#as always more reccs under the cut

[holographings]

Third movie recc list for pride month!!! moving over to korean cinema~

There have been a lot of k-miniseries that have come out in recent years that touch on lgbt+ topics, however I find those lacking in one way or another, especially compared to some others on this list, so I’ve omitted the many shorts i’ve enjoyed casually from here.

+THE KING AND THE CLOWN (Dir. Lee Joonik, 2005. 119 minutes)

This is it. This is THE movie. My all time favourite, of all time. Ever. Despite its themes this movie managed to garner astounding commercial and critical success and I just want to say- DESERVED. It follows two street performers who get sentenced to death for mocking the ruling king in their performances, only to escape execution as the king finds them funny, and more importantly becomes deeply psychosexually obsessed with one of the performers (landing them in possibly even more trouble in the long run).

The self-referential and intertextual elements in this movie make me drool no matter how many times I watch it, and I am so sad that despite all the meta and translations i’ve read on it, there are still elements of poetry and prose that are lost in translation. It’s vibrant and funny and heart-wrenching and I legitimately think everyone should watch it at least once. The colours. The SOUNDTRACK. Lee Joongi gives the performance of a lifetime, and he and Kam Woosung play off each other so naturally it’s virtually impossible to not fall in love with them. I could say so much more but I’ll stop here. Just watch it. The ending Will make you want to eat hot raw concrete. 

ALTERNATE CHOICES

+THE HANDMAIDEN (Dir. Park Chan Wook, 2016. 144 minutes)

Everyone knows this movie. Your grandmother knows this movie. It’s still on the list. “My savior, who came to ruin my life” <3. Among my favourite Park Chan Wook movies, possibly second only to Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. 

+WISHING STAIRS (Dir. Yun Jaeyeon, 2003. 97 minutes)

Part of the Whispering Corridors series, horror is incomplete without some totally-not-into-each-other girl best friends in it. I remember watching this in middle school and if i’m completely honest i think i’ve managed to forget most of the scenes save for ones involving a clay sculpting room and a ballet flat, but i KNOW it was a good time if you’re into horror. Sufficiently balances the creep factor with the homosexual intrigue factor. 

HONORABLE MENTIONS-

(this section features movies that I love but can't in good conscience put on the main list as they don't explicitly feature any non-straight characters. but if you just Squint. it's all there. take it with a grain of salt.)

+SHOOT ME IN THE HEART (Dir. Mun Cheyoung. 101 minutes)

 What if [Girl, Interrupted] had a wackier korean remake that no one fucking talked about despite having A-List actors in it. Between the Vibes and the lead character hitting on the other male lead in the first 5 minutes of this movie, i feel alright putting it on the list despite nothing explicitly lgbt+ going on in this film. The bond between the lead characters Is the thing that has kept me rewatching this movie a couple of times over, and it is such a heartwarming thing despite the ending. So yeah. No happy ending. Still worth a watch.

[penaltyboxboxbox]

If you want to share; do you have any horror movie reccs? I kinda like the less indie ones haha, but anything is nice!! I really enjoyed Talk to Me and Black Phone from some of the recent-ish ones. Looking forward to watching Longlegs!

oh man do i !! ill share some of my favs and this got really long so under the cut lol

i love scifi horror, and prometheus/alien covenant is such a big pick for me, david8 one of my fav horror antagonists ever. Also in the scifi horror genre, i ADORE event horizon, its basically demonic haunted house in space with the best cast ever and you should watch it.

I love Robert Eggers generally (the lighthouse is probably my favorite movie of all time tho i dont really consider it horror) but the witch is definitely horror and if you like historical/period pieces its an absolute must watch.

If we want some more serious veined and disturbing horrors imo- lets go with Dogtooth and The Killing of a Sacred Deer by Lanthimos. Theyre slower and heavy and too bright and too horrible. their strangeness just picks at you, movies that really feel like someone grabbing your face and forcing you to look. in a similar world, i like funny games, both the original and the remake, as well as suspiria, the original and the remake. It's become rather trendy lately, i keep seeing gifs of it around lol, but Possession is also fantastic, another great performance from sam neill.

I love 80s horror, The Thing is probably one of the best horror movies ever made, just a masterclass of tension and effects work. I love the movie CHRISTINE which is about a murderous possessed car. the shining is a fucking classic and still one of the most unsettling movies for me to watch. i also love children of the corn, the strange folk horror of it is really just kind of crazy cool and underrated imo..

back to recent, its very hyped but It Follows definitely lives up to that hype. one of the best film scores in recent memory, insane performances and sense of dread. if you dont mind extreme heavy violence, green room is a fantastic watch. get out is a modern horror classic and another must watch, and i see it talked about less, but i love peele's US even more and find it so so terrifying, lupita nyongos performance in it is beyond haunting.

im a huge huge sucker for a monster movie, i adore monsters, i've already mentioned the thing and alien series which are great examples but here, take some more! i loved crawl, alligator themed florida horror. Underwater, if you like a big monster. del Toro's mimic is crazy and creepy. Annihilation isn't what id call a horror movie, but its quite horrifying, and definitely has some of my favorite movie monsters... same with When Animals Dream its more a coming of an age than a True Horror but its my favorite werewolf movie ive ever watched so i would be remiss to not mention it

i also LOVE found footage, a subgenre only really pursued by horror film, and theres a lot of bad ones but a few good ones lol. The Bay is one i'll always recommend, it uses so many mediums so well to weave this very real and awful tale of ecohorror. the OG, the blair witch project. Hell House LLC is the perfect halloween movie to get freaked out on before you and your friends go to a haunted house...

i could go on and on but this is already a lot lol....but theres so many great horror movies out there!! you need only to watch them 🫶 hope you enjoy if you do check any of these out!!

[cityan1mal]

hi! I'm a dragon therian and I'm an omnivore! my diet consists mostly of fish, berries/fruits and meat, and I don't have any dietary restrictions

Ooooooh I was hoping I get A mythical creature.

From what I've read dragons mainly eat meat, large animals like gators and livestock. Though smaller dragons eat varied diets. Also some eat inorganic materials. Very interesting.

(I actually super love dragons and have since I was a kid I'm so happy I have one in my asks)

Reccs under cut

If you can't source Gator meat I recommend eating some chicken with a side of dried fish for that tough skin chew

If you want the sharp bitter taste of a raw berry you found in the forest (assuming your breed is carnivores)

Get some raw cranberries. They won't taste good though.

If you're more metallic and craving gems I recommend rock candy. You can always get gemstone candy but rock candy will be easier to find

Want something more ashy and smoky?

Grill a watermelon!!! It will still be raw red and juicy like a cow you picked up out of someones farm. But have a smokey flavor (Or make a med rare steak but this is more FUN!!)

BONUS CHOCOLATE COINS CUS I HAVE TOO

[critter-rarepair-reccs]

Good afternoon everyone, I hope you're all having a lovely Wednesday! This week, we have nine fics featuring proposals, weddings, and marriages of all sorts! As always, you can find them below the cut and if you check any of them out, I encourage you to leave kudoes and comments to spread the rarepair love 💕

Grass Stains by Luddleston (3,026 words, Explicit) Pairing: Orym/Will Warnings: None

Orym and Will go 'stargazing' for their anniversary. (They actually fuck)

Reccer Says: It’s really really sweet!!! I love any fic that shows off how goddamn sappy and in love Orym and Will would’ve been and oh my god does that fic deliver. They’re all over each other and it’s GREAT. And the way the proposal comes out is so funny, I love it.

the sea, the stars, the dreamers by nonwal (117,680 words, Explicit) Pairing: Astrid Beck/Eadwulf Grieve/Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast (Blumenshadow) Warnings: Mental Health Issues, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Implied/Referenced Psychiatric Abuse, Under-negotiated Kink

A blumenshadow scifi arranged marriage AU that turns into an Among Us AU. Or, "In which Essek agrees to a political marriage to ensure intergalactic peace and keep himself alive, only to discover that his wife has married him for exactly the opposite reason."

Reccer Says: The INTRIGUE. The PINING. The WORLDBUILDING. These four are all having very different mental breakdowns, people are dying, and it is delicious to watch it all play out.

Shame on a martyr claiming friends by thought (1,641 words, Teen) Pairing: Dorian Storm/Verin Thelyss Warnings: None

Dorian—still Brontë—is arranged to marry Verin Thelyss. He’s naturally not thrilled, but he finds that he and his husband-to-be may have more in common than he first thought.

Reccer Says: Was immediately intrigued by the pairing and I am so invested in the idea of them now. I’d read 100k of this AU if there was that much, I think about what their relationship might look like so often since first reading it.

