#Yunes Rambling

[parttime-creative]

Tonight my fever and flu ridden brain made the glorious decision to make me dream that my body is the Normandy (Mass Effect) and that the crew is responsible for my well being. While Tali Zor'ah kept warning about the E-Zero-Core overheating (my fever) and demanding an energy-recalibration Garrus Vakarian kept on going how perfect he calibrated my guns (arms).

I can't get over Garrus gleefully calibrating my arm while the rest of the shit is literally burning up xD

Oh btw the biotic-girlies (Samara, Liara, Miranda and Jack) did their best to hold the hull together (aka my sore muscles from all the coughing) and Zaeed kept on complaining, that the trash shoot malfunctioned.... What that means I'll leave up to your imagination.

Somewhere in the middle of the night EDI shut down and Garrus finally managed to recalibrate the energy distribution.... I think... At least I am feeling better.

That was definitely the weirdest but somehow also best fever dream I've ever had

[randomingoftherandomness]

Your top 10 c-actors and top 10 c-actresses?

Oooo hm. I'll be honest with you and say that I don't actually watch as much Chinese dramas as people might think haha... It takes a very special premise to pull me in and even then, I usually don't end up liking 70% of whatever is on and abandoning it by the 3rd episode.

That said, I'm going to limit my picks to the top 5 off the top my head in each category. These are actors and actresses who, by virtue of their names being attached to a project, will get me interested in making it to episode 5 and of whom I have watched more than 2 projects that they've been a part of.

Actors

Leo Wu

Our family's Fei Liu 🥰 I know, I know. Didi is the furthest thing from Fei Liu these days, but in my mind, he'll forever be Fei Liu and there's a huge part of me that will always adore him for that. Throughout the years, his projects have been a hit or a miss with me. Either I'll like them or I won't. Which is what I like. I don't want to like everything my faves are part of.

Joseph Zeng

(Look at that happy baby hahaha)

I can't remember which project I first saw him in, or how he even pinged on my radar. But before I knew it, I'd watched three of his dramas and I was about to watch more.

Qin Hao

THIS. DUDE. He's such a powerhouse of an actor and I AM--

He chooses some of the most intense projects and I'm so, so here for them. There's this magnetic quality to the way he acts and every time I get to see him onscreen, I'm absolutely mesmerised. I also have to be honest and say that I haven't had a change to work through his body of work, but I think it's just a matter of time (and mental space) before I do.

Liu Yuning

I believe some moots on this hellsite have had front row seats to my thirsting of this tall, thin, sassy da ge and I won't apologise for any of it. 100//10 would climb him in a heartbeat.

I fell for his voice first before I even knew his face (花开早 天知晓 天莫笑 天亦老~~!!!) and then I saw his face and BAM. Goner. Goodbye ovaries. You might be thinking, oh Gab you're just horny on main for him, to which I will say, yes, yes I am. Isn't that reason enough for me to have gone watch the variety show he was on WITHOUT SUBS. My banana ass went through a lot for this man ok? That's love.

Zhang Linghe

HIM. Saw him in Maiden Holmes. Watched how he acts with his eyes. Okay. Sold. Over the last couple of years, the one drama I really wanted to see him in was the TGCF live action adaptation, which as we all will know, won't be seeing the light of day any time soon. He was actually on my fancast list for Hua Cheng and I was pretty gratified when they announced that he was taking on the role.

He's been doing well for himself and I've liked him the dramas that have caught my eye, and I look forward to what he will bring to the table next. Even if he had been, unfairly in my opinion, saddled with this perception that his dramas have a difficult time getting to air.

Actress

Zhao Liying

Zhao Liying is someone with a face that is so sweet that you'd go into her projects thinking that she's going to portray one type of character then getting body slammed into a spiral of a drama length like The Story of Minglan.

Zhao Lusi

This woman is on track to being the best actress of her generation. Period. You can't fight me on this because you know I'm right.

She's an absolute powerhouse and there's this sense about her that she isn't afraid to get ugly, go roll in the mud and get dirty just to portray a character. I love that about her. There's just this sense of joy to watch her act because she's not just embodying the character, she IS the character. I wouldn't be surprised if her international audience reach is really big because it's what a Queen like her deserves.

Tian Xiwei

Now, she is someone that I never thought I would be into. But I think the dimples should have been a good indication that I was gonna get suckered into her projects and for that, I'm glad. I've only seen bits and bobs of three of her projects, but if the way that I am actually intrigued by the projects she takes on is any clue, I think I'll be sufficiently entertained.

Liu Mintao

Every time I see her, I wanna just be on my knees and call her Mother.

She is absolutely fantastic in every role she takes on. The gentle but steely Consort Jing in Nirvana in Fire? The nurturing and protective Ming Jing in The Disguiser? Check and Check. Love her. I low key think she's a chameleon. Her body of work speaks to the quality of her acting.

