#if that player happens across my blog anyway

[felsjustart]

Part II of the commissions I took on for my kitties surgery!

My cookies originally looked like tortilla's but I had way too much fun painting pastries. Also: GLASSES?! Like full-sized glasses is something I don't do often enough lol. This was such a fun commission; I sort of rendered it a lot more than I usually do for my shades, but I didn't want to put it down hehe.

Priscilla Bloodback belongs to a commissioner not on tumblr who is also subsequently a long time supporter of my art! They crafted this NPC for their own DnD campaign so they could have a reveal for one of their players and I just adored all the little details I was given.

[sugrhigh]

BOY NEXT DOOR 3 - ( c.s )

part two

summary- you and your roommates live beside a bunch of senior hockey players, one of them being the infamous team captain chris sturniolo. he’s effortlessly flirty and undeniably attractive, but he’s also a pain in your ass. you find that you have to fight between lust and hatred as you finally get to know the boy next door, whether you want to or not.

warnings- swearing, a bit of drinking

neighbor/hockey!chris x fem!reader

a/n: part three baby here we go! hope you guys enjoy!! if i forgot a tag it either wouldn’t let me or i missed it (if i missed u pls comment and i’ll fix it right up). anyways kisses for u all i hope ur having a good day, my inbox is open for anything as always MWAH

@cutenote @mattybsbitch @mattsmunch @breeloveschris @l9vesick @bb-1s-blog @sturnifyed @julessspoetry @annamcdonalds67 @beijhe @gnxosblog @braindead4l @hearts4matty @orangeypepsi @luckistar-posts @angelworldspost @ponyosturniolo @rainyenthusiastdaze @heartz4chris @sturnvvz @cupidsword @wurlibydominicfike @mattswrld @yoursopretty15 @poopydroopt @latinasforchrizz @bernardsleftbootycheek @trilliwarner

it’s been a day since the kiss, and you still haven’t told a single soul. for some reason, you’re way too scared to admit what happened to your roommates, even though you know they’d be the last to judge you for it.

and yet you just can’t, despite the fact that it’s been eating you alive for over twenty-four hours straight. saying it out loud makes it real, so you decided it was best to keep it inside.

however, you still need to give chris his jersey back, which you’ve been neglecting to do because you don’t want to see him.

or maybe because you’re scared.

it’s an involuntary thought, and it makes you angry. there’s nothing to be scared of, because he doesn’t have any power over you.

right?

you grab his jersey off the top of your dresser. it’s all clean, and it still smells like detergent from when you washed it yesterday. you’ve been putting it off all day, and it’s time for that to stop.

the sun is nearly gone, so you head down the stairs, silently thankful that ramona and cassidy are both are both runnings errands as you slip out the front door.

you’re in your comfy clothes, black sweats and baby blue hoodie that you stole from cass, and you’re immediately regretting the fact that you didn’t grab a jacket.

you hurry across the lawn, passing the cars parked in the driveway. there’s an unfamiliar red one at the end, and it almost makes you pause, but the possibility doesn’t fully connect in your mind yet.

so you head up the steps and knock on the door loudly, still very much so a woman on a mission.

it takes a moment, a long moment, before someone comes to open it for you. it’s connor, which is unfortunate, because you really weren’t prepared to speak with anyone besides the one boy you’re actually looking for.

he looks a little confused, but he smiles nonetheless. “what’s up?”

“i’m just, uh, trying to drop off chris’s jersey.” any bit of confidence you had is gone now as you choke on your words.

connor’s eyes widen a little as his grin fades, though you can tell he’s trying to play it off. “he’s a little busy right now, but i’ll get it to him.”

your eyebrows furrow as he reaches his arms out, like he’s trying to rush the process along without any more interrogation.

“busy with what?” you question, though you hand it over regardless.

he looks at you for just a half a second too long, like he’s waiting for you to piece it together, and then it clicks. chris is busy because he has a girl over, and that’s her car in the driveway.

you wish it didn’t phase you, but you can feel your face morphing into an emotion that borders disgust and anger.

“oh, i see.” is all you say, because you’re already fucking embarrassed beyond belief.

you turn and head back down the stairs, trying to ignore the way your stomach is flipping like you’re going to throw up.

connor doesn’t say anything. instead you hear the door close, and you feel completely numb as you walk back to your own porch. part of it is because of the cold, and part of it is because you feel so stupid.

you’re not sure what you were expecting, but that was exactly what you should’ve anticipated knowing chris.

you step back into the warmth of your own home, and even when you close and lock the door, a shiver chases you.

you head back up to your bedroom, kicking your shoes off by the door. you want further confirmation, so you peek through the curtains that hang over your window.

chris’s room, which is coincidentally directly across from yours, reveals nothing besides a dim light that peeks through the closed blinds.

you let the drapes fall back into place, still in shock. it was so ridiculous to believe for even a second that he was any different than he had been for the last six months.

you should’ve taken him at his word. he doesn’t date, and he’s not interested in you beyond teasing you or making you look like an idiot.

and you refuse to be taken for a fool.

you pace along the floor for a second until you decide you deserve some wine. you know there’s at least half a bottle in the fridge, and maybe it’ll help you calm the hell down.

a few minutes later you’re back upstairs, huddled up in your bed with a book you had started earlier in the day, sipping from your glass as you read.

it’s hard to fall into the fantasy world you picked out at first, but then you begin to feel your cheeks flush and your eyes are suddenly devouring the words.

you’re so enveloped in the plot, completely unaware that your roommates had gotten home until ramona walks in. it startles you, so much so that you lose your page.

she pauses to take in your state; the empty glass, the minimal leftovers in the bottle you brought with you, your droopy eyes.

“wine before 7 p.m. on the lord’s day? you’re crazy.” she jokes with a grin.

you shrug, also smiling a little bit. “felt like getting a little wild.”

mona puts a hand on her hip and nods toward the door she just entered through. “well, could i maybe convince you to take this crazy train downstairs so we can catch up on VPR? we’re like, three episodes behind now.”

you snap your book closed and roll out of bed, which you can tell by her snort looks far from graceful.

“all you had to say was VPR.”

you sit at your desk, gnawing on your bottom lip as you try to focus on the stupid online homework prompts that are due soon. the overcast afternoon light pours into your room, and you hear your phone buzz against the wood.

chris

still playing hard to get?

you roll your eyes before you can help it. the text doesn’t surprise you, because he’s been messaging you for the past few days, ever since he inevitably found out you stopped by from connor.

chris

that’s clearly a yes.

you wonder how many times he’s going to text you as you put your phone down to pull your hair out of your face, tying it up at the back of your head.

once again, you hear the device vibrate, and you flip it to glance at the screen.

chris

i can see you ignoring me you know

your eyes betray you as you glance out the window, just to find chris standing in front of his own. he’s pouting at you with his phone in his hand, hair all curly and damp like he just got out of the shower.

you stand up from your chair without a second thought and take a few steps so you can yank your curtains closed.

he might refuse to believe it, but you’re not playing hard to get. you just can’t fucking stand him.

chris

now that’s just cold

come onnnnnn princess

y/n

holy shit

do NOT call me princess

chris

you love it

y/n

i hate you

chris

if you don’t stop this i’m coming over there

y/n

i’d like to see you try asshole

chris

fine.

you pull back one curtain to call his bluff, and your heart actually drops when you see that he’s not standing there anymore. that just means he’s probably on his way over already.

you have no idea if cass or ramona are home or in their rooms or what. but you do know that you’re locking your door, and if he makes it through the house undetected he’s not getting into your room.

you sit on the edge of your bed for a moment, waiting because you don’t know what else to do with yourself. and then the knock comes, right before chris twists the handle and finds it locked.

“open up.” he demands, his gruff voice muffled through the door.

“no.”

“i’ll go downstairs and get cass if you don’t let me in.” he threatens, which doesn’t really scare you.

cassidy will kick his ass out if she realizes you don’t want him here. you’ll have to explain some things, but it’s probably time to do that anyways.

“you’re being a baby and you’re wasting your time. go home, chris.” you reiterate.

“come on, i just want to talk.” he wiggles the handle once again, like that will somehow open it.

“then call a sex addiction helpline.” you reply hotly, glaring at the slab of wood that separates you as if you can actually see him, though you’re glad you can’t.

“can you please open the door?”

“nope.”

“jesus, you’re so stubborn it’s ridiculous.” he groans, and you hear his forehead thump against the door.

he’s growing frustrated now, and even though you’re heated too, you kind of love it.

“so are you! how many times do i have to tell you to leave?” you shoot back.

it’s silent for a moment, which scares you. then you hear a small sigh.

“i didn’t think i would have to do this.”

the lock on the door begins to twist and turn rapidly, and you leap forward to grab it with your hand.

chris twists it hard and your fingers fumble to keep it jammed. your thumb is already in pain, and the harder he pushes the closer you are to failing. you’re finally forced to let go as chris comes shoving his way into your room a few seconds later.

even though he stumbles slightly, he looks so proud of himself, clutching the heavy duty paper clip he used to get inside.

“there, that’s better.” he says smugly.

you watch his eyes take in your room, covered in posters and full of random artifacts, and you hate it. for some reason, it feels deeply personal.

“holy shit, why don’t you just go home already?”

it’s impossible to keep your tone level anymore as you turn away from him.

“i’m here now, so you have to talk to me.”

“no, i really don’t.” you reply before plopping down onto your mattress, crossing your arms as you lean against the headboard.

“don’t be a brat.” chris follows your lead, even though you weren’t inviting him to join you.

he falls beside you, sprawling out on his back by your feet. his shirt raises over his sweats, exposing a bit of skin above the band of his boxers, and you have to tear your eyes away.

you can feel the warmth of his body, can smell his aftershave mixed with hints of some kind of fresh body wash, and all of it drives you crazy.

you curl your body into itself so there’s as much distance between the two of you as possible.

“why are you so mad?” chris turns his head slightly so he can look at you.

“i’m not mad, you just disgust me.”

this makes him smile. “i beg to differ, i think you like me.”

without hesitation, you extend one leg to kick him in his side. even though it’s not very forceful, he lets out a little groan of surprise, hand going to rub his hip as he frowns.

“you didn’t have to kick me, damn.”

“you deserved that.” you argue, tucking your knees back to your chest.

this time he stays silent and just looks at you. his eyes scan your face, darting down to your lips every other second, and you’re suddenly very aware of your surroundings.

“what the fuck are you staring at?” you ask in a brief moment of panic.

his eyes are so unnerving. it’s like he can see right through you.

“you’re pretty.” chris shrugs before averting his gaze back to the ceiling.

your face flushes, and you force yourself to remember the embarrassment from the other day, how stupid you felt after discovering that he’s still the same old player that sits beside you now.

“shouldn’t you be giving some other girl an STD or something?” you snap, and he huffs out a breathy laugh.

“first of all, i’m totally clean. and if you’d actually let me explain, you’d realize the girl that was over on sunday is just an ex fling who was picking up some old stuff.”

his clarification shocks you, though you still don’t necessarily believe it yet. he could be lying, even though it doesn’t seem like he is.

“you’re seriously telling me you weren’t hooking up with her?” you ask.

“it was strictly platonic. nothing happened.” he confirms, shifting to face you again.

chris lifts his hand to trace gentle patterns along your shins, and you don’t shy away this time. the feeling of his palms, even when separated by your leggings, is far nicer than you imagined.

“okay.” you mutter simply.

“you’ve been ignoring me the entire week and all i get is an ‘okay’?” he halts his movements so he can curl his fingers into air quotes.

“what would you like me to say?”

“an apology would be a nice start.”

you bark out a laugh. “an apology for what? for not talking to you? because i really didn’t take you for the sensitive type.”

he just shakes his head, nudging your legs with one of his knuckles lightly. “god, you and that headstrong attitude will be the death of me.”

“can’t wait.” you quip back, and now its his turn to chuckle.

silence settles over the two of you for a moment, and you’ve been far too close for too long, so you move to stand once again.

