#love final fantasy games but now not a vibe

[nikolailantsovhoe]

Ppl: This new final fantasy game looks good

Me: Really??

[claire-starsword]

Bloodline of the Sacred Dragons - Chapter 2-7

[warning for violence and dismemberment on this one. yes you read that right. as opposed to me who did not pay attention to this on my first read. lol.]

The group emerged back into the fields, after safely crossing the mountains. They hurried on their journey, heading towards the Pao Plains.

By Krin and Tyrin's calculations, they should be a day ahead of the monsters. If they could get the mercenaries at Pao and come back, they would be able to ambush the enemies at the mountain path that led to the plains. The devils wouldn't be able to escape a trap in such a narrow pathway.

In the forest, Karin replaced Randolf as the lead. Tyrin gave the general directions by her side, and she decided the exact path to traverse according to the condition of the plants and other forest signs. Bleu was speechless on how observant she was, not letting the slightest detail pass unnoticed.

Bleu struggled the most with the thick cluster of trees. Unlike Camallia and Karna, he didn't have the power to heal everyone's exhaustion either. He grew frustrated with himself. Once they got to a wider place or a road he'd be able to stretch out his wings. He did his best to put up with it.

Once the sun had gone down, the group had finally come out the end of the forest, reaching the road between Bustoke and the Pao Plains.

And there, their calculations failed them.

They ran right into the monster squad that had stolen the Manual. A sudden encounter, one could say.

"They shouldn't be here by our calculations, so why…" Krin complained about the unexpected turn of events, as she stared at the twenty or so monsters that had appeared in front of them.

The devils were just as shocked as them.

"Impossible! Why is there a Sacred Dragon here?"

One of the monsters, accompanying the squad of harpies and armed lizardmen, stared wide-eyed at Bleu, with empty eyes devoid of light. Those eyes caught sight of Camallia by his side. The devil then understood everything.

"So you survived. And you guided them here. It's always you, always… Fine, if you'll be this much of a hindrance, then I, Ziduur, will end you just like those pursuing mages."

The monster's fangs showed over the corner of his lips, and his two horns, atop his head like a moth's antennas, swung backwards in a menacing stance. Deep crimson hair ran from the nape of his neck to his back like a mane, bristling. As if answering to that, the lizardmen raised their slimy triangular heads, their bifurcated tongues flickering through their lips. The harpies let out ear-piercing shrieks.

"If you want this, come and take it."

Ziduur held a box made of ebony. It was full of intricate inlay decorations with a foreign feel.

"Sir Bleu, there's no doubt, the Manual is in there!"

With Tyrin's shout, the battle began.

"Randolf, Tyrin, take care of the girls!"

While shouting, Bleu bolted towards Ziduur, as if drawn to the Manual in his hands. Cerberus followed behind him.

"Wait, don't just rush in, it won't go well if we fight separated," Randolf hastily stopped Camallia, who wanted to jump ahead as well.

"Bleu, come back right now! Bleu!"

Karin's voice did not reach Bleu, and he began to fight the harpies in midair.

All his pent up feelings were unleashed at once. And at the same time, he had confidence in being the one who always broke through the enemy lines. With that amount of enemies, he believed he could strike the commander at once and end the battle with that. There was no reason to eliminate them all. Once he retrieved the Manual, he could just disperse the rest of the enemies. The shorter the battle, the less likely it would be for Karin and the others to get hurt. And by defeating all the monsters himself, he could prove his power to them. Maybe then the girls would stay behind without a fuss, Bleu thought.

However, his reckless advance did not go as he expected.

Superior to him in speed and number, the harpies put up a tough fight against him. Wanting to rush to Ziduur straight away, he had become isolated from his allies.

Randolf and Camallia shielded the others, facing the incoming lizardmen head on.

"Bleu, I'll burn down these enemies, get out of the way!"

Krin began chanting a Blaze spell, but Karin stopped her. If she cast the flames in a wide area, Bleu would certainly get caught in them.

"Krin, give up and target a single enemy," Karin ordered, while shooting down an enemy away from Bleu with perfect accuracy. Their lack of coordination was apparent. Karin bit down her anger at Bleu's stupid actions.

"I won't show mercy to any who interfere. Join the hateful corpses that sleep under this earth."

Ziduur took out a piece of a crimson jewel, and held it tightly within his left hand, as if squeezing it. Beams of light came through between his fingers.

"That light!" Camallia shouted, alerting everyone.

Ziduur punched the ground. Thin sparks of crimson lightning ran at once over the surface.

"What did he do?"

Karna watched in awe as the ground in front of her began to stir, and something jumped out from within.

"Eep!" She let out a strangled scream as she came face to face with a skeleton.

"Get down!"

Hearing that shout from behind her, Karna got down while covering her head with both arms. The end of a flail flew past her, sending the skeleton's skull flying like a football. As she pulled the weapon back, Camallia smashed its upper body as well.

In the brief moment where Karna breathed a sigh of relief, more skeletons jumped from below, one after the other. Those skeletal warriors, carrying all kinds of different weapons, were the warped forms of monsters once defeated in that land, and the travelers they once killed.