Esther Yu

(listen. LISTEN. I HAD TO INCLUDE ONE OF THE HOTTEST KISS SCENES IN CDRAMALAND THAT ISN'T A DEAD FISH LIPS SITUATION OK)

The first time she ever pinged on my radar, it was because of her antics with Lisa from Blackpink during her Produce days. Found her cute and endearing, but that was it. And then came Love Between Fairy and Devil. Without knowing, I fell in love with her charms. She is another actress I think isn't afraid to own being neck deep in the nitty and gritty and not looking perfect. I'm very interested to see what sort of projects she takes on, and judging by her Yun Weishan in My Journey to You, I think there'll be much to anticipate.

[astranauticus]

So Zhou Shen sang the OP of the new live action Three Body Problem adaptation and its an absolute BANGER so here’s a translation because I’m obsessed

永恒孤独 - Eternal Loneliness

无止境地漂流 到 黑暗森林尽头

Endless drifting towards the end of the dark forest

风之手 把时间挽留

Hands of the wind, retaining time

谁是带枪猎人 要 吞噬整个宇宙

Who is the gun-wielding hunter, trying to swallow the whole universe

光之眼 把梦穿透

eyes of the light, piercing through dreams

请不要回答

Please do not respond

谁眼睛渴望 装满星空

Whos eyes, yearning to be filled with the starry sky

地球不再转动

The Earth no longer spins

你赠我小宇宙

As you gift me a miniature universe

在宇宙怀中

In the universe' embrase

渺小地呼唤 浩翰时空

Our tiny cries in the endless expanse of space-time

世界隐隐作痛

The world aches gently

剩永恒孤独

With only eternal loneliness left

你却留下 爱 爱 爱

Yet you leave behind love, love, love

恒星如灯塔指引我重生

The stars, like a lighthouse, guide me towards rebirth

无止境地漂流 到 黑暗森林尽头

Endless drifting towards the end of the dark forest

风之手 把时间挽留

Hands of the wind, retaining time

谁是带枪猎人 要 吞噬整个宇宙

Who is the gun-wielding hunter, trying to swallow the whole universe

光之眼 把梦穿透

eyes of the light, piercing through dreams

请不要回答

Please do not respond

谁眼睛渴望 装满星空

Whos eyes, yearning to be filled with the starry sky

地球不再转动

The Earth no longer spins

你赠我小宇宙

As you gift me a miniature universe

在宇宙怀中

In the universe' embrace

渺小地呼唤 浩翰时空

Our tiny cries in the endless expanse of space-time

世界隐隐作痛

The world aches gently

剩永恒孤独

With only eternal loneliness left

你却留下 爱 爱 爱

Yet you leave behind love, love, love

恒星如灯塔指引我重生

The stars, like a lighthouse, guide me towards rebirth

[ruiconteur]

translation: 《奉上》 offer up by liu yuning

i have not stopped thinking about this song ever since i first heard it :D 谢啦宁哥

[potahun]

help whenever mxdzt posts from you popped up on my dash i assumed it was another acronym for like, a webnovel or donghua or something but i only just looked it up and learned it's a cvariety?? anyways please go ahead and pitch it to me/ramble if you want because i am intrigued

THANK YOU FOR ASKING AAAA <3 sobs a little bc mxdzt/明星大侦探 is so niche here but to be honest, i think it is one of my top comfort shows if not The comfort show and i usually feel very alien to the term 'comfort show'. it feels fair to say mxdzt is one tho TT

Concept:

It IS a variety show, you're right. It's like a reality show but mostly a murder-mystery show, initially co-hosted by CCTV presenter Sa Beining and the He Jiong, the He laoshi himself that everyone and their mothers know ...except, for once, they're not there hosting as the top MCs they are. They, and the guests, 85% of which soon became regulars, are playing a murder-mystery game. Each episode, each of the guests embody a character within a story, and a murder (or several) happens, that the players have to solve together. Among them hides the murderer (or several), who is the only player allowed to lie, and whom the other players have to try and vote out at the end. Also among them, one player will be the Detective, who has an extra vote, and has to act as a leader of the good guys.

(Side note: From S4 onwards, there is also a Detective Assistant, who's basically a smart non-celebrity helping to take notes, sometimes having a minor role to move the plot along...In time, the team of Detective Assistants have gotten their own spin-off show called 名侦探学院, because they're a riot (Xiao Pu is my favorite))

It's almost jarring the 1st time you watch it if you know them as celebrities, because the show starts and they're in-character right off the bat. They break in and out of character, sometimes to laugh their heads off, but mostly, they act a role with different levels of seriousness throughout the episode, so it's a very different vibe from regular c-varieties where they're themselves :D At the same time, it's clearly a reality show in which those people are extremely familiar, casual and silly with each other. Players often refer to each other only by their last names in the show for this reason, so that it refers to both player and character.