“alright, well, we talked. time for you to get lost.” you motion toward the door.

chris sits up, running a hand through his messy hair before he replies. “look, we don’t have another game until sunday, so we’re hosting at the house tomorrow. you should come.”

you raise an eyebrow and tap your chin, like you’re really contemplating. “i’ll have to think about it.”

“please? it’ll only be fun if you go.” he flashes you a charming smile, and you hate that it actually does kind of work.

“maybe i’ll make a special appearance. maybe.” you point a wary finger at him as he gets back on his feet.

“that’s what i like to hear.” chris says, making his way toward you.

you expect him to pass right by, but he lingers, like there’s something else on his mind. he stares down at you with those big blue eyes, and you can feel yourself slipping into dangerous territory.

“is there something else?” you ask softly, and the sound of your voice is maddening to him.

you don’t even try to tempt chris on purpose, he knows this, and yet everything about you is so enticing. not to mention he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about the kiss since it happened, or that pretty little mouth of yours.

but he shakes his head again, because the things he’s thinking about you so early on in this strange relationship frighten him.

“uh, no, sorry. i’ll see you tomorrow, hopefully.”

and then he blows right by you without waiting for a response, disappearing just as quickly as he arrived.

[blacktowbarony]

Wilderness Travel - As a dungeon

End of last session, I gave my players *A Quest*. Whole nine yards, given to them by Baron Blacktow himself at their first meeting. High stakes, potential for action and diplomacy. Yes, very fantasy template, but I'm not writing alternative fiction here, I'm rolling dice with some blokes in a pub after work. Basic-bitch tropes save time and get everyone on the same level straight away. Anyway.

Here's the situation:

A dragon has started hostilities against the borderlands territory of Blacktow.

Baron Blacktow, an experienced monster slayer, needs dwarf-made flameproof armour.

Make contact with the lost dwarf civilisation of this country. Commission the creation of this armour as the start of the trade agreement.

Here's the map of the Blacktow Barony, in the borderlands of Nurea:

I've ran overland travel in Knave 2e before, when the players travelled between Ill Cave and the 'frogmen' dungeon and Fief Sudley. Hexes are 6 miles across, 4 hours (or a 'watch') to cross. So that's three a day.

I was not enjoying it, honestly. First watch: Roll, nothing happens. Second watch: Roll, nothing happens. Third: Roll, encounter! Its a yeti. It hasn't spotted you. Oh, you guys wanna hide? Uh, you're in the wilderness so you can climb a tree and get away easy enough.

So in the end, quite often, nothing happens.

Conversely, in the dungeon, procedures add tension and introduce danger, but threats in the wilderness are just feel more like an unnecessary obstacle. I think this is because of these reasons:

In the Dungeon, you're in a limited space with the threat. It's immediate.

In the Dungeon, this room also has a function, trap, treasure, or some kind of dressing to make it more interesting and set the context of any random encounters that crop up.

In the Dungeon, you can't rest unless you find somewhere that's explicitly safe. In the wilderness, you can camp anywhere. This means you have to push forward into a new room, or backtrack, which can be skipped through.

I frikkin love dungeons. It just distils everything you could possibly want from a RPG game into it's purest form. It's easy to write as a GM, and every moment is gameable. When I'm not in a dungeon, I find I'm letting sentences hang, or asking, "what do you want to do?" a lot more. Killing time. In a dungeon, it's a much more natural feedback loop of situation > player reaction > new situation > player reaction. So good.

So I think the solution here is to try recontextualising the hex map as a dungeon. Each hex is a room, and it takes 4 hours to travel from one room to the next.

That means I need to populate each hex. I can't stand by and let the encounter table (or even the overloaded encounter die, sorry Ben) do the heavy lifting. It gets stale, repetitive. I can't always cobble together great encounter ideas on the fly. And rolling dice several times in a row waiting for something to happen kills me as a GM. I think in a rpg procedure that involves die rolling, maybe a good policy would be to disallow consecutive die rolls. Each roll should be punctuated with some kind of new information or decision required from the players. And no, "nothing happens" is not new information.

My number one way to populate dungeons with this blog post. Here's the short version: you can average out the procedural generation rules in D&D B/X (1981) to construct the average 6-room (or multiple of 6 room) dungeon that has basically the perfect balance of peril, intrigue, and reward. This is a great tool for automating this by the way. It's so much fun using this, and takes out a lot of the headache and paralysis when you're looking at a blank map. Running the generator, we have:

Treasure, trapped.

Empty.

Monster.

Interactive, Entrance.

Empty, Entrance.

Monster & treasure.

What does "entrance" equate to in this context, I wonder? Dungeon entrance? Monster lair? Maybe a secret that isn't easily found. Let's log this as something that can be found with a 4 hour "search" action but isn't apparent when you walk through it. You gotta have some secrets after all. Bonus points if the obvious element gives a clue that the element can be found in this hex. Now we're gaming!

Okay, let's execute this. Rockhome is East of the Blacktow Barony. Let's flesh out Eastwood! I've no idea what's there yet, let's pick the closest 6 hexes and fill them as if they were rooms.

Woodland treasure? Uh, it's near Fief Sudley. How about an upturned cart with some treasure in there? But how much?

An method I've considered adopting for 18 or 24 room dungeons (multiples of 6, so just run the generator 3-4 times and connect them) is that you should calculate how much gold is required for all members of your party to level up, and fill out the rooms with that. Half that treasure goes to the main hoard or is kept by the dungeon boss. The rest is divvied out in varied amounts.

But if the wilderness was overflowing with treasure, why would anyone enter a dungeon? No good. Let's be sparing with the treasure in those results that come up.

An upturned woodcutter's cart. 50c worth of fine Eastwood lumber (superficially treasure), rations (immediately useful "treasure") Signs of a struggle.

Hey, awesome! And now there's someone in Fief Sudley who lost a relative and is torn up about it. And a monster in one of the hexes we're about to populate has blood on their hands. Don't you love when fleshing out one thing adds a whole new dimension to another?

2. Empty.

When this comes up, I usually pick a room function like "torture chamber" or "kitchen" to make it something. Since we're in the wilderness, let's roll some results from some of the great d100 tables in Knave 2e. eggs, spring, shadowy. A shadowy spring with some eggs. Let's make them harmless animals, since we're not in monster territory yet.

2. Dense tree cover shadows over a natural spring. The air over the spring is thick with flycatchers skimming flies from the surface of the spring. Many can be seen nesting in the trees.

Extra rations, anyone?

3. Monster.

Yikes! Since this is rooted in one location, it's almost certainly a lair. Let's roll an OSE monster from the forest encounter table.

3. A devastated clearing a mile wide is in the centre of this forest hex, trees shorn down to the roots. Not a scrap of green or leaf litter remains. In the epicentre of this desolation is a large earthen burrow. 2d4 Driver Ants patrol around, 4d6 in the burrows feed anything they can find underneath to a ravenous fungus.

Monsters we roll lairs for will definitely appear on our encounter table, when we make it.

4. Interactive, entrance.

There's a good set of landmarks in the Sandbox Generator, let's pick one out. Riddle bridge. Fuck yes. But a bridge over what? Let's roll this into the 'entrance', which suggests something hidden: how about a massive fissure in the ground? Goes down, down, down. I've had a few of these bottomless pits appear before in dungeons, so they must be connected somehow. All I know right now is that flail snails crawl out of them. Anyway:

4. A massive fissure in the earth blocks the path from west to east. A makeshift bridge has been constructed by a fairy being. Entertain him with a game of riddles and he'll allow you to pass. Rappel down the fissure reveals a flail snail egg clutch, from which tame flail snails can be hatched and raised.

The best fairy statblock and description I've ever found has been in The Monster Overhaul by skerples. I won't spoil it, but I'll be using it for this. The Sphynx riddles in the same book will be good riddle fodder, but I don't know if a fey would think so... linearly. We'll see if I can think of anything better in the coming days.

5. Empty, entrance.

Again, Knave tables are my friend. Middens, desolate, overgrown. What can be found? A warehouse. I imagine that hidden rum cache from Pirates of the Caribbean.

5. A midden, piles of refuse. Deer carcasses, broken tools, broken glass and pottery, torn clothing. The artefacts are hand made, no machinery or advanced forging required. (GM note: a dumping ground for the Nurean rangers. There is a hidden cache of ancient Nurean weaponry in this hex, a watch of searching will reveal it. 100 swords, 100 shields, 200 spears, 200 unstrung shortbows, 100 gambesons, 100 helmets. This is the war cache of the Nurean rangers. The midden is here because twice a year they have a training festival).

6. Monster and treasure.

Since this seems like a bit of a boss monster, as it has a big hoard, let's reroll encounters until I get a big one. It's a catoblepas, which I'll flesh out with The Monster Overhaul.

6. Catoblepas pond. Ox/warthog with a long bristled neck, oily fur, reeks of noxious sludge. It has an expensive sword lodged in its back that it doesn't seem to care about. An unfortunate Foloressan knight is floating face-down in the pond, above a sack containing 1,800 coins.

Fantastic! I'll keep going and fleshing out Eastwood as a dungeon, but that's good enough for now. But the whole of Eastwood needs an encounter table. I'll populate it informed by the hexes I've just described, and a few OSE random forest encounters. As I add hexes to Eastwood, the encounter table may grow. I might be tempted to reduce the encounter chances from 1 in 6 to 1 in 8, as each watch has an encounter chance and it's easier to avoid notice in the forest.

The stinking catoblepas is truffling for mushrooms. Ox/warthog with a long bristled neck, oily fur, reeks of noxious sludge. It has a expensive sword lodged in its back that it doesn't seem to care about.

Nurean Rangers. They're on patrol, and will observe from a distance for several days until they can ascertain your intent/allegiance. 1 in 6 chance per day of them blowing their cover.

Fairies.

Driver ants, cutting down all in their path.

A Foloressan Knight, hunting the Questing Beast.

The Questing Beast. It will lead you to your doom.

Brigands.

Ogre.

Okay! Now I need to do that several more times for the biomes in the easterly direction from Blacktow, as that's the direction they'll be travelling in.

[cursedvibes]

Do you mind if I ask your top 10 favorite characters (can be male or female) from all of the media that you loved (can be anime/manga, books, movies or tv series)? And why do you love them? Sorry if you've answered this question before.....Thanks....

I always like talking about characters, so no problem, ask away. This was a pretty tough question and I had to do a lot of soul searching for that. Turns out I don't actually have any major favourite characters for movies or TV shows. Like, I will have favourite characters in a show, but I'm not that wild about them that they could compare to others across mediums. I guess with the many movies and TV shows I like, I always tend to prioritize the plot more and the characters kind of seamlessly integrate into that. So the characters that did make the list are from animangas, video games, comic books and Warhammer. I can't really rank them from 1 to 10, I just ordered them by franchise/medium.

Lucifer/Louis Cypher (Shin Megami Tensei games)

This doesn't include the Lucifer from SMTIV, I prefer to forget that ever happened. As a quick summary, in SMT there's this big war going on between the forces of chaos and order. Gods and mythical beings of all kinds fall somewhere between the two sides. An Abrahamic god, angels and forces of light usually belong to order (who exactly can change based on the game) and Lucifer is the leader of the forces of chaos. Contrary to Order, he tends to get personally involved with the player and tries to lead them subtly towards chaos, but somehow still manages to come off as very sympathetic. That's what I like about him and find so fascinating. He's a big fighter for free will and will never openly judge you for the choices you make, unlike the order-aligned characters, who fly into a rage. He will fight you to ensure chaos wins, but it's never really seen as you doing some personal failing. Especially in SMT II he is essentially an ally and even if you defeat him, he will offer to help you slay YHVH as long as you don't join order. I'm currently playing SMT Nocturne again and am trying to go for the True Demon Ending (leading Lucifers army towards heaven) and I have to say especially in his old man form it's always nice to see him stop by to check up on me. The little kid form is much nastier, but whenever I'm running through the apocalyptic landscape or crawling through some dungeon and he shows up in his wheelchair it makes me feel supported. Like "aw, grandpa is watching me, I have to do my best". Anyway, I think the place he has in the games is very interesting. He's also the reason why many people say the games are leading you to side more with chaos over order, even though it's always made clear that you will be working towards a world of eternal war. Lucifer is just very charming, as you would expect, and seems even more so when you compare him with the prospect of losing all autonomy.

