun is very satisfying.

a completely normal dating simulation that is definitely completely sweet, innnocent and normal: SOMETHINGETH ANIVERSARY EDITION: It feels like someone in high school in 2011 dumped their Tumblr into Ren'Py while also feeling like a flash animation from the 00s. I'm not sure the humor would hold up for me if I did all the different routes, but what I did play of it was the kind of thing I haven't seen in years.

And finally we have the ones I enjoyed the most or felt I got the most out of, not really in any particular order other than vaguely the order I finished them and added them to my list:

The Witcher 3: Absolutely my least favorite gameplay of anything anywhere near this high on the list, but the world and characters are so interesting and well developed that it more than makes up for it. I know they had an entire series of novels and short stories to draw on, but they've added so much more on their own, and it's only gotten bigger and better with each new game. They do a great job of making it feel like the world is much, much larger with a lot of stuff going on outside the small corner you're seeing at any given time.

Ghost Trick: It has a ridiculous premise and clever puzzles and a good sense of humor, but something else that particularly stands out about it is that despite the relatively simple art style it has some of the most fluid and expressive animations that give a ton of personality to everyone.

Vengeful Heart: Possibly my favorite retro aesthetic in anything I've played recently and definitely the best anyone's nailed the PC-98 look in a while, but even more than that the characters and story are great. They do a great job showing people from totally different backgrounds with totally different approaches working together against an oppressive power structure, and rather than everything working out perfectly there are definitely problems, but it still shows hope for overcoming them and a path toward the future.

Unicorn Overlord: Unlike Vanillaware's previous game the writing is only ok, but the art continues to be excellent, and it's easily their best iteration on their RTS ideas to date. I don't think the story will leave much of a lasting impression on me, but I had such a great time with the gameplay for the entire time I was playing that I don't mind.

OPUS: Echo of Starsong: Definitely kind of a slow burn that took me a bit to warm up to, but I really liked how things came together in the end as I got to know more about the characters and what was going on. It's also good at showing restraint though, not neatly wrapping everything up, and it left me with more to think about than when I started.

We Know the Devil: Another one that's good at hinting at and suggesting things without explicitly coming right out and directly telling you everything, and some scenes hit differently when replaying to see the other endings when you know enough to be able to read it as commenting on itself.

Jack Jeanne: A strong contender for my favorite thing I played this year. Definitely my favorite music/rhythm game, the best music in general, and the most gender. So many things in it can be read on multiple levels at once as being about the nature of art and performance, what gender even is, and how (or even if) to engage with an audience.

Visions of Mana: It's a shame the studio got shut down right when it released, because they definitely understood what made the old games in the series so much fun, and they finally made a new non-remake Mana game that's actually pretty great for the first time in over two decades.

1000xRESIST: I'm undecided on whether it's my favorite thing I played this past year, but it's definitely my favorite piece of media in general that came out in 2024. It's another one where everything works on like 17 levels simultaneously, like generational trauma, the nature of language and communication, the protests in Hong Kong, the experience of being an immigrant or a child of immigrants, both biological and found family, memory and what we choose to forget or to pass on, and like a dozen more things.

A Highland Song: If you're noticing that most stuff in this category is here because it has great writing/storytelling you're not wrong, and this one is no exception. The way what's going on is gradually revealed is satisfying, and the way it's structured across different paths keeps things interesting. It also does a great job of seamlessly blending realism and history with myth and legend, treating them all as equally meaningful and important to the people and world.

Ys X: Nordics: Sometimes you just need to go on a wacky adventure though, and Adol's shenanigans continue to be fun. The gameplay continues to feel tight and polished, and they also keep managing to have a large cast of interesting and likeable characters. It's just a good time.

I guess this time I'll only be tagging that last category because I played entirely too many games in 2024 and don't actually have enough tags for the top two categories like usual. There were some huge disappointments, but there were even more things that I didn't expect to like as much as I did, and there was a bunch of really great stuff in general.

#the witcher 3 #ghost trick #vengeful heart #unicorn overlord #opus: echo of starsong #we know the devil #jack jeanne #visions of mana #1000xRESIST #a highland song #ys x: nordics

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crunchyapple33 · 2 months ago

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ㅤㅤㅤㅤ— intro to my rupaul's drag race dr ㅤ! ㅤ

ㅤ- timeline of my dr;

it's early april 2024 here right now, about a month-ish until we go to film season 17 (the season that i'm on ^w^), i just wanted a bit of time to get to hang out with friends and do stuff before flying out to film hehe

ㅤ- about me;

my name is zachary orion shaikh, i was born in late 2001, i am a boy and use he / him pronouns. my drag name is eden elysian [(el - ee - see - an)]! i'm 5'5", a sagittarius, and i live in syracuse, new york <3

ㅤ- my out-of-drag aesthetic;

ㅤ- my in-drag aesthetic;

ㅤㅤㅤ"my drag persona is very . . . 'if a princess ran away from her kingdom, got lost in a forest and accidently drowned, and somehow became an undead deer-human hybrid along the way, who now stalks the forest protecting all the creatures inside it' type vibes. it's been so long since she went missing, that now she's just a folklore tale that the parents who reside in the kingdom will use as a ghost story to make their kids afraid of going into the forest, like she did. maybe a deer tried to save her, and the only way it could was to fuse their souls together. very that,"

ㅤ- my career;

after graduating high school, i moved to syracuse from [cr home town] when i was 19, and i have been working at the trexx nightclub for almost 3 years now as a full time drag performer

ㅤ- my family;

my dad is finn shaikh (née frost), he is a painter in his late 40s. his ex, sutan amrull (or aka raja gemini) is also my father. raja and finn dated in the late 90s, until they eventually broke up 2 months before finn found out he was pregnant with me. finn never told raja, and moved back to [cr home town] after the break up and before he found out he was pregnant.

