#also there is more but uhhh its sO MUCH LORE for each character

[deadsh33p]

Just asking if you are ever gonna talk more abt your ocs? i'm really curious abt them + they look cool

I'd love to but I doubt anyone actually cares lol. Though maybe one day I'll post some drawings I have of my ocs

[o-chunks-appreciation]

I would like to hear your in-depth thoughts on O'Chunks, Count Bleck, and Super Paper Mario as a whole!

Woah this is just gonna be a big ramble on how much I love the game and why.

I’m gonna start with Super Paper Mario as a whole, I’m a really big fan and I have been since maybe around 2016 or so. I was vaguely aware of it as a kid but after watching a cosplay chess (its where you get a bunch of cosplayers to roleplay and they’re on a big chessboard and they act out in character to defeat each other until there’s a winner or sometimes even a subversion of plot) video that had a Dimentio cosplayer in it I decided to look into the game. By that point I was no stranger to jester characters, I used to rewatch the Marx fight from Kirby Super Star Ultra all of the time so I was immediately going through SPM play throughs, fanfic, fanart. It’s a game I seem to be thinking about all of the time for months and years on end without a break lol. It admittedly catches my attention more than the other Paper Mario games, I’m not sure why, perhaps because it’s so visually different in aesthetic and character design. I enjoy its silly moments and it’s dramatic lore, but I also have a very specific issue with some parts of the lore being vague in Carson’s stories specifically. He’s always ending his stories in a question or talking about how much of a mystery these stories are. Maybe it’s on purpose and maybe this is also wishful thinking on my end, but sometimes I theorize that maybe they were going to reuse some of SPM’s lore for another game. I uhhh can’t say much about the game play because I’ve been enjoying SPM through play throughs.

On to O’ Chunks!

I think he’s in last place in terms of fandom popularity in terms of the Castle Bleck cast. Honestly I sort of get it, he’s not conventionally attractive and most artists sort of struggle with drawing older, bald, and bearded characters. Especially back in 2007 when the game was released when the anime art style was very popular on Deviantart. You could turn everyone else in castle bleck into a cutesy attractive anime character since their designs are just vaguely human enough for you to make your own little interpretations but with O’ Chunks you can clearly see he has a very human design so you can’t really make a Gijinka of him like you could the others. I think there’s something cool yet funny about that though, like he’s some unchanging force throughout everyone’s interpretation of the cast. (But I think it would be really cool as well to see people stray from his main design and interpret his design in the same way people would the rest of castle bleck)

He’s played off as sort of a joke character and then you read up on Carson’s stories of him and then it’s all like Woahh this is the same dude we’re talking about?? Funny characters that are secretly tragic is a trope I really like.

I think it’s really silly how everyone plays into his “chunking” catchphrases like Count Bleck saying: "Very well, O'Chunks. I'll leave the hero-chunking to you. Do not fail Count Bleck." Or Dimentio saying: "Mmm... I do enjoy a good chunking...", it’s really fun that the other characters are willing to hype up O’ Chunk’s catchphrases.

Also I think everyone sort of just glossed over the fact O’ Chunks was begging to die because he didn’t want to go back to Count Bleck and tell him he got defeated for the second time and only changed his mind after Dimentio shows up and talks a bit and afterwards he’s all like: “yeah I wouldn’t kill myself unless the count told me to.”

In conclusion he’s a really cool and underrated character and I like him a lot!! (If you couldn’t already tell by the blog theme and name lol)

Finally on to Count Bleck!

Wahhhh I love his lore and story it’s sooo bittersweet I want to fall to my knees dramatically anytime I think of it. He definitely seems like the type of guy that thought he didn’t care about his crew and everything they’re all doing was purely business because he’s just so caught up in his whole depressive world ending shenanigans that by chapter 8 he’s sort of surprised that he likes his minions as much as they do.

He’s still very much a bad guy, wiping out whole worlds and also lying to his very loyal group about making a way cooler world afterwards, and also on top of that even manipulating some of his minions unfortunate circumstances to get them on his team. (I.E: O’ Chunks) but I will let it slide this time because he’s a cool character to me.

All the memory sections of the game are so cute until it hits chapter six and then it’s like….ouch my feelings. He was mourning her so bad he would’ve unknowingly killed her if he’d succeeded, damn. But he didn’t so they got their nice little happy ending, and they’re just so cute together yaayyy!! (I’m in love with the picture of them under the tree at the end of the credits and I totally start to tear up when I see it with the credits music)

He’s a really interesting character and I can’t find myself finding another Mario character that inflicts this same emotions his lore gave me.

[katyspersonal]

Seluvis for character ask! >:D

(From this ( x ) ask meme)

First impression: Wow, this guy is a TOTAL creep! This specific snobby, arrogant aura also makes him even MORE British than his accent! xD Also his face data looks like that one guy who """accidentally""" touches women in weird places in the crowded bus :/ You know, THAT one guy. He has really good voice acting though, and his pretentious, arrogant manner of talking is cute.... oh no 😳

Impression now: I still think he has the sexiest voice acting in the entire game, I am slightly less obsessed with him by now but if given the reason, I can write essays simply analyzing his character and making suggestions about his personality, backstory and what-if scenarios with other characters! He is just so goddamn fun to rotate in my mind. (And yeahhh well, I really really really love wizard aesthetic. Sorry guys, Willem will always be more thicc than Gehrman could EVER.)

Favorite moment: As great as his descent into mania was, I simply love the transition from being cold, condescending and mean with us to getting warmer with us because he "hadn't had an apprentice for a while"... It becomes painfully obvious that he admires himself so much because no one else ever would, and I am just such a sucker for mean character showing that secret gentle side. Like.. He needs approval and attention just like every other human being, this is a sweet moment x)

Idea for a story: I actually didn't think of scenarios all that much. However, I did have a guilty daydreaming period about an OC that was his apprentice, but she was showing a lot more creativity, intellect and talent than he'd teach her, and it started to seriously wound his ego. So he'd like, start to belittle her ideas and discoveries, try to gaslight her into thinking her inventions were dumb and he knew better, and in the end just... send her to get him some stuff that doesn't exist (as means to never see her again). I don't know enough about the lore to tell whether she is out there still or no, and yes, awful pettiness, I know. It is less a story and more deep dive into his insecurity and narcissism by using an abstract other person for a display.

Unpopular opinion: As much as I like to joke about him being sexist, in the end, I don't REALLY think that. He makes male puppets too, you know. xD Basically, he will be a creep to ANYONE, regardless of gender. Bi/Pan representation we deserve ;-; xDDDD :')

Favorite relationship: Him and Sellen really deserve each other tbh. I do not mean it like in a ship way; Seluvis is uhhh...... well, a simp in such a way that he doesn't deserve a chance, to say the least, and Sellen seems to be completely disinterested in relationship period because studying cosmos just takes her ENTIRE focus. But I mean like, a mix of rivalry (he is with the Carians and she is with the primevial current) and actually helping each other with crimes x) They share more in common than meets the eye! And both have foolish plans going against Ranni of all people, like the overly-confident idiots that they are ;-;

Favorite headcanon: He feels exact proximity with the puppets as what he says! Starlight Shards that "control fate of humans" are used to make his potion, so naturally, drinking his potion binds the person's fate with him (or with someone else, depends on what he's doing). It is, well... incredibly intimate experience on its own, but he perceives it much deeper than just creating servants. He is desperate for human bonds, but his snarky narcissistic personality makes him not be liked by anyone with their free will unaffected. :(

[bleedingheart-s]

🎫 gush pass because I'm curious about your BG3 ocs 🔍👀

BWEHDHFLAKFHFJDU HIIIII KUROH 🩵 THANK YOU FOR THE ASK AND THE EXCUSE TO GUSH ABOUT MY BABIES I WAS LITERALLY ROTATING TJEM EARLIER

some of them are with characters other than gale who i don't self ship with (yet- i'm tempted to self ship with pretty much every other companion too bless my polyamorous heart)

this ended up being so long i'm putting it under a read more

nox- fighter. dumbass (affectionate). Tries their best. Very reluctant leader. Absolutely no sense of direction (Astarion regularly asks why they all let Nox hold the map... it's currently upside down in their hands). Tiefs don't usually come in a green flavor so Nox is sort of shunned even within tief circles. They're also big so they inevitably attract attention- that's why they hate leading. Their biological parents abandoned them, and they were raised by humans (who loved them dearly). Misses the farm they grew up on. Just wants a quiet life and a couple of kids. Favorite color: blue, specifically the sort of soft light glowing blue of the Weave because its usually coming from Gale. They're SOOO protective. Them and Karlach are besties. Has more tattoos than shown.

ledi- paladin. She's smaller than your average aasimar and she has a bit of a complex over it. She WILL puff up her wings to appear bigger (it barely works.) She's sort of cold at the beginning, but she opens up as the story goes on. Her eyes are haloed by wings because she was rendered permanently blind in a fight (kind of like Kanan in Star Wars Rebels) (details pending). This changed her, she ended up switching her paladin oath from Devotion to Vengeance. She has a bit of a rage streak at the start of the game. Looks up to Aylin like a big sister. Hates Shadowheart. (I haven't gotten to act 2 with her yet but I think Ledi would want to kill her for what happens at the end.) Falls in love with Wyll and learns a lot from him. Won't touch alcohol. Likes having her hair played with. Preens when she's bored. Has a very... interesting dynamic with Raphael.

freya- ranger. Left her family behind as a teenager. Used to spending a lot of time alone in nature. mean lesbian. Hits it off with Lae'zel almost immediately, and they admire each other greatly (and in a very gay way). Takes no shit. If looks could kill, she'd have murdered a continent. Just wants to go back to her neck of forest and 'live in fucking peace'. Has a 'oh no he's hot' moment when she first meets Halsin after rescuing him. Completely self sufficient, she doesn't like relying on others (trust issues much? /j). Ends up making good friends with Jaheira and Minsc. Can drink half of Faerûn under a table. If you can make her do it, she snorts when she laughs. Only Karlach has so far. Minsc has gotten close.

livia- my s/i. Lore bard. Uhhh idk what to say about her 😭

i also have two new ocs i haven't managed to talk about yet!

sethe- resisting durge. tiefling, wildshaping druid. Has difficulty controlling their wildshape, so they're liable to turn into a pure white direwolf with eyes so blue they glow at any given point. Honestly prefers being in wildshape. She bonds with Halsin over this. They struggle greatly with allowing anyone to get close to them due to their urge, so Halsin is the only person in their memory to do so. Won't admit it, but she likes being scratched behind the ears while in wildshape. Better at showing positive emotions in wildshape as well (tail wagging, playful behavior.) doesn't like being hot (ironic for a tiefling)- and she will pant even in her bipedal form if she is. Admires Karlach and wishes they could be more like her. Likes rain.

anne- regular tav. sort of an s/i but not quite. human, storm sorcerer. Naive, a bleeding heart, refuses to think the worst in any situation- which causes contention with Lae'zel, Astarion and Shadowheart in the beginning. Fiercely loyal and will back up her friends to the bitter end. She was raised a noble, so she's poised and very charismatic. Knew Wyll before he took his contract with Mizora and honestly missed him after he disappeared. Her positive and supportive attitude wears on Astarion, and eventually he falls for her. Becomes great friends with Gale. She's braver than she looks but she'll be crying about it. Very homesick. Worries about her family constantly. Has a little brother. Likes spicy food. Smells vaguely of ozone due to her proficiency with lightning magic. Kinda looks like Anne Hathaway, hence the name.