So yeah, there is 开始推理吧 with Zhou Shen and Liu Yuning, and there is MXDZT, which is its still enduring predecessor. mxdzt is pure murder-mystery without the escape room element. But it does have a lot of times where the guests are really pulled into the story, and events happen in-game, moving the story along. And oh boy, those are intense stories sometimes...

General facts:

Each season has 12 episodes, and there are currently 9 seasons. Most episodes are stand alone, even when verses are recurring, it's fine to watch them out-of-order. S8 is the only exception where it introduced a central character and a story that tied half the season together (TT<3). Another exception is the season starters and finales (eps 1-2 and 11-12 of each season) which tend to be stories in two parts with a deeper mystery behind the setting.

From S1 to S6, Sa Beining and He Jiong were the main hosts, with regulars being the likes of Zhang Ruoyun, Da Zhangwei, Wei Daxun, Bai Jingting, Wang Ou, Yang Rong, Gui Gui, Wei Chen and Liu Haoran. After S6, Sa Beining left due to CCTV not allowing him to work in other channels' shows :( but more regulars returned or joined, like Wu Xin, Qi Wei...An array of people I didn't know much before watching but all grew to love.

The show functions using rounds of group discussions and evidence-searching time, and then final votes, to get to the murderer and reveal the story. Players will not speak about themselves unless triggered by the right evidence, but once evidence is found, they cannot lie about it...unless they're the murderer.

Charm points?

The stories...While S1 was still simple, MXDZT evolved rapidly over time and by S4-S5 became a mammoth of story-telling, creatively exploring a whole range of themes like smiling depression, societal obsession with beauty and its tragedies, toxic masculinity, generational conflicts and reconciliations in families, mob mentality, the danger of cults, and the individuality of thoughts vs collectivity etc etc...in more and more depth, through intricate stories with memorable characters and great delivery and wild plot twists. There are always clever ways in which something will trigger a character story, mixing story and gameplay, and it helps that most of the players are actors: sometimes, they do get invested in their own characters! The range of acting goes from exaggeratedly bad for laughs to heartwrenching and elegantly grave. You thought it was a donghua I was babbling about for that reason in part, bc it's as much variety as it is about stories TT The show reuses its verses sometimes, too, so it's always a pleasure to see the running gags or the expanding lore.

The laughs. As the seasons progress, the show did go from a simple game to building real poignant, and deep stories with a message, some of which have made me cry ;~; BUT all the while being an absolute laugh-riot full of Ace Attorney-style names (pianist called Zhen Huitan? sketchy doctors called You Maobing? a man called He Baodan?) and so many PUNS and jokes and a loving post-prod that is so good at putting the right captions and effects. Not only this, but the show is not afraid of swerving back-and-forth between outright crack and the most touching storyline. Emotional whiplash is a big thing in the show. But when it's funny, god, it's FUNNY. and it is So often funny...

Cast. As mentioned, most of the cast rapidly became regulars. The show requires a lot of IQ, focus, thinking and also relative eloquence, and just a set of skills that isn't for all celebrities tbh. So those who stayed did for a long time, and grew comfortable with each other. I rarely watch a variety in which the cast has so much chemistry and are so chill with each other. They casually ship each other (so many ships), poke fun, develop their inside jokes... He Jiong x Sa Beining alone was the epitome of a self-proclaimed married-and-divorced-and-remarried-and-re-divorced miracle. It's also difficult to explain before watching but it's a very refreshing feeling to watch them slip in and out of character, giving this seamless mix of players being themselves, and also a character within a story and a fictional universe.

Gameplay! You can solve murder too as you watch! You can figure it out along with the players. But if you don't want to, you can just watch and wait for it to unfold! Both are ok!

Freedom to cherry-pick: While 9 seasons can be daunting and the episodes are Long TM, the show also makes it incredibly easy to watch out of order... or just watch the ones that intrigute you.

Episodes Recs:

IF you are a looking for an episode to start with, my rec is always S5E1 and S5E2, called Pianists on The Sea. You can skip the piano competition at the start of Ep1 (it's so incredibly cringe and lasts 10 mins. i love those idiots but it's so cringe). S5E1 is a murder-mystery as we know it taking place on a cruise, but what's wrong with the boat...and then S5E2 is just. oohhhhh my god. so much is wrong with the boat. The reason I pick this one is that it illustrates very well the kind of breadth the show has ;W;

Also, S6E1 and S6E2 Midnight Hotel which packs an absolute PUNCH.

I would recommend watching S6 as a whole, every ep is fun. Same with S8, which punches me in the gut again and again.

I also have my other rec lists here (with some explanation on the premise of eps recced) and here (i believe this was before S8 broke my heart (positive)) if ever helpful.