Kenjaku (JJK)

I think this is pretty self-explanatory, since I won't shut up about them on this blog. They combine a lot of things I really like about fictional characters. They're a mad scientist, they are mainly driven by their own curiosity and therefore a chaotic force in the plot, they're trans, they are genre-savvy and then there is the whole business of being the main characters evil mother. Kenjaku is also another excuse to brush up my knowledge on Japanese history. What really hooked me in was the whole toxic family business and the time while they stayed with the Itadori family. For most of the story they're this big bad, who managed to destroy half of Japan in 2 weeks, but then we find out about that and it all seems so low key and relatively normal, that it makes them even more fascinating. They're the main villain, but they're also very chill for most of the story and don't immediately send off alarm bells in the average person's head unlike Sukuna for example. That's what allowed them to stay undercover for so long (that and Tengen). I don't think I've come across another character before who hits so many of my fave character boxes.

Phosphophylite (Houseki no Kuni)

Pretty new addition to my list, but their character development across the series really hit me like a train. It's honestly so perfect, it's hard to summarize why I love it so much. In the beginning of the story they are relatively innocent, weak, but also with some clear character flaws. As they gain strength these flaws only become even more pronounced and extreme as they go through trauma after trauma. Every step of the story serves to chip away at Phos both physically and mentally until there's only splinter left of them. The story is almost over and while Phos has undoubtedly changed, they have also held onto their most intrinsic characteristic and you could say that what really made them who they are has only become more clear now. They have idealistic goals and only end up hurting the people they want to protect with every step they take towards them, until they're completely alone at the end. They are driven completely insane by their actions and the suffering others put them through until they snap completely and destroy everything. That destruction was a much needed restart however, as much as it hurt to lose so many people. There's so much I could talk about with them, I just think they are such a fascinating character and definitely one of my favourite mcs ever.

Johan Liebert (Monster)

It's been a while since I read/watched Monster, but every time I look in the direction of the series, it makes me insane all over again. Johan is probably the only anime villain I find actually scary. It's the mystery around his character, he's very unpredictable and just like the characters you start to see him everywhere in every little hint you are given. The finale in Ruhenheim was so stressful to watch and Johan didn't even do anything for most of it, it was all just vague glimpses and build up tension. Every time we do see him on screen we know something bad will happen and even if he's interacting with someone friendly you are just waiting for that other person to suffer for being in his presence for too long. I could watch episode 49 again and again because things go downhill so fast and you know from the beginning that Johan interacting with children is bad. I'm getting war flashbacks any time I hear Noto Mamiko talk in another anime. Immediate red flag. Do not trust. Same goes for hearing the phrase 昔々ある所に. As if there wasn't enough reason to be vary of German and Eastern European fairy tales. All that doesn't even touch on his relationship with Nina. They are so destructive, but still love each other. The whole reveal surrounding the rose mansion was so good and gave them a whole new depth. That's another thing that I love, Nina shows that while what Johan went through is tragic and horrible, there was nothing forcing him to become the serial killer he is now, which I think is a very important part of his character.

Satan/Ryo Asuka (Devilman franchise)

Satan is the whole reason I love Devilman so much, they're the center piece of the series, the series and its sequels only exist because God wants to punish Satan for being gay and an environmentalist, but unfortunately that often gets overlooked in the broader anime community. They think it's all just about Devilman/Akira killing people and the world dying and sideline the suffering twink who started it all. Even in the worst parts of the franchise (Devilman Lady), Satan and his bond with Akira can save the story from being complete shit. On the surface it's pretty basic, but Satan's wish to save the planet and demons by wiping out humanity and thereby destroying what he wanted to protect gets me every time. He ends up falling in love with a human, wants to save him from the war he's about to unleash by giving him special powers and eventually ends up fighting and killing him because of that. God swoops in and puts the timeline on loop to torture Satan. Satan tries to escape, but thereby only ends up killing the one he loves over and over again. Wonderfully tragic and I like how the story ends up siding with Satan. It would be better for humans to die, but seeing loved ones die still hurts. Basically, I'm not immune to suffering gays who want to fight God.

Thief King Bakura (Yu-Gi-Oh!)

Best character in the series, never did anything wrong and should've won or at least got to kill Atem and/or Atem's father. He only got used his whole life and I hate how dirty the anime and especially the eng dub did him. They really tried to say that melting the entire population of a village in gold was fully justified because they were thieves and Bakura has no right to complain because "he uses violence too (against the pharaoh...)". Ugh, it always makes me so mad just to think about it. Thankfully, the manga handled it better, even if they didn't quite stick the landing. I just love his whole story. Little boy goes up against the Pharaoh and his entire court, protected by the spirits of his home and even almost manages to take revenge, when he goes just a little too far and in his desperation gets involved with dark powers that are out to use him. I especially like that the manifestation of his ka, Diabound, is a holy spirit in the manga, showing that his initial goal was actually justified and the ruling class, who pass their time by torturing people for fun, are wrong. If only Zorc hadn't shown up... He gave us Yami Bakura though, so I'm not too mad. Yami Bakura instantly became my fave for liking ttrpgs over the Duel Monster card game and he stuck to that throughout his plan. No children's card games if he has a say in it. It's also hilarious that the others kill and torture each other with card games, but he just takes a knife and does it the old-fashioned way. Why gamble over cards, when you can simply stab the people and then take their belongings?

Lucifer Morningstar (Lucifer comics by Mike Carey)

My time again to tell everyone to read the Lucifer comics because even if you don't like comics, they are just insanely good. If you like The Sandman (TV series or comics), then definitely give them a go. There's technically also a TV series based on them, but aside from some names it has nothing in common with the source material. Don't know why they bothered getting the rights. It's basically a long discussion about free will and what it really means to be free. The ending really devastated me when I first read it, but I really like it and it makes the most sense. I had to think about Lucifer and how he's written a lot recently because of the Gojo vs Sukuna fight. In my opinion, Lucifer is the best overpowered mc I've seen so far. He has at his best the power to create whole multiverses, but the author uses his character traits to make sure he still struggles and faces challenges. It also helps that Lucifer is not a good fighter. The other fallen angels carried him hard in the war against heaven. If he doesn't have the option to oneshot his enemy, he will get beaten up badly. But more importantly, Lucifer has one goal in life and that is to be free and to escape his father's all-seeing, all-knowing eye and predestination itself. That is of course pretty difficult, not even creating his own multiverse helps because God/The Presence foresaw that too. At it's core the story is about escaping a controlling parent. This is made even more difficult by Lucifer's lack of empathy and resulting difficulties in cooperating with other people. There are very few people he cares about and even the ones he does he ends up pushing away because he can't understand their needs and always thinks about himself first. Quite often he doesn't even notice that he angered someone until it blows up in his face. Usually, he just assumes that everyone hates him anyway (it's often true), but with the few who do like him, he often ends up distancing himself from them because his plans are more important to him than them and they obviously don't always have much understanding for that. Basically, he's a selfish dick and I love that about him. I can emphasize with his struggles and philosophy, but how he goes about it is sometimes so maddening and that's what makes me invested. He also always gets retribution when he makes mistakes or treats other gods dismissively. He can literally move mountains, but because of his own limitations, he is often very vulnerable and arguably a bigger hurdle to overcome than his father. Because of his rather cold if snarky nature, it's also always nice when he does show a slither of care towards someone else.

Xaiozanus Exasas (Imperator: Wrath of the Omnissiah by Gav Thorpe)

The last three on this list are all Warhammer 40k characters, mostly taken from the novels like Exasas here. Full name and title is: Magos Dominus Militaris Xaiozanus Skitara Xilliarkis Exasas. So you know they are important. Aside from how giddy it makes me that there's a mc in a (Warhammer) novel that uses neopronouns, Exasas is also just so cute and lovable that it's impossible I think not to like ver. Ve is a magos of the Adeptus Mechanicus, meaning a cyborg employed to oversee all machine and tactical decisions in an Imperator Titan (basically a Gundam but the size of a city). Ve looks like a mechanical centipede with humanoid upper body and three oculars for eyes. Besides the threat of infiltration, a big part of the book is Exasas learning to get out of vis head so to say, let go of pure logic and make impulsive decisions. Exasas loves to predict battle outcomes and basically anything that is happening around ver, ve can spend hours brooding over hypothetical problems ve made up for verself. A considerable part of vis part of the plot is Exasas sitting in a corner and crunching numbers to distract verself from the people around ver bullying ver. Unfortunately, that also leads to ver overlooking a crew member that switched sides, which is what eventually forces ver to engage more with the real world and when ve can't find any logic in the actions of this person to disregard logic and consider improbabilities and make actions based on vis gut (I'm pretty sure Exasas doesn't have a gut anymore tho). Exasas isn't very relatable or anything, I have to admit that I skimmed some of vis repetitive combat predictions, but this very different way of thinking is what makes it so fascinating. It's not that uncommon for techpriests, but we rarely see it depicted like this. Exasas creates entire separate personalities in vis head to have discussions with or to administer special problems to while ve thinks about something else. There's also a Fighter Ego, which is less logically based because it needs to make quick decisions and eventually helps Exasas somewhat with vis struggle for action in other scenarios. Exasas body is technically made for combat as well, but ve verself isn't a very confrontational person, so ve split off all functions related to that into a separate part of verself that is only sometimes allowed to take over. In other words, there's a lot going on in that metal head and it's super interesting to read about.

Trazyn the Infinite

Trazyn shows up all over wh40k, but I mainly know him from the books The Infinite and The Divine and War in the Museum (yes this is a play on Night at the Museum), both written by Robert Rath. Trazyn is a Necron, which are basically robot ancient egyptians. They used to be the Necrontyr, but their souls/consciousness were then poured into skeletal robot bodies. Many didn't survive that and are no more than drones without will, others fell asleep and never woke up, but some like Trazyn kept their personality and most of their memories. Necrons are very hard to kill and can be reassambled to work again (although the consciousness might be gone if it was there before). Trazyn also has the ability to jump between egoless Necrons and turn them into his own body, which makes him especially hard to kill. He's a collector of artifacts, people, memories and whatever else picks his fancy. He collects them all in a giant museum for when the Necron of the empire he belongs to wake up and can see what happened while they're awake. It's mostly for himself though. He's like a magpie with the British Museum in the size of a planet to his disposal. With a stasis beam he can even keep living beings in his museum. Contrary to other Necrons he's more of a chaotic neutral party in the galaxy. He looks down on the Imperium (love that about him, he tends to drag them to filth), but he might ally with some soldiers or a squad he comes across if it means he gets some artefact he might've been after. He's aeons old, but like an old man and a child in one. He has seen so much and accumulated so much knowledge, but he still gets incredibly excited when he finds something new and even something as "simple" as coffee or music can be fascinating to him. He's kinda like Kenjaku in that way, except he doesn't have some big goal, he just likes watching the universe and only interferes arbitrarily.