[listen i have cr family issues and this is pretty similar to my cr i'm coping /silly]

when i was 6, finn met (my now other parent,) gabriel shaikh. he's in his mid 40s and is a teacher's assistant at an elementary school. he was in a previous marriage, but his wife divorced him after she had an epiphany; she decided life was too short to live in a small town her whole life, so she wanted to start fresh: without gabriel and kathryn.

kathryn is my older sister, and she is in her mid 20s. she is also a drag performer, and she lives in new york city. neither of us know that the other one is also a drag performer, (which is very awkward when we see each other on set during the 1st episode after everyone de-drags—)

ㅤ- my friends;

okay, i know this is a waste of space on the post, but i'm just adding it in case anyone thinks i forgot — my friends in my dr are the same as in my cr, and i don't wish to share much info about them for the respect of their privacy <3

due to that fact, i'll just share the names of 2 of my closest friends, who i might talk about from time to time: berry and pine :3 (code names i fear . So sorry not sorry)

ㅤ- my significant others;

my s/os are kori king and lydia b kollins :3 [listen im poly Dont attack me]

we meet on drag race!! ok i actually don't know what else i should add to this segment .. look at the sillies ... i had a dream that i was in a relationship with them and that Honestly is the reason why i was inspired to finally make a drag race dr :3

ㅤ- my house;

ㅤ- xtras;

i do not have a set in stone safe word to come back to my or, but i do have one to arrive to my waiting room, which is blueberry, hehehe . . . i do not have a time ratio either, to be honest.. really it's just a "i want to come to and from at the same time i left" type of vibe for me personally.

i saw someone's post earlier saying they were in their dr for 10 months, came back to their or, and it had only been 10 hours. that is bravery to me lmfao. i will be in my dr for a decade and come back and it'll be the same exact time as i left my or, thank you very much! /silly

format is inspired by @shiftingwithjaidyn's writer/fame dr intro

hearts dividers by @enchanthings-a, post is here

#crunchyapple33 #rpdr dr #shiftblr #shifting #reality shift #reality shifting community #desired realities #shifting antis dni #shifters #shiftingrealities #shifting blog #shifting diary #fame dr #(technically lol)

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twisted-tales-of-all · 2 years ago

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Caught in Her Web

Summary: During his latest adventure, Felix finds a cave system that looks untouched, but he finds much more than he expected amongst the webs. Pairing: Lee Felix x tall!afab!Reader Genre: Mature/Smut, Fantasy, Horror, One Shot Tropes: sub!idol, adventurer!AU, spider-hybrid!AU Word Count: 1.2K Contains: sub!idol, tall!reader, femdom/domme, dubcon, bondage, humiliation, degradation, pet names (little one, treasure, toy), dacryphilia, begging A/N: casual reminder that this is fiction. The y/n in this fic is not a representation of anything I condone doing irl. Consent is very important in the real world, so writing this does NOT mean I encourage the lack of consent. Please be safe and respectful to each other.

The guild master always warns budding adventurers to be wary of those who look human at first glance but act unusually. He hadn't quite known what to expect, so Felix carelessly wanders the nearby lands and finds some seemingly undiscovered cave formations. After suiting up in basic armor, he explores the dark, dusty holes. As he climbs deeper, he never expected to be face to face with you.

As if a mirage, a tall, beautiful lady stands calmly in front of him, naked yet graceful, in the depths of a web-ridden cave. With voluminous hair covering your short antennae, you appear human to the poor soul who stumbles into your domain.

"H-hello? What are you doing deep in here? Aren't you cold? Or hungry? I can't imagine there's much to eat down here. Do you need help out?" Despite his fear of the surroundings, Felix's kind heart wins out, offering the stranger comfort.

Slowly, you walk towards him, your straight face turning upward as you examine him. You circle him, your fingertips tracing his upper torso as you admire the oblivious boy's kindness.

"Have you brought food for me? Or, perhaps, you'd like to offer yourself up to me? I'm sure I can make use of you. If not for warmth, maybe you can satiate my hunger yourself." With your words slow and calculated, you don't try to hide your desires, showing your hand to him clearly.

Felix watches as you continue circling, tensing up under the light touches of your fingertips. Your sweet, honeyed voice laced with seduction draws him in despite your words spilling potential demise. This distracts him long enough to spread enough web around him to lock his shoulders into place.

"You look appetizing, but I'm also waiting for a mate. Let's see if you'd be a good candidate, shall we?" Towering over him, you control the situation with ease.

"A mate?" He questions before realizing the situation he's in. As he tries to move his arms, he recognizes his binds and asks, "What are you? How did you wrap me like this?"

As he shimmies his arms against the strong, silky binding, you chuckle, "You're quite slow." You brush your hair back, momentarily revealing your antennae to your hostage, "Clearly, it's my web. Did you think I was circling you because you're pretty? Humans are so dimwitted sometimes."

Sighing, you lean down to his level, examining his face closely. Determining it as sufficient enough for a mate, you move down further. On your knees, your face rests right at his stomach. You examine his body closely, dragging your hands over his frail frame.

Suddenly, he speaks up, in an attempt to save his life, "I'm not fit for food. Please don't eat me."

Since he's more concerned with his death than your current actions, you continue feeling him up. Guiding your hand over his crotch, you bump into his hardened sex.

"Even though you're scared out of your mind, you're turned on?" You tease, standing up to look down at him again, "A woman is sexy even if she's dangerous? You enjoy a woman who could kill you, little one?"

"Th-that's not it!" He argues, "You just... your touch melts my body, I can't help the reactions."

"Helpless. Pathetic. Don't speak. You look more like food with every word you utter."

Shutting his lips tight, he gulps down saliva as you kneel again. Dragging his tight-fitting pants to his ankles, you find his cock erect and twitching at the touch of the cold cave air. Wrapping your hand around the length, you pump a few times before asking him a humiliating question.

"Is this all of it? Don't you grow anymore?"

Sighing at his silence, you continue to stroke him slowly, trying to determine whether it can please you. In reality, he's average-sized compared to other creatures you've caught so you can use him well, but you'd never be so kind to say that. Standing back up, you attach a new string of web to his binds to tug him along behind you. With his pants around his ankles, he waddles along, trying not to fall while keeping up with your pace. Reaching a flat rock covered in layers of web, you command him to lie down. Carefully, he lies back on the cold stone with his feet hanging off the edge.

"I hope it feels better than it looks," you throw an insult his way yet again as you swing a leg over his thighs, encasing his thighs between yours.

As you sink down onto him, you stop yourself from reacting to him spreading your walls. With your hands around his skinny waist, you bounce on him with complete disregard for his pleasure. You encourage him to cum far more than he can handle, and, by his third orgasm, the only liquid leaving his body is his tears as he begs you to be gentle.

Halting your movements, you note, "You aren't even begging me to stop? Just to be gentle with you? You're enjoying the torture?"

Trying to make excuses for himself again, he insists that he only said it because he knows you won't stop until you're satisfied. Clicking your tongue, you resume your movements despite his cock slowly softening inside of you. The tears run freely from the overstimulation as his face writhes from the pain. Recognizing that your movements aren't breathing life back into your little toy, you pout.

"Is that everything you have to give me, little treasure? Have I sucked you dry already?"

As your words dripping in condescension hit the teary-eyed boy's ears, he begins spilling apologies and begging for you to let him live. As his tears still and his fear reaches its peak, you lift yourself off of him, the cold air enveloping his crotch once again. Cringing in on himself for warmth, you pace in front of him with his cum slowly sliding down your thighs.

Scooping a bit up with your fingertips, you fret, "This is all you've given me, yet you want me to let you live? How rude; how pathetic. What do I get out of letting you free? I'm even hungrier now since I did all of the work. Eating you would help that, so you certainly must offer something better for letting my dinner leave untouched."