Voilà, here is my rambling for MXDZT, thank you for giving me the opportunity to babble about it <3 I haven't encompassed everything that makes this show wild and incredible, but it has to be lived. One thing is for sure though:

MXDZT is a show in which anything, and i mean literally anything, can happen.

And it's beautiful <3

[aptericia]

reposting my Soan design with a back view and some adjustments! Ramblings under the readmore:

The bracers, shin guards, maroon belt, and useless little arm-things are all taken from his official transformed artwork. There are a few differences between the game CG and his Cipher card, so I just picked whichever version of each item I liked better

His face markings are also taken from his transformed version. I decided he keeps the large one on his forehead but not the ones over his nose and cheeks (like Skrimir does)

All the lions have straight hair while transformed, even if they have curly hair normally, so it’s hard to tell what texture Soan’s hair would be. I decided to keep it straight and (relatively) short like his mane, but added hair ties for more interest. I made it a brighter green—more like Stefan’s hair—than his official art because I thought that looked better with his color scheme

No known lions are shown with tails untransformed, but I thought he should have one, so here we are 🤷‍♀️

The outfit is based most closely on Caineghis’s, but I tried to make it look less “kingly” (i.e. shorter tunic, no cape, etc.), as I imagine this is before he founds Gallia. The pattern along the bottom of his tunic and the abundance of tassels are inspired by Altina’s design. The eye-like pattern along the purple trim is also on Altina’s outfit, and the same motif is present in Sanaki, Sephiran, Light Priestess Micaiah, Ashera, and Yune’s designs

It’s noted that beast laguz have excellent night vision, but rather poor daytime vision compared to the bird laguz, suggesting that they have a higher ratio of rods to cones in their eyes. So to them, light/dark differences would be more apparent than color differences. I considered that when coloring Soan’s outfit and made sure it would be readable in grayscale

his hair and skin tones ended up pretty close though :/

Thanks for reading! 🤗

[dirtyoldmanhole]

guilty pleasure ramble about how i'd slot my self insert + zihark into fates since it feels inevitable after tellius/fe13(<where it got started)/feh

ironically mostly tellius & fates magic nerding, no worries. worldbuilding!

this is going to be incomprehensible without context lol, so: long story short i've spent the past uh. 20 years plopping those two in various FE worlds.

while tellius was naturally where it started, the story really solidified with fe13's spotpass characters and me trying to retcon (a) how tf they're viewed to the other living characters (shades, ghosts?) and how they got there, and (b) the avatar-tactician being all but a necromancer nosferatsu tank raising ghosts from her past and how the hell chrom + co would actually find that creepy.

(i need to name her at least for talking publicly. let's uh - bright eyes was ironically a name that a lot of dark mages started calling her way later on once she started hunting them down in tellius proper (the OG world) and she kind of likes that power trip. so let's go with that.)

anyway - bright eyes' (tellius) backstory is that she almost died as a kid from a sickness while growing up in begnion and unintentionally became a spirit charmer when making a pact out of sheer desperation of 'i don't want to die'. (-so be it, said the spirit).

so she gets regeneration and stunted aging at the cost of health.

a lot of the resulting tension of the story comes from playing with the dark sides of regeneration - not being able to die but still feeling pain, how can it be twisted into an advantage, etc. (if you've read the manga ajin, i loved how it really knuckled into the body horror and psychological horror of simple regeneration alone and how creatively it can be taken. are you yourself after being decapitated? if those two "parts" stay separate who *is* your true self? is the only way to stop somebody who can infinitely regenerate to cut them up in pieces and bury them alive? etc .... it gets dark yea)

anyway as time goes on, empress sanaki notices bright eyes during the mad king's war (being a simple mage that tags along with ike's army), and has her on retainer much like tormod investigating daein. (you can probably figure how things go when radiant dawn kicks off, and who she runs into again).

but while tormod's more there to investigate whether begnion's occupation is legit, bright eyes is there keeping tabs on dark mages and taking them out since she's gotten vastly better at combat.

since here's the thing - especially in tellius dark mages are much rarer/either begnion-sanctioned/branded/spirit charmers. there's a lot of fascinating social power dynamics i think are hinted in who gets sanctioned mage education and which kind of accepted mage training ... holy priests vs like, underground hedgewitches.

with the begnion empire and worship of ashera as monocultural? universal? as it is, i get the feeling that dark mages are seen as the "other evil" much like yune ("dark god" and all) - likewise, i am so fascinated by that one dark mage boss you get to see in p3 of radiant dawn. who'd he get trained by.