Training Perspectives by EliseK (4,106 words, Mature) Pairing: Orym/Will Warnings: None

Will & Orym think they're being discreet in training, but their squad disagrees

Reccer Says: I enjoyed it!

lavender by quinn_of_aebradore (258 words, General) Pairing: Mollymauk Tealeaf/Essek Thelyss (Shadowmauk) Warnings: None

While Caleb is away at an arcanist conference, Molly and Essek share a quiet moment.

Reccer Says: It’s sweet and silky and very cute!

weapons encouraged by JuniperGrace (2,175 words, General) Pairing: Kima/Allura Vysoren (Kimallura) Warnings: None

Kima and Allura attend Yasha and Beau's wedding. An excellent time is had by all.

Reccer Says: I enjoyed it!

Their Fond Pageant by littledust (5,199 words, General) Pairing: Laerryn Coramar-Seelie/Loquatius Seelie (Loquaerryn) Warnings: None

When a dozen invitations to Quay and Laerryn’s wedding mysteriously end up undelivered, the Ring of Brass (well, some of them) scramble to solve the mystery before the ceremony can be disrupted.

Reccer Says: It’s very fun, the mystery is great, the voices and POVs for each of the members of the Ring of Brass are spot-on, and Laerryn and Quay’s relationship and wedding are excellent backdrops to the whole thing.

wherever sea and shore brush close together by vietbluecoeur (7,786 words, General) Pairing: Marion Lavorre/Yussa Errenis (Rubygold) Warnings: None

A stunning fairy tale telling of the Ruby and the Gold Dragon.

Reccer Says: I enjoyed it!

Eclipsing Binary by the_deep_magic (4,655 words, Explicit) Pairing: Orym/Will Warnings: None

After spending a month apart in anticipation of their wedding, Orym and Will consummate their marriage.

Reccer Says: some very good wedding night smut for everyone’s favorite tragic couple

Thank you for joining us this week’s recc list! All the love to everyone who submitted a fic 💕 All enclosed recommendations were submitted by the community via our submissions form, which you can find here. All fic information is as it was provided by the reccer, so it may not be accurate to the author’s intent or the precise contents of the fic itself. Please assume good intent from all parties 💕

Submissions for next week’s list are already open! We’ll be featuring Oneshots. If you have any you’d like to highlight, you can send them in here. The week after that, the theme is Laudna Rarepairs and the weeks after that we’re taking recommendations for Grief & Mourning and Summer! Submissions for all of these themes are currently open.

If you want more rarepair fic, check out @cr-summer-wildflowers and their event collections on ao3! If you want some friendship after all this romance, take a look at @critter-genfic-events and their recc lists! And if you’re interested in everyone’s favorite wizards, you can’t go wrong with the lists at @aeor-is-for-reccing !

Thanks all and have a lovely day/night/timezone! 💕

[bougiebutchbitch]

Heyyy you seem like you really know your batjokes. You got any fics to recommend? Oneshots, longfics, incomplete or not, I'm just looking to feed this craving. I've already read the big ones, REMS, Made for the Journey, Half Way Across, Love and Abuse, etc. I need MOAR

DAMN this is a good question... and one I am only semi-qualified to answer. I've trawled through a fair bit of the Batjokes AO3, but that still amounts to, uh, not even half of it. Any further reccs are welcome! For now though, some favourites, old and new, are under the cut~

Please check each individual fic for rating & warnings.

I'm currently obsessed with The #48 Verse series, by DesdemonaKaylose! Start here...

BRED TO SUFFER (desdemonakaylose)

AU from Batman comics #48: amnesiac Bruce Wayne is saved from having to choose between his newfound peace and the legacy of Batman. And as long as there is no Batman, there can't be a Joker.

John Doe, of the uncannily wide smile and the acid green eyes, deals with a creeping sense of dread that something is poised to go very, very wrong.

After the events of Endgame, amnesiacs Bruce Wayne and John Doe find themselves drawn together and repelled like magnets. Love - and danger - ensues, as their pasts crawl slowly back through cracks in the mirror.

And I can't not mention the other fic I'm obsessed with: AS WE GO ALONG (battybrownboo) - EXPLICIT

Batman and the Joker are perched along the edges of a precarious and complicated affair when an old enemy returns to Gotham. The adversary's desires for revenge against Bruce Wayne have only strengthened with time. This forces the two enemies with benefits on a wild goose chase, and to confront their relationship head on, whether they’re ready or not.

Strong Deadly Duo vibes, but with all the hardcore fucking that DC keep forgetting to add in! Batman and Joker are forced to team up, while navigating a delightfully messy ongoing relationship. As ever, I'm on tenterhooks for the next chapter!

GLASS, CONTENT, PIECES (ashtosilver) - EXPLICIT

"Mr. Wayne, it's this government's decision that regardless of the progress, you will become this man's handler. How he gets to the point of accepting that, is up to you."

Bruce breaks the Joker. But not for himself. Contains rape.

WHAT A WONDERFUL ANIMOSITY (kyrilu)

Joker is preparing to celebrate his and Batman’s upcoming Nemesis Anniversary when he makes the devastating discovery that Batman is married to his roommate Bruce Wayne.

Legobatjokes cuteness!

JUST IN CASE OF SURPRISES (princegrantaire)

What do you get for the man who has everything anyway? A skinny murderous clown, apparently.

Clark gets Bruce a very unconventional birthday present.

After you've worked your way through those, please go read the entire archives of Dracze, Distortopia, Fractualized and Fricketyfrac, aka DDFF, aka the deities of batjokes fic. A couple of faves of theirs that I haven't yet reccommended publicly are:

GOODBYE UNTIL TOMORROW (dracze) - EXPLICIT

Dick and Barbara reminded me what’s important,” Bruce says, quietly. “And there's one more person I want to see.”

So sweet it gave me cavities <3

FRIEND, PLEASE (distortopia)

Joker will not let a disease, of all things, do him in. He was always meant to die at the hands of the Bat. He hadn’t tortured him enough before; he had been holding back. But now he would present Bruce with an impossible, obvious choice: kill Joker before he killed the world.

Joker gets cancer. It goes badly.

(AND I'M DROPPING A SHOUT FOR FALLS THE SHADOW TOO BECAUSE I WANT MORE OF IT PRETTY PLEASE, IT'S SO GOOD)

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT (fractualized)

The Justice League are regrouping after an attack when an unexpected visitor arrives at Batman's hideout.

The Justice League meet John Doe! <3

GOOD FOR NOTHING (fricketyfrac) - EXPLICIT

Batman investigates why Bane made an appearance at Amusement Mile, and his interrogation of Joker takes a dark turn.

Batman finds the nasty aftermath of a confrontation between Joker and Bane. Warnings for rape and some very, very dubious consent.

[dilettantefeminist]

Author's Notes for Cultivation - Chapter 2

Author's notes for Chapter 1 here

Chapter 2 on AO3 here, notes under the cut

I love a good hurt/comfort and especially those that star Middle Earth’s Favorite Therapist Elrond. I don’t demand any realism whatsoever from my hurt/comfort (why would I!), but I have a masochistic desire to make things seem organic in my own writing, so I wanted to establish that not only does Sîrwen have a very warm relationship with her mentor but that her breakdown comes as she’s dealing with hormones and has just presided over a major life event for her friends.

Because she’s been a Healer for many, many years, it just makes sense to me that Sîrwen would be a little jaded. She prides herself on being private with her emotions and there’s some judgement behind her joke about all those who have cried on Elrond’s shoulder. And of course he calls her on it.

This part of the scene may be my favorite:

Sîrwen had witnessed Elrond comfort many patients. He was an excellent listener and he had a knack for asking thoughtful questions that provoked weeping. Sîrwen recalled suddenly that she had joked about him needing to keep more dry robes in his study. He had laughed then but looked thoughtfully at her before saying the same words he repeated now: “There is no shame in tears.”

As she pulled away now he brushed a hand over his wet robe and said wryly, “Perhaps I should have taken your advice. You’ve thoroughly soaked my third-best robes.”

“Please don’t remind me,” she said. “I’m mortified enough.”

He made a small hum of sympathy. “It is always humbling to find that we are like everyone else, is it not?” His tone held no reproach, but she colored as this hit the mark.

When Elrond calls Sîrwen out (very gently) for becoming one of those elves she joked about, when she notes that Elrond is trying to make her feel like he has all the time to listen to her problems amid all his own, consider that my very meta commentary. After all, I'm writing hurt/comfort for my random elf OC after reading a hundred Elrond hurt/comfort stories and thinking “How on earth does he have time to comfort so many random elves/humans/hobbits/dwarves and run an entire settlement?”

[Answer: he always has time, dear reader.]

Recc that fits the vibe

If you want Elrond to be your dad and also help you with your migraine: the short story Soothe by runawaymun here on AO3 is for you.