Trying to come up with anything, Felix's mind blanks and defaults to begging again, "I don't know. I- Oh, please! I have a full life to live; please let me go!"

An evil chuckle escapes amidst your otherwise calculated actions. You don't wish to kill him. In fact, he shines so brightly that you want his body gone from your perfectly gloomy home. Although he fulfilled your sexual desire to dry someone out, you'd rather not keep his corpse around to radiate the light he brought from outside.

Leaning over his chest, you bite through his bindings and let them fall loosely around him. "Pull up your tights and get out of here before I change my mind."

As he sits up, the world spins for a moment, but his fear and adrenaline propel him to follow your instructions quickly, screaming gratitudes until out of earshot.

To yourself and the spiders on the surrounding walls, you mutter, "Grow up and come back stronger. We all know you'll want it again; you'll want to prove yourself. Fight me next time, you glorious sunshine toy."

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vimeddiart · 1 year ago

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Ocean Soul was a good read, but honestly it stops being an actual 'comic' pretty quick, doesn't it? I still enjoyed it enough to finish it but was a little disappointed when I found myself reading a novel without expecting to. Perhaps advertising it as a hybrid of some sort would better reflect what it is?

I announced the format change on every single platform and social media months before publishing, plus it's announced on the actual product in my comic shop, so really I don't know what more you want 😊

#it's all there!

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a-mellowtea · 9 months ago

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Interview: Lindsay Jones RWBY Archives: Remnant Promenade Volume 1-8

Q.1. Tell me how you became involved as a production staff member and cast member. Also, please share any general thoughts on it.

I voice the main character of this work, Ruby Rose, the leader of Team RWBY. It’s been a very rewarding and daunting challenge to voice her as a character and grow alongside her. To put it lightly, “RWBY” has changed my life.

Q.2. What was your impression when you first saw the finished version of “RWBY”?

Being a long-time anime fan, it was literally a dream come true to be a part of something with such a classic plot and story. Ruby has so much of my own personality in her. It was a hybrid combination of my career dreams coming true and a new version of myself. She’s way cooler than me, though.

Q.3. What do you think the appeal of "RWBY" is, and what are your favorite characters and episodes?

Compared to many production companies, we had fewer people involved at first but, in exchange, we were able to work more intimately, which is what makes "RWBY" so appealing. Fans and people in the industry say that it’s a little rougher than other anime, but it’s a very straightforward one. One of my favorite characters is Nora. I’ve always liked characters who appear cheerful on the surface, but who have a true nature to reveal underneath. As for episodes, I’d say Vol. 1 Episode 8, “Players and Pieces”. It’s the first episode where we see Team RWBY and JNPR working together in a situation that seems out of control.

Q.4. Please give a look back on production from the beginning to the present, when over 100 episodes have been produced, including Vol. 8.

I can’t say that nothing has changed. We’ve been swept up in a wave of support, not only domestically but worldwide. "RWBY" is in everything. Games, comics, manga, etc. Ruby has even become a VTuber. We've added more details to everything surrounding RWBY, we've seen the characters grow, we've been able to take the girls to different worlds, we’ve been able to add new weapons. It's gone from a small world to a universe called "RWBY".

Q.5. “RWBY” has become a long-running series, with numerous spin-offs and mixed media works in addition to the main story. What do you think is the reason it has grown this way, with so many fans around the world?

“RWBY” has a universal appeal and many people can identify with every character. There is a character for everyone. I personally identify with many of the characters, especially Ruby herself. I know that people turn to media as a source of solace and inspiration, and RWBY is one of those places.

Q.6. In addition to the Japanese dubbed version, there are various media properties, such as comics and goods. What are your impressions of the development in Japan, such as the production of the original work “Ice Queendom” by Japanese staff? Also, what kind of developments do you expect in the future?

I remember when I talked to Monty, he had a strong desire to enter the Japanese market, a medium that inspired him. Many studios such as Sanzigen, who produced “Black Rock Shooter”, inspired him. Now, we've been able to work with a Japanese partner to see his dream come true, and it feels like his spirit’s come full circle. It’s also great to see "RWBY" redone in the traditional 2D format, giving us a new look at the classic characters.

Q.7. What is the appeal of your character?

The appeal of Ruby’s character is that she is innocent, yet driven. There's triumph in her simple soul, she has an almost childlike purity and innocence, but she also needs to grow up. I think a lot of viewers, especially young viewers, can relate to that. It’s a formative time in life, a time when you’re discovering who you are and who you want to be.

Q.8. Please tell us about the points of your performance and story that you want people to pay attention to. Also, what episodes, scenes, or lines have left a particularly strong impression on you in the past 10 years of acting?

Episode 8 of Vol. 1 is the first time Ruby faces serious difficulties. Expression her core and innermost feelings through the battle was a big challenge for me, but at the same time it was meaningful. In Vol. 3, after Ruby picks up Penny’s sword, she says “Leave her alone!” and I had to convey a variety of emotions with just three words. If I’m hearing the audience right, I think I did a good job. That moment opened the door to the dark scenes of “RWBY” and helped set the tone for the rest of the leads.

Q.9. Please tell us about the character’s growth from her first appearance to the end of Vol. 8. Was there any change in your acting from her first scene to the end?

Yes, there’s more uncertainty behind her. She had to find her footing in Beacon, but there were people guiding her. As she's grown, those people have become neutral figures or are gone from her life. So she has to find her own compass within herself.

Q.10. What do you think are some similarities and differences between you and Ruby?

[laughs politely] Before Monty offered me the role, he literally said to me, “You’re not very social.” Yep! Socially awkward, but endlessly optimistic. I was eager to prove myself, and I definitely had my own struggles with finding myself, believing in myself over other people, and not letting anyone else speak for me.

Q.11. Please give us your thoughts on the future development of the character and your message to them.

I want Ruby to show more leadership. With so many obstacles in front of her and hope fading, she'll have to find her inner strength and support her team as much as she can. My message to Ruby is, “Choose yourself. Never stop choosing yourself. And no capes”.

Q.12. Please leave a message for your fans around the world.

First of all, I want to sincerely thank you for all your support over the years. Without you all, this work would not have been possible. My main message is to keep moving forward. As the team leader, I think that that’s the most appropriate thing to say to everyone.

— Translation by yours truly.

#rwby #lindsay jones #ruby rose #ho boy only took me a goddamn year #there are fifteen interviews in this book y'all

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kurtty-drabbles · 5 days ago

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Hi, I'm a new anon in the ranks.