[teeth-kid]

teeth,,,what is chonny jash? having a curious and confused.

!!!! hi uhhh it's my brainworms rn

so it's basically he's this guy on youtube who covers tally hall songs except he takes it a step further and remakes the songs from scratch and adds/changes lyrics to fit a narrative

and what you probably see me reblogging stuff about is his characters Heart, Mind, and Soul who are meant to be singing these covers in his album, Chonny's Charming Chaos Compendium

the plot of it is like. hard for me to explain now that im trying to type it out but basically it's about a guy who's depressed and split his brain into like personifications of his emotions, his logic, and whatever Soul is. it's kinda like sanders sides but a lot more edgy and a lot less specific and done entirely through song covers

Heart is the purple one with the blindfold, he is sad and has attempted murder at least once

Mind is the blue one, he's mean and has a low voice filter in the songs

Soul is the red one, he's kind of in charge and really wants the other two to get along (or else he'll kill them both)

and these three guys fucking hate each other so much lemme tell you. they want each other dead and im not even exaggerating. but also sometimes they learn to work together and eventually un-split. they may or may not be in a perpetual loop of splitting apart and hating each other and making up and becoming whole only to split apart again (which i've heard is meant to be a metaphor for chronic mental illness)

if you wanna check him out i might recommend starting with his cover (actually three covers) of The Mind Electric, since its a pretty good introduction to the characters and their dynamic (though it's definitely all of them at their worst), or his Welcome To Tally Hall cover which is more of a fun little introduction to CJ as an artist (though that one might be confusing if you're not familiar with the original song). Or you could just listen to the album in chronological order starting with Time Machine Reprise.

warning for heavy suicidal themes though in case that wasnt apparent

i hope this was coherent enough skfhsk

(also if you do end up listening the album and you have questions about lore and such pls ask me i don't know everything and honestly there would probably be better people to ask but i would love to talk about the jash forever ok thank u)

[fun-mad-ochouse]

Hi lol

You may know me from my main blog! If not, that's okay. I have been a creator (writer and artist) and OC enthusiast for roughly 8 years. I have a 'meet the artist' thing, but technically it's outdated (I am older now, the art is older and I look slightly different) so you can have my sona instead!

Its a puppet named Morgan. (It/it's and it/he pronouns!)

((Link to the picrew:

Morgan speaks through that parrot, named Bestie, and bc I have multiple other sonas, Morgan is kinda like the main one, has all the others inside of itself! He's got lore of his own, so he technically can and probably will be included in OC stuff here.

Speaking of OC stuff,

I have a kind of ludicrous number of OCs, who rotate and take turns consuming my attention. You can ask about ANY OC at ANY time, but I do have a few favorite favorites who I will list below, and the blog description will be updated to include whoever is on my mind at the current present!

Consistent Favorite Faves:

Jesse

Peek

Marvin

Friday

Robin

Reaper

Anything involving these guys will all have the tag '#top 6'. If the list ever changes, it'll stay consistent! As for other tags:

Genres:

'#whump' this will be anything dark or torturous, often involving physical or psychological abuse. If this isn't something you want to see as a whole, block that tag, but I'll put content warnings on specific subjects as well. Always feel free to ask me to tag something if you feel like I missed it! (Keep in mind that I don't have to say yes. I probably will, but I don't HAVE to.)

'#adventure' this covers journeys mostly. Characters going from one place to another to accomplish something and probably learning a thing or two along the way.

'#fluff' cotton candy shit. Gonna be honest you'll probably never see this from me (/hj), I'm not very good at being NICE to my characters. Encouragement is welcome. 💀

'#scifi' easy enough, anything involving futuristic tech, dystopian themes, etc...pretty self explanatory tbh. (Jesse is going to hog this tag /silly)

'#fantasy' also p easy. Backwards instead of forwards in time. Mythical creatures and magic being more prevalent than technology. I surprisingly don't use this a lot.

'#modern magic' I don't think I have a single world without magic, this is gonna be anything set in a modern era with whatever fantasy twist I've applied.

'#multiverse' this covers a LOT of my stories, I work with and within the multiverse a LOT and the lore behind it all is as much my pride and joy as any OC. I will scream for hours about it, please feel free to be curious! It'll come up a lot. ;D

'#nsft' OC stuff that's uhhh 18+. Lol.

Subjects:

'#oc lore' information that is specific to characters and how they respond to their environment!

'#worldbuilding' information that is specific to location (universe, country, city, street, house, etc) and the environment the characters are responding to!

'#story lore' information that is specific to character journeys and, y'know, stories.

'#magic lore' technically this could go under worldbuilding, but a lot of my worlds borrow ideas from each other, and I can talk about magic so much alone that it deserves its own tag!

Post Content:

'#oc game' I'll put this tag on any post I reblog with the intention of talking about OCs. Ask games for others to interact with, but also those "reblog with the OC that...." type things!

'#answered' asks I answer about my characters! Asks about my personal life outside of OCs should be directed to my main, by the by, please and thanks. Asks answered here are going to be solely about characters :]

'#ic' in character responses to asks or posts! These are going to be as frequent as I can manage /lh

'#ooc' out of character responses to asks or posts, or just rambling about OCs.... will probably end up being the majority of my content lol

'#sona stuff' the inclusion of OCs that are also me, lol

'#not mine' the inclusion of other people's OCs-!

'#art' I draw sometimes!! Really hoping to start posting art here, haven't done that on Tumblr in a good several years.

'#writing' same deal as with art, self explanatory really-

'#memes' this will include incorrect quotes, filled out meme templates, some shitpost art, all the sillies!

'#tag updates' for when I add any tags to this post! Mostly for the purpose of keeping track of that.

'#other' general tag for "no existing tag really fits rn so have this". Hopefully this will be sparsely used.

Ho boy, this is getting long.

Last little things you should know about me, boundaries and a DNI.

- I'm an adult

- I love to rp

- I'm in many fandoms, mostly BATIM (for years and years and years now)

- my favorite number is 6

- Boundaries are really no discourse and be respectful lol

- dni is just pro contact paraphiles, radqueer and transid, and other general creeps. I don't give a fuck what you do in your personal life, I don't condone anything that harms other people though! This is a fun space, keep it fun.

That all said:

Enjoy your stay!! Feel free to interact, I don't bite :D

[ac-liveblogs]

Lantern Rite 2023

The first two days were boring as sin. Nothing else to say about them. YaoYao got introduced and vanished, it’s a regular NPC storyline used in place of a playable character, it’s an excuse for another loredump and cares far more about the lore than the characters included, and I don’t care how often I need to say it - there is no point playing “who’s that Adeptus?!” in Liyue when Zhongli would happily answer every possible question anyone could ever have about that subject, and literally any other.

If you want to do mysteries like this, pick any other region, god. Also, please make a better mystery than “Madame Ping played a song this one time. It was a really bitchin’ song. Also a guy almost drowned. GUIZHONG EXISTED!”

Cloud Retainer is sexy now though. That’s cool, I guess. We needed that. Also, I love that every time Shenhe shows up lately she doesn’t know some extremely basic thing. Last time it was flavoured drinks, and this time it’s THE CONCEPT OF MUSIC, despite music being such a huge thing in her quest??? This woman has goldfish brain, I swear.

The epilogue was a little better - no lore dragging us down - and I was surprised (pleased) to see HYV actually picking up on the thread from the Chasm about Xiao needing to socialise more, and seeing him attempting (and struggling) to do so. Xiao is very cute. Nothing else to say. He raises my serotonin levels. I Like Him.

Although, speaking of Xiao, and I’m just throwing this out there - I think this event would’ve been better served if maybe instead of some rando from Fontaine trying to find the magical music playing person from another country that saved an ancestor’s life with breathtakingly beautiful music, we could’ve maybe leveraged the two characters in this event that already have that backstory, and were IN THIS EVENT, BUT WHATEVER. WHAT DO I KNOW-

Anyway, this event was clearly trying to be funny, and while seeing Xiao “?!” “um” “uhhh”ing was cute, the humour is definitely muted by the VA’s restrained performances, and the lack of facial expressions/restricted movements on the 3D models mean any scene always seems a bit slow and underwhelming and can really impact a joke’s delivery. More to the point, HYV really cares far too much about Zhongli’s dignity to be able to capitalise on a skit where both Hu Tao and Venti put a fair amount of effort into mocking him. His straight man routine is sorely lacking.

At the end of the day, it’s 40 minutes of people sitting around a dinner table and a decent chunk of it is “oh I met [x] at [y]!” As always, Genshin needs a script editor to trim the fat.

In terms of character dynamic:

Xiao and Aether’s slowburn romance friendship continues to be adorable, even if the foundation for its intensity is extremely shaky. Despite the fact that the PV wasn’t integrated into this year’s Lantern Rite at all, it did earn some points in my heart.