Tanau Aleya (Watchers of the Throne novel series)

She belongs to the Anathema Psykana, commonly known as the Sisters of Silence. Her order is made up of women, who don't have souls. They are just void. This absence can make people around them physically ill, make them faint or give them other discomfort. It is also incredibly effective against the forces of chaos, so the Sisters of Silence fight to push back against the Chaos Gods. Thing is, because of their nature they have been neglected a lot and haven't received much attention or support from the Imperium at all. Aleya is especially aware of this and this is part of why she is such a ball of rage. The other reason is that her conclave, all the sisters she knew and grew up with, was destroyed by chaos cultists. She ends up fighting with Imperial armies to avenge her sisters, but she always makes sure to let them know that she does not like them and hasn't forgiven them for not giving a shit about her or her order for the last millennia or so. While the Sister of Silence have sworn to not talk, they do use sign language to communicate. Many people outside the order don't know this sign language though. Aleya personally also has no problem with talking if she needs to, she sometimes does it with her sisters, but usually she just doesn't want to. When the other doesn't know sign language, she often doesn't communicate at all unless it's urgent. Similarly, if someone pisses her off, she decides to just stand next to them unmoving, watch them squirm because of her repulsive aura. It is so rare to read about the Sisters of Silence, much less have them as a protagonist, and Aleya is all I was looking for from them. She hates the Imperium, she hates their cult of worship, she makes sure that she has very high priorities when it comes to who she cares about, she makes a sport out of unsettling politicians and she can crush a skull with her bare hands. What's not to love?

[momodita]

moda since ive been gone from tumblr youve gone thru a blog change. dont think i forgot. the sasuke hs au. football player. the exchange of reader driving him and i dont remember what he gives in return but i remember the itachi scenes. please. im on my knees. i miss her

this was a terrifying message to receive /lh long time moots look away from this post btw

i uhhh. yeah.... the long and the short of it is... im not sure if i'll post that fic again DSKJHFJKSHD... i really liked it when i wrote it but i came across some criticisms of it and!! i think they were valid but it did make me not want to revisit that reader and its fic again for a little bit 😔 i've got no ill will towards the person who made the criticisms, but it was extremely awkward bc it was sent in an ask to one of my moots and i read it and went "oh" LMFAOOOOO... and if my moot happens to see this and remembers: no worries at all KSJDHFJKSD /gen i'm one of those ppl that likes to rework fics anyways so maybe when im back in my naruto phase ill consider reworking it. but uhhh. until then it's in time out LMFAO. jail, even.

[libraryofloveletters]

Hii! 🫶🏻 First and foremost, massive congratulations on reaching 4k followers!! 🥳💗 I truly could not think of anyone who is more deserving of this accomplishment and far beyond it than you. Your blog is exceptional and one that I’m so absolutely in love with — notifications are turned on (for all of your accounts) and I’m also checking daily because your shared posts and especially your very beautifully and masterfully written work never ever fails to bring a smile to my face, brighten my whole day, and just overall really make everything better no matter what. I never want to miss a post and I’ll never stop rereading since every read, whether it be new or old, is blissful for me and holds a special place in my heart.

Anyway, I didn’t mean to rant… lol. I just wanted you to know how deeply loved and appreciated your content is and, above all, how deeply beloved and valued you are. I am so thankful for the way you’ve made this such a safe space for so many of us and sharing your creative stories that allows us to escape from reality and just embrace our mutual passions and feel utterly happy. So, to say that I’m insanely proud of you and happy for you is beyond an understatement. Again, congratulations and I’m so looking forward to the next quickly approaching milestones! 🫶🏻

As for the 4k celebration prompt request, I was hoping you could please write the prompt “Well. well, well. Look who came to their enemy’s door holding presents.” “Oh cut it, I’m here to pick you up for our date” with Lewis and possibly with teammate!Reader if you don’t mind and are feeling inspired (and if not, then of course no worries! Feel free to take this in any direction and follow your own creativity!). Thank you so much!

first of all, thank you so so sooooo much for your sweet words, they always make my day!! 💗 this is so incredibly sweet and this has been sitting in my drafts for a while and yet, I'm not even completely sure how to answer this lmao but thank you so much! I appreciate it and you from the bottom of my heart!! <33 // prompt: “Well. well, well. Look who came to their enemy’s door holding presents.” “Oh cut it, I’m here to pick you up for our date”

The public saw what you wanted them too. 

Mercedes Drivers At War -- Last Week’s Crash The Tipping Point. 

You and Lewis at opposites, at war, rivals until the end of time. 

There was no way the only female/male duo on the grid could be friends. You were either dating or you hated each other. The two of you opted for hating each other - politely disrespecting the other in the media, pushing and shoving on the track, outranking each other week in and week out, constantly photos of you two getting scolding your team dad principal. 

Silverstone held a special place in both yours and Lewis’ heart. His home race, your first GP win. There was no one where either of you wanted to win so badly, willing to go to any length to out shine the other. 

Lewis went too far - pushing you off the track, skidding until you hit the barricade. You were pissed. 

You weren’t injured, thankfully. The car was fucked and you were forced to retire. 

Toto calmly told you not to bite back even though he understood why you’d want too, promising to speak to Lewis about the incident and making you tell him that you would be a team player to the media. 

Now you were back at home, your flat in London. You missed it. 

There’s a knock on the door and you get up, walking over to open it. You come face to face with your teammate. Lewis stood across from you with a bouquet of your favourite flowers.

“Well. well, well. Look who came to their enemy’s door holding presents.”

No one, not even your team principal knew about what was happening between you and Lewis. One night, the hatred went too far, the tension too much to handle and you ended up in bed together. That quickly turned into a pattern, leading to spending the night together, only for you both to realize you liked each other. 

Lewis smiles, handing you the flowers as he walks in.  “Oh cut it, I’m here to pick you up for our date.” 

You groan, walking to the kitchen. “Do we have to go out? Can we order take out and stay in?” You ask, setting the flowers in a vase as you fill it with water. 

“Of course,” he hugs you from behind. “Are you okay? You left the track before I could even check in on you.” 

“I’m fine,” you tell him and he turns you to face him, caging you in between him and the counter. “Then why was I being told that you were shaking after the crash?” 

“Post race adrenaline. You know how it is, Lew.” Your fingers fiddling with the strings on his hoodie. 

“You’re absolutely sure you’re okay? I couldn't forgive myself if I hurt you-” 

“You didn’t hurt me,” you kiss him, a hand on his jaw. 

“Good,” he smiles, he pats your hip. “What are we feeling tonight? Chinese? Indian ? Greek? I saw a new Thai place opened down the street.” He tells you scanning the menus pinned to the side of your fridge. 

“Chinese, in the mood for fried wontons.” You walk to the couch, Lewis following you with the menu in hand. 

“When are you not?” He jokes, his arm around your shoulder. 

[fenclip]

crown of insight au: Traveler's Role and more Crown lore

basically an AU of the Imposter AU which is an AU of the SAGAU (which also happens to be an AU where all the Genshin characters are self-aware, thanks guys)

i forgot that the "read more" line was a thing. tbf, i have not used tumblr for like uh... idk, 6 years? i binned my original blog on tumblr bc all my friends inevitably ended up being scattered by the wind like dandelions... so. uh. yeah. anyway, more info down below. mostly just my notes though, i'll try to keep it legible lol

feel free to ditch the in-depth lore if you ever get inspired by my nonsense :')

The Traveler's Role

"The Twin Stars of Fate" - i.e. Aether & Lumine

The Travelers are the First to see the Divine One - both 500 years ago (in Khaenri'ah) and in modern day (with the player, though that's complicated). Unlike the residents of Teyvat, they do not need a Crown of Insight to bestow them the power to see. [since they existed outside of Teyvat]

They are also known as the "Attendants" or the "Ringbearers", as they are the ones that can carry the Crowns on behalf of the Divine One. It is currently unknown how "Attendants" are chosen by the Divine One - still needs fleshing out.

The Abyss Twin was the original "Attendant" of the Divine One that appeared 500 years ago before the Cataclysm. They likely still have Crowns of Insight with them, but probably can't use them?? (idk, make shit up)

The Traveler (the player's character) is the current "Attendant" of the new Divine One that was set to arrive some time during this era... except their arrival (i.e. the player's Descension) was delayed due to Celestia's interference during the Cataclysm that k*lled their predecessor.

It is only thanks to a mechanism (unnamed) that allowed the player to interact with the Traveler without Celestia knowing of their influence. [i wish i played honkai impact, so i can draw inspo from there but oh well]. The player still needs to Descend but thanks to Celestia, it's gonna have to be done "manually" - idk make shit up

Crown of Insight Lore Notes

similar to Divine Knowledge capsules in function, but does not "corrupt" the user with Forbidden Knowledge - since it technically comes from "Teyvat", and not from outside the world.

imports the knowledge of the Divine One - allows the comprehension of the incomprehensible

however, the rarity of obtaining Crowns of Insight makes it difficult to inoculate the populace from the lies of Celestia

the gold blood of the Divine One can act as the catalyst (similar to the Crown of Insight, but possibly more strenuous?) to impart knowledge from the Divine One to a recipient.

Extra Notes (about other items):

Artifacts = "materia" of Teyvat. crystallisation of the world's memories by accessing leyline outcrops via domains.

Waypoints = pinpoints the intersections of the leylines, allowing for fast-travel across Teyvat. in places where more than two leylines intersect, these are where Statues of the Seven are placed.

[upagainstthesunset]

I started on comics at the end of 2021 or beginning of 2022 or so. It hasnt been that long, all things told. At this point i still havent read as much as the wonderful avid fans i find myself amongst, but what i have read has had tons of variety within DC.

Despite this, there was a while back where i realized just by scrolling my dash i would often see character names entirely foreign to me. And yet the post had hundreds or thousands of notes. It got to the point where i was counting the days that i would come across someone i hadnt heard of and i think it went over a month except for one or two days in the middle. And that was just through cultural osmosis!

Now a couple years in, I at least have heard of all the major players and probably most of the minor ones. But even still, as we round out the year, I see people mention characters totally unknown to me, and im like huh there really are just so many little guys. And here i started not even knowing there was more than one Flash! Ive really come a long way, but theres a long way yet to go.

So it's been incredibly fun to run @doyouknowthisdccharacter because it makes me proud to say "i know them"! And on the other end of the spectrum, its exciting to say "I don't know them" because it means there's still so, so much to discover. That blog has over 80 characters submitted, and im really grateful people are participating and sending in names, voting and reblogging to spread the character love further.

And my newest blog @whosthatdccharacter is up and running, and at least for me has already been a blast! Its a small following compared to the other blogs, but its the one im personally most invested in. I love that i get to make these little puzzles for people to solve. Its all low stakes, but its delightful to see that people are playing along and making guesses.

And last, i of course have to mention @dc-polls. I have a feeling tournaments have already peaked a while ago but you know what its been so cool to host these and keep it running. Its fascinating to see which prompts people respond to and what kind of things they submit. At first i was disappointed we didnt get dozens and dozens of entries like other tournaments had, but after the first one I was grateful we had few enough to do just four rounds. 😅 Our current tournament has been the most fun to me, and I really did find myself saying "what? That happened?" Ha ha, so kudos to everyone who submitted. And you know, I also enjoy the single polls we do to break things up. Im glad its not solely a tourney account.

Anyway, this is really starting to ramble now. I mostly wanted to look back and say how getting to know characters has helped me also get to know the fandom, and how lucky we are to be in a time where we can do these little activities together from all around the world. So yeah. Its been a wonderful year. Thanks for having fun with me.

[protect-daniel-james]

Heyo! I'm a Croatian NT supporter. I'm queer and I love football so much. I always said that I would watch the national team of the first out queer international player.

Wich happens to be Czech Republic as of this week. No joke I nearly cried when I watched Jakub's coming out video, I am so happy for him, even tho my only memory of him is me yelling at his team 2 years ago.

Him coming out means that I'm gonna support Czech Republic besides my Croats. I have followed your blog for a while on my main and I remember during Euros 2 years ago, that you post alot about Czech NT.

Now I don't know anything about the Czech NT. So I was hoping if you could teach me a bit about the NT, so I don't go in blindly next month lol.

I could research myself but i know that supporters know more about their team than the internet! So here we are. I'm humbly asking your help on the Czech NT.

I'm a bit scared to ask with my normal account so this is a burner acc.