"dang bright eyes is a cop???" lol. yes, but rest assured that too is played with - when does it hit about hunting down kin, more similar than those who are your handlers? i love this kind of messy shit. consider it the ex-fundamentalist background of the author.

anyway, which! brings me to fates-verse.

nyx' whole eternal-youth-but-what-cost-curse-backstory instantly stood out to me as something similar (writing YRMR solidified my thoughts on how incredibly powerful and prestigious mages are in nohr compared to tellius; almost like minor nobles in their own regard) - but i also don't want to take that and copy it wholesale. that said bright eyes being nohrian feels patently obvious with the vampire background that nation has, lol; she'd always be the monster of the two.

zihark on the other hand feels easy; dead ringer for a hoshido mercenary - sort of like shura in he's willing to take on dirty jobs and crosses the borders into nohr unusually often for a hoshidan. almost frequently enough that a few folks mistake him for a nohrian at first (kind of like how no one in ike's army knew he was daein despite sothe himself also being daein).

but going back -

i kind of like the idea of bright eyes actually starting off in iago's mage guild; i want to explore how deeply fucked up nohrian's magic power dynamics are with the most emphasized bits of magic are mind wipes, faceless, sapping willpower, assassination via illusions ... simply controlling fire/ice feels positively tame in comparison.

anyway bright eyes basically trading health for regeneration as a way to survive in the mage's guild training feels remarkably on script there. all the baby mages trying to figure out how to "cheat" survival and the backstabbing until they graduate....

and well. can't kill a monster that just keeps coming back.

[emblemxeno]

Different anon, but yeah, it's unfortunate Sothis was underutilized. I did wish a new game plus option was to let Sothis take over late pre-time skip so she can be fleshed out post-time skip. It's a loss of avatar, but given it's a second playthrough, that sacrifice is fine to me.

Heck, if Byleth could still speak to Sothis alone, it could flesh them out too. Just imagine the amount of dialogue between the Nabateans and her, the extra dialogue they could have packed into Silver Snow to help the player understand what occurred during the first war of Liberation. The sheer discomfort of the students having to grapple with a professor that is no longer the person they know.

...Think of memories Sothis could dream about between chapters that could serve as a parallel to the present war. The amount of sass between her and Nemesis in battle on the Golden Deer route.

And now I'm disappointing myself for all the lost potential of it. I'm sorry about rambling over this, I'll go shut up now.

No worries!

And yeah it's just disappointing, that's all that culminates in describing Sothis. And she only disappears cuz of Thales pulling powers out of a hat like all the Slithers do, it's clear they didn't have a an actually organic way to remove her from the plot.

And I know "different writers" and all that, but damn, if Yune was allowed to have proper conversations with the Tellius cast, why the hell is Sothis exempt? Why can't we have fun anymore?

[ajaxbell]

Master Links Post

Tumblr is where we're allowed to be weirdly obsessive, right? Because I can't even pretend to be normal about the things I post. Mostly just rambling about cdramas and c-ent stars. Lots of reblogs, some original content, many many pics posts pulled mostly from Weibo and Douyin.

Here’s the links:

C-ent stars posts

Wang Yibo Yibo-a-Day (I tried to watch a WYB performance every day)

Xiao Zhan

Tan Jianci TJC Shanghai concert posts TJC Beijing concert posts

Dilraba Dilmurat

Gong Jun

Yang Zi

Zhang Linghe

Deng Wei

Wang Hedi

Wang Kai

Alen Fang

Liu Shishi

Liu Yuning

C-ent stars commentary:

Very Specific Fetish Photoshoots

Tan Jianci reacts to a kiss

Cdrama posts & meta

Cdrama show reviews, meta, gifsets, and commentary. Plus just a lot of ridiculous flailing over things I like.

A League of Nobleman

Watch it!

Gazes

Lost You Forever

Gifsets 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

Xiao Yao at the Crossroads

But Can They F*ck

Kisses

Bonus Xiang Liu Kiss

Can't we all live in Qingshui Town?

Love Between Fairy and Devil

Gifset 1

Dylan Wang's kisses

Nirvana in Fire

Watch it!

Behind the Flames (behind the scenes pics)

Fanfic: Moonlight Through the Parting Clouds

Story of Kunning Palace

Review: everything I shouldn't like and I love it

Just my unhinged rambling on Xie Wei as a character

Musings on Yan Lin, a lethal little love puppy

The Truth Season 2 (Variety Show)

Slightly fixed subtitle files

Pilot ep recap

Unhinged rambling about the gayness of eps 1-3

My clips of the show

All my posts on The Truth S2

Other Shows

The Journey of Chong Zi - everyone in this show deserved better

Back from the Brink - More fun than I expected

Butterflied Lover - Very unusual (in a good way)

Hard to Find - great for the goth teen in my soul

[authoralexharvey]

(Character number 2. :) I hope you're loving my disaster space found family.)

*The ten year old sits down with her feet dangling off the floor, kicking them idly* Hi. I'm Terra. I don't have a last name. I can't remember it. Sorry. We just use Yune's 'cause he's our guardian and it's easier. Nice to meet you. I like your place. It looks like it came out of a fairytale. I told Will I'd go first, 'cause he's being a big baby. He's my twin. Can you really tell the future with cards? That's so cool! Can you answer questions with an UNO deck? We have one. That would be so neat to learn.