I have myself heard the argument that the previous origins Nightcrawler had were complicated, it popped around a lot. I was as confused as you are because you can't make it more streamlined than that with the characters it used or the way they've interacted with Nightcrawler since they've met. You can't make the origins more logical with Mystique not caring about him in the slightest, Azazel never showing up in his life until he needs him, Destiny having a hand in killing him in DoFP or never talking to him directly or preventing his death ever or mentioning him in her plans for the future with Mystique, ...

It takes 1 to 2 minutes of an episode from the 90s cartoon to explain most of the previous origins we had for Nightcrawler. That's how uncomplicated it was : Mystique needed him but didn't want him for who he was. The episode had her sell him off to the FOH to guarantee her and Rogue would be safe from Graydon Creed to set the stage for the full reveal of the origins too.

You'd need a full episode to scratch the surface of the retcon and that's an underestimation. Most of the viewers would give up after all the "Mystique betrays and uses her children" content shown on screen to represent all the comics material that exists to adapt only for the retcon episode to expect you to now fully sympathise with her with a good old lady "my mind wasn't acting right because memory wipe".

I pray everyday that the retcon never gets adapted on screen.

Hi nonny 👋

So yeah I'm confused too bc his backstory, the original, was easy to follow and very biblical. But I have to ask...would people have said the same if Kurt was adopted by a WHITE family? Bc while my knowledge on characters who are adopted in the X-Men is limited...Kurt is the one who a Romani woman took in. But suuuure she is evil.

Nonny, Margalia wasn't mentioned after inferno. At best, she was in Excalibur if I'm not wrong. But it was short lived and...looking back, the seeds to make her a cartoon villain were there: she killed others wizards and released demons in London, ok let me clarify Amanda did this but Margalia was behind all this.

Straight from the Wikipedia

Margali joined the U.K. branch of the Hellfire Club and kidnapped the mutant hybrid Douglock. Her efforts were foiled by Excalibur and Margali disappeared only to be captured by Belasco. With her last bit of magic she swapped souls with her daughter. Margali's soul, now in Amanda's body, took Nightcrawler to Limbo where they were able to rescue her body and defeat Belasco. After the battle, Nightcrawler returned to the X-Men and Margali left Amanda to rule Limbo. Amanda then took the name "Magik" for herself.

Which created, intentionally or not, a very incesty situation.

Again Kurt is linked to incest fetish huh.

When Margalia tries to be a hero(straight from wiki)

Szardos joined Hellstorm, Moy, and the Mechamage who agreed to remain together to defend the Earth against demonic threats, calling themselves the Shadow Hunters. The formation of the Shadow Hunters was later claimed to be a ruse to placate the Fantastic Four and they disbanded.

Szardos teamed up with Scarlet Witch and a squad of other sorcerers to push back Ego the Living Planet when he tried to expand across the Earth.

Margali has reappeared recently to find Nightmare torturing her daughter. Nightmare was under control of a demon called Hive who was looking for the Soulsword. Nightcrawler was able to defeat Hive with the help of Margali, Jimaine, and Nightmare. During the battle Margali revealed that Nightcrawler was in possession of the Soulsword

Margali was one of the many sorcerer's called by Merlin to help the Sorcerer Supremes' break down a mystical barrier.[23] to

Her most recent apararation

Margali was later hired by Orchis, who had her cast a hex that caused mutants around the world to transform into monsters. She accepted the job, but secretly planned to use the spell for her own ends. When Kurt and the Legionaries confronted her, she attacked them with the hex, transforming both Doctor Nemesis and Kurt. As the latter began uncontrollably attacking Orchis soldiers, Margali mused that Kurt had always held onto a bright spark of hope that he had clung to even as his faith was in jeopardy. However, with his mind addled by the mutation hex, she was able to rip it out of him, fashioning it into the Hopesword. Prize in hand, she left Kurt among the bodies.[24] When Legion and the Legionaries went to rescue Kurt from the Orchis Forge where he was being held, Szardos attempted to stop them and take Wagner for herself. Mother Righteous revealed that they had made a deal in the past that had let Margali climb the Winding Way, mystically putting her in Righteous' debt. Deciding Legion was more important to her goals, Righteous called in the debt and absorbed her essence into a sphere, possibly killing her.

Can you see the dissonance with her? She let her daughter release demons in London, she tried to be a hero but is a ruse against the FF, she works with Merlin and Scarlet Witch and...then became a cartoonish villain

#kurt wagner #nightcrawler #i hate marvel editorials #pro Margalia szardos #she is a hero #she is a villain #she is ...the character white writers love to hate #i hate the retcon

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choco-bloop · 15 days ago

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Hermit a Day May day 19: Cleo

It's been a while huh? Anyway, Cleo for my HermitKings au! I'm not the most proud of her outfit, I absolutely need to do changes to it, probably make it more flowy / regal. But I had so many layers, procreate was down right lagging. Was it worth it? Probably. Also she's supposed to have a veil / mask but that's for a very brief period of time during the story, so not included here :)

Check out HADM's Fundraiser

Backstory / AU Information under the cut, again big. fat. spoilers.

The quote on quote, "King of the Inbetween" (they did not give themself the title, that was Joe, thanks Joe). Cleo is the sixth and final member of the core Kingohger team, revealing herself after Legend KingOhger is used for the first time, where she steals the guardian Shugods' souls to remove her mask for the first time in centuries.

She's a hybrid between a spider bugnarok and a human, the previous sixth king who fought alongside the original kings but was removed from history for loving a Bugnarok member. Her bugnarok side manifests in her right arm (covered by a glove), being a monster arm and able to create webs to her own will (this can also be done with her other hand but its easier to weave with two hands instead of one).

Compared to Jeramie, Cleo's less wet cat with him and more "let's just get this over and done with.". Joe, who's known her for ages at this point, is basically her retainer and causes problems on accident while trying to help her (e.g. covering up her true identity, which caused the 5 kings to be utterly confused and/or frustrated).

She tried to force make Extreme Kingohger to try to get rid of an invading Bugnarok but that barely held and was easily defeated when HFalse blasted the psuedo formation with God Kuwagata ZERO

She's also revealed to be loosely related to Desnarak, the current ruler of Bugnarok as her mother was from the royal bloodline. Though that doesn't change much in the rest of the king's opinion of them.

Throughout the story, she and EFalse grow close, finding common ground in being unfamiliar with ruling a kingdom (Cleo was more of a solo person (solo if you exclude Joe) until the events of the story and Efalse is... Efalse and has no memories), it's to the point where EFalse tries to stop them from taking the fall for Hilbil's brainwashing but fails. (to which there are multiple jokes thrown around about how the two of them act a bit like a married couple)

She gives up her immortality to turn Grodie mortal and eventually beat him, but understands that it's a worthy sacrifice since it has become painful to watch people come and go while they stay immortal until the end of time.