If you want Elrond's entire family to adopt you, a traumatized former slave: the epic And the Stars Shine the Same, also by runawaymun, is here on AO3 for you. You've read this yes? There is also an excellent sequel, still in progress.

[sunsetskylane]

Some July recommendations from me to you, because I've been reading some absolute beauties:

*i was a king (under your control) by aaaaaibou

When Ivy looks up from his phone - he was trying to distract himself, looking at lip jewellery - he’s greeted by a man in a mask, his pale mouth the only thing Ivy is able to see of his face, and now he suddenly understands all those other comments. More importantly, he remembers one in particular: "vessel can come across as a lil weird, but he’s a chill guy! great piercer, wonderful tattoo artist, have no idea how he works through the mask, but he always does a great job. i highly recc going to his shop, the vibes are excellent. i go there to get all my stuff done, and his boyfriends really nice! you’ll get over the mask." Yeah, if the mask wasn’t doing something for Ivy, maybe.

i know how we got here (give in again) by deerie

“I know,” III says regretfully. “I understand it’s a big leap of faith, considering what just happened to you. But—” III pauses here, and he watches as III turns to stare at his friends outside— “but II and I have already done this for Ves. We could do it for you too, easily.” This could end so badly, he thinks, but the worst thing that could happen to him has already happened.

*open your heart by Anonymous

“Tell me what?” II asks, softly. “That I love you.” II blinks, and it takes him a second to realise that his eyelashes are wet. He reaches up to curl his fingers around Vessel’s wrists, gripping on tightly as though it’s the only thing holding him upright. “I love you, too,” he says, voice cracking, and then he’s pressing forwards again, crashing their lips together, “I never stopped loving you. Christ, we’re both so stupid. Come here.”

**& More by phantomxanthem

Vessel takes his job very seriously - most people, whether they recognize it outright or not, NEED Sleep, and who better to bring Sleep's power to those people than Vessel? Of course, Sleep is very literal. Vessel works for Sleep Token Mattresses & More. Or: Vessel and his coworkers in different departments are great at their jobs and great friends to each other, but a new hire could shake things up. For better or for worse is yet to be determined.

*in all my dreams i drown by by aaaaaibou

Vessel's just coasting through life, waiting for... something, to happen to him. For him. Then he finds Two, and then Three, and finally Ivy; his family, the ones he's going to protect forever, the people Sleep decided are his. And he's theirs, too. Or, the story of how Vessel meets the other members.

**when i open my eyes to the future by deerie

He peers down the street and sees a post office, a couple of small shops, and a pub. The difference between the city where he has an apartment and this village is stark. Sam comes out of the shop nearly ten minutes later with a cardboard travel container of drinks. He laughs at something someone inside says and IV wishes – gut-wrenchingly – that he had anything left in him that could feel the way Sam looks right now. He feels like a husk of a person, and he wants – he wants that. A man follows Sam to the threshold of the entrance and says something to Sam that IV can’t quite make out as he opens the car door. He keeps the shop door open with a cocked hip, and IV sits up to get a better look at him.

IV, burned out from his corporate job, visits his friends for the summer in the idyllic village where they live. He's expecting to get his head put on straight, not that he'll find love in the last place he expects it.

Maybe the real treasure was the crits we rolled on the way by unworthyhands (dickenstein)

On a short break from their 2023 concert tour, the boys finally gather at Vessel and II’s house and get into the next chapter of the lore-packed Dungeons & Dragons campaign they’d had to put on hold. Will they successfully navigate the ambitious quest to cut short the rampage of an unleashed deity, wake up Her worshippers, and restore order to the kingdom? Or will the evening be a Critical Fail?

gravity by ancientbygones, crackedmask

He is alone until he is not.

*part of a series/with a prologue that I also highly recommend! **unfinished

[uc1wa]

as someone whos entering college soon do u have any tips 😭😭 the law major seems so scary

LOVER! ok… i am not even a law major😭i’m a data science & business marketing major! it’s a req for business cores… worst class ever. college tips from a silly junior under the cut :3

1. when enrolling into classes, ALWAYS check rate my professor.com and previous student evaluations of professors!!! the former has helped me several times (tho one time it failed me… more so, a great prof but not my teaching style)

2. pls pls pls, make a connection with your academic advisor. i genuinely think this has helped me SO much with navigating classes and literally my major. i didn’t realize i could do a double major while still (hopefully) graduating on time, but she helped me so much. also, a great person to write a letter of recc towards internships/jobs!

3. figure out your studying style! some ppl like flash cards, some like quizzing websites, and some outlining! (i like outlining hehe)

4. go to office hours. literally everybody your first week is gonna tell you this and it’s only this year that i actually started going. great way to make connections in terms of future internships, and again, letters of recc! i’m talking w one of my current prof’s for an internship under his other job for next summer!

5. if you’re a commuter like me, this is so so hard to do and i promise it is 110% okay to not be apart of them, but clubs! i’ve never been to a campus where there isn’t a MILLION clubs. clubs in uni are sooooo chill and laid back (well… most lol)

6. ermmm idk hahaha, these are ones i can think of off the top of my head. try not to burn yourself out, tho it’s very hard to do and realize you’re doing it. make time for you and for things you enjoy doing. uni feels like hell and the best times ever at the same time, but no matter the fact, it’s temporary! life will exist so much past uni so don’t beat yourself up, and don’t worry baby!!! you got this >:)

[volivolition]

hello we return to ramble about music because music is one of our biggest hyperfixations ever. hai [Do let us know if you're ever tired of us sharing music though Shauaiakdjcjsjdfj]

Do you have a favourite song? A favourite band or musician? PLEASE do share if so, we're always looking for new music especially from friends!!

We have!!! song reccs for you :] Song for the Dead and Song for the Deaf, both by Queens of the Stone Age! Both songs are very red to us [we have synesthesia] and they remind us collectively of Phys Instrument and I!

-PT

HAI HELLO!! my music friends the furies!! (hjfkjh dont worry, i love hearing from you!! :D <33)

2. ooh, thank you PT, i was just listening to Song for the Dead on the subway the other day, it sounded so cool!! i assumed it was a Physique vibe, but so cool to hear who exactly :D im listening to Song for the Deaf now, just really good guitar for both of these songs, the words are sung more lyrical in this one :0 the ending is amusing, just silence and then laughing to the instrumental hdkjh <3 extremely red vibes, you're so right for this <3 thank you for sharing the PT and Fizzy songs :D <33

1. oh god i have to put this under a cut. tl;dr: my current favorite song is Too Sweet by Hozier because it reminds me of Voli and Chemi :]!!

hgkjh did you know my bio used to say "i can relate any hozier song to disco elysium"? the statement is hyperbole, but i love hozier so fuckin much heres just a bunch of nonsense:

"Too Sweet" is a volistry song. to me. ("I take my whiskey neat~" "My coffee black and my bed at three...") echem thinks voli's too uptight ("You keep telling me to live right / to go to bed before the daylight... / but then you wake up for the sunrise... / don't you just want to wake up... / lost in a haze?") and voli thinks echem is too hedonistic ("If you're drunk on life-" "Babe, I think it's great~" "But while in this world... / I aim low / I aim true and the ground's where I go / I work late where I'm free from the phone / And the job gets done / But you worry some, I know.") and in this way they're "too sweet (morally/indulgently)" for each other, but they fall in love around the "You know, you're bright as the morning, soft as the rain" "Pretty as a vine, as sweet as a grape" mark because they start to balance each other out so they're not overworking/refusing all joy and not giving in to every temptation/dangerously ignoring health and responsibility for dopamine and they're GOOD FOR EACH OTHER... im. not normal about them ever i could write essays about them :'] (also the bells in the chorus just hit different i love that shit man...)

i've been meaning to draw Echem with the song "Angel of Small Death and the Codeine Scene" just for the title alone lmao... but it's absolutely a bop and i enjoy it :]

"Jackie and Wilson" is TRULY LIKE. IS ANYONE SEEING THIS. "Cut clean from the dream at night / let my mind reset / Looking up from a cigarette and he's already left" "He'll know me crazy, soothe me daily, better yet, he wouldn't care / We'll steal his Lexus / be detectives / ride 'round picking up clues" IS ANYONE ELSE HEARING THIS THAT'S FUCKING HARRY AND KIM. HELLO??

my other alternate bio used to read "From Eden is such a de song. if you even care" i need everyone to listen to this and tell me its not a disco elysium song ogughgjkh!!! "Honey, you're familiar / Like my mirror years ago" "Innocence died screaming" "A rope in hand for your other man to hang from a tree" HOZIER MY MAN YOU DID IT BUDDY THAT'S THE GAME!!!

i can perfectly imagine which skill is singing which line to harry in "Almost (Sweet Music)" as he gets over dora and falls in love with kim. imagine them smoking on the balcony together while the skills swirl around them, invisible to kim but nudging harry and each other.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Easy: Success] - Let's get lost and let the good times roll! SAVOIR FAIRE [Medium: Success] - Let's smoke rings from this paper, doll~ SUGGESTION [Medium: Success] - Blow sweet and thick 'til every thought of it don't mean a thing. PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT [Medium: Success] - I got some color back. EMPATHY [Easy: Success] - He thinks so too... INLAND EMPIRE [Formidable: Success] - I laugh like me again... She laughs like you. RHETORIC [Legendary: Failure] - I wouldn't know where to start... PERCEPTION [Medium: Success] - Sweet music playing in the dark. VOLITION [Godly: Success] - *Be still*, my foolish heart- COMPOSURE [Challenging: Success] - Don't ruin this on me...