Chongyun, Xingqiu and Xiangling’s inclusions were mostly to justify the identity shenanigans involving Venti and Zhongli, but they were a bit lost in the scene despite this. The scene always seemed to forget they were there, which is a shame, because Chongyun has very specific beef with Xiao (per his mats) and Xiangling’s cooking should really be leveraged for comedy faaaar more often than it is.

Xiao and Zhongli is about what I would’ve expected it to be. Solid dynamic, no notes.

Hu Tao and Venti get on like a house on fire, which should really cause Zhongli more dread than it does. I did enjoy them burning each other, but again - HYV’s comedy is always a bit slow. Would’ve been great to see Zhongli lose his cool a bit.

It’s a bit sad that my relationship HCs about Xiao and Hu Tao, or Xiao and Venti, weren’t really challenged or confirmed in any real way. Due to Xiao’s dialogue about them in his mats, I’d assumed he’d already met Hu Tao and only knew of Venti, but I see that’s the other way around. Xiao clearly respects Venti a lot (the differing reactions between when you blame either Zhongli or Venti for Xiao’s awkwardness at dinner, plus Xiao’s reverence of Venti’s music, show that), but I don’t really get the sense that the two are “old friends”. If anything, Xiao having Venti as an “old friend” seems kind of odd given what we know of his backstory.

Anyway, I still think Mondstadt wins at festivals overall. Windblume soon!!! Looking forward to that!

[themoonshoes]

1-7 for dinjael :)

OKAY <3

1. what, specifically, was the catalyst for their physical attraction (if applicable) to the other character? In other words, what in particular had them like “Oh, they’re…hot…”

din: she’s got him pinned with her lightsaber to his neck while she’s trying to train him to fight with the darksaber, and there’s a moment a la princess mononoke when he’s like oh. hm. if he hadn’t been fearing for his life during their first encounter he probably would have noticed her appearance a little more, but at the time he uhhh was too worried about getting his head cut off  :)

jael: shootout on batuu. maybe it’s adrenaline, but she sees his like. over-competence and the way he handles a blaster and can only stand there like 🧍‍♂️ for a sec

2. does this change over time? what things do they find “hot” about their partner after they’ve been together for some time, and have had more time to, well, notice and appreciate?

din: her eyes make him feel like a prey animal (he’s called them jaig eyes before which makes her laugh) and he likes putting little braids in her hair (grogu picks up on this and tries doing it too. its cute) she’s also like Fit and built for fighting Creatures and the like so once he feels like he’s allowed to find her body Hot he super super Does

jael: once she sees his face she pretty much immediately finds that attractive (his eyes are special to her bc not many have gotten to see them the way she has), but she also likes the physicality of him, too. his back. his neck. girl get into it. 

3. by contrast, what was the moment that first made their ~heart~ Soft for the other person? not necessarily a conscious realization of “I love this person,” but a moment that had them like “Oh…I adore them…”

din: he sees how she is with the people in her hive (lore stuff) on Ead, and how much she cares for them, and is kind of immediately drawn to that, but it’s during Batuu Shenanigans where they’re both very much out of their element and in close quarters and have to rely on each other that he sort of has that little mermaid kiss the girl moment and is like wait i think you’re really important to me now. and then she meets grogu and immediately clicks with him and that’s what makes din go wow i think i love her. 

jael: once she got to see a little more of his emotive side—they’re both reserved people outside of their circles, so she knew something had changed between them (again. on batuu) when he opened up to her and was willing to talk to her about his like.. crisis of identity/faith/purpose. she went oh. i think i care you. and when he takes her to tattooine and boba calls her ‘friend’ she goes. we are friends!!!

4. does this change over time? what will always reliably make them melt with how much they adore the other character?

din: what can i say, he’s attracted to conviction in leadership, so idk if it’s attraction or a sense of pride when he sees her being a good leader to her people, but he never gets tired of seeing her be compassionate and competent. ALSO he thinks she’s so incredible bc of what she can do through the force too so like. all around he’s just a big fan LMAO he’s her biggest fan

jael: she is not immune to din with Baby. it’s sweet to her. and when he engages in her planet’s culture and comes alongside her to like give her support she remembers all over again why she fell in love with this dude in the first place. this includes when he tries to engage with force stuff, because she knows he doesn’t get it, but he’s willing to understand (for her, for grogu) and that’s SPECIAL to her bc she hasn’t had someone who wants to Get Her like that before. tee hee

5. how do they consciously realize that they like the other character? does it take them a while?

din: ok so for some story lore they have to act sort of undercover while Doing Stuff on batuu bc of their respective statuses, and they both kind of stick out like a sore thumb even on that planet, so people assume they’re a traveling couple bc why wouldn’t they? and he doesn’t realize how much he sort of enjoys that role until they go back to ead and don’t have to do that anymore. he does not want to confront that btw he has too much goin on!!!

jael: Face Reveal Time. mama it's the vulnerability.

6. how do they react to the realization that they like the other character? is it an “oh my god I’m never going to think about this again” thing, or are they pretty comfortable with it?

din: he is definitely less willing than she is to admit that to himself, but there’s a situation right before they leave batuu for ead where he’s sort of forced to realize he can’t keep her out and still like. have her you know!!!!!

jael: it’s a very new feeling for her since she hasn’t had the.. like luxury, in a way? of a relationship like this before but she feels very strongly (in all aspects tbh) so once she has that little realization moment it’s definitely like a switch was flipped and she starts noticing every little thing he does or every little touch. yearn more, idiot

7. do they (or would they) pursue the other character’s affection, and if so, how? do they tell the other character how they feel? try to earn their admiration? woo them with romantic gestures? flirt with them, skillfully or otherwise?

din: he’s blunt, so once he comes to his senses, yes he tells her (he tells her first!!!) but even before that he finds her a new kyber crystal to replace the one he evaporates :) he does flirt, in his awkward way, but only whenever it’s the two of them. i think there’s probably a part of him, too, that sees her ability as a leader and tries to live up to that, like he’d be a little less reckless because he knows it would upset her etc etc

jael: she likes to fluster him, but she’s also like not mean about it. oh she does clean his armor for him in the Before times which like. in his eyes was as much as a marriage proposal. and while she’s not doing it for din’s benefit, she does give grogu some force training (not jedi training. that was some guy named luke’s job and he fumbled the bag.) and is by extension another guardian figure for him, which does endear her to din in a big way!!!!

this was long winded i apologize!!!!!!

character development questions for couples

[frenchiefreyed]

TBHK Favorite Character Tier List

hello i did a TBHK favorite character tier list and I will explain the stuff i feel like explaining / might be interesting or relevant to know

oh and each section is, left to right, the characters i like most to least, but these change and shift with pretty much every chapter we see them in so ashdasndn

tsuchigomori is my favorite character and i like him more than hanako and nene, but i like hanako and nene more than i like the other characters in the S tier which is why the formatting is u know

"s but" is basically i think the characters are s tier / i enjoy them enough for them to be s tier but they've done things that bother me and i feel a bit morally weird not acknowledging that when i say that i like them (in virtually any context) -- ig it's kinda funny to say this while tsukasa is fully in S tier and not "s but" but we dont need to acknowledge that

(i am opposed to a lot of what tsukasa has done but i kinda forgor about that so u can pretend he's in s but if u want)

i think most of the reason i like lemon is related to my fren really liking lemon bc i think otherwise id just be like thats a guy but aesthetically he's cool and stuff i hope he's not the secret biggest evil villain of the manga/show or smthn ashdsnadn

i hated teru passionately for most of the manga and its only in the last like maybe 15-20? chapters we've had that i've started to like him more and think he was silly. i wish that he would not hate supernaturals so much but he kinda grew up being forced to and stuff. i am sure with enough time he will learn that supernaturals can be nice... they wouldn't have him be so silly if he wasn't supposed to learn stuff right????

RIGHT??

tsukasa is silly and the lore stuff is pretty cool, i think it is neat that he is a villain that u r kinda supposed to sorta? ? be sympathetic towards but also is very obviously not doing great things. tbh i think that's most characters in the whole manga and some of them are treated way less like villains so i dont think tsukasa is that morally bad by comparison adhasndsad

kou is kou he's based and stuff and he seems to respect ppls boundaries and things , but we've been seeing more of his flaws lately which is interesting and cool, uhhh yeah i dont have much to say about him tbh

black canyon is cute. sue me

i also hated natsuhiko for like most of the series but i've started to like him recently because he's silly and even tho he's a bit weird about sakura sometimes he actually like. respects her boundaries as far as i can tell. very different to akane who is just weird

mitsuba is good, i do kinda want to know more about his intentions/the extent of bad he could potentially do, but for now i think A is an ok spot for him

i think the tier list maker thought that the baby twin was tsukasa but it is actually amane so this ranking is amane. amane babby is in a tier, uhhh he seemed pretty based and cool, it is sad that he dieded

i am scared that sakura is like very very evil so i dont rlly want to put her higher than an A but vibe wise she's pretty cool . it's weird that she seems to have set a lot of this in motion.

the mokke are prooooooooooooobably overrated i think they are cute but i dont super super duper love them or anything

i like yokoo a bit more than satou but they are both cool together, i think i would like them both less when they are separated from one another because i think most of what i like is their dynamic

the guy obsessed with civets is funny

tiara is funny and i like her and want to see more about her but we havent seen enough of her for me to be like WOWOWOWOWOW u know???

the entire arc with shijima and the fake world and stuff was crazy and i think i have trauma from that so maybe if we see substantially more of shijima i'll be able to stop associating her with that thing i super hate but as a character she doesnt seem horrible or anything

i used to like aoi a lot more but im getting the feeling she's super evil and alt-universe aoi hitting teru and belittling him was crazy i cant look at her the same after that i think

skipping ahead to yako uhhhh her design and vibed r cool i guess but the teacher thing is rlllllllllllllly weird. its cool that she seems to be kinda friends with tsuchigomori tho but she better not start bein super weird to him or smthn (especially cause he's a teacher.) i think i would die

skipping to ewww i hate them section; this is in order of most hated to least hated. hakubo. i hate him and THE SCENE was gross. actually pretty much all scenes with him and sumire are gross if not all

if nothing regarding aoi existed as part of akane's character he would probably be B or even A tier but he's so weird about aoi and it makes me very uncomfortable. also the thing where he was weird to nene. the only thing that salvages him at all is his dynamic with teru which is why i support shipping them. i originally started shipping them bc teru and akane were my most hated / "these are the most gross/evil" characters and i was making silly jokes about them getting together so that aoi and all the supernaturals would be left alone ashsandsdna but then i actually started bein like hey wait a minute anyway, in any context other than terukane, i am a severe akane hater

the other ones i dont rlly care enough to like explain my thoughts on them ashdsandndsa they are not passionate emotions, at least compared to hakubo and akane

s'yeah

[jils-things]