#hermitday #hadm #hermit a day may #zombiecleo #hermitcraft #hermitcraft fanart #hermitcraft au #kingohger #kingohger au #au #alternate universe #art #fanart #digital art #artist on tumblr #hermitblr #hermitkings AU #zombie cleo

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dailycharacteroption · 11 months ago

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Hybrid Class Review: Shaman part 3

(art by EdiktArt on DeviantArt)

Archetypes

And now it’s time to look at the various archetypes associated with the shaman class. It’s actually surprisingly robust for a hybrid class with a major character choice option already built in, but not too expansive.

Certain shamans have different relationships with the spirits they call upon, such as animists, who interact with the spiritual conflicts of objects and have impressive control over their own souls, or possessed shamans, who allow their spirits partial control over their bodies and can tap directly into the knowledge of said spirits. Meanwhile, spirit wardens focus on defeating evil spirits, while unsworn shamans refuse a permanent bond with a spirit, favoring having a motley of different spirits each day.

While most shamans primarily deal with immortal spirits, some favor the souls of the dead, such as Name-Keepers, who honor the fallen of the Pathfinder society and draw upon their skills and abilities, while Speakers of the Past call upon their ancestors and gain abilities more akin to oracle revelations as a result.

Some draw upon spirits associated with rare locations, such as crystal tenders drawing upon rare rock formations, or deep shamans tapping into the deeper waters with their wave spirits or primal wardens that soothe the spirits of wild magic and channel them to erratic but powerful effect. Meanwhile, others tap into strange spiritual creatures, such as the draconic shamans that emulate dragons and gain a drake companion, or the grasping vines who emulate and venerate plants in particular as a manifestation of nature.

Lastly, some shamans simply specialize in a specific application of their spiritual magics, such as the benevolent benefactor, or the controlling power of the overseer. Meanwhile, serendipity shamans call upon blessings of luck, while the true silvered throne is a master of the occult side of the class. Visionaries boast masterful divination abilities, while witch doctors heal maladies of the body and mind.

As we can see, these shaman archetypes represent even further ways to customize the class, everything from improving a specific spirit type to making spirits more interchangeable to simply making them very good at a specific thing. While not the most extensive list of archetypes, nor one that gets a lot of focus what with the spirits, it can provide for those seeking a particular thematic build.

That will do for today, but tomorrow, we’ll talk a bit more about spirits both mechanically and in terms of what “spirit” means in this context.

#pathfinder #hybrid class #review #shaman

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littleeyesofpallas · 2 years ago

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How do you feel about Ikomikidomoe and hikone? I personally think they’re nice additions to the world but I’ve barely seen anyone else talk about them

I think I did a post on that at some point actually, but I'm not in a position to go digging thru my archive on mobile. (found it, but it's mostly just poking at kanji in names rather than really commenting on the characters themselves, so I guess I can do more of that here.)

Broadly speaking I'm not really big on the LNs, least of all Narita Ryogo's. I know he is kind of the most beloved of the ancillary creators for actually addressing many of Kubo's obnoxious loose ends, my main beef with him is that even though he ties a lot of them off he never ties them off satisfactorily, and seemingly just for the sake of saying he did it; there's generally no thematic meat to any of it, all his hooksjust kinda amount to shuffling around Kubo's left overs. And granted, maybe that's a little harsh or unfair of an assessment, but I'm also not a big fan of light novels as a gimmicky genre/format to begin with, so take all that with a grain of salt.

Anyway. Of all the things he did over course of three books in Can't Fear Your Own World, I do think Hikone was a really neat idea. I like the general idea of exploring artificial souls and synthetic life forms and the hybrid spirits and how that all relates to the nature of the soulking as a lynchpin of reality, I'm just not super about the specific plot he built around it all.

I'm not especially in love with Ikomikidomoe specifically, I feel like it either needed more or just different lore or that it could have been done without entirely. I really think Hikone being an artificial god candidate and the nature of what that means and as an excuse to explore how the other canonical attempts to replace god could/would have gone was enough to center a story around. In particular I was already not super fond of some of the late throw away lore additions about zanpakutou that exist independent of a singular individual. (ala Nanao's family sword, and Oh-etsu's harem). I feel like it raised a lot of questions that got immediately swept under the rug and added nothing of value to the lore at large. I don't implicitly hate the idea of a zanpakutou that embodies a different kind of identity apart from that of an individual wielder, but that idea feels like it requires a LOT of additional explaining that we never got. So the fact that Tsunayashiro has an ancestral sword for no particularly meaningful reason, and that Ikomikidomoe has its whole convoluted backstory always kind of annoyed me.

It's a shame too because Narita seems to ever so slightly brush up against an idea that Kubo himself danced around in world building --that the identity manifested in one's inner world as a sword spirit, and the mask a hollow forms from its heart are the same thing, and thus a Menos accumulating myriad hollows within itself to consolidate into one uniform identity is basically the same process as what Oh-etsu describes is behind creating an Asauchi. So the idea of a powerful hollow becoming a zanpakutou or something similar has precedent, but the weird convoluted choice to make Ikomikidomoe specifically a product of Ichibee and Oh-etsu's intervention, rather than a natural consequence of a Menos ascending toward Vastolorde doesn't sit well with me.

On a side note, it bugs me that Kubo just casually threw in the idea that Asauchi are made of, what, hundreds if not thousands of shinigami souls(?) and then just NEVER addressed this weird implication that Soul Society, and Oh-etsu personally, have just, like, institutionally and systematically been committing mass genocides on the regular for all of recorded history? Huge huge mess of a world building flub. Not that it "couldn't" be answered, but that it wasn't, and that the effort it would take to patch up the apparent plot holes it introduces would just be so much effort for the sake of nothing but maintaining the status quo of the story.

Since you've got me in this rant, it's almost the same with the Ouken thing. I'm already not fond of the awkward retcon(ish) thing Kubo did with making the keys the bones of the Royal Guard as if that somehow answered any questions, when the bigger issue had been the idea that, literal key or not, each of the royal guard members was implicitly baptized in the fire of an apparent Sodom & Gomorrah catastrophes with whole cities or other swathes of land, densely packed with living, spiritually aware people being scraped off the face of the earth, ala Aizen's unfulfilled (and frankly Kubo's seemingly half forgotten) plans for Karakura.

And in the face of that weirdness there was a fun unaddressed parallel in the Royal Guard's private "cities" floating up in the royal realm with the king's palace looking like the perfect inversion of the hypothetical hole in the ground we were shown during the Ouken explanation. Were those cities populated? By whom?? Or were they empty? I don't know which possibility is more interesting to explore; that the royal guard each had a whole cult of ascended spirits living with them, each under the domain of one guard, or that the guard just lived in the hollow shells of the sacrifice it took for them to ascend alone to nigh demi-god status.