"Are we surrounded?"

Watching the growing swarm of skeletons and lizardmen around them, Randolf swung his Battle Axe once again. If the monsters attacked all at once, they certainly wouldn't manage to defend against all of them.

Karna shouted for everyone to get closer together.

"O benevolent ones who watch upon all, please hear our prayers. Gather the righteous light within our hearts, and make it into a shield of holy brilliance!!"

By her incantation, the faint shine of the supporting spell Boost enveloped the whole group from within. The monsters with no flesh nor blood were driven away by that light.

Not wasting the opportunity, Randolf and Camallia attacked. The mages covered the openings between them, Tyrin freezing the enemies to stand as shields, and Krin erecting walls of fire with her Blaze spells. They were doing their best to defend themselves, but the situation still wasn't good as they were outnumbered.

On one swing, Camallia's flail became entangled in another flail wielded by a skeleton. The resulting forces made both of them lose their grips on their weapons. Without delay, the skeleton took a short sword from the back of its shield, and charged at the now empty-handed girl. Another short sword was thrown at the skeleton as it did that. By reflex, the skeleton knocked it down with its shield. Camallia jumped at the fallen sword, grabbing it and swinging it at the skeleton's leg to cut it down. The monster fell down as it lost its balance, and Camallia stepped on its bony body from over its shield, using all of her strength to crush it.

"Thank you, Sir Randolf."

Picking up her flail, she stood back to back with Randolf, who had moved backwards. She extended a hand in his direction, trying to return his short sword that had saved her from her predicament.

"I don't mind. Keep it. Without a spare weapon, something like this might happen to you again."

Answering that, he swung his blade at another monster.

At that time, Bleu was also surrounded by even more enemies than before.

Sacred Dragons had tough bodies and powerful attacks, but were in no way invincible. Their thick hide was hard to penetrate with a blade, yet at some point he had been wounded, and it bled. While he had finished off many of the harpies, he had also hurt his wings. The injury was not severe, but it made him unable to fight the remaining harpies in the air. Having fallen to the ground, Bleu faced a concentrated assault from the group of enemies.

Sustaining minor injuries all over his body, Bleu had made a pile of corpses out of his enemies. Yet he was clearly exhausted. Taking a fierce blow to his chest, he began to cough violently.

In this terrible moment, a lizardman brandished his Large Axe. In Bleu's current condition, he couldn't dodge or spew out his lightning breath.

The monsters became agitated.

Steeling himself for the fatal blow, Bleu saw a silver blur pass through the corner of his vision. Fresh blue blood spilled by. With a deep gash on his torso, the lizardman turned around only to be cut again like a paper doll by sharp claws, this time on the chest.

"Zylo!?" Bleu exclaimed in surprise, seeing the werewolf that had showed up behind the fallen lizardman.

"It's been a long time, Bleu."

Zylo's eyes had the glint of a wild beast hidden within, and he narrowed them in recognition for an instant.

Taking that as an opening, the harpies attacked from the sky.

"Watch out!"

Faster than Bleu's cry, Zylo jumped to the air. He spun next to harpy like a gear, hitting it with a somersault, and knocking it down hard to the ground. The blood from the harpy's torn neck ran in lines across her dead body.

"Before worrying for others, worry about yourself. Honestly, what a pathetic fight you put up. Have you forgotten your past experience? I'll show you how it is to fight as a group. Watch and learn."

Zylo howled.

The lizardmen and harpies flinched at the incoming chants of beast hunters. From its direction came the rushing sound of rain. A merciless rain of arrows…

Once the synchronized barrage of arrows ended, Zylo had also disappeared. Too fast for Bleu's eyes to keep up, he ran between the disoriented enemies, cutting them down as he passed them by. One by one they fell to the ground.

Having broken through the enemies surrounding them, Zylo reached Karin's group.

"It's Zylo, the king of Bustoke."

Krin calmed down the others, who were on guard, unsure if he was a new enemy.

"We'll regroup with Bleu. Follow me without delay," Zylo ordered, and turned away from them without waiting for an answer. He spoke as if certain that they'd obey. Not forceful. Just showing unwavering confidence.

"Diane!!" He shouted. In answer, a squad of archers appeared from the forest shadows, led by an elf girl. Their bowstrings rang as they once again released their arrows in unison.

Diane's archers concentrated their assault on the skeletons. The ropes tied in their arrows perfectly wrapped around their enemies. The skeletons hit by them fell down and tumbled through the ground. It seemed as if they knew what enemies they'd be facing, which made Krin impressed, but also a bit suspicious.

"Let's go!"

Zylo dashed away, heading towards Bleu, who had recovered some energy and continued to fight on his own. The others ran behind him as fast as they could.

"Karna, Camallia, heal Bleu, quickly!"

As Zylo and Randolf took the surrounding enemies down, Karin immediately asked the priests to tend to Bleu. While the archers of Bustoke kept lending them support, Camallia healed everyone who had been injured with Aura, the high level healing spell.