My question? Um... I don't think I'm allowed to ask this, 'cause no one's supposed to know, but... Can you keep a secret? Ok. ... Me and Will are part of the One Thousand. Everyone knows we're supposed to save the galaxy - all of us - but how do we do that? We're all just kids. How can we possibly save anything let alone a whole galaxy? No one knows what we're supposed to do, we're just supposed...to do it. And...and because Me and Will were...changed... we're not Terran anymore - we don't know what we are, we were told they gave us a tool to save the galaxy, but since we're not terran, are...are we even still part of the One Thousand anymore?

I'm sorry if that's hard to answer. Maybe I should have asked if I'll ever meet Tylan Denly. He's that really cute boy on "Laki Rift." Boys are gross, but he's not. He has really pretty lavender eyes and fluffy hair.

Are those all your cards? ooooo pretty. I really like this one. Ethereal Visions. It's got a lot of purple and pink, and I like the artwork.

Hello again! I'm having fun with the personality you inject into each of them ^^

--

Alex's 300 Follower Tarot Extravaganza

--

In all her time since starting classes at this college, she has seen a lot... but not a ten-year old. She has half a mind to worried how the child in front of her and how she got on the mesa to begin with. Of course, that's not something she can directly ask her. And, somehow, she thinks this ten-year old in particular can handle herself better than the other children she's seen. Maybe.

"Hello there," she says, taking her deck box in hand. "These are some of my cards. I have a lot of them, can you believe it?" Then, after a moment of feigned deep thought, she says, "How about this. Don't tell anyone else I did this--they might get mad and think it's unfair--but just for you, I'll answer both questions, okay?"

She thinks again of Ines as she shuffles. She can't help it. First the angst-riddled teen and now a child even younger? It makes her heart hurt for her brother. Wherever he's found himself, she offers him a quick prayer before returning her attention to the girl before her.

"I don't know what an UNO deck is, I'm afraid. Is it like playing cards? People can tell fortunes with playing cards just fine. Other people, I mean. It's not my specialty. Really, you can use a LOT of things to tell the future. Try it sometime. Take... say, a necklace, or a shoe string with something tied to it. Have it swing one way for yes and another way for no. You can go a long way on that alone.

"Oh dear, I'm rambling, aren't I? No matter."

She shuffles now in earnest, focusing on Terra's question. After a minute, she cuts the deck and draws a card.

"Remember," she says as she starts to flip the card over. "This is the super secret answer. Don't tell anyone I answered an extra question for you, okay?

With that, she studies the card she's drawn.

"I think," she says, revealing the card to Terra at last, "your personal makeup doesn't matter when it comes to the fate of the world. See this card, yes? There's ten pentacles--thats the ten disks with stars in them at the top--and two people with a dog. They look quite happy, don't they? They've made quite a life for themselves. And I think that's the same case here. I think who you are, or who you were, doesn't matter when faced with the bigger picture. So, whatever the 'one thousand' is, I take this as a sign you're still a part of it, and that you all are still capable of amazing things."

After a breath, Nadia returns the card to her deck. "Sad to say, I have no idea what it is you will accomplish or how. That is not something the gods have deigned necessary to show me. You'll figure it out, though.

"If anyone asks, however, I didn't tell you any of that. The first card was between you and me." She waits for Terra to nod vigorously before offering a wink.

"Remember. Don't tell anyone."

With this, she begins to shuffle anew. The next card comes when she splits the deck and draws a card. After a moment to think, she sets the card down between them. A figure sits on a Throne, holding a sword aloft and a pair of scales.

"Interesting." She leans forward, sliding the card closer to Terra. "Interesting indeed.

"What's it mean? Good question. To tell you the truth, I'm not fully certain, but I think it suggests you will see Tylan during a very important moment. Perhaps he is related to your first question. Perhaps not. Perhaps he will be important in a different way. Regardless, I do think you will see him at some point."

She picks the card up and examines it some more. "Honestly, though, boys are gross and I think that even now. He may be cute now, but I don't think you will still think so when you two meet. Or maybe you will."

With this, she puts the card back within the deck and tucks everything away. "Well. That's everything, I think."

[parttime-creative]

Revisiting an old story you write in your first language and rewriting it in English is such an experience.

My style has changed so much and yet not at all. But if FEELS so different and yet its just the language. Oh well... I do have developed but... Anyways. I am flooded with mix feelings.

Anyways: SwanQueen is back in my heart. Expect a Oneshot in the next few days.

[randomingoftherandomness]

Let’s be real here, no one’s terribly surprised

Least of all me 😂

[lessapander]

Right, so. Just the grande finale/whatever the name of the final route is called to go, and I thought I might ramble a little to get my thoughts in order about Steam Prison (specifically on Switch, so Fin's route is included by default).