Was it that the ouken itself was the condensed souls of thousands of people, just like the later reveal about both the asauchi and White, and they died or were otherwise sacrificed to make this object(or i guess imbue the object that is living bones into becoming it(?) god the bone keys thing was dumb...), or did the souls serve some other purpose? Could it have been that rather than melting down living souls to make the key, as was kind of implied, that to create or imbue a key with the power required to function as the ouken it simply needed the presence of those souls? Did access to the god realm require being actively worshipped as a god, by thousands of people, a united spiritual power of a singleminded cult, a city of followers united in ascending the key holder into the realm of god? Who the hell knows ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But on that level, you'd think that's the same as the idea of a family zanpakutou, right? If the zanpkautou imprints or a person to reflect their true inner self which then grows stronger and gains power in the material world thru acknowledging and reconciling with, then implicitly the idea of a zanpakutou shared by a family would imply that its spirit is not a reflection of one person's singular traits, but those shared consistently across generations and in exchange for the lack of personal identity it confers the strength of literally multiple people's worth of power, just all reflected in a single persona.(or maybe not, i dunno, maybe the inner world of a family zanpakutou has some atlab avatar state stuff going on, who knows? Probably not Kubo.) What was the Soukyoku's giant execution blade, its destructive power conspicuously described in a measure of zanpakutou, if not a massive communal zanpakutou?(complete with its own spirit manifest as a phoenix) And what is Ichigo's inner spirit of a younger Yhwach if not the communal spirit of the Quincy bloodline? Andi n the context of these sorts of escalations of scale and power, is then the soul king actually a "human soul" in the way the cycle of human/quincy and shinigami and hollow all traffic in the same base elemental "stuff"? Or was the Soul King not that type of a "person" at all, and just a giant collective zanpakutou, a singular spirit reflecting the inner truth of humanity as a whole, and his "bankai" the wheel of reincarnation itself. Anyway that's veering too far off into speculation and potential headcanon.

Getting back to Hikone, though... I like the idea of there being various different approaches to achieving the hybrid spirit form seemingly central to god status. Ichigo was naturally synthesized that way by the circumstances of his birth, Aizen used the hougyoku and "science" to forcibly and unnaturally synthetize himself, Yhwach was seemingly born not by actively joining disparate elements together but by simply being an offshoot of something that was already a hybrid... And then there's Hikone... and while I feel like plot wise there are a lot of issues to there just having been the means to synthesize artificial life just floating around in the background, while characters like Mayuri and Urahara and even Aizen are out there actively struggling with the process, but I like the idea of a kind of middle ground where, ignoring the stupid contrivance of the Gremmy brain thing, Hikone's fundamental contraction isn't quite artificial "life" in the spiritual sense that Bleach deals in so much as it is a "body" without a brain.

But I like the implicit idea of having to draw a line around that. If you can make a thing that fulfills most of the requirements of life, then which things reserved for living personhood can it do and which can it not? If you elevate that to the level of godhood, then it's a fun question that in the grand scheme of things where apparently someone needs to be stripped of their autonomy and sit in the crystal for forever to hold the world together, then can it just be a fake person with no autonomy to lose in the first place? Where as Aizen thought being god would be cool(and was very probably wrong), and Yhwach doesn't seem to want to be god so much as remove him and replace him with ???(unconfirmed: in which it seemed like(ironically) plan A was originally Juugram, and plan B was Uryuu), Hikone is the Indiana Jones rock and the golden idol solution to the problem: Can I just swap god out for this god-shaped bag of rocks and get away with it?

I'm sorry between being at work, and googling images, and then making this silly edit now, I've totally lost my train of thought... Uh... to summarize:

I like Hikone as an idea: I like "synthetic god" as a plot hook.

I like their name having associations with silk and, like, silk worms, as if they were spun and woven like a fiber but also with cocoon imagery attached.

I also think they're a super cute design.

I'd have liked the artificial souls to have more of plot behind them: like what are Urahara and Mayrui's actual goals in making them in the first place, other than just mad science for mad science's sake

I'd have liked for Ichigo's(and Aizen's for that matter; like how was it different and/or insufficient by comparison to Ichgio, or Yhwach or Hikone) hybrid theme to have a better actual conclusion.

I'd have liked better exploration of the nature of god souls and what that requires/means

#bleach meta #bleach #CFYOW #ubuginu hikone

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zwy01 · 1 year ago

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Noble OCs - Ceresthalassa

More OCs from one of my four original noble clans, the Ceresthalassa! They are the Clan of the Earthshakers and their current Clan Leader is Doris Ceresthalassa, whose heir is her daughter Marina Ceresthalassa. Their clan’s soul weapon is trident Eulises.

For complete info please check out the link below:

(Just a quick note, everyone is a noble here. There are no hybrids. In my headcanons “pureblood” and “non-pureblood” are just terms that nobles use with each other to broadly describe how affiliated someone is with their own clan. And I say “broadly” because there is much more to it and I think it deserves a post of its own. For now “pureblood” can be seen as a “strong enough and qualified to inherit the clan’s soul weapon and become Clan Leader” and “non-pureblood” as “an ordinary clan member” kind of thing. And being either has little to do with lineage and more of just the individual itself. Again, definitely posting more on that in the future)

Straight to the characters.

Pangu Ceresthalassa: Pureblood. Entered eternal sleep, belonged to the ancient generations.

Pangu was one of the very first Ceresthalassa Clan Leaders in history. He might even be his clan’s most powerful member to have ever existed. The old noble legends say that he was the one who directly contributed to Lukedonia’s formation, and that is true. He manipulated and shifted the earth beneath him into what would eventually become the perfect home for his kind. There are also stories and myths in the human world that depict Pangu as the primordial being and deity who created the world. Pangu himself would be flattered to hear that he’s viewed as a cosmic superpower if he were still alive. Ooh, how catchy. Planet Earth’s existence precedes his own, so eh, not quite, though a cool title is still a cool title. And a very welcome one too, lol. The humans didn’t worship him for no reason; Pangu did achieve incredible feats in the eyes of mankind. Lukedonia wasn’t the only land he “created”. Pangu took pity on the inhabitants of the world who struggled to survive, so he rearranged many parts of the planet to be more hospitable for life and paved the way for all species to thrive. He gave them food and shelter, and left the rest to them in hopes that they would be able to develop on their own.