"First Time" is harry and dora ("the first time that you kissed me / i drank dry the river lethe" YOU MEAN THE GREEK RIVER THAT MAKES YOU FORGET EVERYTHING HOZIER???), "Eat Your Young" is truly a Disco Elysium vibe song of political ideology, do i even have to mention "Take Me to Church" for the idolization of Dora? and "Like Real People Do" [just straight up starts sobbing on the floor.] when the... the two people with similarly sad pasts learn to grow and heal together... we should just kiss like real people do... fucking hell man...

i also like!! AJR (current fave: Inertia [waltz time my adored]), The Oh Hellos (Hieroglyphs [the beat! the melody! the lyrics! singing together! ough my love... i miss choir]), The Altogether (See The Day [makes me cry. volition song i think]), American Authors (Luck [longtime favorite]), and Ricky Montgomery (currently it's Cabo but god this man's got bops. This December. Line Without a Hook. Get Used to It. Snow [<- desaturated blue song]. My Heart is Buried in Venice. okay thats it i promise hdkjh)

[im-a-king-baby]

hellooo i don't know if anyone has asked this before but if you had to pick five songs that you'd associate simme with what would you choose? I'd choose "art deco" by lana del rey, "midas" by skott, "you're somebody else" by flora cash, "my ordinary life" by the living tombstone and "youth" by daughter. i think the vibes and the lyrics just fit so well with his character. and all of these songs always make me cry and all I've ever done while reading ELYN is sob until i can't even breathe so I'd say they go quite well together :') also... hope you are staying healthy and taking care of yourself!💜💕

Thanks for your reccs, I will resist the urge to send them right back to you but they all fit so well! ('Setting fire to our insides for fun,' from Youth in particular hits hard, I had never heard this song before but I love it) I have so many Simme thoughts when I see pictures and music and all sorts and it's so wild and amazing that other people are out here also having feelings about him! That this story exists! Outside my head! So thank you so much for sharing!

I am still technically working on an ELYN playlist that an anon asked about, uh, months ago so I will try not to spend months overthinking my answer to this one and just go with my first instincts!

FIVE SIMME SONGS

King - Years & Years -- there are a few Y&Y songs that I used to get the vibe of Simme-in-concert, but this one also fits with the general trapped-ness plus we love a King motif right?

Don't wanna wait for you, don't wanna have to lose All that I've compromised to feel another high I've got to keep it down tonight And oh, I was a king under your control

Queen of Hollywood - the Corrs -- This is probably the song that is the furthest from what Simme would actually play but it's an old favourite so it gets a place.

Now her mother collects cut-outs, And the pictures make her smile But if she saw behind the curtains, It could only make her cry She's got hand prints on her body, Sad moonbeams in her eyes Not so innocent a child

Falling - Harry Styles -- I always associate this song with Simme in the moment after Wilhelm leaves the hotel room, but it also fits him more generally.

What am I now? What am I now? What if I'm someone I don't want around? I'm falling again, I'm falling again, I'm falling

No Pressure - Mahalia -- Someone on AO3 recced me this one and it's been on my ELYN playlist ever since.

Smile for the camera, always looking right at ya, no There's no time to be sad, There ain't ever space for that, no There is not a place for that here, But no pressure, no pressure, dear

Give me Love - Ed Sheeran -- I don't really have lyrics here, it's more about the pace and the build of it. The desperation of it, seeking something and never being satisfied.

Oh, give me love

+1 ELYN SONG

Everybody Loves You Now - Billy Joel -- listen to it. Picture Wilhelm staring at unanswered text messages while Simon's voice plays on the radio. Picture Simme in a dressing room hearing the crowds roaring his name while staring into his reflection in an empty bottle. You're welcome. <3

All the people want to know your name Soon there will be lines outside your door Feelings do not matter in your game Yeah, 'cause nothing's gonna touch you anymore

So your life is only living anyhow And everybody loves you now

[lien-da]

Basic Sex Toy Safety, for Beginners

The Echidna's Friend has asked the other day, as they were buying their first ever sex toy; how do you know when a sex toy is safe? I had really appreciated being asked this, as safety is incredibly important, and being able to ask the big questions like this is incredibly important.

Materials

If the toy listing does not include what it is made of... Don't even bother. Any site which has any respect for your time will let you know what the material is.

Let us try it now - go to this page from CloneZone, and search for the material it is made from. There it is, under a click-through for 'More Information' - this toy is made of silicone.

This is the first thing which you want to look for.

Safe materials for insertables are Silicone, Glass, Stainless Steel, and Aluminium. If it is going inside of your body, do not stray from these materials. Eventually, with time and wisdom, you may stray to explore with other materials - but if you are new to buying sex toys, I would recommend even just sticking to Silicone. Do not use 'jelly' toys. 'Jelly' or 'Rubber Jelly' is a very strong-smelling softened plastic, which melts and degrades over time. It is nigh impossible to properly sanitize, and it is prone to giving infections and particularly unpleasant rashes. Jelly is usually a transparent plastic colour, though it can also be found in opaque toys. If anybody recommends you a jelly toy, look the other way. You do not want this inside of your body.

Kink With Safety, Start Small.

It can be really tempting to dip straight into the deep end; and with so many 'beginner' kink and fetish items on the market these days, it's easier than ever to step right off of that cliff, and... Directly into the hospital. Improper use of impact gear such as Whips, Floggers, and Paddles can give you internal and external damage in the hands of the inexperienced, and improper restraints such as Rope, Handcuffs, and Bondage Tape can give you permanent nerve damage, or even cut off circulation, leading to an unpleasant hospital trip, and a new life-long injury. Unsafe, Untrained, Unmoderated Kink Kills. Watch videos (yes, we do more than just porn!), look things up, ASK A KINKSTER! Kinksters love to explain these things. Don't be shy, We Don't Bite. The best knowledge you can pick up on how-to-kink, is directly from the people who do this every day. If we cannot answer, we can usually point you towards somebody who can. In the age of Social Media, it is easier than ever to directly ask a kinkster.

Any kink - restraints, spanking, e-stim - LEARN first. Do your homework.

Where to buy?

Ideally, you want to find a sex toy shop which has physical, brick & mortar locations, or a company with a long history; at least a decade of operation - these are typically more reliable. Sites which are always offering large discounts are disuaded - if they want to give you 30% off at the door, that's a red flag. If you wish to get into more kinky, you will learn reliable stores from your fellow kinksters, as you maneuver through the community. I cannot give you recommendations, as I am country-specific, but just looking at some speciality stores on our Recc List might help you to get a feel for what to look for - CloneZone Rouge WruffStuff AffordableLatex

Lube Matters!

All about Lube... You will want and need lube for anything being inserted, that is a must. But did you know that the type of lube matters, too? Silicone Lube Is Absorbed By Silicone Toys. Counterinuitive, right? Whilst it was once thought that it degraded them, it indeed only absorbs, to release later - however, this leaves a residue on your toys, which you're better off doing away with entirely. You should be washing your toys before and after every play session (and more than just a little rinse under the tap!) -- but it is rather unpleasant. Never use flavoured lubes for vaginal insertion. What's good for your mouth, isn't always what's good for your internals. The vagina has a finnickly PH balance, and flavoured lubes can not only offset this, but can give you a nasty infection. Oil-Based Lubes break down Latex. What is commonly made of latex? CONDOMS ARE COMMONLY MADE OF LATEX! Well, I'm a material fetishist, so just about every inch of my bed and body is covered in latex, too. For beginners, I suggest using a water-based lube. It pairs well with Silicone, Glass, and Metal toys, and it goes well with Condons, too. We use Lubido's Cruising 250ML Water-Based Intimate Lubricants, which you can buy in bulk lots, but any water-based intimate lubricant should work just fine.