Mild spoilers under the "read more". Nothing plot-based, just my personal thoughts about world-building or personality stuff with the LI's/Cyrus.

tl;dr: I liked this game, but the plot and pacing really drags a lot, and I feel like it was trying really hard to not be an otome game, and getting dragged down by the fact that it is, indeed, an otome game.

World Building: Right off, this is my favourite part of the whole game. There was so much room for cool exploration of the differences between the Heights and the Depths that I feel got kind of pushed to one side. I suspect that this is because the otome-ness of the game interfered with really exploring that, but it still had a lot of (ahahaha) depth to it. The fact that the two cultures have deviated written languages was a very interesting point that I felt should've really been explained more, for example. Or why the people in the Depths revere Yune, though he only became a saint after leaving for the Heights. What's up with that? I kind of hope some things may get a bit clearer once I do the final route, but I'm not holding my breath.

Voice Acting: Always top notch. No complaints. Excellent casting choices. Especially impressed with Furukawa Makoto (Adage) and Shingaki Tarasuke (Fin) during their anguished scenes. Also deeply enjoyed Kameyama Yuji (Sachsen) in his very villainous role. I'm not in the camp of wanting a route for him, but I can definitely understand why. They really let him go wild in that role.

Eltcreed Route: I went in thinking he'd be my favourite LI and was wrong for once. He's just kind of weird and inconsistently written. They tried to hint that he's got an iron fist ruling his territory in his route, but it really doesn't come across well (it was better executed in Ulrik's with a few points, but ... still a bit meh). His route did provide me with some of the best one-liners of the game, however, and spawned an in-joke with my partner as a result of some of the dialogue options.

Ulrik Route: Probably the least logical among the LI's in terms of ending up with Cyrus. His plot was the highest stakes (in my opinion) but also kind of dithered out in a few of the endings. It felt like they chose one ending that would be "the ending" for each of the routes, but I really felt it with Ulrik's. Most of his endings (and the Elt ending hidden in his route) didn't really have the same ring of sincerity for me. I did like him as a character, but not as a love interest for Cyrus.

Adage Route: Similar to Ulrik, I felt like his route was a bit illogical but only really had one ending that was up to snuff. It was very satisfying finding more out about the overall plot in his route, and starting to solve the mysterious nature of Cyrus' parents' death, but I again felt like he just wasn't a very good fit for her romantically. A lot of the romance kind of got in the way of other plot and on occasion annoyed me. The pacing and timing of the route also was really bizarre and hard to track at times. However, the intertwining of Fin's story and Ines' behind the scenes work with the HOUNDS was expertly woven in on route-replay. Thumbs up to that. I actually was very pleased to see how that was handled. Similar to Eltcreed, some of the one-liners in this route have resulted in an in-joke with my partner about childbirth and where babies come from.

Ines Route: So his endings were a bit more varied and made sense, but I really hate the final CG for his good ending. It's a personal nitpick, though. Overall, he was kind of my least favourite of the LI's because he was just so ... bland. He almost never committed to anything until the very end of his route, and his brushing off of Sachsen's rampages really kind of bothered me. His route does have some of the most twisted Fin interactions hidden in it, though (oh man, poor Fin).

Yune Route: I wondered how romance with an immortal god-like being would go and didn't expect the direction this route took. Turns out, he's a little bit of a sociopath. Go figure. Playing this route after Ines was a bit refreshing, because he has a similar attitude of apathy to Ines, but at a basically global scale. Most of his endings made sense, though I was very annoyed that his "good" ending puts the majority of the plot and story after the credits with no choices to be made. I get why it was done that way, but man. Annoying.

Fin Route: Poor. Fucking. Fin. I think his is probably the overall best otome route and the one I enjoyed the most, and it's probably due to the fact that he and Cyrus have so much history to build on. It felt more organic than the other romance routes, even though there was less plot and overall development. It really felt like the other routes were trying to be a regular VN and build a story around a really cool world with the romance shoehorned in as an afterthought, while Fin's was pure otome with a bit of the world surrounding them. So it was kind of a nice one to end with, honestly. I was starting to get a bit burnt out on the half-assed love affairs. That said, I do have some beef with Cyrus in this route (I have beef with Cyrus in every route, but especially this one lol).

Impressions of Cyrus: There's good and there's bad. She's sassy, has a strong sense of justice, and takes decisive actions. She's a bit of a feminist and very resilient. But because they wanted to her to also be naive to romance and sex, the writing sometimes goes way too far off track and is completely illogical. There are times where it's funny (watching her learn about childbirth was amusing and fine; watching her learn about affection and romance was heart-warming) and times where I rolled my eyes because it just ruined scenes (eg: she knows what rape is, she knows rape is bad and protects other women from sexual assault, but somehow doesn't know that consensual sex exists???). There are holes in her logic in this area in particular that drove me bonkers, because there was no pattern to what she did and didn't comprehend when it came to relationships other than "love, BAD". Her happy ending with Fin was actually soured somewhat for me because of these misunderstandings.