And they did. The humans are an obvious example, and Pangu’s name lives to this day. Meanwhile the werewolves worship and thank their own goddess, Mother Moon, for the gifts she bestowed upon them. That’s the legend they pass down from generation to generation, but it was actually Pangu and his descendants who created werewolf herbs as part of their mission on Earth. The werewolves would say that’s false, because no way the origin of their prized herbs have anything to do with nobles. Pangu wouldn’t mind as long as everyone’s doing well; the credit can go to someone else. Pangu used the full extent of his powers for good throughout his lifetime and eventually succumbed to exhaustion. Constantly using his powers on a massive scale took a toll on his body and mind, and while he could’ve lived for longer, he decided that it was time to say goodbye. Before Pangu passed, he entrusted his successor with the mission of being nature’s guardian in his stead. And his successor would pass that ideology to his successors, thus the prominence of the mentality of “must dedicate ourselves to nature” among Ceresthalassa Clan Leaders and clan members. Pangu’s selflessness and kindness would continue to live through his many descendants. However, circumstances have changed since the world entered the modern era. Recent Ceresthalassa Clan Leaders have to adjust their approach because intelligent species are not as good-natured as they were before. Pangu’s creation of an ideal environment has allowed both good and evil to manifest. Would Pangu be saddened if he time traveled and saw all the conflict, pollution, destruction, and extinction in the modern world? Perhaps, but he wouldn’t regret devoting himself to this place. He loved Earth too much. That is the kind of man he was.

While Pangu was a fairly busy man and free time was a luxury to him, he did have some hobbies. One of them was learning transfiguration spells. He loved all things nature. The land, the water, the wind, the trees, the animals… he loved being around them just as much as being them. Pangu was an excellent spell caster and one of his many talents was transforming himself into different things and then blending himself into the background. Poof and he’s gone. He could be a deer, a bird, a flower, or a rock. He could also be a cloud, a butterfly, or a tree stump. Pangu often teased his children by turning himself into a twig or something and they would cry and run around trying to look for their father. Finding him was impossible because he basically changed not only his appearance but also his aura to match his surroundings. Then he’d release himself from the spell, turn back into himself, and shout “Papa’s here!” while pulling his children into a big hug. Pangu also did this to prank his clan members whenever they went looking for him. It was quite funny to see them crane their necks to the sky and shout “Clan Leader?? Is that you???” at a random cloud. Nah, fellas. Can’t you see that I’m the squirrel on this tree right here? Well of course you wouldn’t know, because my spell is perfect. Mhm. Again, Pangu would turn back into himself when he’s had enough fun. Sigh. They can’t get him to not play hide-and-seek. He’s always winning anyway, how is he not bored yet?!

Pangu’s other hobby was sleeping. To be precise, napping at random intervals. Using his powers all the time took out big chunks of his energy, and while nobles don’t require sleep to function, it’s nice to simply feel time flow in peace and quiet. Pangu would cast a spell on himself so he’s in deep sleep, and nothing can wake him up before time is up and the spell wears off by itself. Pangu often joked about how this is the opportunity for people with grudges against him to come over and slap him across the face all they want because he wouldn’t know anyway. Free facial massage for me, even better! Ho ho! Hey, c’mon, that was a good one, why aren’t y’all laughing?

Pangu had two children. His eldest became Clan Leader after him.

To this day, members of the Ceresthalassa Clan put offerings in front of Pangu’s statue for good luck.

Khumbo Ceresthalassa: Non-pureblood. Nephew of Tabitha Pyradros. Alive in the present day, belongs to the Previous Lord’s generation.

Khumbo is earnest and disciplined. He takes great pride in being organized, and likes to stick to his plans. He’d make a plan, and a backup plan, and a backup plan for his backup plan, and so on. Khumbo is usually calm, but sometimes freaks out when something goes astray. His job is weather control and he oversees several fields of food grown by the Ceresthalassa Clan. Khumbo is good at weather manipulation and his specialty is generating rainclouds. He’s very serious about his job, and once he went to his Clan Leader Doris crying about how he has to resign because he’s incompetent and irresponsible. A very confused Doris managed to figure out what he was saying through all that intense sobbing, and turns out his raincloud generated one milliliter more of rainwater than he had planned for the tomato field’s watering, and now he thinks his life as a weather controller is over and the crops are all going to die. He kept going on about how he has never made a mistake in his entire career until now, and he’s too ashamed to continue to work for the clan. It took Doris and Khumbo’s colleagues some time to calm him down and convince him that it’s okay and he should just relax, because no one needs to be that accurate. Khumbo took that as a literal order and on his daily to-do list, he has “Relax” written in bold as the first thing up there. Well, that’s one way of interpreting it for sure.

Khumbo’s dedication doesn’t stop there. He checks every single vegetable in the field and takes note of any differences between them, then meticulously evaluates the individual patches of soil underneath to spot even the slightest deviations from the intended uniform moisture, acidity, salinity, etc. Again, he ended up going to Doris crying about how turns out he has to resign anyway because one tomato was smaller and less red than the rest, and that must’ve been his fault. Doris had to remind him that plants naturally come in different colors, shapes and sizes. Oh right, forgot about that. He’s just really trying to do a good job. Someone give him a pat on the back.

Khumbo’s hobby is bird-watching. He loves to observe all kinds of birds in their natural habitats, and he’s very happy because Lukedonia has a lot of them. He has a sketchbook where he draws the birds while he watches them from a distance. His favorites are herons and other aquatic birds. He hopes that his future children will treasure this sketchbook just as much as him, because nature is full of wonders and one should take time to experience it in the fullest.

Khumbo’s partner is an unnamed Kravei.

Diantha Ceresthalassa: Pureblood. Great-grandmother of Doris Ceresthalassa. Entered eternal sleep, belonged to the ancient generations.

Diantha was a Clan Leader. Like her ancestor Pangu, she was very committed to planet Earth and succeeded the Ceresthalassa’s mindset of protecting the environment and all living beings in it. She tended to the land and sea just like her predecessors. Diantha dedicated much of her lifetime seeking to improve the quality of life for Earth’s inhabitants, and one of her greatest achievements was enhancing werewolf welfare. She loved humans too, but werewolves had a special place in her heart. To her, they are the most beautiful people in existence. Maybe even more so than her own kind, the nobles. Diantha couldn’t explain why, but she felt very strongly about it and her feelings towards the werewolves could’ve even been unconditional love.

Diantha had some talent for earth-shifting as well, just not quite at her ancestor Pangu’s level, though he is probably an outlier anyway. Diantha’s one true talent was creating herbs. She figured out a way for werewolves to have portable access to medicine, nutritional supplements, and more. Pangu may have started it, but Diantha was the one who perfected it. Diantha used her powers to make special plants that responded to the aura of werewolves. These special plants only grow near werewolf settlements. If a werewolf clan collectively abandons their home, they die out in that region. Instead, they sprout in the clan’s new home once they settle down. You can say these plants know to “follow” the werewolves wherever they go. The presence of a single werewolf is enough to get these plants to grow in nearby soil, though they’d appear in bigger numbers if there are more werewolves, which marks the advantage of a populated clan. This gift would later be known as Mother Moon’s herbs. Today, they’re staples for curing illnesses, boosting nutrition, temporarily heightening senses, numbing pain, and many other important functions.