Cleaning

Yes, cleaning! The last thing you want, is for your brand-new toy to make you or any partners very, very sick. It's also generally good for the longevity of your toy, too! Always clean before and after play. Even if it has been safely stored away in its' bag the whole time - CLEAN IT! When buying your new toy, you'll want to keep this in mind. Does your toy have seams or crevices? Is it overly textured? Is it waterproof? Ridges and seams will trap in bacteria, so you will have to clean these extra diligently. Look up online for advice on cleaning your specific toy - you can find many instructions, of anything from butt plugs to clit suckers. We will often times look it up beforehand, when trying out a new toy type.

At the end of the day... Everybody is a beginner at something! Yes, even experienced kinksters; especially experienced kinksters! We don't know it all. Most of us stick to our niches, and curiously peek over the fence at our community neighbours. Always ask questions! Stay learning, stay curious. I know that I am always learning new things, as much as I am always teaching others.

[hoonhrt]

EMBRASSE-MOI

: pairing — student! jay x tutor! reader

: genre — fluff, crack 

: song recc. — L’amour by Miel De Montagne 

: a/n — this lowkey sucks but I've been wanting to get work out so I'm sorry if this isn't the best :(( also I'm still learning french so if some of it is wrong pls lmk so i can fix it!! 

Jay was your school’s resident bad boy. blond hair, all-black outfits, cuts class and yells at kids that look his way. you know? the usual. You on the other hand were the complete opposite. straight-A student. A quiet kid who didn’t dare look the ways of Jay Park and his Clique™. So imagine the shock that was felt when the boy you avoided at all costs, walks up to you in the middle of the cafeteria asking for French lessons. 

“You want me to do what?” He rolls his eyes, tired of this conversation already. 

“Can you not hear? I’m failing French and I need to pass or else my parents won’t let me move to France.” He speaks as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. 

“And you’re asking me why?” He rolls his eyes again for what felt like the 100th time. You’re just confused about how he even knows of your existence.

“Listen, all I know that you’re in my French class and that you pay attention, I’ll even pay you I just need to get my mark up.” You perk up to the sound of money. You don’t really need but it’s still nice to have some. Doing this will get you good Karma right? 

“Fine. Meet me at the library every Monday and Wednesday after class, got it?” Jay stares at you with annoyance. He really does not want to be wasting his senior year on stupid lessons but, here we are. He reluctantly agrees and watches you walk away, struggling to hold your books in your arms. He turns around and lets out a deep sigh, wondering if the hot chicks and fancy baguettes in France are really worth this

Minutes turned into hours as you waited for Jay to show up. You waited patiently for hours just for this kid to not show up. Annoyed, you start to pack up your books. You don’t know why you’d think someone like Jay would actually show up to a voluntary tutor session. You were just about to make your way out of the library when you see someone running towards you almost like the flash. As the figure got closer to your still body, you realize it was Jay. Now, bent over in front of you gasping for air with his tongue out like a dog. You stared at his limped-over figure with confusion and slight disgust. 

“s-s-sorry i was… late, i f-forgot about… this.” he manages to speak out with the little air he has in him. He stands up and evens out his breath. 

“what makes you think i’m gonna tutor you now? you wasted my time Park, i have a life too you know.” you snap at him. He stares at you for a brief second before letting out a hearty laugh, throwing his head back and slapping his leg. He sees your serious expression, your eyes glaring at him like an eagle and awkwardly stops laughing. 

“Look, i’m paying you and this is only gonna last for a little while. i just need to pass, that’s it.” His eyes shine with a hopeful gleam, a look that is extremely rare to see from Jay Park. He looked a little cute. You dramatically sigh and start walking into the library, Jay following behind you. 

You settle at the table you sat at prior, re-opening your book bag to pull out your notes. He just watches you do that, not making an effort to even bring out a pencil. 

“Okay, so how much french do you even know?” 

He stares into space, a little hesitant to continue. “Um, i can ask if i can go to the bathroom?” You stare at him with disbelief. You’ve been in this class with him for months and that’s all he knows. 

“THAT’S IT?” 

“Oh and i can say good morning!” you let out a loud groan that catches the attention of others around, causing them to loudly shush at you. Feeling annoyed again, you contemplate if the money was really worth it. You sigh out and start looking for your notes from the beginning of the semester. This was gonna take a LONG time. 

“... and that’s how you conjugate verbs in the past tense, aka passé composé!” You finish off the session with joy. Jay on the other hand has gone completely blank, not remembering a single word you just told him. He stares down at his notes, then at you, then back down at his notes. You can see the struggle on his face and he hasn’t said a word yet. 

“I’m never gonna pass french. This is it. I can kiss France goodbye.” he claims with despair. This already too hard for him and he barely has learned anything. He sets his head on the table and mumbles to himself about how he will never be happy if he doesn’t live his youthful 20’s in France. You sat across from him irritated with his discouraging behaviour and a little sad that you weren’t able to teach him well. Until you come up with a plan that might help him improve much quicker.  

“What if… we hang out this weekend? We can do something and we’ll only speak in French! Of course I’ll help you and all that. But like, maybe? Only if you want to of course you probably don’t wanna spend your weekend with me i dont know you know its just a plan.” you ramble on and on without stopping and Jay simply just watches you. He smirks a little before nodding. 

“How about you put your number in my phone and then I’ll text you when I’m free hm?” he slides his phone across the table towards you and eyes you typing it in. He catches a glimpse of your rose-coloured cheeks and smirks a little more. 

“Okay, uh there’s my number! Just um, text me you know, when you’re free!” you manage to stutter out. Jay just nods at you and again, watches you walk away. This time a slight smile across his face. 

A sudden notification pulls you away from your thoughts. An unknown number that you had a feeling belonged to a particular boy you didn’t think would actually text you. 

042-002-1130: bonjour 

042-002-1130: was that even right

042-002-1130: anyways I’m free on saturday if you wanna hang ig 

042-002-1130: samedi is saturday right 

042-002-1130: it is wow im such a genius 

You let out a snort at his cocky behaviour and reply back, letting him know that you were free yourself and to meet you at the school grounds at 2 pm. 

Saturday shows up as you wait outside the school gates, a picnic basket in hand. An all-black car with dark tinted windows zooms up to you. The window is pulled down and alas, the handsome boy sits in the driver’s seat, ushering you to get into the car with his hand. 

“Woah a picnic basket? Listen y/n you’re cool and all but this isn’t a date,” he speaks and notices you roll your eyes. A smug smile tugging his lips. 

“No you asshole, I have a plan with this.” 

“Tell me,” Jay begins to drive away from the school. The destination is unknown to you but extremely familiar to the boy next to you. 

“In here there is a bunch of food, in order for you to eat, you’re gonna have to say the name of the food in french.” He turns his head to see you looking back at him, a sweet smile places on your face. Jay has always known of you. You sat in the back of the classroom, handed in all your work on time and never skipped a class. You had very few friends and always seemed to be lost in a dream world when you weren’t working. Jay had never been able to speak to you personally as you always avoided him but know he has the chance to actually talk to you, and he doesn’t wanna mess it up. 

The car stopped at the edge of a giant grassy field. The greenery going miles ahead. Trees surrounding the two of you. Jay like a gentleman runs out of the car to open the door for you. You blush at his actions, thanking him silently by smiling at him. 

He directs you to a small spot under a tree. You lay out a blanket for you to sit on while Jay leans up against the tree. You tell him to sit down next to you as you bring out all the little snacks to share with him. He thinks that he could get used to this. 

“D’accord, commençons! Qu'est-ce que ç'est?” (okay, lets start! What is this?) 

You pick up a grape. He thinks for a little bit before answering. “Un raisin.” (a grape) You clap with glee and hand him over the grape. A silence falls between you both, unaware of how to keep going. He picks up a strawberry and brings it to your face. “Tu aime les fraises?” (do you like strawberries?) You eye him for a second, for someone who said he only knows how to ask how to go the bathroom in french, he knows quite a bit. You nod a little, opening your mouth and letting him feed you the sweet fruit. Your face matches the colour of the strawberry and he giggles. You pull out a sandwich and ask him to describe what’s in it. 

“Dans le sandwich, il y a du jambon, du beurre, et de la tomate.” (in the sandwich there is some ham, some butter, and some tomato.) He speaks confidently. 

“Trés bien Jay! Tu es bon en parler francias!” (very good Jay! You are really good at speaking French!) 

“Merci, mon Cheri.” (Thank you, my dear.) you blush even more before and shy away from Jay’s gaze. Jay being the very bold guy that he is, placing his hand underneath your jaw, forcing you to meet his eyes. You both just stare at each other as the sun sets behind you. Was Jay always this beautiful? His eyes scan over your face seeking for any discomfort, none is to be found. So he makes the move and starts to lean in. You already have your eyes closed and lips puckered out, ready to embrace a feeling you’ve never felt before.