"Thank you, Camallia. You too, Karin…" Bleu thanked the girls.

"There's no time to waste," Zylo urged Bleu. "Let's retrieve the Manual at once with this."

Led by the wolf king, the group split apart the confused enemies. Separated from each other, they had no time to recover, and were shot down by Diane's squad.

"Now. Sir Bleu, the Manual!" Tyrin shouted.

Spreading his healed wings, Bleu flew over the skeletons. The monsters were knocked down by the wings and the gust of wind.

Ziduur held up the ruby in his hand. His body was enveloped in red light.

"Like I'll let you teleport!"

The monster had jumped away, but Bleu sliced him with his claws.

Ziduur's arm was torn and sent flying, tracing an arc in midair, weighted down by the ebony box it carried.

Bleu had his attention drawn to the Manual for a moment. Ziduur didn't miss that, casting a Blaze spell in that time. Bleu crossed his arms in front of him as the flames burst in front of him.

"Bleu!!"

Karin and Camallia left the few remaining monsters to Zylo, and ran to the dragon.

He looked down bitterly at the space Ziduur had teleported away from. It shimmered like hot air, proving that a devil stood there just a moment before.

He picked up the box with the Manual, and Camallia saw that both his arms were bleeding.

"Are you wounded?" she asked, walking to him.

"It's no big deal. Just scratches."

"Even a small injury cannot be left alone."

While he insisted that he was fine, Camallia softly kissed his wounds.

Bleu suddenly felt eyes on him, and tried to pull away from her.

"Please stay still."

Camallia's warm lips moved over his skin as she said the words. Her hot tongue traced over his wound, licking off the blood. Her throat made a glugging noise as she drank it. Her lips continued to move over it, trembling with her incomprehensible chants and sighs.

She let go after a while, and no trace of the wound was left.

"Bleu, the king of Bustoke is calling."

Karin only said that before turning her back and running away.

To next part>

Translation notes:

"Zidur" is apparently a word of a power to summon one of the creatures in the Necronomicon by Simon. I know nothing of that book other than a cursory look so I can't talk much about it, but do you know how hilarious it is to google a Shining Force thing and come up with a pdf full of demon rituals and absolutely no other results? Unparalled experience. Also, the character's name does have a longer "u" sound so I reflected that in my translation as well.

I don't recall Ziduur being explicitly referred to as a man, but his speech manners are pretty rough and he'll eventually be using the rough and masc "ore" pronoun, so unlike Otrant I just made the call to use he/him pronouns for him.

Zylo's species in the original game is given as "wolfling". His base class however is "werewolf", so nothing wrong here.

Up to this point I had been calling the dog "Cerberos" because that's closer to the japanese reading and I didn't think to look it up, but I was recently reminded that the games use "Cerberus" instead. I'd rather stick close to the official translations when it doesn't matter so I've updated past posts and will be using the game romanization from here on.

[astrxealis]

tbh my favorites in expacs go arr -> hw -> stb -> shb & enw but damn i often forget as to why hw is so good ?? it's. incredible ABSOLUTELY amazing but i read into the themes, lessons, philosophies, and all that less than stb, shb, enw - but still. it's so good.

[wtftarot]

PAC: The World

We've come full circle and it's about fuckin time, right? Time for the end. The World is harmony and the end of a cycle. She is that moment when you remember that you are the universe, you are One with everything and you feel it in your bones. It is recognizing your place as a human on this planet. The World is an ending, the inevitable conclusion but he is also the herald of a new beginning. What do they want to tell you? Let's fuck around and find out

As always this reading is for entertainment purposes ONLY and is not a substitute for professional advice in any capacity. Remember, use common sense and don't be a dumbass.

Four groups today, you can pick The Bird (eagle?), The Lion, The Person, or The Bull and head on to your reading.

The Bird/Eagle

The Nine of Cups and The Nine of Wands on the bottom of the deck.