So would I recommend it? Yeah. I would. And I'm looking forward to the fandisc. But man, it wasn't an easy one to get through. I used the skip function a lot more often during replay than I normally do (I have 100+ hours in a lot of otome games from just re-reading the dialogue to get new endings or missing scenarios, to see how it looks with fresh eyes; I did not do that with this game).

I also followed a guide to get the non-happy endings so I didn't have to spend time floundering about (which I normally enjoy a lot in otome games and VNs).

[ruiconteur]

一念关山 a journey to love episode 3: liu yuning's 弹幕 bullet comments

since bullet comments aren't available on the international version of iqiyi, i figured i'd compile and translate them. i'll go back to ep 2 to compile liu shishi's comments too eventually

(when the princess and the guard she likes were holding hands) liu yuning: take your hands off [her] (a light smile)

(when ren ruyi pretended to be his younger cousin-sister) liu yuning: oh, i see, this is how you guys are playing it, huh?

(when ren ruyi comes to the rescue) liu yuning: ruyi, ruyi, conform to my heart's desire* and appear quickly * the joke here is that her name 如意 ruyi means as one desires

(after ren ruyi uses her 飞花落叶 / fluttering flowers and falling leaves technique to kill their attackers) four best men ywi: can liu yuning also perform a fluttering flowers and falling leaves to (s)kill* people? liu yuning: liu yuning can't, ning yuanzhou can. mu funing: i anticipate watching it 😄 aiya i'm xiao-jiu'er: hahahaha yue linglong, little princess: hahahaha * 鲨 / shark is used to replace the homophonous 杀 / kill here

(after ren ruyi kills lou qingqiang (zhao ji's second-in-command) liu yuning: my power of visual discernment has never been wrong, she really is a vermillion-robed guard.

(when chief minister zhang uses his brothers-in-arms to guilt ning yuanzhou into doing his bidding) liu yuning: ning yuanzhou's only weak spot (lit. "soft rib") has been discovered by you

(after ning yuanzhou agrees) liu yuning: gap [i.e. break] is on hold; it'll have to wait for ning yuanzhou to do fieldwork first

(once the team has been assembled) liu yuning: the feeling of [my] brothers gathering together is really great—off we go!

[elecman108]

Hi. It’s that time of the year again where I post an uncensored horny drawing on Tumblr. It’s under the cut, so if you click on it you have to look at it. If you don’t, then... well, good for you I guess?

...The joke is I made this several days ago, and currently it is not midnight EST so it’s not quite April 1st yet. Three minutes, if even that.

I admittedly have no energy to make an April Fools Day joke this year, so you have a comic of two guys with an INT score of 10 cancelling each other’s brain processes out. Also I forgot what Axel and Yune’s outfits looked like for a hot minute and guessed. Yune’s was pretty close. Axel is wearing a tracksuit. Don’t ask me why or how he just is.

Normally I ramble in the tags but in order to keep the April Fools Spoiler to a minimum I’ll ramble here: work’s been a lot lately! I hope to draw more in April but honestly at this rate I don’t know. I’ve been replaying XCOM and just got a shirtless guy on my squad who is immune to bullets and can and will crit every robot or turret in his path so y’know what he’s enough of a joke to cover my ass this April Fools.

[aptericia]

1, 4, and 5 for Jarod & Micaiah? [You probably have more thoughts about her than him, I'm guessing. ;)]

yes!! I can always trust you to let me ramble about Tellius!!

How I feel about this character

Jarod: I was surprised by how much I ended up liking him! He's not my favorite by any means, but he's one of the best examples of a stereotypical first-arc villain who does his job at being utterly hateable while also having some depth and tying into the main story.

Micaiah: I think she's awesome. She's kind and empathic but also capable of utter ruthlessness. She hates violence but is a terrifying general. She's an apostle of the gods but is fully grounded in reality and the hard choices she has to make. What's not to love?

My unpopular opinion about this character

hahah I think for both, just liking them might qualify as an unpopular opinion...

In particular, it's because they are kind of cliché. Jarod is a violent, rude, and bigoted villain who murders for no reason. Micaiah is a fragile young maiden who wants peace and cares for her friends and country above all else. I can see why people are tired of those tropes, but Radiant Dawn does them well and puts interesting twists on them, which I love to see!

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

Honestly I really like how everything with Jarod went down, there's nothing else I think his story needed.

For Micaiah, I kinda wish she'd taken a more active role in Part 4, as opposed to Yune just doing everything. It would have been fun to see her and Ike figure out their strategy and actually have to work together.