His breath fans over your lips and just before he kisses you he asks “je peux t’embrasser? (can I kiss you?) you eagerly nod and whisper out “embrasse-moi.” (kiss me.) Jay finally places his lips on yours and everything feels right. Your hands find their way to the back of his neck to deepen the kiss. You stay in this position with him for a little while before you pull back for air. Both his hands cradle your face, his thumb rubbing across the apples of your cheeks.

“I still have a lot to learn y’know?” Jay breaks the silence. You laugh out loud, falling into his lap. 

“Same time next week then yeah?” He lets out a ‘hmm’ and watches you rest your head against his thigh, playing with the ends of your hair. ‘Maybe France could wait a little’ he thought. 

[witchesofferngrove]

Hi Tori! There is a good chance someone has already asked you this, but do you have any IFs/WIPs that you recommend? I found you through Mila (Golden is INCREDIBLE and I can't wait for the Dec. 20 update!) but I just love your IF and am always looking for more recommendations! Also, do you have any finished IFs/visual novels you like? Thanks in advance!!! <3

Hi Anon! I'll try to answer this, and I've already listed some reccs HERE, so I will just list some finished IFs I've enjoyed. I don't play visual novels sadly. I haven't read as many IFs as I'd like to, but hopefully I'll get to my long TBR list.

Also I'm with you there, Anon. Golden is absolutely showstopping, and I'm head over heels in love with all of the ROs (but K is my beloved). Please check out @milaswriting if you haven't already!

FINISHED IFS, under cut for length (all of these are published by CoG, you can find them on Steam, the app store, or the CoG website)

Heart of the House (horror and romance. beast of a game. my favourite finished IF)

Choice of Rebels: Uprising

The Heroes Rise Trilogy (this got me into IFs and mr black magic has a place in my heart)

Creme de la Creme

The Eagles Heir (bodyguard trope my beloved)

A Wise Use of Time

Thieves Gambit: The Curse of the Black Cat

Tally Ho (god this game. So Good)

Rent a Vice

Empyrean

Mecha Ace

Choice of the Deathless

Diabolical (you get to be moustache-twirly evil which is cool)

Tin Star

[critter-rarepair-reccs]

Hey friends, happy Wednesday! Today we are highlighting our dearly beloved Voice of the Tempest, Keyleth! We have six fics featuring various rarepairs including her! As always, you can find them below the cut and if you check any of them out, I encourage you to leave kudoes and comments to spread the rarepair love 💕

tell me what you need (oh, you look so free) by ladyofrosefire (5,348 words, Explicit) Pairing: Zahra Hydris/Keyleth (Zahraleth) Warnings: CNC scene where the negotiation occurs largely off screen.

Keyleth goes to Zahra with a request—to be taken out of her head, down, and apart. And to not have to say what she wants.

Reccer Says: It has both excellent characterization and understandable choreography where no one suddenly grows a third hand.

Can You Squeeze Us in Somewhere? by Star_Joy (828 words, General) Pairings: Shaun Gilmore/Keyleth/Vax'ildan (Vaxlethmore), Queerplatonic Shaun Gilmore/Keyleth Warnings: None

Vax and Keyleth get back to Emon after an adventure and are utterly exhausted. Luckily, they have Gilmore to turn to for rest.

Reccer Says: It’s sooooo cute. Just lovely fluffy goodness. Also very fun to see Gilmore and Keyleth as queerplatonic partners within this ot3!!

Let It Build by wtgw (5,946 words, Explicit) Pairing: Keyleth/Grog Strongjaw (Grogleth) Warnings: Mild Blood, Under-negotiated Kink

Grog helps Keyleth manage her anger issues. Friendly violence and violent sex ensues — it’s not romantic, it’s just helping a friend out!

Reccer Says: It was surprisingly emotional and sweet, and the descriptions of how angry Keyleth was were almost scary! also aromantic4demisexual friend sex!

i'll be there for you by romeoandjulietyouwish (1,357 words, General) Pairings: Queerplatonic Shaun Gilmore/Keyleth, Shaun Gilmore/Keyleth/Vax'ildan (Vaxlethmore) Warnings: None

While out one night, someone starts following Keyleth. She takes refuge at Gilmore’s. Cuddling and comfort ensue.

Reccer Says: While it’s not tagged as such, Shaun and Kiki are really the focus here and they’re so sweet. Shaun’s so full of love, I adore him. Also the three of them all together at the end is very cute 🥰

Broken; Unbidden; Unearthed: Love in the Limelight by marleybone (7,036 words, Mature) Pairing: Keyleth/Vex'ahlia (Vexleth) Warnings: Allusions to a past abusive relationship

Vex is an actress, Keyleth is a model. Vex sees her at a runaway show one night, is infatuated, and things spiral out from there.

Reccer Says: okay LISTEN, Keyleth hasn’t really technically shown up yet and it’s been a minute since an update but what’s there is So Good regardless. The depth of worldbuilding in the three chapters up is so good and the banter between Vex and the supporting cast is amazing. Also it being a memoir from Vex’s POV, written by Tary, about her and Keyleth’s love story? Genius, I’m obsessed and desperately craving more.

steady your breath, honey, lower your spear by friendly_ficus (6,020 words, Teen) Pairing: Keyleth/Grog Strongjaw (Grogleth) Warnings: Grief/Mourning

Keyleth isn't coping well in the aftermath of the fight against Vecna--and losing Vax. She's angry and eager to pick fights wherever she can, regardless of if she gets hurt doing it. When Grog realizes this, he offers to fight with her himself. Neither of them expected any feelings to grow from it, until, of course, they did.

Reccer Says: An exceptionally characterized and written piece, it's stuck with me even years after first reading it. It approaches the Keyleth/Grog relationship with such believability and tenderness, not to mention dealing with Keyleth's grief and the complex process of having feeling for someone after loss. An all around fantastic piece.

Thank you for joining us this week’s recc list! All the love to everyone who submitted a fic 💕 All enclosed recommendations were submitted by the community via our submissions form, which you can find here. All fic information is as it was provided by the reccer, so it may not be accurate to the author’s intent or the precise contents of the fic itself. Please assume good intent from all parties 💕

Submissions for next week’s list are already open! We’ll be featuring Polyamorous Ships. If you have any you’d like to highlight, you can send them in here. The week after that, the theme is Enemies to Lovers and the weeks after that we’re taking recommendations for Miscommunication fics and Works in Progress! Submissions for all of these themes are currently open.

If you want more rarepair fic, check out @cr-summer-wildflowers and their event collections on ao3! If you want some friendship after all this romance, take a look at @critter-genfic-events and their recc lists! And if you’re interested in everyone’s favorite wizards, you can’t go wrong with the lists at @aeor-is-for-reccing !

Thanks all and have a lovely day/night/timezone! 💕

[felassan]

Jon Renish (Foundation Technical Director @ BioWare, working on DA4) recently did a Twitch stream where he played through some DAO. Although he works on DA, this is his first time playing through DAO. He’s playing through it looking at random details from a dev perspective as he’s currently working on DA4 and therefore wants to know more about the previous games.

On the stream he mentioned some tidbits on the development of DA4. There were also some insights and anecdotes about the development of DAO and similar. It’s a 3 hour stream so I collected them here in case that’s of use to anyone (for example not everyone can watch streams which don’t have subtitles/captions). The stream is a fun/interesting watch though, so if you’re curious or able to watch I recc doing so. 😊 The rest of this post is under a cut for length.

Please note that there’s some paraphrasing on my part, this is not a transcript.  There are also some additions from another dev who featured on the stream to give some commentary. The stream also contains more snippets that at times I couldn’t make out (I tried my best!).

(There is a mention of Cullen’s VA in the text below.)

DA4

Jon said he can talk about things about DA4 that aren’t “consumer-facing”, but he can’t say anything about the game that would be consumer-facing but which isn’t already publicly available. There are several reasons for this. One, that’s not his job, there are people whose job this is and they let each other do their respective roles. Two, BW are a publicly-traded company, so if he said something that could affect that that would be insider trading. Three, they’re not done making DA4 yet, so if he said that they have added [x] to the game and people got all excited about that or pre-ordered on that basis, but [x] ended up being cut, people would be like ‘BioWare lied to us’, when it’s just that things changed during the course of development, as is often the case

He’s glad that fans are excited for the game but notes that fan expectations are always double-edged. It can be really tough as some people started ‘playing’ the game in their heads as soon as they heard of it. That’s fine, he loves that, but he hopes that peoples’ expectations don’t turn into requirements. Clearly BW have alluded to certain characters, like Solas, being in the game, but some fans say things like “If [say] Morrigan isn’t in the game, then, rahhh!” Y’know, there’s a lot of talk about how certain characters have to be in the game, and yeah.