This is fuckin gorgeous for y'all. The cycle that's ending for y'all is one where y'all had to fight tooth and nail for everything you wanted. I'm seeing the end of the Lord of the Rings, where the eagles fly Frodo and Sam out of Mordor after they destroy the Ring. I don't remember if Frodo actually says it, but I'm hearing him say "It's done". Y'all have been dealing with a rough ass cycle, huh? For it to show up as the One Ring? There may be one last battle of sorts? Like a boss battle. This is my nerd group (affectionate), I'm getting a lot of fantasy imagery. Think of it as one last challenge so you can truly close this cycle once and for all. For some of y'all, this cycle has been a long and very internal one. Something that's been weighing you down, that you're finally letting fall from your shoulders. What I'm seeing is that this 'boss battle" is a choice of sorts. You've been growing and figuring your way out of this cycle and all at once you're faced with a choice. This cycle has been more internal and you may have not seen much externally about it. It's like this choice embodies the cycle externally and you have a physical/material choice to make. Continue this cycle? Or Step forward with growth? And it will be that clear to you. Again with the imagery, I'm seeing a game screen with a choice. This path is unknown, keep going? Press X: Keep going. Press Y: Turn Around. Listen, I'm not much of a gamer like at all, so I don't know if that's a thing that happens in games? The last game I played was like three years ago?? So, the fact I keep getting gaming imagery means I'm really tapped into some of y'all's guides. Ok, the guide that's doing a lot of this is practically screaming in my ear to yell at y'all TO PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR DREAMS. FOR FUCKS SAKE. If you're into gaming and have been playing a game that's set in the woods, that message goes double. Don't ask me, I just work here. Now the cycle y'all are stepping into? Fucking beautiful, ok? Y'all are gonna be getting a lot of shit you have been wishing and crossing your fingers for. I'm hearing/seeing "yes, those too" and imagery of a belt and other accessories? This group is loud and I love it. Yea, even the "little things" you've wanted that aren't high on the priority list will be coming your way soon. And y'all are going to be rightfully smug about it. I think some of the blessings coming your way were things that people around you have tried to dismiss or downplay or talk you out of, so yeah you can be a lil bit smug about it. You've earned it. The past lil bit for y'all has probably felt very stale and stagnant but now that it's closing, things are going to be moving and improving. It may jolt y'all a bit at first. Cause this energy is so fucking different from where you've been, that even just dipping your toes in it will be a shock. It will be a welcome shock though, refreshing. The way this will manifest will be different for all y'all, but one thing's for sure, y'all are gonna fuckin run with it. After that initial choice, falling into this new chapter will be the easiest thing in the world.

random ass vibes: video games, d&d, 999, leaning into a new clothing style, fish, moon cycles, someone have a moon tattoo? birthday cake, HAPPY BIRTHDAY?

The Lion

The Moon and The Tower on the bottom of the deck.

Ok, you need to take a break. Full stop. Even if it's just ten minutes of sitting in nothing and silence. Your brain needs a rest from everything. I feel like y'all need to be told that yes, this thing does need to end. The cycle you're in may have become your comfort zone and you feel safe repeating it cause you know what to expect. It does have to end though. Y'all may have some idea that this ending is coming but you don't know just how much things will change when it does. This may be about a belief about the world or yourself that's really holding you back. Once clarity comes, you won't fit in the same places, with the same groups you used to. I don't blame you for resisting this, it can be terrifying to start questioning belief systems or old worldviews. Some of y'all may be questioning the religion or politics you were brought up in. It could be an understanding of who you are vs who others want you to be. Y'all are feeling a bit overwhelmed and confused as to what all this means. Sweetie, that's okay. This IS confusing and overwhelming. It is hard and scary and can leave you feeling very vulnerable. Babe, you need to stop pushing yourselves to have all the answers already. This one takes time and it's okay to let it. That's probably why the message I got for y'all before I even pulled the cards was for y'all to take a break. Not only that, but you don't have to tell anyone about this. Yes, if you can find some safe support through these periods of life do it, but you don't owe anyone what you're going through. Y'all are putting soo much pressure on yourselves to know everything already, to have all the answers. To know every aspect of who you are and what you believe. Wanna know something terrifyingly liberating? You never will. You will never know every single aspect of yourself cause you're always growing and changing. Same with your beliefs, you're always learning new things about how the world works, so your beliefs will always be shifting, even slightly. This is all coming from The World card cause y'all, more than anything need to let yourselves just BE. Be in the moment, stop interrogating them as if all the answers will be found there. The answers you're seeking will come in time and letting yourself live. I know the world we live in pretty much demands you have everything figured out at all times but that's bullshit. It's okay to change your mind.

random ass vibes: small-town vibes, doves or white birds, 919, the goth kid at the family reunion, lightning, trees, dragons, red clothes. nature vs nurture.

The Person

The Sun and The Hermit Rx on the bottom of the deck

Y'all it's time to come out of hiding. You've been hiding your truth for a WHILE. lol I'm hearing that lil Sunday school song: "Don't hide your light under a bushel, NO!" ( I grew up in the bible-belt, don't judge). That's a song for little kids if y'all don't know it, you don't have to look it up. It's telling me though that y'all have been hiding your light, so to speak, since you were a little, little kid. Like four-ish years old. Now, I don't know y'all's situation, it may not be safe for y'all to be fully yourself, and cause it seems like y'all have been hiding your whole damn life that's probably the case. So, BE FUCKING SAFE, okay? Because you're at this reading though, there are probably some ways you're hiding yourself that you don't have to. It's like y'all have just been letting people decide who you are when you're around them? Y'all are wearing other's projections of you like masks. I'm hearing "too much". Ooh boy, y'all listen, this group feels like I'm talking to my younger self. I cannot tell y'all the number of times I was told I was "too much", too loud, too quiet, too stubborn, too whatever. Unless y'all are being too cruel, too bigoted or whatever, y'all have a place here okay? Y'all seem to have taken being told you're too X, or not Y enough to heart and have whittled yourself down piece by piece cause that's what the people around you want. Y'all are like the fucking sun and everyone is demanding you be a candle. I think it's people you care about telling you this too. And because you care about them, you want them to be happy and comfortable. So, of course, you can be a little smaller, whatever they need, right? Now though, you've been doing this so long, you've lost yourself a bit, haven't you? The World is telling you it's time to call those parts of yourself back. Dig up those parts of yourself that you've buried. You can start as small as you feel you need to. It may be hard and confusing at first but soon it will be as natural as breathing. If you're not even sure where to start or have forgotten those parts, ask your guides and the universe for help. Ask for signs and to be put in situations that bring out those buried parts of you. You may have outgrown some of them and that's okay. Just prepare yourself, it won't be easy. Ya know that tingling feeling when your leg has been asleep and it's waking up? I feel that even though my leg has been fine this whole time. So it will probably be uncomfortable too. You should probably expect some hard reactions from the people around you too, especially if they've only known you as the you you've pretended to be for them. But that home you've been looking for? Felt calling? That can only be built by you being your authentic self. Otherwise, it'll just be another place where you have to wear a mask to be welcome. I wish I could end this one on a lighter note for y'all. This isn't an easy one. Take some alone time and please, take care of yourself through this. Whether you realize it or not, you are working through something really difficult and need to go easy on yourself through this.