Heyyy ms jil.. could you.... could you infodump to me about idv so i can see if it's a game i'd like to play thaaank youuu.... -Ekans anon

OH WOW. I . WHOA... A GUSH PASS ON HOW NORMAL I AM FOR THE GAME.... LET'S GO....

okay AHA so eemmmm🤓🤓🤓🤓 i would describe idv to be a game similar to dead by daylight. (its primarily a mobile game but you can play in pc too) i would call the game "horror" as that's what its supposed to be but it's kinda hard to say that now because they spill a lot of very lighthearted content and events (skins especially) (THE FANBASE IS VERY. LIKE. NOT NORMAL ABOUT SOME SURVIVORS SKINS. ME INCLUDED) but yeah! its also kinda goofy AHAHAHA (though i feel that they were forcibly told to make it less horror-ish... idk why.) (but guaranteed, the actual lore can be dark as a lot of the characters and lore are quite unfortunate)

if you know how to play dead by daylight, it should be easy to understand how to play, but in case you don't - ill say it here:

you play either as a survivor (with other 3 survivors) whose task is to cooperate with your teammates to decode 5 "cipher machines" that will help open a gate to escape. OR a hunter, whose primary purpose is to stop the survivors from escaping, and trying to eliminate them by taking them to chairs that blasts them off LMAO (the way they were supposed to be eliminated was supposed to be more scary but... rocket chair it is)

there are a lot of survivors and hunters to play as! there's around 45 survivors and 30 hunters i think? and they're still adding more 😩 it may get a bit overwhelming because you have to understand everyone's gimmick but ... you'll find a way soon :3

i'm a survivor main! i'm actually really bad at playing hunter (ive been playing for years) but im trying to fix that this year aha 💀 but i also like survivors because each of them have special roles and skills to work with! they all have their own strong traits and many includes:

- decoders (those who decode fast)

- kiters/containers (those who can distract/buy time with the hunters)

- rescuers (those who can efficiently save teammates who are "chair'ed")

- assist (those who can help teammates, could be actively or passively)

i primarily play rescue/assist :3 decoder is my secondary (ORPHE.US IS A KITER/ASSIST BTW AHEM) i would also try to elaborate on the hunters but i'm not that well versed and would much rather have someone else say it :3

its also worth mentioning that SOME survivors due to the lore, have double identities! which means some survivors have a hunter identity and vice versa. (there is only one case of a survivor having another survivor identity - which is just an adult character having a younger counterpart of themselves)

.... unfortunately norton recently had his double identity released and sadly i am Very not normal about that but shhhhhh

also orpheus does have a double identity harharharhar surprise hahrhahrhh

UHHH UH WHAT ELSE

i guess the reason why i like this game a lot is because of the very cor.aline-esque feel, with survivors having a more doll like appearance + era taking place around 1800-1900... and the ongoing actual story that has lore n shit happening that is MAKING ME GO INSANE BECAUSE IT CAN BE DARK ACTUALLY (SOMETHING THAT WASNT TOO PRESENT YEARS AGO WHEN I WAS A NEW PLAYER AND I WANTED THE HORROR) I NEED MORE OF IT AAAAAA ITS STILL UPDATING GKFKGKRKR

and of course my beloved Norton Campbell thank you

i think that is all thankyoufor readingsnorensoremummuum

[teeto-peteto]

Another question, if that’s not too much to ask: Who is your favourite character from each Runeterra region?

HOO thats a long one and i have the memory of the size of a pea so im opening Map of Runeterra for this one. Its never too much to ask just dont mind me not remembering all the people that cohexists in league of legends universe im sleepy and obsessed with THAT one character.

i'll try to give further explanation but in most cases is just for the aesthetic and not because of the lore so my apopopopologies <3

Freldjord: Braum!! Who doesnt love that big guy. Honestly, he's fun, he's cute, he's very talkative and passionate about the things he likes so he feels relatable at least for me. And he's kind to everyone! and kind to creatures! Probably one of my 'shirtless TM riot men that i actually like' list. He's just wholesome and warm.

Demacia: Ahhh uhhh ummmm yeah ahhh... demacia huh... ummm... (On my pc Morgana's little icon under Demacia's name is the old splashart pre rework i just think its fucking funny)

Poppy! I know she's a yordle and that i already said that i love them but overall demacian characters feel a bit dull to me (not all of them, but if you know, you know...). I just love her big ass hammer and her story, and how she's so convinced that she's not the hero but everyone around her clearly nows it. I love how she looks! And i love her pigtails... I also liked her old design, wich surprises a lot of people when i express it. Yes, she was sometimes uncannily creepy... but she had cool splasharts in the past, and i didnt mind her being ''ugly''. Fuck Riot's concept of beauty.

Noxus: Hhahahahahhahah im terrible but im a sucker for Kled. I love that guy i already expalined this on previous posts. Playing league is my way to cope with roughness in life and has been present through a lot of my trauma and i started playing Kled when i had some peaks of anger issues, the thrill of his gameplay made me de-stress a lot and i love his quotes. He is also very charming in quotes! He's funny, he's silly and he's old and theres something unspoken going on there, brain weasels. I love that guy and her screaming lizzard she's my baby. I love Skaarl and how she has her own personality that often crashes with Kled but she's nonetheless always loyal to him and restores her courage to save his ass. Queen.

Piltover: Hummm probably Orianna. I say probably cause im unaware if her lore has changed from 2014 to this day. I love the concept of a human girl with such a loving father that tried so badly to keep her alive as she was dying and loosing parts of herself and how he tried to keep her with him until she became just a beautifully but souless creation. Its a character i actually like having no quotes related to her lore, in the end Orianna is already very much gone, she's now but an empty metal shell that only commands the ball and speaks souless about human emotions she so used to understand when she was human. Fun fact i was a sucker for BlitzxOri ship and i still think its funny and cute.

Zaun: Twitch... he's a rat. There's nothing more about it. I would say Janna but she's technically Shuriman but either way i will briefly say that i enjoy her in Zaun, queen is giving fresh air slay pop off. Back to Twitch, i always liked him! He's silly, i have his punk skin and i adore how he looks, he's silly and stylish... I also got his shadowfeet skin cause he reminded me of my pet rat Kenny and i bought it to try and cope with his passing, i upgraded him maestry 7 on his honour. I dont know! He's cute in all of his skins not just the ones that intently try to make him cute, punk one is great, and i loooove how his head looks in Ice King skin... He's just lovely, and munches on cheese. And stinks. Its literally so me.

Targon: Soraka, probably. She's a goat unicorn lady! What else can i say? Im a sucker for most of her skins mostly the old ones. I love program Soraka, its one of my favourite skins of her, i think she's neat when i dont analize it... if i did i would set in on fire probably. I dont know her gameplay is cool and its one of the firsts supports i started playing. I used to heal the minions when you could do that back in the day. I remember my shock face first time i healed someone and realized my health bar went lower like 'OH sharing is caring!'. Unicorn lady mom.

Shurima: Renekton. Only because he's a crocodile and 'crocodile' is the word i pop up in my mind whenever i overthink to make my mind blank, and because i think crocodiles are cool. He's stubborn and resentful. Just like meeeeeeee

The Void: Kog Maw... he's silly designed and right now im VERY hungry im feeling very Kog Maw right now. I dont knoooow he's silly and i love his skins that do not portray him as cute too... I love skeleton kog maw he's amazing sack of bones. Point of all this is because i think he's cute, mostly. I want to hug him and he would puke on me and burn me in acid. cutely, though. he ate and left no crumbs.

Ixtal: FOR SOME REASON QIYANA'S ICON HAS YASUO'S ILLUSTRATION what. Uhhh i dont know why Milio isnt in the list of Ixtal champions... I think Riot's map machine broke. Anyway. Milio!!! He's a sweet kid, with a lot of preassure on his shoulders but he's so carefree and confident but not in a smug way but in a 'i have to do it for my omele' and he's so fucking adorable with his little fire dudes... I loved his lore and his short story he DRAWS pictures of his adventures and sends it to his family it makes me sob and punch the wall because he's such a sweet child he deserves the whole world. He's here to bring the good vibe on Ixtal. When i started playing him i didnt read his lore and he was talking so lightheartedly of his family that my poor ass knowing Riot i said 'Those bitches are definetly dead' WELL TURNS OUT NO and im so very happy cause if his family isnt okay i will kill everyone in this room and then myself.

Ionia: Uhhh can i get uhhhh ummm like... an interesting champion i have no problems with? /jk. Jhin :) he's iconic, so iconic riot decided to bamboozle all of us with 200 dollars chroma LOL. Okay but there was a lot of Jhin fever when he was released and the early years of his existance and those were probably the years i had the most fun on tumblr. He's memeable, but you can also take him seriously and think that the guy is fucking crazy and excentric. He paints his nails so... bonus points. His hourglass body type in project: Jhin was so INSANE it made everyone wild in this website. For once there was equality, briefly. His face reveal was kiiiind of a letdown, i expect him to be more fucked up but well i guess that what is behind a mask is another mask. In castilian dub his voice is very recognizable, he's actually the same voice actor that does Batman voice! wich is very cool, but he also does the ads of Carrefour wich is a supermarket and sometimes you can bug your own mind and imagine Jhin selling you a kilogram of tangerines, its so fun. Jhin also canonically shaves his balls wich is not a personal preference of mine nor does this add to the why i like him i just felt like i should say that Jhin canonically and confirmed by a rioter shaves his balls.