On characters which are quantum (i.e. characters which can die or which can have similar end-states as death in previous games): their being quantum makes it really hard for the devs to work with those characters in subsequent games. The devs naturally aren’t going to put as much effort into characters which could have died previously. A character can have had an amazing appearance throughout/role in a previous game, but if there is a risk of something happening to them and of them being removed [effectively] from the plot, it just doesn’t make sense to have them as a major character in a subsequent game. If a character can, say, sacrifice themselves in some glorious ending, the devs have to make sure that if they use them again, in worldstates where the character didn’t do that, the character is kind of ‘muted’, as the devs don’t want to disrespect the players who made a different choice

A comment in chat expressed a wish for Shale in DA4. Jon’s response is that he has no idea on that front

Bugs don’t come out of crunch, they come out of development in general. Crunch does impact on the quality of a game though. In recent years BW are always really trying to reduce crunch, they’re currently working really hard to bring it down. The best way of doing that is by controlling scope. As creatives it’s tough to balance wanting to make great stuff and be industry-leading with the desire to constantly do extra passes over things they’ve created like the audio, art etc. Their biggest enemy is time, other ways of reducing crunch or time spent in general include iterating tools to make often-repeated processes as time-efficient as possible

I think the following was an observation on the industry in general as opposed to a BW-specific/-exclusive comment: he thinks that as a result of this sort of thing [working to reduce crunch], a lot of games are going to have to be smaller and a lot more focused in scope i.e. the devs will have to focus on hitting the key selling points of that particular game/series as hard as they can, and cut down on branching out sideways/wide on a bunch of random other stuff

Jon doesn’t personally engage in character creators in games, but he knows that for some players that expression is worth a lot of time and focus. BW want to be industry-leading in this kind of stuff as it’s something which is interesting/key/integral to their games

In a way BW have made their own nest of problems what with every DA game being so different to the previous one. Still, he notes that each game has a staunch fanbase that says that their particular favorite game is the best one in the series

He doesn’t want people who think that DA4 isn’t what they want to buy it and be upset - there are so many other great games out there! BW are going to make the game they’re going to make - if some people like it, that’s great, and if some people don’t, that’s cool. Sometimes waiting until reviews are out and/or really seeing beforehand if a game is something that you want [has things/features in it that you want] prior to getting it - as opposed to jumping right in or pre-ordering - is a good idea. Fans don’t always know what they want, but they do know what they like - these are 2 different things

He hopes that whatever they ship for DA4, people go “I enjoyed this experience”, and that then, if there’s additional content for it down the road, people can decide, “do I want this further content?”

On hair: BW are using the new hair technology in the latest version of the Frostbite engine, so they’ll see what they can do! This was said in response to a comment about the hair in the latest FIFA games (as EA make FIFA)

A comment in chat asked about a flying mechanic (griffons). Jon’s response is that flying is such a heavy gameplay mechanic that you can’t put it in a game without everything in the game being built about it (see Anthem)

Relating to the above comment, in DA4 mounted combat would be cool but then they’d have to make the game ‘around’ mounted combat and make the mounted combat feature meaningful

On the underwater concept art: it should not be interpreted as a promise of gameplay. BW have amazing artists who sit down for a couple weeks while they’re in early production and just draw loads and loads of all kinds of stuff. Concept art is like a moodboard or Pinterest board. Elsewhere in the stream he advised, take all the concept art together like a mosaic and ask, ‘what is the overall theme[s] here?’, and to zoom out from individual details. [This stuff echoes PW’s word on concept art]

BW don’t generally write things or the choices as bleak as the choices in DAO were anymore. This is a conscious choice on their part, they want their game to be fun [note: this was said when the side quest in Orzammar where the Warden has the option of convincing a dwarven mother to abandon her young baby to die was being played through. It seems to refer to intensively grimdark choices/beats of this kind]

I think this was more of a general comment on games: SSDs (solid state drives) mean that players will see shorter elevator rides (Mass Effect - was this a reference to the remaster?) and fewer switchback corridors (those are actually loading zones). Generally, these are going to change mechanically the time it takes to do stuff in games

The devs have lots of features on their backlog that they’d like to offer players but each will ofc involve implementation and subsequent maintenance, and each one that is chosen to add is being chosen over something else. And sometimes, it’s hard for them to tell if [x] feature or [y] feature would be better to add to the game

They’re about to work on a giant feature (a pure tooling feature, something that isn’t consumer-facing) that is probably going to take ~2 staff years of effort [I think “staff effort” includes multiple staff working concurrently, so 2 years of staff effort doesn’t = 2 years of time chronologically] to get done in the next few months. They’re investing all this effort across the people working on it because they don’t want their artists and designers etc to have to deal with the problem that it’s going to solve anymore. I’m not sure what this feature is but elsewhere in the stream they referred to tooling and automation and gave the example of, the better your tooling is, the fewer times you have to manually set the camera for a human vs elf vs dwarf position, for dynamically-generated [cinematic?] content and for the first pass to be automated (if this is the case, less time is spent/wasted on redoing it and manually touching it up) [see last bullet point in this section]

He doesn’t know how big DA4 is going to be but said “let’s ballpark and say like most games it’ll be somewhere between 70 and 100 GB”

If we kept our Wardens as the PC throughout all 3 games, at the end they would be so powerful that it’d be a bit like “Let’s just do [thing], I’ve killed gods before, whatever”. He thinks it’s good that they have fresh characters each time in DA in order to reset that power level. Some people want more Commander Shepard in the next Mass Effect and he feels like, ‘what else could you possibly want / what else could that character possibly do after 3 games?’

When asked how much freedom he/they have now to focus on next gen, he said that there’s actually almost no difference on that front. The problems never change. They now have better renderers, better ray-tracing, better graphics cards etc, but they have always made DA games for high- and low-spec PCs, so it’s actually about gameplay systems. The freedom isn’t power-based and them getting access to more cores and more RAM generally isn’t going to change how the games are played. The games still have to be made for hard drives on PC. Dev creativity matters more than power here. The challenge of building a BW game is more about/from managing loads of different plotstates, loads of different art pieces, etc

On the title situation (two): names are the last thing they worry about because names have to go through legal before being approved. Every name, including character names, has to be checked in case it’s a famous person, or associated with something bad, or offensive in a different language due to localization etc

They don’t do face scans of people with big beards

There was also a bit about changes/developments to/in the cinematic design process and associated tooling [?] but I found it too hard to follow sorry >< This bit of commentary begins at timestamp ~ 1:52:45 and continues til ~ 2:00:05 [keep listening through the bit where they pause for a cutscene]

General BW

There’s currently ~350 staff in Edmonton, ~200 in Austin and more elsewhere

He notes that DA games sell pretty well, but relative to EA games in general, they’re a drop in the bucket compared to FIFA

DAI

5% of players of DAI never created a character [Q: does this refer to people who just used the default appearances/presets with no editing, or people who only played multiplayer?]

The mounts don’t actually go faster than running, this is an illusion

I think they said it has 55,000 lines of dialogue. [I’m pretty sure I remember devs elsewhere saying it has 80,000 lines of dialogue]

One of the companions had to have their name changed during development because of legal/translation reasons. It sounds like the original name sounded too close to something offensive

DA2

Back when DA2 was internally code-named “Nug Storm”: this was at the beginning when it was pitched to the team on a set of slides. The image on the slide for that pitch had devil horns, a metal hand and no flesh, it was just made out of fire and flames

DAO

The engine DAO is made on is the third engine that they tried for it during development. [David Gaider has gone into the DAO engine stuff some on Summerfall’s series of DAO playthrough streams]

The cracks on the cracked eluvian asset are modelled after the crack on the Tardis in Doctor Who from around that time, as at the time some devs had been talking about Doctor Who a lot. A dev actually added this factoid to DAO’s entry on TV Tropes but someone else (evidently not a DA dev) came by and deleted it saying that it was too much of a stretch x)

Before the game had its name there was an HTML script that randomly generated possible titles for consideration, it adds verbs and nouns together e.g. “Grim Dark”. One of the craziest possibilities that it once generated that the devs always remember is "Bone Wind”

One of the portraits that’s used for decoration around the world in-game (it’s of a bearded human man) is actually of a specific BW staff member

He played through Stone Prisoner, where Wilhelm’s son Matthias gives exposition in the cellar. Matthias is voiced by GE and this had been pointed out to Jon earlier on. Jon: “I don’t think that character’s voice acting was super strong there”

On the in-game area towards the end of Stone Prisoner: Outdoor areas in games are large and one of the things needed for them is streaming, so different chunks can be ‘streamed in’. There’s a tower [?], and technically the top of the tower was made an outdoor level so that sky stuff could be there, though it didn’t really need to be. The person that made it an outdoor level chose the very smallest chunk size for the terrain mesh, which determines how fine of a streaming they do. So when playing, every time you moved like 4 meters, the game would stream out 50-100 chunks behind you and the same in front of you (this is the bubble around the player of what actually exists). Because it was so small, it was constantly thrashing the CPU and disc to do all the loading. The devs were like “this isn’t going to work”, but they barely had any time. The solution: they made a new level that was outdoor and copied all the sunlight and other settings, but with the largest chunk size. They copy-pasted the entire level from one to the other. The problem with that many chunks then is that there was a giant expanse of flat terrain sticking out of the middle of the tower. They didn’t know if the story was going to involve shots of the outside of the tower for this sequence or not, so they took the terrain deformation tool and bundled all the terrain vertices at the bottom of the tower in a giant clump. So to this day there’s a mess of vertices and twisted terrain at the bottom of the final level that probably no-one has ever seen [not sure though if this anecdote is in reference to a place in that DLC or somewhere elsewhere in the game?]