random ass vibes: Halloween, candy, ghosts, 11:11, turtles, alligators, Frankenstein's monster, Venus, halos or angels?

The Bull

The Page of Pentacles and the Eight of Swords with the Empress on the back of the deck.

Y'all have so much fuckin potential, okay? Y'all are doubting yourselves so fuckin hard and The Universe and your Guides are sick of it. We all know someone who's amazingly talented but is so fuckin hard on themselves about it, to the point where you just want to grab em by the shoulders and shake them screaming YOU ARE WONDERFUL AND TALENTED. That's how your guides are feeling about you, all the damn time. I'm serious. I was only taking One card and the bottom of the deck for each group but the Eight of Swords came out too for y'all. Y'all are stuck in your head, questioning your every goddamn move and wondering why you're exhausted and never seem to move forward. This reading's tone is much more direct, like fed up snap the fuck out of its energy. Not that your guides are fed up with you, just fed up with your self-doubting bullshit. I'm hearing "..but they'll think I'm x" So, you may feel like if you truly lean into your potential and fail, people will have shit to say. Sweetie, they will and they will if you succeed and they will if you never do jack-shit. One of the few guarantees in life is that people will talk shit no matter what you do. The only control you have is why they're talking shit. Would you rather them talk shit about you cause you went after what you want, win or lose? Or because you never went after what you wanted, which is exactly what they wanted. The cycle that needs to end for you is one you have to end. End the cycle of shitting on yourself just cause you may not be where you want to be. End the doubt of your own capabilities. You really have NO CLUE how fucking amazing your life will get the second you start questioning those shitty thoughts. Like just questioning them, not even fully disbelieving them yet. Just questioning them will do fuckin wonders for you. If you're a beginner let yourself BE a beginner. If you want to try something new but are afraid of being a beginner then say fuck it and fuck you to those thoughts and start anyway. Hell, you don't have to tell anyone you're starting at first. You have the potential to be a whole-ass fuckin meadow and are doubting and even criticizing yourself for having to start as a handful of seeds. This is you're pep talk, in case you haven't figured that out yet. One other thing, some of y'all may be fearing the work that'll come with believing yourself, that it'll be tiring and all that. It's gonna be the opposite, sweetie. I mean, yeah it'll be work. But it's gonna be energizing. Do you know how much energy you've been hemorrhaging by shoving down allllllll that potential constantly? All of that will be freed up in a second and spent on fun shit. I believe in ya, babe.

Random ass vibes: thrifting, rainbows, makeup, cinnamon, puppets, purple, birds, card games, heart tattoos.

[sigridstumb]

Get out of my own way

There's a phrase that is new-ish to therapy models, one that I look at entirely askance because what is now termed "pathological demand avoidance" is what I have spent my life knowing as "self-sabotaging dumbass." In most of my life, I manage to avoid being a self-sabotaging dumbass. But in one area, that of cultural trends, it sometimes sets in. Usually to my loss and detriment.

It's just that, when I am barraged with a whole bunch of people all loving a thing at the same time (Tumblr amplifies this a LOT) it *irritates* me. This is asinine, and it makes ME the asshole were I to voice it, because oh my god, Sigrid, people love what they love! Do not squash joy in this parlous existence! But internally I resolve to never watch or read or listen to the thing in question.

Why? I dunno, because sometimes I am a self-sabotaging dumbass!

At any rate, after months of being vaguely irritated with the INTENSE love people have for Dimension 20 (it's not you! It's me! I have a problem! You go on and keep loving the shit out of what you love!) I finally saw a TikTok clip of the show Game Changer. And Brennan Lee Mulligan was hilarious and brilliant.

So, I sought out the show, Game Changer. Spouse and I both really enjoy it, and agree that Brennan is our favorite. I figure out that to watch more episodes, I should subscribe to Dropout.tv. I do, and suddenly realize that Brennan Lee Mulligan is that guy from Dimension 20 that everyone loses their goddamn minds over.