Shadow Isles: Maokai he's a FUCKING tree oh my god. I loved that little instance of Ruined King when we saw a younger maokai he looks so silly and curious... I loved his little paper on the game. Also i dont know how are they called in english... does riot call them 'saplings' to the little guys Maokai throws around and that are sitting on his hand? In Spain they are called 'pimpollos' wich is the name i call my followers on instagram, actually im going to start calling everyone my little pimpollos :)

Bandle City: Teemo... he's the first champ i've ever known. He's short, he's an explorer, i dont think he's twisted he's just smart and that scares humans for his yordle powers. But he can also be a little bit of a dummy, like in Dont mess with the yordles. He KEEPS a DIARY oh my GOD i want to read it and it also feeds my Tristmo ship cause i imagine him drawing Tristana and doodling silly stuff while she is watching her train or thinking about her... He also has wich is, for me at least, one of the bests legendary skins in the whole game being that Omega Squad. That one sent me FLYING when he was leaked and i had started playing already for 5-6 months or so. I begged my dad to buy it. I loved his old interactive page that also eventually leaked and got into official league page where you could click on different condecorations and trinkets and he would drop his quotes about other yordles and champions. That skin messed my brain scheme forever. and when they released Omega squad tristana... my ship level RISED... He's a baby, but he can bite you if he wants. I will protect him from people that says he's a trash champion.

Bilgewater: Do i even have to...?

what a babygirl he is.

[oviids]

pls share some of your spn fic recs 🥺🥺

ok, a few things first:

followers and mutuals who do not have supernatural brainworms, kindly avert your eyes

i don’t normally rec or even read much fanfic any more but this is a CRISIS ok (cont.)

there is so. much. content for deancas out there and i have incredibly high standards, several ancient ao3 bookmarks, can speedread, and want to spare you guys the experience of wading through it all.

i also have a section for spn femslash since I was pretty into that back in the day (sadly a lot less fan content for this :/)

I don’t really like au’s or pure smut (I honestly usually just skim or skip those scenes) so if you’re mainly looking for that kind of thing this probably won’t be very helpful to you. jsyk.

i’m not great at describing stuff but i’ll do my best, i’ll also try and add tw’s when neccesary.

i wil try and keep updating this with any other decent fics i find, feel free to rec stuff too since i’m like 7 years behind.(edit 1/25/21) this is getting looooong so i’m going to start making another list on my spn blog rather than update this one

(edit 1/3/21) since this has gotten pretty long i’ve added rating/approximate word counts and marked my particular favorites with an asterisk.

Dean/Cas fic:

So Says The Sword*** - explicit/85k. FUCK its good...au/time travel where dean is not pulled out of hell by cas and says yes to becoming the michael sword. honestly could serve as an alternative to actually watching the show, if you want to get into dean/cas without actually doing that to yourself.

Fata morgana.*  - teen/6k, pst s9 finale. very bela centric and i love it, she finds cas looking for dean in hell.

Redemption Road -misc/600+k. an incredibly long fic from a collaborative writing group back in the day. canon divergent from the end of s6 on, has a cool take on godstiel and the leviathans, as well as the lovecratian mythos connection. ngl when i reread it i only made it about 28% in but imo the casual reader can actually stop around there, the rest concerns a lovecraftian apocalypse that is still good (i think i don’t remember it very well) but not required to enjoy the first half. if you prefer i have an ebook version i can send you on gdrive.

Someone Who's Feeling For Me* - mature/45k, s12. they run into lisa braeden and dean thinks cas is into her while cas thinks dean still likes her. treats lisa way better than the show ever did and the miscommunication is pretty funny rather than annoying.

a turn of the earth - mature/95k. time travel fic where cas from s10 keeps showing up in deans life from a few years before s1 to right before the hellhounds take his soul.  slow burn, good character study, and at one point cas punches the dad in the face and it rules.

On the Wings of War - teen/85k, canon divergent s5. dean accidentally becomes the Horseman of War. plays fun, fast and loose with biblical lore, michael has some rights.

Named - mature/95k, alternate s5. EXTREMELY blasphemous in a fun sexy way. manages to predict metatron almost to a T. there’s one major character death and its literally jesus christ, everyone is very sad about it and it sets the rest of the story rolling. an alternate interpretation of cas’ mission to raise dean from hell which had me on the floor. ngl its kind of misogynistic at points, but its from 2010 and tracks with late oughts-2010 spn (sorry anna the author did you dirty here:/).

The Girlfriend Experience - explicit/15k. uhhh i don’t normally rec or even read smutty stuff unless someone i know is specifically asking for it but this has stuff like sam trying to be a good ally and dean thinking holding hands with cas is ‘kinda gay :/’ minutes after having gay sex with him.

i crippled your heart a hundred times - explicit/19k, s8. cas confesses his feelings and dean spends a long time getting his head out of his ass about it. truly hits different after the actual confession, despite being written six years early it feels like its actually what could have gone down more or less if the writers weren’t talentless demons who hate us.

My Roots Take Flight** - mature/125k. reverse au where cas is a hunter and dean’s an angel...OR IS IT???? an alternate retelling of s4. tw for briefly being set in a psychiatric hospital/the hospital being mentioned somewhat frequently throughout the fic, plus more references to torture in hell and heaven than usual.

The One Thing You Can't Lose* - teen/4k.you know those posts about how cas is a super-strong super-tough ancient warrior but he just lets dean tug him around because he likes it? thats it thats the fic.

Hands, From Which All Things Are Built - teen/14k, post s8′s ‘goodbye stranger.’ cas is on the run with the angel tablet but keeps in touch with sam and dean by text, he and dean still manage to be terrible at Actual communication.

Autrement, Danger - or, The Account of an Exceedingly Long Day - mature/30k, post s11. a monster that takes the appearance of your soulmate leads to some wild miscommunications and dealing with years of repression, also dean gets to see cas’ true form which is always cool. tw for non-graphic mentions of underage sexual assault/sex work.

Down to Agincourt - mature/explicit/900++++k, endverse continuation. endverse!cas survives his encounter with lucifer and discovers another time-displaced dean from s7. i’ve only read the two of four parts but its really good, veeeeery slow burn, has a lot of fun oc’s and takes a rather surprising but (imo) entertaining and intriguing turn into Hellenic history and mythology. usual tw’s for endverse/endverse!cas but nothing graphic, it’s actually pretty light-hearted (relatively speaking of course).

Nothing Equals the Splendor** - explicit/8k, THEE finale fix it fic you’ve been waiting for! posits that the entire final episode was just a (very bad and lame) djinn’s vision.

like moses and batman and james dean - explicit/31k, post s8. explores dean’s trauma and internalized homophoba from his technically canon experience with sex work and its impact on his relationship with cas. the sex work itself isn’t really shown in any detail but it’s still a relatively heavy fic.

Crazy Diamonds - explicit/25k, s4/alternate s14. fresh-out-of-hell dean and dean from 10 years in the future are displaced from time and sent to each other’s present.

where the weeds take root - explicit/30k. au where the men of letters kick them out of the bunker and they accidentally move out into the country, get over their codependence and semi retire. featuring chicken coop building, sam volunteering at a dog shelter, gardening, and blissfully mundane domesticity.

No Resting Place - teen/6k. djinn dream fic, switches back and forth between cas’ dream of being married to dean and retired from hunting to the aftermath when he wakes up. tw for brief mention of suicide since, y’know, djinn dream.

any port in a storm - mature/52k. post s8 finale. cas and dean have to pose as a couple going through a rough patch for a case and actually deal with their emotional baggage, cas struggles with being human and metatron is up to stuff.

all this and heaven too* - explicit/7k. in the author’s own words ‘...a love letter to every trans person who ever projected onto Dean Winchester.’ absolutely unzipped me emotionally and theologically, its just. so good. tw for very brief mentions of internalized transphobia/dysphoria.

Because it is* - mature/6k, finale fix it. killing chuck does not bring back anyone back and the winchesters spend a very long time dealing with what they’ve lost, cas and dean SOMEHOW still manage to have signifigant communication issues even after the confession. tw for suicidal thoughts/brief attempt.

Vena Amoris and Other Old-Fashioned Bullshit* - teen/4k, s6. when cas fell for dean it automatically soulbonded/angel married them, shenanigans ensue when dean finds out during the angel’s civil war. funny and actually written back when s6 was airing so cas is still (or at least pretending to be) kind of an OP asshole which is fun.

Rinse, Repeat - teen/3k, s8. angsty character study of cas as he’s reprogrammed and trained to kill dean. not really dean/cas since its just cas’ pov of canon events but its beautifully written and ends with him snapping out of it through the power of love (also now a canon event!).

Emergence - explicit/59k, canon divergent after s11. dean meets a hunter he only recognizes as their friend claire novak’s missing father, but soon realizes he might be the answer behind the mysterious void in his memories and feelings (aka everyone’s memories of cas are completely wiped away for three years).

Cuckoo And Nest - explicit/10k, early established relationship/character study, cas tries to figure out how he fits into dean’s life and space in the bunker.

Build a Home* - teen/20k, canon divergent s12. sam and eileen are cute and turn the bunker into men of letters/hunters hq and everyone but cas moves in, mutual miscommunication issues and pining ensues.

Down in the River - teen/5k, early s8, cas prays to dean in purgatory while sam and dean try to figure out a way to get him out.

Teaching Poetry to Fish* - mature/52k, ?? BC through the entire series/canon divergent s14 and 15. retelling of crucial scenes throughout the shows timeline from cas’ pov, feat. actual fish and poetry.

the minor fall, the major lift - gen/4k, post confession/finale fixit. dean goes into the empty to save cas and runs into several old friends (and enemies).

With the Kisses of His Mouth* - teen/3k, gen later seasons. dean and cas keep kissing by accident.

Remaining Grace - explicit/109k, alternate s6. au where cas asks dean for help with raphael and dean, of course, does. tw for temporary major character death/semi-graphic depictions of alcohol withdrawal.

The face of heaven.* - teen/10k, au, dean is a regular guy and cas is a fallen star (think ‘stardust’, kinda).

Stories Are Made of Mistakes*  - teen/5k. newly human cas has trouble getting used to a human body and humanity in general, but still figures out that he and dean are A Thing before dean does.

Hurry Up And Wait - mature/21k, canon divergent s12. a fairyland and quite possibly LOTR related case comes up and dean goes full fanboy, mary is introduced to the wonders of the peter jackson adaptions, many references and comparisons (including between cas and dean’s ‘friendship’ and arwen/aragon). also charle is still alive and has just been doing fairy stuff this whole time.