Diantha interacted with werewolves on a regular basis, though she always disguised herself by manipulating her aura and appearance so that she looked like one of them. Her disguise gave her silver hair and silver eyes; the same shade of silver as the beautiful, shining moon. Despite her humbleness, the werewolves were able to recognize this mysterious woman as the one who blessed them with herbs. When they asked for her name, she panicked and pointed to the sky because she didn’t know how to respond. The werewolves interpreted it as “I come from the moon”, hence the title Mother Moon. Diantha somehow accidentally became the werewolves’ goddess who descended from the sky. Well, too late to back out now, might as well live up to it. Once every decade, Diantha visited werewolf clans across the world in her usual disguise. She played with the children and explained to the adults the full extent of each herb’s functions. They all believed that she was a real goddess from the moon, and why wouldn’t they? They had every reason to. Unfortunately, the werewolves never got to see their Mother Moon again after Diantha passed, as none of her descendants continued with this tradition. Her herbs are everywhere, but she is gone forever. The werewolves assume she went back to the moon. They are hopeful that she will bless them with her presence again someday. Some of the younger werewolves think that their elders are crazy for saying that Mother Moon is real and not just a personification. Well, what can I say except seeing is believing.

Diantha’s partner was an unnamed Ru.

Mian-Hua Ceresthalassa: Non-pureblood. Wife of Rubino Elenor, mother of Rozaria Elenor. Alive in the present day, belongs to the Previous Lord’s generation.

Mian-Hua is gentle yet firm. While she lets her husband Rubino enjoy himself with his pranks, she never hesitates to reprimand him whenever he takes it a bit too far. Rubino’s pranks are all harmless, just annoying to those who don’t really share his sense of humor. Mian-Hua does think it’s very entertaining to watch Rubino run wild with his mischievousness, just that she’d be the one apologizing to the receiving end because someone has to be polite. Mian-Hua was the one who apologized to Edian when her husband cast a chipmunk voice spell on her which caused her to not speak for half the day because she was too embarrassed to open her mouth. And that time when Rubino used a superglue spell and slapped a colorful toupee on Lagus’ bald head, except maybe that doesn’t really count because the latter actually took a liking to it and kept it there until it fell off. Well, guess there is some good in his tricks. When wife and husband go home at the end of the day, they’d laugh about the day’s highlights. Their household is lively, and their little daughter Rozaria would grow up in a warm, loving environment.

Mian-Hua is a professional cellist. She is a member of Marina’s orchestra and regularly performs at the grand concert hall of Lukedonia. Rubino would cheer for his beloved wife from the very first row though he’d get shushed by his fellow audience for making too much noise. Rozaria probably stepped in at times too and covered her father’s mouth with her hand whenever he got too carried away. He can’t help it, he just adores his wife so much! Mian-Hua can hear him from the stage and she appreciates his enthusiasm just as much as she’s physically cringing at it. Well, he’s too cute, so she’ll let it slide. Mian-Hua also likes to perform solo. One of her favorite activities is sitting on the beach on a stormy, rainy day and playing her cello to the raging waters. The sound of nature is her orchestra. Her cello is protected with a moisture repellent spell, of course, because her husband gave it to her as a courting gift when they were young teens in love, and she treasures this instrument with all her soul. Mian-Hua misses Rubino very much since he entered eternal sleep with the Previous Lord. She would imagine that the sea is him, and dedicates a song to him every year on their anniversary at the beach where they first met. Sometimes the Ceresthalassa sea monsters would gather by the shore and listen to Mian-Hua’s cello playing, and that’d get them into music. Some of them even ended up joining the orchestra. Mian-Hua has a starfish monster buddy named Robert who joined the orchestra because he was intrigued by her performance, and at some point decided to learn the clarinet for himself. Marina ain’t complaining. Her orchestra grows by the day. The more the merrier!

Mian-Hua’s other hobby is cleaning and purifying coral reefs. Like Doris and Marina, Mian-Hua loathes modern pollution and blames the humans for it. Every other day, she dives into the water and uses her noble powers to reverse damage caused by contamination. Mian-Hua isn’t a pureblood, so she doesn’t have the ability to cast purification spells on a large scale. She has to do them one by one. Still, she thinks her contributions mean a lot.

Mian-Hua is currently dating an unnamed Blerster.

Yehonatan Ceresthalassa: Non-pureblood. Not-so-distant relatives with Gradeus. Alive in the present day, belongs to Raskreia’s generation.

Yehonatan is obsessed with beautiful things. He loves his Ceresthalassa ancestors for creating countless marvels, but he also hates them for setting a time limit. You see, Yehonatan only loves things when they’re still young, fresh, and beautiful. The moment flowers start to wilt, he goes into a fit of rage and destroys them on the spot. It’s almost as if he’s taking it personally. He starts dreading their inevitable decay when they’ve only begun to sprout. And no, he doesn’t want fake flowers, he only wants the real deal.

This applies to people as well. As an extrovert, Yehonatan enjoys the company of others. He’s a good friend. But, he’ll only stick around for so long, and he’ll leave as soon as they show signs of aging: wrinkles, thinning hair, raspy voice, etc. any evidence of a ticking clock. Seeing his friends age terrifies Yehonatan and hurts him to the core, and he has to cut them off or else he’ll feel the urge to kill them. He’ll tell them he can’t see them in person anymore but he’ll stay in touch with them through letters without giving any sort of explanation whatsoever. Yehonatan has no personal grudges against them, he just can’t stand the loss of beauty. To him, the ideal world is where everything and everyone is forever at their prime and frozen in time. For this reason, he hates autumn and winter because falling leaves and bare branches torment his soul, and he gets so upset he starts to have violent meltdowns. He can’t look at them for two seconds without wanting to strangle himself or someone else, thus he never leaves home during those seasons and only goes outside during spring and summer. People joke about how he’s hibernating. Makes sense, he’s probably hibernating for his own sanity.

Yehonatan is young now, but he too will grow old one day and when the time comes, he’ll probably never go outside again and shut himself in his home until he dies. That, or he’ll cover up completely so nothing shows. He thinks anything past its prime is hideous and a disgrace to the world, including his future self.

Yehonatan’s hobby is using his aura to create holographic projections of everything he loves, and he seals them in small artifacts so he can replay them whenever he desires. He collects these items as a way for him to stay connected to the world once he decides he doesn’t deserve to be a part of it anymore; when his youth leaves him one day and he has no choice but to condemn himself to eternal self-exile.

Yehonatan is currently single and has not thought about dating yet.

Thank you for reading and stay tuned for future posts!

#noblesse #manhwa #myart #original character #oc #pangu ceresthalassa #khumbo ceresthalassa #diantha ceresthalassa #mian-hua ceresthalassa #yehonatan ceresthalassa

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