Oh. Oh!

I, with a sense of letting down some internal moral code and a pervasive feeling that I am doing something shameful, watch the first episode of Dimension 20: Fantasy High. It is, as literally everyone (not literally, obviously) already knows, very very good.

I am hooked! I have become One Of Those People! And, Sigrid, the only thing keeping you from enjoying this all along was your own self-sabotaging dumbassery!! Argh!!

ANYWAY.

For those of you who do not know, you are one of Today's Lucky 10,000.

Firstly, Dropout.tv is a comedy troupe formed out of the wreckage of College Humor when it imploded. There is a core group of, I'm not sure, 12-20 people, and they invite guests. The group does a variety of different web tv shows, some of them game shows, some skit comedy, and a great deal of table-top role playing game based improvisational theater. The members are actors, impressionists, writers, voice actors, musicians, and very skilled improv comedians.

Dimension 20 is the umbrella name for the 30-ish different TTRPG campaigns they have filmed. They play in different genres, there are a handful of GMs (though Brennan does a LOT of them,) and the player group composition shifts around a lot. In later seasons, there are nerd celebrity guests.

We, the viewer, are watching people play AD&D 5th edition. That's it, that's the show.

Except it is not at all the show! Here are some points I was not expecting:

- The production values are great. The props, the miniatures, the sound effects, the models of the combat areas, it's all great. It's the dream TTRPG set-up of my teenage years. - The people are voice actors. They are fantastic. They inhabit their characters, and it is fantastic to watch. Also, Brennan Lee Mulligan as GM does all the non-player characters. He does voices for ALL of them. - These people are all IMPROV COMEDIANS. Whatever the others say, they roll with it. Unexpected things happen constantly, both because of the dice rolls and also just because players are unpredictable, and everyone picks up the event and carries on. - They are actually playing a game, so much of what happens in controlled by rolls of dice. And everyone is pretty damn good about this. They make it work, they make the plot continue, using whatever the dice has given them to work with. They are SO much better at it than any of the gaming groups I was in! - The episodes I have seen so far are all good-natured in vibe. The people playing want everyone to have fun. They want the GM to have fun, the players to have fun, and the audience to have fun. There's no sniping except in the most friendly way, there's no sulking about bad rolls, there's no vibe-kills that I have seen.

Anyway, if you like improv comedy, if you like voice actors performing SF/F plays live, if you like other people's TTRPGs, Dimension 20 might also be for you.

[blakebouchard]

7 Fantasy RPGs to fill the D&D-shaped Hole in your Life

So. It finally happened. Either Hasbro, or Wizards of the Coast, or someone else associated with Dungeons & Dragons finally did something so fucked-up that you've decided to swear it off entirely.

The problem is that for decades, there has been one obvious answer to the question of "What game with Dwarves, Longswords and Wizards in it should we play" and that was D&D, every time. Even their strongest rival in the past couple of decades was just an older version of D&D with a spit shine.

Now you find yourself adrift in a sea of possibility, with no signposts. There are names you've heard, but you have no idea which ones you'd actually be interested in, because you had always just assumed you'd be playing D&D until the heat death of the universe.

So let's take a look at a few games that want to fill that D&D-shaped hole in your gaming life, and examine what they're offering.

Disclaimer: I'm not covering the entire breadth and depth of the TTRPG industry here. I'm specifically going to be covering Fantasy RPGs that should appeal to D&D fans here. So if I didn't cover your favourite indie RPG, sorry. But there has to be a "First step" outside of the D&D bubble, and each of these games should fulfill that need.

The Other "Kitchen Sink" Game: Pathfinder

If you can't bring yourself to keep playing the corporate game, but you still want something that offers as close to that gameplay experience as you can possibly get, your best bet at the time of this writing is probably Pathfinder 2nd Edition.

I say this as someone who very much did not vibe with the original Pathfinder, or its "D&D in space" sister product Starfinder. But at this point, I'd absolutely tell a newcomer to jump into Pathfinder 2E before I recommended they buy any WotC product.

To their credit, the 2nd Edition of Pathfinder does much more to, uh, find its own path by diverging from 3.5 edition and implementing new systems that take it into uncharted territory. The "Two Actions Per Turn" paradigm is often cited by its proponents as being a meaningful improvement over the 5E way of doing things.

The "TTJRPG": Fabula Ultima

One of the biggest success stories of the early 20's was Fabula Ultima from NEED Games in Italy. It came seemingly out of nowhere to win the ENnie Gold Award for Best Game of 2023. Since then it's become notoriously difficult to find in print, though it's still freely available as a PDF.

Fabula Ultima is a "TTJRPG," modelled after Japanese fantasy video games like Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Phantasy Star, Breath of Fire, etc. While it's firmly planted in the Fantasy genre, its gameplay will also very recognizable to fans of those types of games.

The major benefit of this conceit is that you can probably already picture how combat in FabUlt works in your mind: Two rows of characters take turns jumping and slashing at each other, or casting magical spells to harm, heal, or apply status conditions. There's no concept of "Spacing," but the game still manages to be mechanically intricate with lots of varied class abilities and status effects to apply.