-a queer football fan

Hi! First of all, I loved the Croatian NT from 2018, and I still have a soft spot for them now. I'm happy to explain a bit of stuff about the Czech NT. And most of all I'm happy for Jakub, and honestly, the response has so far been overwhelmingly positive from the fans, which is great.

One thing that is not talked about (but should be mentioned) is that like two weeks ago, one Czech journalist (Luděk Mádl) made a tweet saying "a Czech footballer is planning to do a public coming out"

He didn't say the name, but people in the comments started speculating, and it turned into a convo of "I have a friend who has a friend who knows a cleaning lady who knows the kitman and he said that the lads in Sparta's dressing room say it's Jankto". Of course, it wasn't confirmed, but still... A lot of people criticized the journalist for posting the tweet and starting this whole conversation when IT WAS NONE OF HIS FUCKING BUSINESS before the player announces it himself, so he deleted the tweet and apologized. Anyway, Jankto came out this week, in a very nice manner I would say. Now everyone is kinda curious whether he will assume the role of a role model, and speak about his decision to come out etc., or whether he will just keep doing quietly his job. We will see.

The current NT is very likable. In the past, we had some shitty coaches, and some shitty (behavior/character-wise) players, or just not very memorable ones, being carried by Petr Čech and Tomáš Rosický (when he wasn’t injured lol). And our previous teams also had some scandals, like drunk driving and prostitutes at hotels etc… This all seems to be a thing of the past, and the current team (including the manager) carries itself with a lot more dignity. The last shitheads left seemed to be Krmenčík (diver) and Kúdela (if you remember the whole Kúdela-Kamara incident from two years ago, where Kúdela allegedly racially abused Kamara during a match between Slavia Prague and Rangers. It’s not my place to speculate whether he did or did not, but Kúdela later mocked the whole situation, so it’s obvious he didn’t understand why it was a big deal. Yeah I don’t like him.) They are both now playing in Indonesia so hopefully they’re not getting a callup again. The rest of the team seems to be likable.

The coach, Jaroslav Šilhavý. He comes across as a gentleman, a really good guy, well-spoken, calm, collected, and approachable. Kind of nice dad vibes. He said a couple days back that sometimes the players are shocked when he uses vulgar language because he just seems like such a nice person who would never say “fuck” or anything. He seems to be reasonable, maybe too conservative in football tactics, but really a good person overall, polite, and fair.

The most known players are probably Tomáš Souček and Vladimír Coufal, and they both represent well what we love seeing in NT players. Hard-working, passionate about football, no celebrity bullshit. Souček is the captain, and probably leads better by example and stamina than by motivational speeches, but I am happy to see him as a captain. Sometimes people say he’s kind of “simple” (he does speak in a way that gives the impression XD), but I think it’s true in the sense that he really just genuinely loves running and kicking a ball and that’s all he wants to do. He’s literally a cinnamon roll.

Coufal is the no-nonsense soldier, who “dies on the pitch for the team” (as he himself says). I admire him a lot, he worked hard, he got to the Prem from the thirddivision of the Czech league (where he was getting “paid” in beer and sausages). And the best thing is, he is no stupid "red card collector" or "just a fighter". He can look like that on the pitch, but off it, he comes across as an intelligent family man. He really embodies the heart and spirit.

Now onto the star. Patrik Schick, he really shined at the Euros, and then last year in Bundesliga. He’s kind of the poster boy, very handsome as well (and his sister is a model; I think he was kinda considering that career as well?). I was pleasantly surprised when I listened to an interview with him that he’s very grounded, down-to-earth, kinda shy, doesn’t enjoy posting on social media too much etc. Plus, he is best friends with Jankto (and I hope he’s being supportive). They usually room together and play FIFA haha, they also did a couple of interviews and challenges together.

(I lowkey shipped them, now I feel kinda bad about that)

I really like Antonín Barák, who plays in Italy (Fiorentina); he commented on Jankto's instagram post, he also distanced himself from a presidential candidate who was using the NT's shirt (with Barák's number) in his campaign, he seems to be one of the "socially responsible ones" in the team.

the rest of the team is kinda meh, i don't know enough about them to really say much - some of them just seem to be boring and with no interests or personality (Vydra), some of them are predicted to be stars (Adam Hložek, he's the starboy, 20 years old, but hasn't really stepped up in the NT yet)...

And about Jakub himself: he comes across as very determined and focused. I listened to an interview with him some time ago where he spoke about how he went to play in Italy at 18, and how he learned to "take care of himself", cook, speak Italian, live on a budget etc. Then he decided he would like to play in Spain so he learned Spanish. He's also into esports and owns an esports team (but apparently he's not very good at them himself, as Patrik Schick always beats him - at least that's what Patrik said). He seems to be approachable, e. g. he appeared in a video quiz done by a Czech football-focused youtuber (who's not super famous). Also, he likes to draw/paint, and did a drawing of Paulo Dybala some years ago. He always seemed to be a very driven person with various hobbies, and I felt a bit sorry for him coming back to the Czech league (and not performing very well). The thing is, he used to play for Slavia years ago, then he was in Italy and Spain, and now he's in Sparta (Slavia's biggest rival), so a lot of people hated on him for that. And he wasn't performing well for the NT and for the club in the past months - which could be related to him sorting out his personal life. He went through a divorce, then his ex-wife sort of alluded to him not paying the child's support (they have a son) in kinda cryptic Instagram posts, the situation around him was a mess.... Now the ex-wife spoke of her support for him, and said that she hopes he can be at peace, safe and happy.

I really hope Jankto's coming out will help people - the players and fans alike - realize how much homophobic banter still goes "under the radar" most of the time here, and that they will become more aware of how difficult it must be for Jankto to be constantly in such environment.

[diadxrling]

Merry Christmas and happily holidays! 

I honestly can’t belive that I joined this fandom by coincidence almost, if I had never said anything about wanting a new muse and had Arson not recommended me watching HH at the time then I wouldn’t be here now. 

Which honestly would be quite sad for me since it would have meant that I never got to meet some of you. I remember being scared off pretty much all the people that followed me at first just to end up being friends with a lot of you. Actually if you go even further back if I hadn’t ever downloaded Tumblr on my phone to look at fan art and randomly stumbled across role players then not only wouldn’t I be here I would probably still be single! 

It’s wild to me to think about how many people I met since I joined not only this RPC but Tumblr in general. Some have come and gone out of my life, others didn’t leave a lasting impression but there are a few that I consider to be good friends of mine who I will remember for quite some time no matter what happens. 

I would tag who I all mean but nobody needs that spam and you guys know who you are anyway. 

If I am honest I still sometimes wonder about my place in this RPC, I think making this blog for Dia helped with that but I sometimes just wonder what people think when they hear my name. I would hope that it would be either good things or something cursed but well I don’t really know. I try my best to be kind but I am sure there are people out there that dislike me which is a normal part of live. 

Anyway I really just wanted to thank all of you, who have accepted me as part of the community and take time out of their day to write sometimes very silly things with me, from the bottom of my heart. I can’t imagine how boring my live would be if I didn’t have all you chaos noodles in it and I am grateful for all of you. 

Please take care of yourself, enjoy the holidays and if anyone needs me you know where to find me. 

Love ya <3  Neeko  

[jeff-from-marketing]

Wow so uh, some shit has been going down in the TTRPG space lately. I didn’t exactly intend for this to become a TTRPG blog, but oh well that’s what brain has decided and I’m not one to argue against it. Wouldn’t go well anyway.

I do however want to talk about “holy shit Paizo are absolute fucking mad lads and I respect the shit out of them.”

Let me get one thing clear: I trust any company about as far as I can throw them. Often times, if given the chance and the choice, most companies will gladly stab you in the back if it means a few extra coins in their pocket. Hell, Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro have shown that perfectly fine this month and a bit. But I would also be lying if I said I didn’t have trust in Paizo, because as far as I have seen and as far as I can tell, they do basically everything right and everything I could ever hope for in the TTRPG space.

Everything a player needs to play the game is available for free by Paizo on sources like Archives of Nethys, which reduces the barrier of entry to basically nothing and heavily encourages the “try before you buy” mentality that more of every industry needs to adopt more of. They have really solid and respectful representation of so many people across so many different walks of life, as well as do a lot to actually look after their players and ensure that everyone has a good time. Hell they even became a union without a fight. And this is to say nothing of their community outreach, how well they encourage third party creators to make stuff, the actual quality of their works, etc. etc. If anything my biggest complaint is that it’s hard to find their books in local game stores, which isn’t really much of a complaint.

But the announcement of the ORC? Holy shit. I was not expecting that. 

I was absolutely expecting Paizo to have something in their back pocket. A “break glass in case of Wizards of the Coast” plan if you will. Something to ensure that they can stay afloat, and maybe even fight WotC in court or something. Comments they’ve made in the past have suggested such things anyway. Paizo did that and so much more. Seriously I cannot do the whole thing enough justice, I really recommend reading it for yourself. The fact that Paizo have effectively said “we waited for your response Wizards, we were there when the original OGL was forged, we have not forgotten. So we’re making our own OGL, with blackjack and hookers” and came out with the Open RPG Creative License (or ORC License, which I just find is a delightful name). Then in that same post, openly and publicly stating that they are ready to legally fight Wizards of the Coast is one hell of a move. Not to mention the not insignificant number of other sizeable members that are behind the creation of this new ORC, and Paizo’s plan to not own the license so there’s no chance of history repeating itself. It’s as if Paizo saw everything that’s happening now, and was like “right, make this even more watertight and so that none of this can ever happen to it.” 

I gotta say, I respect the fuck out of Paizo for that. The absolute audacity to slap down Wizards, come out with their own license with blackjack and hookers, and futurerpoof to ensure this can’t happen again. 

The question now is simply: where does this leave Wizards of the Coast? 

Now I’ll admit, I’m no legal or marketing expert... ignore the Tumblr handle real quick. But I can’t see this possibly ending well for them, at least not with the D&D division. This whole situation has caused the biggest backlash I think I have ever seen to something like this. Such is the case that several major news outlets and even non-TTRPG based content creators such as Linus Tech Tips or Moist Critical are covering this and going “my dude, what are you doing?” Coupled with the backlash being such that they’ve had to completely cancel announcements relating to the OGL, and now the campaign to mass unsubscribe from services like D&D Beyond...

Thing is, even if they do in fact perform a 180 and cancel all OGL 1.1 plans, that’s still a net loss for Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro. They’ve shown their hand now, they’ve shown that they are a bad faith actor that cannot be trusted, so why would anyone willingly enter any deal with them? Why would anyone trust that they won’t continue trying to undermine the OGL? And now with the ORC, why would anyone not go for that instead? Even if this somehow does result in some short term monetary gain for Wizards, they’ve lost the one resource that is incredibly difficult to renew: good will. A resource that Paizo and other companies are now drowning in. That can only do harm to D&D in the long term. Leaks show that they’re banking on the community just simply forgetting and moving on. Were this the gaming industry, I’d say that’s a safe bet. This isn’t the gaming industry. I’ve found that people in the TTRPG space have long memories and harbour deep grudges. This is certainly something that’s going in The Book.

Personally? I’m excited for the whole thing. I’ve been saying for a while that D&D’s soft monopoly is hard to beat; that the brand name of Dungeons & Dragons is incredibly powerful and often analogous with TTRPGs themselves. But they may have just undone that monopoly themselves. I don’t expect D&D to just shrivel up and die, it’s still a very big name after all. I do, however, expect other systems to gain a surge of popularity following recent events, and that much is even already starting to happen. I do hope that other systems will get the light of day they deserve, and that it’ll now be easier to convince those new to the hobby to try other systems. 

With this latest announcement, I think the future is starting to look quite bright for TTRPGs. 