There Are Many Things - explicit/28k, s9. cas is extremely lonely/touch-starved and trying to figure out this whole human thing, as well as where he and dean stand after being kicked out of the bunker.

It's A Long Life to Always Be Longing - teen/40k, post s11 finale. amara helps dean by putting him in a magical coma so he can finally get some much needed rest and show him possible futures for him, sam and cas. meanwhile sam and cas go on a roadtrip (or several) to find componets for a spell to wake dean up. really good sam and cas friendship, they actually talk about their shared lucifer trauma and stuff.

Non-Photo Blue - gen/2k, s4/5/alternate s5. fifty moments from cas’ memories of dean.

Tall Grass - explicit/57k, canon divergent post series. cas becomes the ultimate plant dad. feat the wayward sisters gang, cathartic character growth, fun oc’s, domesticity, and lots of actual botanical info-dumping.

on vessels - no rating/gen/2k. established dean/cas, cas tells dean about how he used to imagine what it would be like to have him as his vessel.

search for tomorrow on every shore* - teen/11k, post-finale (extremely derogatory). some angels in jack’s new heaven act out and dean gets temporarily resurrected in 2003 and runs into his younger self.

Architecture of the Minotaur’s Heart - explicit/45k, very canon divergent post s1. dean’s new house seems to have a life and mind of its own, while in his dreams he sees glimpses of a world and apocalypse that never came to be and an angel that looks strangely like his mysterious neighbor, cas. loosely inspired by the book house of leaves (which i highly recommend for fans of weird horror).

The Distance Of The Setting Sun - explicit/17k, post s5. established dean/cas relationship, team free will finally takes advantage of cas’ abilities to go on vacation around the world.

diamond star halo - teen/5k, s11. dean lets cas use him as a temporary vessel while he recovers from rowena’s spell, sam is a long-suffering third-wheel.

Make Known** - teen/16k, s6/7. dean struggles to understand how cas could have become his enemy and whether he ever truly knew him in the first place.

blunt little instrument* - mature/1.4k, post finale. dean finally confronts his father in heaven, very cathartic.

my heart a compass*** - teen/10k, post confession. the empty forces cas to re-experience his most regretted moments while dean tries to snap him out of it and bring him home.

A Crash Course in Someone Else's History - teen/11k, s6. cas from the very start of s4 is brought forward in time by s6!cas to distract the brothers from his and crowley’s plans.

The Cuckoo Father - mature/8k, s7 au. the woman who found cas in the river post-leviathans does not marry him bc he was sent to her by god or whatever, but actually identifies him as jimmy novak and sends him back to claire and amelia.

The Dead Dean Clause* - teen/5k, post alt s5 ending. team free will celebrates surviving taking down lucifer by getting blitzed, cas lies to a cop and gets an impromptu driving lesson. title/description sound dark i know but it’s actually very funny and light.

Suck It, Judy Garland - mature/20k, s12 (after the ‘i love you...i love all of you’ episode). cas and sam have to pretend to be a couple for a case and dean is NOT happy about it.

By Daylight and In Dream - teen/16k, s5. pre-dean/cas, dean invites cas to use his dreams to hide from the other angels. tw for very brief mention of a memory/dream of alastair sexually assaulting dean.

The Five People You Meet in Heaven - mature/22k, post-canon. an actually happy (if sometimes bittersweet) heaven endgame written several years ago, though some details are rather eerily similar to the show’s ending.

heaven is a place on earth* - teen/2k. dean’s pov of some of the times cas left him behind throughout the show, and one alternate ending where he finally gets to stay.

I Cleanse The Mirror - teen/20k, alternate s6. dean’s body is stolen by an ancient elemental and his soul has to hitch a ride in cas’ vessel.

an exploration of gender; angelic*** - mature/4k. *oscar isaac voice* lets get into angel gender politics!! aka cas is trans.

Zenith - explicit/33k, s9. after 9x06 an angry witch curses cas with the ability to see supernatural beings and human souls.

La cucina. - gen/3k, alt s9. dean goes wild helping a newly-human cas find out what kinds of food he likes, or the early s9 domesticity we deserved!

Dean Winchester, Cocksucker at Rest***** - teen/7k, post-finale. john and mary finally come over for dinner and john reacts to dean/cas in a rather predictable fashion. SOOOOOOOOO good omg, its so funny and a little sad and very very cathartic. part of a series that has a few other really good short fics.

The Way You Didn't Go - teen/5k, s15. coda to 15.09, dean has nightmares about the moc!cas timeline.

On Drowning - teen/28k. dean saves cas after he nearly drowns, they both try and deal with the physical/mental fallout (aka the fic where thee iconic “you only touch me when you think I’m dead or dying” originates). tw for realistic depictions of drowning/triage/misc medical information.

The Thirty-Six Questions That Lead to Love* - mature/13k. claire has dean and cas pretend to be her gay dads for a case and they play the titular 36 question game, get mistaken for swingers, and birdwatch, among other things.

Assorted F/F stuff:

Deep Breaths* - mary/ellen, au where mary said no to azazel’s deal and let john stay dead, still becomes a milf.

Like Rebel Diamonds - krissy/claire, they become hunter gf’s on the hunt for cas to kick his ass for taking jimmy. not-so-stealth dean/cas as well.

To Ash and Bone - anna/ruby, same author as the previous fic (p much all of her stuff is good from what i recall). au where ruby is a witch and helps anna when she’s cursed.

Holy Clockwork Angels - jo/ruby, STEAMPUNK au with very cool worldbuiilding.

At Day's End - jo/anna (my fucking KINGDOM for more jo/anna content, the dean/cas parallels are allllll there), au where they are both at the camp in the endverse and gfs.

these posts - ok so not actually a fic but i’m now obsessed with this hannah/meg dynamic.

Tagelied - mary/ellen, the true story of how ellen got into hunting before angels interfered.

Hell's Bells** - meg/abaddon, alternate s8/9 where meg survives crowley’s attack with sam’s help and teams up with abaddon (who she has a sk year old crush on) to take back hell.

The Ecstasy of the Rose - anna/ruby, anna travels back in time to escape heaven and becomes a signifigant part of ruby’s old human life.

Angel Underground - anna/jo, kind of an urban fantasy au with a very intriguing premise (sadly its very short, i’d love to see more if this ‘verse).

Clover, Flame - billie/mary, billie was always the reaper that showed up to take mary after her death(s) over the years.

Drag Me To Heaven - anna/ruby, a variant on the ‘last night on earth’ thing with dean.

Come Home* - jo/anna, canon-divergent au where anna is the new waitress at the roadhouse and helps jo set up a (probably not really) haunted house for halloween.

[acerace]

...you have opened my eyes to a vast universe of VintageBeef lore that I was unaware of. I knew about the New Hermit Order, of course, and the UHC invention, and I've watched a few of his CTM things but -- I will take all the info and lore you feel like giving out because Beef is amazing and my knowledge is so small.

Vintagebeef my beloved <3

So the thing is, right, until about 2016 I only watched two (2) youtubers- Vintagebeef for Minecraft and aDrive for Pokemon (and funnily enough both of them are named Dan irl). So I've watched most of Beef's videos over the years and have a general knowledge of most of his stuff, except because it's been like a decade I don't remember where most of the lore comes from XD

The thing with him is that he doesn't do Lore tm the way other mcyters often do lore- he doesn't have an extensive RP series to draw from like Grian, doesn't have a solo world with steadily increasing amounts of lore like Etho or Zisteau, and while he's played on SMPs and been involved in storylines before it's not really the focus of his episodes unlike with Evo or Legacy or Empires

So where does that leave us?

IRL, Beef always has multiple series running at the same time. Often he's playing on an smp while doing a singleplayer, often modded, series as well as a CTM or modpack with a group of friends. For example, right now he's playing on Hermitcraft, doing weekly Pixelmon and Building a Zoo episodes, and a CTM map with Slip. And to me, this translates to one thing: Beef is an adventurer. He travels frequently- he explores a world and when he decides he's done, he leaves for the next one. That's the basis of my personal interpretation of his series and his character for my writing.

Ok so reading this back, this got extremely long and didn't explain much in the way of lore, somehow? If anyone has any additions to add please do so, I am very definitely leaving out a lot and would love to see what other lore people remember and are using for Beef! I didn’t include the Hermitcraft stuff since my memory of season 4 is blurry (his base was themed after the Martian, that much I know, and he and Iskall were buddies :D) and most of the s5 NHO lore is best watched from Bdub’s perspective from what I remember, and the only s6 stuff is a single line in Hermitgang and then the Area 77 arc with its possibility of an NHO reunion which we did not get rip. And s7 of course had the cloning machine and also the Podzol Party as the main lore. So all the original rambling is still below the cut though it is very long, and I'm gonna bullet point the main stuff here instead:

Actual canonical things:

Invented UHC and was the only survivor of the first ever uhc (Mindcrack UHC s1)

Married to an ender dragon (one of the UHCs I think), later father to a different dragon (Mindcrack season 3? I think?)