D&D refugees looking for a game where you simply pick a class and fight some monsters, but aren't too particular about how they do that, will find a lot to love here. FabUlt leans much more heavily on storytelling mechanics than D&D does, so players who've been looking for something a bit more "Theater of the Mind" should be well taken care of here.

Final Fantasy Lancer: ICON

Like Fabula Ultima, ICON is a TTRPG that takes heavy inspiration from JRPGs, specifically tactical games like Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Ogre. It's from Massif Press, who also authored the surprise indie Mech combat hit Lancer.

And like Lancer, ICON is a game with two very distinct rulesets: Outside of combat, a "Fiction-first" narrative system inspired heavily by Blades in the Dark; In combat, a grid-based tactical skirmish game reminiscent of D&D 4th Edition. All backed by the gorgeous art of its author Tom Parkinson-Morgan, who also writes and illustrates the comic Kill Six Billion Demons.

ICON separates its "narrative" class system from its combat class system, giving each character two distinct character sheets that come into play at different times. Because those two systems don't have to cross over very much, each can be as intricate or as rules-light as it needs to be to promote the type of gameplay most appropriate for the situation.

The Old-School Gateway Drug: Shadowdark

If you ever took a few steps outside of the walled garden that is D&D in the past few years, you will likely have read or heard of the OSR, or "Old-School Revival/Renaissance." Proponents of the OSR are players who yearn for an older style of Dungeon Crawling Survival Horror game that hearkens back to the early days of D&D, before the players became akin to superheroes.

Shadowdark aims to be a game that bridges the gap to that style of gameplay, without being totally unfamiliar to players who only ever learned 5th Edition mechanics. It's "Old-School gaming, modernized."

Aside from simply being a modern take on a D20 fantasy game, it freshens up gameplay using a mechanic called the "Torch Timer." It turns light into a resource that dwindles in real time. This serves to elevate the tension of the game as every minute that passes is one less minute of light on your torch. And when the torches run out, well... You can probably guess what happens next.

5th Edition with the Serial Numbers Filed Off: Tales of the Valiant

Tell me if you've heard this one before: Wizards of the Coast introduces sweeping changes to its "Open" license model, leading existing 3rd-party content creators to create their own version of an older ruleset to protect the viability of their backlog. It happened in the past, but what are the chances that happens a second time? Ha!

Well... It did happen again. This time, playing the role of the "Paizo" in this scenario is Kobold Press, who loudly declared that they were "Raising the Black Flag" in response. In order to ensure that there would always be a "Core Fantasy" ruleset that would remain compatible with their content, they announced Tales of the Valiant, which would essentially duplicate the 5th Edition ruleset with a bit of a spit shine, in much the same way that Pathfinder did for 3.5 Edition.

Tales of the Valiant will be the game for the D&D player who just wanted a rules refresh of 5th Edition, but also doesn't want to keep throwing money at the corporate hegemony. It should end up being "The 5E you can feel good about supporting," and that matters right now.

Matt Colville's Big Bet: The MCDM RPG

Kobold Press was not the only publisher of third-party D&D content to have a strong reaction to the OGL fiasco. Unlike Tales of the Valiant however, Matt Colville's response was to announce a fully new Fantasy RPG system, with no expectation of backwards compatibility with any edition of D&D.

MCDM's sights are firmly set on the "Post-Kitchen-Sink" future, and to that end their game is explicitly not trying to be the one game for every possible playstyle. It's Tactical, meaning you'll need a grid to play it on, and it's Heroic, meaning characters should feel powerful, and not like they're constantly one critical hit or failed trap-sensing check away from being decapitated.

This approach might seem like a massive risk considering how insanely powerful 5th Edition became at its peak. But a record-breaking crowdfunding campaign backed by over 30,000 people shows that there is at least an appetite for something new, and that there is a like-minded community of players ready and waiting to join you.

The Critical Role Game: Daggerheart

If the Kobold Press announcement was a shot across the bow, and the MCDM crowdfunder was a bomb dropped, then Daggerheart is a full-blown asteroid, streaking straight towards Wizards of the Coast HQ.

Daggerheart is an original Fantasy RPG from Darrington Press, the publishing arm of the Critical Role media company. That by itself should mean something considering how important CR is to the D&D brand, but there's more to talk about here. Though it superficially resembles D&D in a lot of ways, it has some extremely important differences. Namely, its use of "Powered by the Apocalypse" mechanics such as "Fail Forward" dice rolling and "No Initiative" combat.

While "PbtA" has become somewhat of a loaded term in the D&D community, Critical Role has an opportunity to overcome that stigma with the sheer force of their platform. I've made this case already in the past, but if they were to use their power to do for themselves what they did for 5th Edition, it would be the most significant threat to the Hasbro Hegemony to emerge since Pathfinder. Let alone taking just a slice, Daggerheart has the long-term potential to take the whole damn pie.

And more!