[sinterblackwell]

most surprising reads of 2022

(aka part II (part I) in my short series of highlighting books that didn't quite make the cut in my top 10 reads of the year (because again...we're now at 136) but still rewired my brain so completely in different ways that i had to talk about them somehow)

warning: this is also a long one. but i had a lot of fun with it :') it's actually convinced me to think about making my own book blog on some other site to have some kind of audience, because it's clear there's potential.

anyways, these were the books that shocked the hell out of me in ways i didn't expect and left a positive marker on my brain.

let the long-winded rants and shows of praise commence 🥂

(in order of read date)

- game changer (game changers, #1) by rachel reid (january 31)

"If you think the world finding out how much I love you is scary to me, you’re dead wrong.”

i have a very soft spot for this first book, and it was for reasons completely subjective that has me on the offense if anyone was to read this because of me and then just absolutely despised it :’)

those reasons stemmed from how i discovered this story in the first place, which was through a blogger’s story on instagram where i just so happened to stumble across a slide where they declared little mix’s “secret love song, pt. II” to be kip & scott’s song. this pair wasn’t even the blogger’s favorite couple, they will always scream about shane & ilya in heated rivalry, but for some reason, they felt the need to share how this song was kip to scott throughout the course of the book. the voices in the song were so angelic and so captivating, that it was what convinced me to read this queer hockey romance that had never been on my radar before this moment.

and maybe it’s because of this song that i ended up finding myself obsessed with this book because no, the writing isn’t the best—it’s pretty average, and the dialogue at times made it a little hard to fully be in the moment. and yeah, kip & scott aren’t one of my most favorite fictional couples ever, but there was just something about the way the lyrics of “secret love song, pt. II” were completely spot-on for these two’s story, how i understood exactly why the blogger felt the urge to connect this song and this story together and post it on instagram……

just because i didn’t think the writing wasn’t the best doesn’t mean that it was very poor; it had its highlights and being in scott and especially kip’s povs made their romance very endearing. i loved all the small & little details about how kip was trying to move forward in his life beyond working in this smoothie shop after having trouble finding anything else with his bachelor’s degree in history. i loved how even though this was my first hockey book in a long while, i was already so absorbed in this sport through scott’s pov, and i was absorbed with what it meant to him as someone who’s now an NHL superstar but was once a low-income kid who was barely hanging on as his mom fought to keep them going. i loved the exploration of scott’s coming out, and how he did have a circle to turn to once he stepped out of his fears that kept him in the closet; and i loved how the author went about making clear that he wasn’t the only closeted NHL player, and how significant it would be if he did make the choice to come out with kip by his side.

what i love love loved about this book though?? a detail i’m absolutely obsessed with?? there’s no drama. it’s the fact that there were literally so many parts of the story that could’ve been the trigger for even more drama and to push the characters further away from each other, but the author purposefully steered clear of it. it’s so completely laughable, and maybe just to me, because there would be instances where things could’ve gone so wrong if the characters hadn’t made certain decisions, or if the author simply wrote it just to write it. it felt almost cheeky these small nods to potential drama that would never actually happen because there really was no need, at least not for this book here. kip & scott’s story was really soft, and yeah there was still some trouble (“secret love song, pt. II” is their song for a reason), but i was in it for the long haul, i was invested.

that’s the surprise there. i came into this story with pretty wary expectations and to see them actually be met, and to have then found myself constantly coming back to it and rereading it while i was picking up other stories. well…….this isn’t one of my top favorite reads of 2022, but it has a special place in my heart for the reading experience—one that lasted weeks so….i wanted to give it a shoutout somehow :’)

(also literally had “secret love song, pt. II” on repeat while writing this to encourage me to let out all my feelings on this book here, so emotions are kinda raw right now lol)

- electric idol (dark olympus, #2) by katee robert (march 25)

“Tell me you’re spinning out just as much as I am. Tell me I’m not in the depths alone.”

this was surprising in the sense that the writing in the first book of this series, neon gods, felt so bizarrely average that reading this sequel here completely caught me off guard. for a good minute or two, i questioned how this could be the same author, which is probably just me reading too much into things, but it was a genuine reaction i will always remember i had.

i said this in the tags of a post once, but for an author who’s had a couple books already under her belt, neon gods reading like a meh debut was strange, and it wasn’t until reading this book here that i really got a sense of where their writing was at. i’m no professional critic, and so this is completely something i grasped from my reading experience.

i think it was the appeal of eros & psyche that helped make the story more engaging and gave a lot more for the author to work with because the way they explored eros’ toxic relationship with his mother and then psyche’s character herself was very interesting to me. i loved the chemistry between the two, especially since at first, things were completely on edge with the hit that aphrodite places on psyche, with eros being the one assigned to deal the killing blow. the way this pair interacted from the beginning was immediately charged because of this hit, and it made everything after feel so high stakes and their growing romance really captivating.

i’m glad that with this book, it encouraged me to continue on with this series as the overarching plot that’s become incredibly significant in all three books so far has grown stronger & stronger over time, so i’m really eager for what’s to come now that i know what this author’s capable of.

- icebreaker by a.l. graziadei (april 8)

this is one of those cases where it wasn’t the story itself, but rather the surprise lying at how attached i got to the main character, mickey james III.

the most that i knew about this book going into it was that it was a ya contemporary romance with hockey playing right at the center, and there was also a significant portrayal of mental illness, with the mc experiencing clinical depression. i also was aware of some mixed things readers felt regarding the romance in particular, which goodreads tags it as first & foremost (a common thing with other books that irks the hell out of me). with this criticism and knowledge in mind, i was on a very cautious edge.

so you can imagine how stumped i felt when i saw myself reflected in the main character.

i wish i can be able to flesh out all my feelings and lay it all out on the table here, blood & guts and all, how much mickey’s character spoke to me and how we’re two completely different people who still felt very similar because of small reactions he had throughout the story or just how tired he got.

Whenever I think of Alyssa and Hugh, or Dorian’s relatable music or Cauler’s face when he said “what would you do if I said yes”, I just get so tired, I want to crawl in bed and not come out for five years. It’s not even sadness. It’s nothingness.

.

It’s so obvious. I’m so obvious. Why can’t anyone see what’s really going on? I love hockey. I do. I swear. My brain just doesn’t let me show it or feel it or . . . or . . .

he would say certain things, most of it all inside his head, and i’ll be reading it and i’ll actually be tearing up because i’ll never get used to the feeling of seeing another writer just get it, and the fact that they don’t even know me makes it feel worse. it feels worse to see what mickey goes through and how he internalizes most of it, which just makes certain things go downhill. he’s like this other character, mina, from tashie bhuiyan’s a show for two, who i feel the need to defend with all my heart— the difference is that in this case, i know mickey, almost like how he knows himself, and anyone who brushes over what he goes through or paints him simply as an asshole will only gut me because it’s close to my own experiences in my own life.

the truth is much more complicated, and the things mickey says or does or even believes at times do put him at fault, but it doesn’t make him a bad person. and it doesn’t make him someone who never even tries. the hockey element to this story is very strong, and it was interesting getting to see a different angle of this sport through these characters who were playing as a team at a university. it was interesting seeing how far these expectations go for these young kids who might have the opportunity to get drafted into the NHL, but they have to make successful plays at first, both on and off the ice. seeing the commentators at their team games who would make these critiques about mickey when his mind was at its worst, it felt so personal…..i knew how biased it might’ve been but it really was just so personal. i was rooting for him a lot and i was rooting for other characters, too, and i loved how even when mickey felt alone most of the time, he still had moments with his big family and moments with his team that alleviated the story quite a bit.

i didn’t love nor hate the romance, it was pretty okay in my opinion—i liked the way the author didn’t just explore the kind of difficulties mickey was going through but that other characters as well, aka cauler, were—it just so happened to be for different reasons. it painted a picture of how rough playing hockey can be for different people, who all have their own strengths but that also means they have their weaknesses, too, and they’ll always be judged on that, whether it’s with their hockey sticks or through harsh words.

above all of that, what generally just really surprised me about this story is how much i connected to mickey’s character without expecting it, and it definitely put some things to light for my own life that even all these months later after first reading this book back in april, i still don’t quite know what to do with. i want to try, just as mickey tries. i don’t know if that’s enough but yeah, reading this story was enough for me at the time.

- café con lychee by emery lee (may 17)

Theo gives me this look that's equal parts reassuring and heart-stopping, and maybe that's just his way of saying that my secret is safe with him, but the voice in the back of my head is finally shutting up, and I feel like everything might just be okay.

the more time that passes between now & my time reading this book back in may, the more i feel sorta mystified that i gave it five stars. it’s nothing against the story or the author, and i’ll never change that rating (unless i did a reread and wanted to update it) because what i do have a clear memory of is how happy this book made me towards the end. in fact, i remember feeling so happy, that it literally brought tears to my eyes.

but the reason why i feel strange now is because of what i’ve heard from others regarding their concerns about the romance here, which could pretty much read as like a bully romance. the way theo regards gabi for a good first quarter of the book and the way he makes gabi feel raises a lot of concerns because it’s not like he necessarily goes out of his way to directly attack gabi, physically or verbally. more so, it’s just his general attitude towards him, and when they do interact, he’s very openly mean. it’s something theo accepts as a general part of his personality, but he does reconcile with that and how a lot of his attitude stemmed from some other factors in his life—particularly his family struggles—that made his time at school feel like a big weight on his shoulders. that doesn’t excuse him from how badly he treats gabi at times, and for that, some readers might feel put off by it, and rightfully so.

it’s something i have to reckon with because i do have a clear memory of theo being generally mean towards gabi, and it made for some really awkward/tense scenes because gabi experiences a lot of anxiety so every situation to him is dialed up at a panic level of over 50, so whenever he fumbled around theo and theo snapped, it was a lot to wade through. with that all in mind, i still gave this book the five stars and so i have to wonder the significance behind that. did i find the way that theo treated gabi in the beginning cute? did i think that theo was being mean towards gabi as like one of those classic situations where the guy teases/bullies the main character as a way to get their attention? no, not at all. regarding the latter, it’s very clear that theo had no attraction to gabi in the beginning.

so what did attract him to gabi, and vice versa? that was what the rest of the book was for, seeing this pair get to know each other beyond surface impressions and sort of bond over their shared passion of keeping their families’ businesses afloat in the midst of this new fusion restaurant that was blatantly stealing cuisines from other cultures to make their own profit (and it wasn’t even good!! but more customers kept flocking their way to there anyways). both theo & gabi have different strengths that build towards making this new business plan to save their families, and it was cool especially for gabi, to see him become more comfortable as the story went on and have the opportunity to be more creative.

i think what made me the most emotional at the end of the day, and is partly what lends to the surprise that was this story, is that i had read this after finishing a show for two by tashie bhyuian, which put me through the wringer in its depiction of a very poor familial relationship that the mc had with her parents. to read this book right after, café con lychee, and see the way that theo & gabi’s families were depicted and how they fought and forgave each other, i was so happy to see how not all teenagers have it so rough, but i also felt bad for mina in a show for two because she really deserved better than all her parents put her through.

in the case for this book though, yeah, there were two surprises: the way theo & gabi’s relationship developed over the course of the book as i genuinely started to like them together, in a first love kinda way + then seeing how impactful the hopeful depiction of their families were to me and my soft heart. both elements tied together really well for me that it ultimately lended itself the five star rating, and that’s something really cool.