Might not have legs if you choose to take that joke as canon (Mindcrack s2)

Was a wizard (RAD)

is a zookeeper (Building a Zoo) 

Had a wife and kids (Sims in Minecraft)

Part of the Trial of the B Team court case (Mindcrack)

NHO founder, founder of the Podzol Party (Hermitcraft)

Created a cloning machine that sort of works (Hermitcraft)

Played the Forest which is I believe the first time he and Keralis played together (look up the trigger warnings for this one, it's a horror game)

Was the creator/owner of Sourceblock SMP (featuring some familiar faces if you know Legacy, Empires, or MCC) and there is literal magic from a mysterious sourceblock of water that teleports people and summons mobs and probably more stuff that I haven't seen yet since I'm still watching it myself

Things you can infer:

Good with animals (Life in the Woods, Pixelmon, Ark)

Is a car nerd (irl and all of the car games he's played)

Is a highly experienced adventurer who has traveled through dozens of worlds both vanilla and modded, across multiple dimensions (Twilight Forest, the Aether, the Betweenlands, Limbo), completed dozens of monuments, fought in blood sports, survived apocalypse after apocalypse, tamed dinosaurs, and played a lot of prop hunt and golf with your friends

If you're looking for what to watch for lore purposes, I'd say the Mindcrack UHCs and Team Canada's RAD series are pretty good, definitely Sourceblock and HC s5, plus the Diversity CTM maps and Ruins of the Mindcrackers maybe? And Mindcrack Prank Wars for the chaos and the origin of Team Canada. And if you can handle horror than the Forest is fun and if you don't do horror you can watch the Pojkband play golf or prop hunt they're hilarious I love them sm I want a Pojkband reunion So Bad 

Beef's first series was a singleplayer series in beta 1.4_01 though he had played the game extensively before that, and was a big fan of Guude, having watched his own Minecraft videos. The series was functionally a hardcore one where if he died Beef would delete the world and start again! I haven't actually Watched this series so idk if he died or how often lmao. When Guude made Mindcrack, which was btw one of the very first Minecraft SMPs, he also hosted a competition for people to join, and Beef submitted a video (which is still viewable on his channel I believe!) and won, and was added to Mindcrack in season 2 :D (fun fact, Guude said that even if Beef hadn’t won he would have added him anyway) 

Two running jokes emerged from Mindcrack- pulling a Vintagebeef and Beef doesn't have legs. The first is a reference to Beef dying of fall damage (I believe the exact instance was him trying to jump into his swimming pool and failing spectacularly) and after the incident, every time someone died of fall damage they were pulling a Vintagebeef. The second joke comes from Guude, who joked that the reason Beef wasn't going to a convention was because he didn't have legs, and then he pranked Beef's base by building a giant pair of legs at the entrance to his castle so you had to walk between them to get into the base. This joke has long since died and both Beef and Guude feel pretty bad about it iirc because there were people who genuinely thought Beef was disabled and were emailing him supportive messages and stuff oops. So if you go looking on the Salad or find old Mindcrack fics, you might see references to Beef having prosthetic legs!

Mindcrack also brought about the creation of several Player groups- Team Nancy Drew, Team Canada, and GOB to name a few relevant to Beef. Team Nancy Drew consists of Beef, Pauseunpause, Guude, and Baj, who formed to investigate a prank on one of the members but I forget who. They're named Nancy Drew after the detective! Team Canada also formed in retaliation to pranks, with it consisting of Beef, Etho, and Pause, the three Canadian members on the server (not including Adlington who moved to Canada but never joined the group). There was also a Team America who pranked them with American flags everywhere. GOB is Guude, OMGChad, and Beef, who played stuff like the Ragecraft, Pantheon, and Monstrosity ctms together but that's way down the line lol

Team Nancy Drew is also notable for inventing UHC. It was Beef's brainchild but it was the four of them who first played it! The first UHC had the four of them working to kill the dragon with no natural regen, with everyone dying but Beef, who "won" the UHC. The second uhc was still dragon focused and iirc is where Beef married the dragon? Memories are hazy but they do kill the dragon in this one I think. UHC was then revamped as a pvp event and became a regular Mindcrack game every few months, featuring most of the Mindcrackers and several special guests, including Dinnerbone, who as we know Thanos-snapped Doc's arm out of existence as a result of Doc killing him in one of them

In one of the seasons of Mindcrack, Beef invited swedish Mindcracker and good friend Anderzel to go caving with him and invented ABBA Rules caving, where the winner takes it all. ABBA Rules is a game where each ore (and also dungeon loot like nametags) is assigned a point value and the person with the most points at the end wins and gets to keep all the stuff collected from the game.

In Mindcrack season 3?, Beef punched the ender dragon in an... awkward area, so when the dragon died and left the egg behind, Guude said Beef was the father of the egg XD I don't remember if I watched s3 so I have no idea if anything Happened with this concept but *history of the world voice* you could make lore out of this!

So Team Canada has played a Lot of CTM maps (which fun fact were pretty much invented by another Mindcrack member, Vechs, with his Super Hostile series! Super Hostile has a bunch of things called "Zistonian", which are references to another Mindcrack member Zisteau, who has a very wild singleplayer series with even wilder lore but I digress). In Ruins of the Mindcrackers, they had a running joke that Beef was Etho and Pause's mom, which is a joke we can leave in the past actually /lh. They also played all the Diversity maps, Sky Factory, Terra Restore, Uncharted Territory uhhh and a couple more ctms and adventure maps! Each map kinda has its own story so in Diversity 3 for example they were trapped in a simulation? I think? Team Canada also recently played the Roguelike Adventures and Dungeons modpack, aka RAD, in which Beef was a wizard with a magic staff that could do anything from summon lightning to control hostile mobs.

Sourceblock SMP is a vanilla survival 1.14 series that ran for one season and the series starts with each of the Players being drawn to a strange sparkling water source that, once they touch it, brings them to the Sourceblock world. It also summons a giant zombie at one point. There's probably more lore for this series but like I said I haven't watched it all the way through yet 

He has a Patreon server called VintageCraft and has done a series or two on there as well, and played a few UHCs with them, so lore that how you will! 

Beef also played a few popular mods, notably Pixelmon, Life in the Woods, and Feed the Beast, with LitW being singleplayer and the other multiplayer. He's also recently played the Zoo and Wild Animals mod a lot. He did a short series with the Minecraft Comes Alive mod where he married one of the villagers and had two children, so that's canon now :D he’s played a Lot of Pixelmon starting when the mod first came out iirc (he chose Turtwig in his first series and built a Grass gym, then made a Normal gym in another series in uhh 2016) and he still plays to this day. Quite a few Hermits played on his Pixelmon servers with him, like Wels, Etho, Iskall, Stress, Slip, Zueljin, and also Guude and Phedran (a Mindcrack adjacent player and creator of the LitW modpack) and a few Mindcrackers on the older servers 

Mindcrack and friends played a lot of other games too- 7 Days to Die, Ark Survival Evolved, Unturned, to name a few, so you can pull a lot of lore out of these as well. Speaking of friends and non-Minecraft games, Beef teamed up with Pause, Keralis, and Slip (a former Hermit) to play the horror game the Forest, which saw them stuck on an island trying to survive against terrifying mutated human... things. They played it a few times as the game updated but as afaik it's the first time Beef played with Keralis and possibly Slip and since the game starts with the Player's airplane crashing, that could totally be how Beef first met them in-universe 

I... think? that’s everything I mentioned in the tags? There is probably way more stuff I’ve forgotten that stems from inside jokes and things that happen within each series, but I hope that was a) helpful and b) at least somewhat comprehensible lmao 

[bon-nii]

There's literally no stakes in the anime at all. Its so bland and emotionless. I don't feel anything for these characters. Everything is being handed to them. Give me back my son, Adam. He is far more intelligent than any of these anime characters. They all drank stupid juice.

Yeah, I definitely agree. I'm just watching to see where this ends up at this point (and also to shitpost lmfao)

Every Thursday me and two of my friends (one has read most of the manga, the other is anime-only) watch it on discord, or talk about it on discord and man... my friend who is anime-only is like "yeah, this sucks ass, I need to just read the manga" and is confused with stuff. We just kinda clown on it at this point. It's basically just someone's shitty canon-divergence AU playing out on screen.

Random assortment of thoughts:

I can sympathize with Manga Norman. I can understand WHY he is doing what he is doing and what his motivations are. It is, quite frankly, completely disgusting what he wants to do, but I can get why he wants to do it and I don't hate him. He is a very complex character, trying to make sense/live in a very complex world. Anime Norman on the other hand? I feel nothing for him like, I just Do Not Care. Norman is, imo, the best written out of the three mains and my personal favorite, but they've completely squandered his writing... ugh

I've held strong by this belief: If you are going to adapt TPN, there are 3 major characters who you *cannot afford* to mess up. Isabella, Yuugo, and Norman. (I'd even throw Peter and Leuvis in there as well) Well, Yuugo's gone and if they *do* decide to have him show up his character is completely different (i.e. the out of character note he leaves at the bunker). Norman has next to none of the depth he had in the OG story (I can't remember, but didn't Cislo or Barbara say that he saved the kids at the mass production plants? Uhhh, what?!?!). And Isabella is being built up as the big villain YET AGAIN which does not align with her development at all (though I do think they will still pull a bait-n-switch on us like in the manga) so there goes that.

Peter and Leuvis oh where do I start? Leuvis is my personal favorite villain of the story for multiple reasons (I think I will write an entire post on him sometime) and Peter is the epitome of everything Emma stands against and is essentially the Big Bad. Leuvis is gone, Peter is in the op but has had ZERO screentime thus far, not even any fucking hints to his existence at all. There's 5 eps left so he has to show up at some point, right? He's in the opening soooo... where the hell is he? How are viewers supposed to give a shit about him? He's pretty fucking dangerous and has been influencing the plot since day ONE, but whatever I guess??

Anime Ray is the only one I vibe with rn, and even then he's meh. Anime Emma is on thin fucking ice, and Anime Norman can be fed to the Dropkick Murpheys for all I care.

Infodumps. My god. These bitches be talking like they're reading a wikipedia article.

The literal butchering of Emma's character. Goldy Pond would have been the ep 19 of Demon Slayer of this anime season if they had adapted it, and I stand by that. The amount of HYPE on social media that would have happened after Emma pulls herself from the brink of death to challenge Leuvis would have been insane. There are so few strong, well-written female shonen protagonists... damn shame that the brilliance of Emma is relegated solely to s1 and the pages of the manga, she is a husk of herself in this season.

No character growth. Trio is separate for 90 chapters. That's literally half of the entire manga. There's no feeling of separation, no feeling that they are wildly different people now. These three have spent their entire lives together. Ray and Emma have to struggle without Norman, and Norman has to struggle without Ray and Emma. It's so important. This dynamic *literally* dictates how they grow as characters. When they are finally reunited it is so emotional and amazing, but also a bit unsettling because Norman is *clearly* not the Norman we remember... but in the anime we don't feel any of the impact of those 2 years.

Yuugo and Lucas. Contrasting the love Isabella gave to the kids with the love these two dads give to them. Adds a lot to the story. RIP.

Also RIP Adam and the Gold Pond kids... jeeeeeze there was so much potential.