There were also some tidbits on Anthem, however I didn’t note them down (sorry).

If you think I misheard or misunderstood anything from this stream please let me know and I will edit/fix it. :) 

(Thankyou to some of my friends who explained a tech detail from this to me.)

[source]  <-- current rewatch link

[gringolet]

INTRO TO ARTHURIANA MASTERPOST

under the cut for absurd length

HOW TO GET STARTED WITH ARTHURIANA

The Arthuriana fandom is very broad and there's no one piece of media, which can be confusing for people just getting into it! There’s no right way to engage with arthuriana, and no minimum level of knowledge or reading you need to attain to qualify. 

The basis of the Arthurian Legend is a body of hundreds of texts written across the medieval and early Renaissance period in dozens of languages and cultural traditions. Which can seem pretty overwhelming, but there are a lot of modern vernacular translations-- you absolutely don’t have to learn old French or anything. I’ll go more in depth on where to get started with texts further down.

You also don’t have to read texts at all. As I said, there is no minimum basis-- if you prefer to engage with modern adaptations, or want to engage with medieval arthuriana outside of reading texts, that's also cool! 

In terms of modern adaptations there is a wealth of choices, which I am very much not an expert in lol, so I’m afraid I can’t give much in the way of reccs. Books I have heard good things about are, Exiled from Camelot, Idylls of the Queen, The Buried Giant, the Squire's Tale series, and Gawain by Gwen Rowley (warning that this one is apparently erotica? Good for him). I trust @princesslibs  for modern book reccomendations. and if you speak French Kaamelott is purportedly a very good tv show. Frankly no modern adaptation will ever be better than Spamalot to me, but that's just my personal take. 

If you are curious about engaging with texts but (understandably) don’t want to read a ton of dense medieval literature, one really cool resource is Norris J Lacy's New Arthurian Encyclopedia, which you can pick up at most used bookstores for under ten bucks. It’s a very thorough easy to look through reference of characters stories and texts. I know a lot of people like the Nightbringer wiki, though I personally am wary of it because it basically never cites sources. It’s a good quick reference though and a lot of people like it, I’d just take it with a grain of salt. Sparknotes also has a lot of summaries of the major texts like Le Morte D’Arthur and the romances of Chrétien De Troyes. You are not a fake fan for doing this I promise. And of course you’re always welcome to send me an ask <3 

Finally, getting started with texts. Quick glossary of terms:

--Verse Romance

    A verse (poem) story which can vary a great deal in length. These deal with the adventures of individual knights, usually Gawain, and tend to have a great deal of magical elements and the stereotypical monster slaying, questing, damosel rescuing knight adventures.

--Prose Novel or Romance

    A non poetic narrative, more like a modern novel, more likely to deal with the fall of Arthur, sword in the stone, Mordred, fall of Camelot sort of affair. They are usually quite long. Most famous of these are Le Morte D’Arthur and the French Vulgate, but there are a slew of late medieval Prose novels floating around. Eluding Rey.

--Pseudohistory

    I’m gonna b real these are boring I think. These are, as the name suggests, written as accurate depictions of history.  They very much are not, but they claim to be. Most famous of these is Jeffrey of Monmouth, Mr Jeff Mouth himself, and his History of the Kings of Britain, which I haven’t read because it bores me. You can if you want. It’s in Latin. Whatever. These tend to be some of the earliest texts, and include the “lives of saints” stories. Life of Gildas is the only funny one.

--Ballads

    These are only arguably texts, as most of them were written after the time of the “canon” being composed. But I like them. These are songs telling stories, recorded by people like Francis Child and Thomas Percy. They are very short and fun and include stories like The Boy and the Mantle, Kempion, and King Arthur and the King of Cornwall.

--Lai

    A specific type of French verse poem, usually quite short. The most famous collection of lais are those of Marie le France, including things like Bisclavret and Lanval. 

--Traditions

    Since Arthuriana was written all over, there are different literary traditions across time and space. The French tradition is one of the most famous, including works like the vulgate, Chretien and a lot of verse romances. The English tradition is one of the most influential on modern adaptations, including the Morte D’Arthur and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. There are also Welsh, German, Dutch, Hebrew, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Tagalog, Greek, Belarussian, Scottish, Irish, Breton, and probably even more. There’s a lot. It’s very cool and sexy.

A note that there is also a big tradition of Victorian revival Arthuriana. I wrote a starter guide to that here, it’s all very fun and like, aesthetic. 

Alright, now, which texts do you start with?

If you’re a little intimidated by long texts or medieval lit, starting with short verse romances in modern translation is a great place to start. These include Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which is very good and gay and well known, Lancelot and the Hart With The White Foot, which is very good and gay and underappreciated, or Lanval, which is homophobic but funny. 

If you want to start with what is considered the oldest King Arthur Story, Culwch and Olwen is short and fun!

If you want to read about the grail quest, you can start where it started with Story of the Grail or Percival, then the four continuations, Essenbachs Parzival, the vulgate version of the Grail quest which you can buy paperback for like 5 bucks (I can also scan my copy for you just shoot me an ask <3)

If you want to read about the fall of camelot, I have the Vulgate death of Arthur section scanned here. There’s also the Alliterative and Stanzaic mortes, which are in middle English. I have scanned Simon Armitage's Alliterative Morte translation here. I’m working on my own translation of the Stanzaic but it’s not done lol. If you want the first third or so DM me lol. King Artus is very short and readable and it’s a Jewish text which is really cool.

If you want to read about Lancelot, Chrétien de Troyes Lancelot is his first text. He also has a whole long vulgate section, the first part is scanned here by val <3, and there's Lanzelet,  Sebile is in it so it’s probably very good. He’s also basically the main character of Le Morte D’Arthur which I might as well talk about here uhm. It’s long and fun in places and boring in others but it does have like the version most modern adaptations take from and tells the whole story of Arthur and Camelot from beginning to end. The Keith Baines version scanned by val is the most readable but it is an abridgement I believe. people who like le morte usually read this version so its probably the best choice lol

If you want to read about Gawain, good news! He’s in basically everything. Even texts that aren’t supposed to be about Gawain are doomed to become The Gawain Show Featuring The Protagonist Of This Text As A Sidekick. Which is so funny of him. The Roman Van Walewein is very funny and long and Gawain™. I also recommend, L’atre Perilous, Diu Krone, Sir Gawain and the Turk, and I could go on but for brevity's sake let's start there. 

If you want to read about Tristan, go shoot an ask to Valentine @lanzelet on tumblr because Tristan scares me. 

Thank you to rey @gawain-in-green for helping me find links and put this together! They are also a super great resource for stuff and very cool and nice <3 They have a tag on their blog for full text resources so deffo look at that if you want more scans and links, and an info tag and tons of cool shit that is way better organized than my blog lol

Okay finishing this off, if you want content warnings for any texts, feel free to shoot an ask! I know medieval lit can be A Lot and there aren’t a lot of good warning systems, so if I’ve read it or know someone who has I can give you warnings if you want to read something but are understandably wary . <3

In terms of tagging, Arthuriana and Arthurian Legend are the main ones on tumblr. Arthurian Mythology is also used but tbh shouldn’t be. On Ao3, we’re trying to get our own Arthurian Literature tag but <3 its a whole thing. Anyway the tag is Arthurian Mythology, but I’ll b real, it’s kind of flooded with stuff that doesn’t really belong there, because even though it’s a fandom tag other people unknowingly tag stuff as Arthurian Mythology when it’s like, a knight au. Which is not their fault bc it’s confusing but, ah, alas. ANyhow, feel free to drop in my inbox anytime with questions, suggestions, reccs, etc!

Okay godspeed!! Have fun reading, watching, browsing, etc!