(even cooler is how the next read after this one was the monstrous series by lily mayne, which is definitely something to be discussed in another post :’) )

- unwritten rules (unwritten rules, #1) by k.d. casey (july 14)

Sixty feet away on the mound, the pitcher throws. The ball releases from his hand, and Zach watches the arc and pattern of its movements as it nears its "commit point", when he has to decide whether to swing or stay put. It's a choice he's made thousands of times, with incomplete information, before a curveball bends or a changeup tumbles. One guided by his experience and instincts but also the confidence that his decision will be the right one. So Zach watches and considers and swings.

this was the first baseball romance i’ve ever read, and as someone who had been leaning more towards hockey romances, jumping into a different sport that’s much less about the action and more about having patience while out on the mound, it was so incredibly interesting. i never knew much about baseball before this—all i really knew was about this famous baseball figure, roberto clemente, a puerto rican professional player who had died in a plane crash. as a kid, i had went to two schools named after him, and that was as far as my knowledge went.

what eventually motivated me to read this slow character-driven story was a classic mood reader move where it was all pure impulse after seeing the second book, fire season, on libby. since that story hadn’t been released yet at the time, i felt motivated enough to read this first book in the meantime to see where it could go, and i’m really glad i did. while i really wasn’t prepared for how detailed and slow-moving the baseball content was, i didn’t mind it at all. i feel that even as someone who has no interest in this sport, for me to still be so invested in the story because of the character who was entrenched and was trying to figure out how to reckon with mistakes from his past while trying to move forward in the present—it was very powerful. the dual timelines of the story did such a good job of reflecting on that, and was one of my most favorite things about it.

while i connected much more to reid in fire season—which despite being the second book in the series, is set before the events of unwritten rules—i genuinely liked zach’s pov and i liked how the author explored his own coming out journey and how it looked like while playing professionally in the major baseball league. seeing the way he slowly bonded with eugenio and how they connected while in the midst of other players was so worth it in all the details the author included in the general atmosphere of the sport, whether it was in practices or the actual games. i feel that for any genuine baseball fan who loves a story that really dives into the second-by-second aspects of what it’s like playing the sport, you’ll find a lot of potential in this. because even for me, i really respected the author for how much knowledge she had and how clearly passionate she was about these characters and the game they were playing.

zach makes some mistakes and other characters edge around him because of it, and i can see some readers who might think he was a little boring, but as i mentioned in my goodreads review, i liked how disconnected from the story he felt because that was the point; zach had a lot of shit to grow from and be at his own pace.

what surprised me so much about this book was again, it was baseball, i’ve never read about it before, and the fact that i was actually engaged the whole time?? shocking, but also very cherished to me :’)

- all of our demise (all of us villains, #2) by amanda foody & christina lynn herman (august 30)

"We're the only ones still playing. So let's play."

**slight spoilers for this one**

i had read all of us villains late last year, one of the very few titles i was able to read in the midst of a reading slump, and so i'll always have a very soft spot for this ya fantasy duology. one thing i loved about that first book, and which made me love this sequel/finale even more is how dark it had gotten. it was such a cool story idea to have these stories of villains and actually portray them as such, not trying to muddle them down to seem more pleasing for a teen audience. it was phenomenal and absolutely heartstopping how far these characters would go to prove themselves to their families and to the world, and i liked how you could still connect to them with the issues that they had.

with this sequel here, i was just swept away at how good the characterization was, and how certain relationships were developed in a way i could only ever have dreamed of. to see certain characters come to life and others fall under death's spell, it was amazing the route these authors went because it really felt like they went all in. with gavin & alistair's relationship growth + briony & isobel's character arcs, all their endings were absolutely fit for the epic journey they went on from the moment they stepped foot into the Tournament.

there's so much action & betrayal but it was all about the final moments of one character who wouldn't walk out the Tournament alive because they were playing as the hero; the sad moments shared between two brothers who grew up in a family seen as most wicked of all of Ivernath; one character who looked at themselves in the mirror and felt fit for a corpse's grave with how rotten they felt inside in their desperate urge to win after others already decided for them they were fit for victory; another character who already had a gravestone waiting for them despite how larger than life they were and determined to not lie six feet under.

it was just an absolutely amazing finale, i enjoyed every minute of it and that was the surprise of it all, because these characters really made you work for it in trying to reach the final page.

- the president’s vampire (nathaniel cade, #2) by christopher farnsworth (october 31)

"There's more to this world than the things you can see," Lord said, "There are hidden chapters to history, and not all of them were written by men."

this one might be a bit brief because well, i have had such a chaotic reading journey throughout this entire series (exhibit a), i need a break just thinking about it. this was the book that made me discover the series in the first place, and it was the most mind-boggling of it all, which was everything. it's CIA conspiracy theories taken to the next level, and there were a lot of deaths in this one. it didn't feel like too much, surprisingly so, in fact it felt necessary for the story, and it was clear to the author that if he was going to be given free reign to write a series about a vampire who is sworn to protect the president of the united states, he was not going to be wasting the opportunity to raid every dark crevice of secrets the american government is likely to be holding in their arsenal.

i also really got attached to the characters, especially with cade & zach's strange partnership, which stood out more clearly in deep state, but in here, there were shadow organizations and lizard mutations to fight against and seeing them working together and get separated at various times made for very fucked up scenes of life & death.

it was because of this whole series that i really got into annotating as i was reading, writing a bunch of notes in my highlights that were not enlightening at all, they were just my dumbfounded reactions to some of the shit that happens in here. it was all very entertaining--dark as hell, but entertaining nonetheless......and also plain sad at some parts but well. the first book wasn't so much lighthearted but it was ridiculous a majority of the time, and it wasn't until i read this second book that things seemed to get even darker and feel much more serious--it was the surprise of a lifetime. i was all for it but i mean, you have quotes like this:

The real world was right in his face, and it was a small square of tile on the cold floor. It finally occurred to him that he was not the secret-agent hero of this movie. He wasn't the plucky sidekick. He wasn't even the damsel in distress, because no one was coming to save him.

and all you can do is sit there stumped as hell because well...damn.

- whisper by tal bauer (december 11)

And of everything, We created pairs. Heaven and Earth. Night and day. Sun and moon. Sea and Shore. Light and darkness.

David gazed at Kris. You, for me.

i think every book for every reader will always be completely subjective because there's just so many factors to it that can affect a reader's experience with said book. this was what happened with game changer as i briefly talked about way above, and it was the same thing that happened with this story here. there was certain knowledge i wasn't privy of for a good while and so whenever i thought of this story before actually having the courage to read it, i just felt this sinking dread because i had been under the assumption that a major character would be dead. and they would, but just as it's quoted in the actual goodreads summary for this book, the truth is much more complicated.

i've had such a memorable time reading all of tal bauer's books up to this point, and all of them had their happy endings--for some, it took quite a long and rocky journey to get there, but it was a happy ending all the same. with this story, i was genuinely sitting with the premature grief that this pairing, kris and david as i had known them, would not be so lucky. it took rifling through some non-spoilery goodreads reviews to figure out that it was really worth it to give their book a chance because wow, was it going to be heartbreaking but incredibly healing as well, and it was.

reading this 700-page long military fiction that is based on some real-life events/figures, with a lot of creative liberty used, it was such a long & heavy journey. there were scenes of extreme terror & torture that just made me feel empty for quite a bit, and to have to keep reading because there was still so much ahead for these characters, it was a time. it was a time to witness how the timelines of hush and whisper merged and completely rewired everything i thought i had known to make me that much more devastated.

i would never have imagined reading a story like this if it wasn't for the fact that it had been tal bauer who wrote this, and he wrote it so well. the romance was phenomenal, there's no questioning that, and the characters--kris & david's character arcs--they're put through so much and have so much trauma and guilt to work through. in moments where they try to take one step forward, they're immediately pulled back in the next minute, and it was terrifying as hell what they had to go through. reading to the end felt like a challenge of its own and once i reached the last page, i almost couldn't believe it but i was just so glad that i did.

.

.

and we're done!!

[jfbuckley]

The match I never watch…

…I never watch it, but I do publish blog posts about it.

The reason I never watch it is, for the time being, because it inevitably results in quite an embarrassing heavy defeat for us. It won’t last forever - “all empires fall”, as a famous Everton fan once said - but whilst it stands, this empire is one that I’d prefer not to watch. It just adds punishment that I’d prefer not to go through.

I don’t mind being beaten by anyone, just as long as the team shows effort and pride. Unfortunately in this fixture the team can show effort and pride, but still get battered 6-0. What I am trying to say in a roundabout way is that being beaten by city is very bad, but what makes it unbearable at the moment is the realisation that they are the best team in the world. It really does stick in the gullet.

Anyway, enough navel gazing. This match result signifies another sound, heavy beating. Many United fans on social media have declaimed it as another shocking performance and the manager should go. There is the odd voice here and there saying that they actually played tolerably well - except for the fact that they were crippled by injuries to key players AND they were playing the current best team in the world at their home ground. I didn’t watch it, I didn’t listen to radio commentary, nor even follow score flash updates in the second half, but I was very pleased to see that my football correspondent agrees with the “odd voice” sentiment described above. Yes, it is a shame that we didn’t play bold, expansive football - but if we did, we would have been beaten 10-0. I commend the manager for playing the way he did. At least we won the first half 1-0, and it was only when the legs (and minds) of second choice defenders started giving way that the best team in the world started to really assert their authority - and by all accounts the third goal seems a bit excessive.

Yes, at some point I WILL watch this match again. At the moment we are about three years behind city, at least two behind Liverpool nearly two behind arsenal. This has been allowed to happen because the Glazers have no idea how to run a football club and have trusted their accountant mates to throw a bit of money at it. However, things ARE changing for the better. I am very impressed with the things that Sir Jim Ratcliffe and Ineos are doing, but it is going to take at least three years before we can start to seriously compete with city on a level playing field. I am very confident that happy days will return, but in the meantime patience and understanding is needed.

The Match Report

hi - in the olden days when liverpool were the top dogs most teams approached the away game at anfield with a defensive mindset - optimistically they might have hoped for a draw but realistically a respectable 2- 0 defeat was often the best that could be hoped for - it was in this vein that united prepared for their visit to the current top dogs

city kicked off and immediately attacked - it was apparent that united were aiming to block off the de- bruyne/halland supply line- united were in a 4-4-2 formation and sat deep denying city space and hoping to nick a goal on the break

on 8 minutes onana collected a cross and whacked a long ball down the city left - fernandes gathered and looked for support - he laid it back for rashford who summoned his inner bobby charlton and his hot shot flew in off the underside of the bar

for the rest of the half the match followed a predictable pattern - city pushed and probed but couldn't find a way through - united had a couple of breaks that promised but didn't deliver another goal - then on 44 minutes rodri floated a ball over the united defence - foden headed back across the goalmouth for haaland to equalise from a yard out - there was a collective gasp of astonishment when it dawned on those watching that the ball had gone over the bar - if you wanted a clear illustration of ' it seemed easier to score' that was it

2nd half city resumed their probing - after 56 minutes foden cut in from the right and drove a left foot shot high into goal - the pressure had told and it seemed inevitable that city would go on to win - united were defending valiantly but were weakening both physically and mentally - united tried a couple of breaks but these petered out

it was time for substitutions but sadly for united the ongoing injury blight has pretty much left the cupboard bare - the doughty evans was replaced by kambwala and antony came on for rashford - on 80 minutes foden played a one two with alcarez and escaped casemiro - his left foot shot from the corner of the 6 yard box beat onana and city were ahead

amrabat and forson replaced mainoo and garnacho - united never looked like equalising and just before the end amrabat was given an awkward pass as united tried to build up from the back - the ball was played into haaland and yet another left foot shot ended up in united's net for a final score of 3 - 1

a disappointing result but i felt that they did ok considering their limitations - if united had played an open game the outcome would probably have been much worse - they held out well for 80 minutes but this game lasted 96 - the substitutions did not improve united but there was nobody else for ten hag to call on - none of this matters - city were always likely to win - a 3 - 1 loss away to the best in the world is respectable

sky are fond of trotting out a statistic of united being ahead at half time - in 143 games it was 120 wins 23 draws - sadly they didn't make it 144 - that's gross isn't it

bye

[piyasi]

The Unexplained Incident of My Life

I was in the seventh standard when I realised something awkward in me; in my thoughts basically. I liked daydreaming a lot back then. Sometimes, I would think about something spontaneously and the next moment I'd find it happening. It was all weird. I'd think that may be 'I'm weird'. I'm over-thinking. But there are some unexplainable incidents of my life which leaves me pondering for a while still now.