Anime sacrifices extremely hard-hitting and emotional moments for cheap shock factor (namely, bunker raid and the trio reunion)

Speaking of the trio reunion, why the FUCK does Anime Norman not give a shit about Anime Ray? Hes completely ignored, and it's not like in the manga where he came in later no, like... he's there, seeing Norman at the same time Emma is. There's like, a solid minute and a half of Norman and Emma crying over each other while Ray just stands in the back like 🧍‍♂️and then is added as an afterthought. Emma's like "oh yeah, I brought Ray" GIRL??? And Norman is like "oh hey Ray.." BITCH?!?! YOU KNEW HE WAS GONNA FUCKING KILL HIMSELF AND HAD NO WAY OF KNOWING WHETHER OR NOT EMMA WAS ABLE TO STOP HIS SUICIDE, FOR 2 YEARS??? AND YOU JUST IGNORE HIM?? AND THEN ACKOWLEDGE HIM AS AN AFTERTHOUGHT?? I--okay!

Manga Norman: Emma and Ray are my best friends and I love them more than anything in the world, but Ray understands me in a way that Emma doesn't. They are both important to me.

Anime Norman: who the fuck is ray

Zero suspense. Minimal world building. Very minimal lore building. No mystery.

What the fuck is up with the William Minerva part of the plot like... uh, that's pretty important??? He's been completely dropped and there's zero reason for us to connect him with Norman. Like, he had his phone call in ep 3 and then any mention of him dipped. Disappointing as hell. Don't get to see the parallels drawn between him and Norman. Man...

Yeah idk what else... am I being too critical? Honestly, not sure. I think my criticisms and frustrations are well-founded, but I am definitely basing most of this off of the anime's failure to adapt the manga. Though I suppose, looking from an anime-only standpoint who has no idea just how much of the story has been axed, it might be okay or it might not be? Or it might depend on the person... in any case, I cant fathom how anyone could look at this season and go "Yeah, this feels like the same show as season 1!"

[repmet]

I just finished Horizon Forbidden West but I'm also trying to finish a bottle of wine so idk keep that in mind

Spoilers

- Zero Dawn is one of my favourite games of all time and this sequel didn't exactly disappoint me terribly but it won't earn its place in that top list

- I'm mad my Mum somehow called the Zenith plot before I even started the game. I explained the plot of HZD and she was like 'I'd have gone into space I bet some people did I bet you meet their decendants' then she was so smug when she was (almost) right.

- They definitely tried to cram too many collectibles and side activities into this, the melee pits, machine strike, ruins, flowers, sunken caverns look pick like two and leave the rest and if one of those two is the fucking melee pits I will personally hunt you down

- Machine combat is still mostly really fun! I enjoyed it and always took that option over stealth. Not because I suck at stealth. I mean I do suck at stealth but that's not why!

- Melee combat uhhh sucked.

- Machine strike has way too any rules I tapped out after the tutorial sddjkl

- The story was not as well paced or structured as HZD, it kept me mostly... entertained but while I was desperate to know more about Project Zero Dawn with every scrap of info they revealed once you knew the Zeniths were the ogs it was kinda? Meh? About anything else. Even nemesis was kinda 'oh okay' like a twist but it completely lacked the build up of the Zero Dawn reveal

- Tilda, honey. The age gap.

- Beta was great! I loved her relationship with Aloy cause she was super frustrating but of course she would act like that. Also the siblingness in 'God she pisses me off I'd fucking kill for her tho'

- Did the gene for identical twins get missed when Zero Dawn was created? I get people would still be shocked to meet Beta but they're acting like they've never seen two similar looking people ever??

- The base was... cool, but the bonding and character needing to be like, sought out made it almost a drag. It would have been cool to have companions come with you and talk along the way a la Mass Effect and The Outer Worlds

- Wow there was. So much dialogue 🙃 The lore and world building are great but I skipped through so much because there were dialogue tree three levels deep with five options each I just wanna ride a velociraptor

- Thebes was weird and such a disappointment. The build up of oh shit Teddy boy is alive, the anticipation of stabbing him, the twist that he's mutated then an OFF SCREEN DEATH?????????

- my day was ruined, my disappointment immeasurable

- I would fucking die for Alva

- Alva your gf is not good enough for you no one is

- Kotallo was very cool

- I knew Varl was gonna die the second we entered that cauldron. It honestly just felt like for shock value then of course. Baby.

- SPEAKING OF CAULDRONS. FUCK EM

- Does anyone like them?

- I ragequit the tideripper one after I died and glitched outside the map then it wanted me to start again. No.

- Uhhhhmaybe I'll have more sober thoughts? Idk, I replayed HZD immediately but I don't feel the urge here. Still, overall like 7.5/10

[radramblog]

Halo 2 is the most Two

According to a semi-reliable source (TvTropes’s Halo/Funny subpage), Halo 2 was once described by a Bungie PR guy as, and I quote:

               “like Halo 1, only it's Halo 1 on fire, going 130 miles per hour through a hospital zone, being chased by helicopters and ninjas ... And, the ninjas are all on fire, too.”

2004 really was a special time, huh?

But I’d argue the thing that quote fails to mention is how much 2 is in Halo 2. Duality is a core theme of both the gameplay and story, and that’s something I’d like to highlight.

Not because it’s important. Because it’s fun.

Halo 2 is a game about two. Literally, in fact, as the story revolves around two protagonists, whom you switch back and forth between as the Campaign progresses. John-117, the Master Chief, hero of the first game, who spends 2’s opening moments being hailed for his achievements during the previous story. And Thel’ Vadamee, the Arbiter, background villain of the first game, who spends 2’s opening moments being publicly humiliated and tortured for his failures during the previous story.

This cutscene is very much intentional, it’s a cool parallel that sets up the twin stories of the game, but it far from ends there. Because Halo 2 is a sequel, it’s setting up a grander universe, one that began in the novels that released between the games. However, because the game is still a big-budget sequel to a smash-hit game effectively owned by one of the biggest companies on the planet, the game could never be as experimental or the story as interesting as the world suggested by said novels and lore.

So there’s a lot of twos. We see a second Halo ring in the second Halo game, which is confusingly named Delta Halo even though it’s the second one we see in the franchise. Also, it’s official Forerunner name is Installation 05, even though Delta is the fourth letter in the Greek alphabet, and the Halo from the first game was Installation 04…

Tangents aside. Twos. Ultimately the story is less two-ey than what I’ll get to in a bit, but there’s still some there. The second Halo comes with a second Monitor, and the first of the two Covenant Prophets that are encountered (and killed) over the story’s course. Two of Earth’s orbital defense platforms are obliterated in the first level, uhhh, two new major Human characters are introduced (Lord Hood and Miranda Keyes) along with two named Sangheili (Both the Arbiter and Rtas ‘Vadumee, as the Heretic Leader isn’t given a name in the game proper). There’s like, two real boss fights? I guess? Regret doesn’t fucking count.

I think I’m kinda grasping at straws so I’ll move into the gameplay, because boy howdy there’s where the twos really come in. While Halo featured both Human and Covenant weapons, Halo 2 was the game that defined them as two clear opposed factions- much like in a Strategy game, each has equivalent items to each other. The Battle Rifle and Covenant Carbine are both new weapons that add a mid-range option for each faction, as well as making up for the severe nerf to the Magnum. It’s now effectively paired as a sidearm with the Plasma Pistol, their deadliness largely confined to one half each of the Shields/Health divide the game uses for Multiplayer. The SMG replaces the Assault Rifle to better mirror the Covenant Plasma Rifle, and the Beam Rifle is introduced as the Covenant variant Sniper Rifle. The Energy Sword and Fuel Rod Gun are both now actually playable, serving as counterparts to the Shotgun and Rocket Launcher respectively. You get the idea. This somewhat carries over to the Vehicles, with the Covenant Spectre being introduced as a counterpart to the Warthog, though that’s the only new vehicle off the top of my head. Yknow, because I’m talking out my ass.

Oh, also this is the game where they put in dual wielding guns.

The campaign progression is also fond of its twos, if you ignore the first level. Two cutscenes (or, a cutscene and a tutorial+in-engine-cutscene+cutscene), the one we’re ignoring, Two Chief levels, Two Arbiter levels, Two Chief, Two Arbiter, then we actually alternate. Twice. Because why not.

Late into the game, however, there is somewhat of a shift in this dual natured game. The Great Schism occurs in the plotline, as the Covenant Civil War begins, and a second Covenant faction breaks off after having been betrayed by its leadership. There is, in fact, a third Prophet in the form of Truth, who survives the game (but not the sequel). There is also arguably a third protagonist for this extra faction, but not one we get to play as- the game’s final boss, Tartarus, leader of the Brutes, and head of the Covenant military once the Schism occurs. This third faction adds a new weapon, the Brute Shot, the sole weapon in the game not in the style of the gunmetal-black UNSC or the typically colourful and gleaming Covenant armoury- the Brute Shot’s dull muddied grays and browns and wicked bayonet a reflection of its wielder’s personality. The two story paths of Halo 2 run alongside each other before meeting and splitting off following the dramatic introduction of the Gravemind.

This is a reflection of the true nature of Halo 2, as the final product strayed farther from the initial vision than many are aware of. There’s a little known fact these days that the Halo trilogy wasn’t meant to be a trilogy, with 2’s planned story extending into what would become the majority of the third game. 2 was supposed to end at the Ark, with the death of Truth, with the revelation of the truth of the Forerunners and the end of the war.

But things change. Halo 2 spent a lot of time in development on an engine that wasn’t practical for the game they were trying to make, so much of the time was wasted. Add in a hastened Christmas release date, and you get the abrupt finale and cliffhanger that is Halo 2’s story. This isn’t to say that the game is bad, far from it, but it had potential to be so much better. Like the endgame of its plot, Halo 2 could have also been Halo 3.

I’m going to be honest, I thought I had a lot more tangible points to hang on to when I started writing this than I actually did. Much like my last Halo-related post, there’s a lot of grasping and chasing shadows in this. Maybe next time I should just talk about why I like these games or something instead, that’s a lot easier.

Anyway does anyone wanna come play Firefight with me please do it’s been so long since I’ve done that with anyone other than internet randos