Sometimes, I'd dream something and find it all happening later some time with wee bit of laterations here and there. I'd think that I'm just being peculiar about myself. I'd just ignore the random visions that I'd see while daydreaming.

I still remember playing 'Kumir Danga' or 'The crocodile and the riverbank' with a bunch of kids in my garden one summer evening. It's a lot of fun when you play it with a lot of your friends. It's one of the traditional Bengali games enjoyed by the most. For those of you who are unaware of this game, I'd like to do the honours of explaining it.

Well, as the name of the game suggests that among the bunch of players, there should be a crocodile who is supposed to be on the ground which is considered to be a medium of water or the river where crocodiles are believed to be found; and the rest of the players are supposed to stay away from the ground as it's the crocodile 🐊 that's going to chase them away but if it touches any one while in water then he or she is out of the game immediately. And the next crocodile will be that person who's been chased in the prior game round. The other players, basically, are supposed to be teasing the 🐊 crocodile constantly challenging it to chase them.

Anyway, while playing, I randomly kept guessing and telling what one of the elder sister's thoughts were going on in her mind simultaneously one after another. The surprising look on her face gave me quite satisfaction. I thought I possessed some kind of supernatural power.

Later, I kept guessing many such things in life and felt the same. But as I grew up, I felt I, may be, am trying to connect the dots which may not have existed in the first place. Basically, I was trying to be modest and humble. I kept insisting myself that I may not have guessed anything as such but just trying to think myself of something superhuman except sometimes when I couldn't even explain what or how or why I thought so.

Now, let's come back to from where I started my blog today. I was at school that morning. No teacher was there in some particular period for over fifty minutes. And I wasn't feeling good suddenly, not physically but emotionally. I left home that morning on a good note but still I felt quite unusual. All my friends were shouting and having fun while I just looked right outside the huge French windows, staring right through the coconut trees standing tall on the school campus, lost in the random train of thoughts. Suddenly and peculiarly, I just pondered if both my parents or only Baba (father) will come to pick me up that day after school gets over.

I have this weird habit of instantly visualizing things I ponder over. So, I just had a vision of my parents on motorbike but they had blood-smeared faces as if their forehead was struck on something. I felt guilty of why such thought came across my mind. I started fearing for my parents' lives. I was worried if they're going to face any kind of accident until I saw Baba, fit and fine, coming to pick me up that day after school got over. I was relieved after reaching home and finding Ma too good and healthy.

I slept off at night, early, along with my little brother. Suddenly, my sleep was disturbed early morning at around four when the lights in the room were switched on and I heard my parents talking to my eldest cousin who lives an hour away from our house. He always traveled in his bicycle but why such early morning struck my mind for a while but I was too lazy to wake up. So, I tried getting some sleep. Eavesdropping is not in my trait but few words caught my ears though when Dada asked, "Who'll go to the Airport to bring the body?" and Baba replied, "I'll go." I was asleep until when Dada left and my parents were still discussing something.

I finally woke up and asked Ma, "What's the matter?" The things she told me took me back to my last day's vision instantly and I felt guilty of thinking such things although it was really stupid of me back then. Another cousin brother, Kiran dada used to work at a jewellery shop in Delhi. Last night, he was returning from the shop in his friend's bike. They had an accident and was dead at the spot instantly. I felt really bad for his little baby who was just going to turn six months after a week that month. Kiran da came a month before and invited us for his baby's Rice ceremony. We're excited but the irony of life is always shocking. On the same date when the Rice ceremony was supposed to be held, we had Dada's funeral. The day when we're supposed to hear laughters and jokes, we heard only screams and wailings. It was quite bitter.

I still think about it and feel, may be, it was just a coincidence. But the vision and it's resemblance to Dada's death is still a mystery which remains unexplainable yet. For some of you, it may be insignificant but I know how I still get goosebumps just at the thought of it.

[katstratfordfanclub]

April 17, 2023

Dear Tumblr,

It's been a minute. I've had to move all of my personal shit to a new side blog because clar (formally jg) found my og blog and kinda confronted me about it lol. A lot has happened recently, allow me to catch you up.

So, the clar situation has reached new heights. The last time I posted about it, was a few months ago after the PBI when he invited me to join him for dinner with some of his friends. I declined, something I regret now, but he ended up hugging me before we went different ways. That was the last time I saw him until he came back for spring break.

A few days before Valentine's day, I posted a silly little meme on my close friends' story on Instagram that said something along the lines of 'are you busy feb 14?' or something like that because I am a self-proclaimed hopeless romantic and I simply love love. I love the idea of having someone that I can devote my time to show how much I care for them. Anyway, he swiped up and said hi. This sparked us just talking for a while about life and making jokes about starting a casino in our town this summer. That was that. I continued to post silly little love-related things on my story along with other memes and jokes and he continued to interact with them.

Im friends with his sister and so i had heard that he was back in town in passing from her. I didn't really know what that meant for me at the time though. I knew I had feelings for him and had been hyping myself up in an attempt to make a move on him for months, but now that he was back, I wasn't sure what to do. I talk a lot of big game but as soon as something personal comes up that may change everything, I freeze.

The first time I saw him again was at scholar bowl practice. The room was packed and I was the last to walk in so I had to pull up a chair next to my sister's friend. He just so happened to be right across the horseshoe. I really don't think we talked at all that day tbh. I didn't know what to say and he was constantly surrounded by his friends from back home. I couldn't have said anything without someone sniffing out that I was acting weird. The next day he came to drama club practice. We actually talked then. Not about anything major, just catching up with each other on our lives and making conversation like friends that hadn't seen each other in a while. He did get really close to me though. Making efforts to stand next to me even if we weren't necessarily talking at the time. When practice was over I went on to scholar bowl and we said our goodbyes. I wasn't sure when I would see him again but I had hoped that he would come to another practice either scholar bowl or theatre.

He came back a few days later and spent the whole day with the band teacher, assisting in lessons and giving his insight as a college player. He also came into drama that day and we chatted more, he even put his hat back on my head like he had at the PBI. When the day ended I drove him and his sister home in silence. His sister had made him sit in the back of my car, making conversation difficult between us, not that I could have said anything too, interesting (?), to him because of the whole sister-in-the-car thing. When we arrived, his sister thanked me and got out while he lingered. I didn't say anything because frankly, I didn't know what to say. Finally, he simply said something along the lines of 'I guess I'll see you at graduation?' to which I simply replied that he would. I would be graduating after all and Im not passing up the opportunity to walk the stage. Then he got out because she was just standing by the door, waiting for him.

That was that. or so I thought.

I went home that day and scream-cried all the way to the gym where I ran for a while and then finally completed a very focused and emotional lifting session.

A few days later it was time for my scholar bowl team to go to state. All was good and well about that. It's not the focus of today's post. Anyway, we had just gone through the awards ceremony and gotten back on the bus when I checked Instagram. He had posted a story and I clicked. It was an exact replica of a meme I had posted on my close friend's story four days prior about wanting a bf who always had a Wikipedia article pulled up on his third monitor, specifically the gulf war. Guess what he had on his third monitor? The gulf war Wikipedia page. I was in complete shock. The guy that I had been hinting about having feelings for had possibly dropped a hint back. I was going through it tbh.

Now something about me recently is that I have finally realized that I will never have to see anybody from my high school again unless I choose to after I graduate. This has sent me into a spiral of not taking anyone's shit and playing some more risky moves.

I swiped up. 'the gulf war huh,' i asked. I asked him if he learned anything interesting. He quickly replied that he really didn't remember because it was almost three am when he took the picture. I went along with it. I mean it could have been a total coincidence. He said that he needed to work on some homework. I let him, a little embarrassed about getting so worked up over something that I had then thought to be a coincidence.

A few days passed and he texted me asking if I wanted to talk after drama club via a call because he had gone back to school. I of course said yes. In my mind, this could either go really good or really bad. The good being, he's into me too and all the seemingly unnoticed flirting had not gone to waste. The bad possibility being, he knows that I'm into him and is uncomfortable with it. I went the whole day stressing about it but also trying to not completely freak out. I'm a believer that whatever happens, happens and that everything happens for a reason. Whatever happens on the phone is just how the universe wanted it to turn out.

The time comes. I message him. He replies. We call. He very bluntly asked me if all the posts on my story where about him. I get embarrassed and ask, "what if they where?" He took a minute to say anything and I got worried that I had said the wrong thing so I back tracked. "Being completely blunt, yes they where about you. I've had a thing for you for a while now." I could tell he was really nervous. His voice was shaking really bad and he kept whispering to himself. If I wasn't so caught up in not messing it up I would have been caught up in how cute it was tbh. He said that he thought that he had began to feel the same way for me. We talked for hours that night. Getting to know each other better and what that meant for us.

We are continuing to talk regularly. I cant wait to see where this goes. Expect more blog posts. There are some things about this that, as much as I hate to say it, I am a bit insecure about so ill be using this blog for as much venting as I do journaling the progress we make.

Kat out <3

[gdwessel]

Please Allow Me To Reintroduce Myself, or Meet The New Blog, Same As The Old Blog

Hello there.

The changes are complete for this blog. This is no longer the Strong Style Story site for Japanese wrestling, exclusively. Thank you for your years of reading this site, and listening to the associated podcast that I was doing with @damascenocs​ that never did quite do its final episode. Oops. I hope you stick around for this new era of this particular blog. As I say in the header, I may still do posts about Japanese wrestling. In fact, I plan to in an upcoming post.

For those of you just tuning in, my name is Geoffrey D. Wessel, and I write comics. Occasionally they actually get made, and published. One such book will be War Birds, written by me, drawn/lettered by Steve Parkhouse, a legend of comics whom younger readers/viewers may know as the co-creator of the comic book Resident Alien that is now the hit SyFy TV show Resident Alien. The cover is above. It's due out in March 2023. This hasn't been solicited by Diamond yet, although you can pre-order it on Amazon. I'd hope you could get it through your local shop, comic or book, once the solicitation hits.

A book I self-published in 2013, Takedown, got colorized and crowdfunded for re-release last year through Florida indie publisher Cosmic Times, and you can get that in print or digitally. There's a Phil Hester variant cover for this one you may like.

Some of you may remember my early 2010s self-published series Keeper about a serial killing soccer/futbol player. This isn't available in any format anymore, even digitally, since Comixology got snarfed into Amazon Kindle entirely. I also had a strip in David Lloyd's (of V For Vendetta fame) Aces Weekly digital comic anthology, about fascists getting control of the White House. It seemed like such a far-fetched concept at the time. Additionally, I had a story in the Eisner- and Harvey-nominated anthology Outlaw Territory 3, that is also no longer in print anywhere. (It also didn’t win either an Eisner or a Harvey.) There is every possibility I may repost some of these older stories here at some point.

Despite not currently doing any wrestling podcasts at the moment, I have a comedic (sometimes) podcast about soccer/futbol that I do every couple of weeks or so called Busting Balls. Should check it out. We swear and do a lot of political takes on this show. The next episode will be the big milestone Episode 75, so tune in if you'd like. It’s on Soundcloud or you can search “Busting Balls Podcsast” on Spotify.

I'm on more social media than I care to be, but here we are. You can find my various spots on my Linktree page, which does not have my Hive account listed, but it's down as I'm writing this anyway. Most socials I am at gdwessel so that's pretty easy to find. At my Linktree is a signup for a mailing list that I've yet to post on, and who knows, it might never happen. Or it might. I don't know. There’s also my Mastodon link. And FB, IG, Twitter, etc. And CoHost, but I really don’t think that one is going anywhere.

If you want to see my old gdwessel.com site, it's here, although not been updated since early 2016, so not much of anything of note there anymore, I don't think.

I am planning some things, and they may actually come to fruition.

I hope to post more often, across a wide array of subjects, and even share a few other Tumblr posts I come across. I may link my Instagram to this blog too, but I don't know yet. There are a lot of questions I don't have answers too at the moment.

Thank you for reading this, and I hope to see you here regularly.