The games I've listed here are all theoretically capable of replacing the Corpo game as your "go-to" long-term game. Not all of them are fully playable as of this writing, but they all represent one possible future for the "Sword and Sorcery" RPG genre.

There are of course a whole plethora of other games out there beyond the limited scope of "Medieval Fantasy" that are just as valid and just as viable, if you're feeling a bit more adventurous.

If you're looking for something explicitly tactical like a miniature skirmish game, but still in the RPG genre, and you're willing to expand your choice of genre beyond Euro-centric Medieval Fantasy even further beyond ICON, you might be interested in Gubat Banwa or the aforementioned Lancer.

If you want a game that promotes a slightly more streamlined, less mechanically-intricate approach to combat while still giving you tons of monsters to kick the shit out of, you might want to check out the "Illuminated by LUMEN" family of games inspired by the games LIGHT and NOVA from Gila RPGs. It might even inspire you to write your own RPG!

If you're more interested in the Old-School Renaissance, you might want to check out Forbidden Lands, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Old-School Essentials, or MÖRK BORG.

If you like the idea of "Old-School Roleplaying" but are also willing to step outside of the fantasy genre into Sci-fi territory, you might be interested in Stars Without Number, its Cyberpunk sister product Cities Without Number, or Mothership.

Finally, if you just want a game that focuses on telling the best story rather than mindlessly killing monsters and acquiring loot, you might want to check out Blades in the Dark, Thirsty Sword Lesbians, Girl by Moonlight, Coyote and Crow, and many more Fiction-First games in the Powered by the Apocalypse and Forged in the Dark genres.

But most importantly: Just play more games! Don't just buy them, play them! The point of this whole exercise is to replace the monopoly with a plurality, for the sake of the health of the tabletop gaming industry.

Because the next time Hasbro lays off a bunch of WotC employees, there should be a much stronger, more diverse industry for them to land in feet-first. We should all want for the people who build the games we love to feel safe in their career choice. Not just for the sake of the ones who are already there, but for future prospective designers and artists who want to make their mark.

It should be viable to be a tabletop game designer outside of just making more D&D stuff forever, because as we've seen, it's not safe to assume that we can all just keep doing the same thing we've been doing and not get bit on the ass by it.

If we want that future, we have to take it into our own hands and build it ourselves. But if there's one group of people that knows about building something very big from very little, it's TTRPG players.

[sadlyiamgay]

Yandere Genshin Men Brainrot

Im going fucking insane. Anyways have any of you guys played silly or furry wisher? It's like a cute and funny genshin ripoff, a little boring at times but I enjoy clicking away in slime valley. While playing though an idea popped into my brain, "what if the real genshin characters (that's hopelessly inlove with you) finds out the reason why you haven't played genshin in a while? Only to realize that you're playing a genshin meme game" And then these men go and hack the shit out of the game because monika vibes I love. Uh might update from time to time, thie will only include Zhongli and Neuvillette (they're literally the only well built 5 stars I have. How the fuck do we build genshin characters I'm so confused)

By the way check out the games (Silly Wisher, Furry Wisher). It's fun and amusing

--ZHONGLI: His reaction to the realization of you playing an.. Odd ripoff(?) Game was one of pure amusement, the Geo archon couldn't blame you either, I mean, your poor little head couldn't handle the amount of unfinished and WAY too hard quests, he thought you were taking a break, but after a while (when you eventually and finally returned) he finds out pretty quickly from your small mumbles and comments that he oh so always adores, and out of pure curiosity decided to break out of the game codings and go through your apps, seeing two new odd games on your phone, Silly wisher and.. Furry.. Wisher..? Of course he broke in the new favorite games you had in your device, and cooing at the fact that you *still* main and favor him even in these joke games. He also quickly realized that he could easily possess the John Lee (he was a little offended by the name, but quickly laughed along when he heard you wheeze everytime you played the game) as well as Meatball. Quickly making both the characters extremely and suspiciously.. **Overpowered.**

"... Wait. Since when did Johnny do 100k damage??? Is this what happens if you level them up to level 15??? "

- YOU, mumble, absolutely amused and still giggling after listening to Dr. Snek's voiceline. Zhongli smiles, happy that you were enjoying your gameplay, he felt grateful, even though he was a little upset that you decided to play some ripoff game instead of properly spending time with him, Zhongli was happy that he didn't have to hide his lovestruck and flustered face, in the real game he always tried his best to mess with the camera so that it would never face him, he used to be able to hide his true emotions, but overtime it got harder. Extremely, harder (haha that's what she said). So it was a breath of fresh air on seeing you without you yourself seeing him, letting himself indulge in fantasies that he could never think of whenever you were around. Especially with the other game too. He could stare at you all the time, and you'd brush it off. Each time Meatball came around and jumped into the screen you'd coo, making him fall harder (down the stairs of) inlove with you. Each time you needed a copy of him for the whole "gene splicer" He'd come home willingly. Hell, there was a pull you did once that consisted of him and only him. He of course didn't question the fact that the dog version (that sounds so wrong) of him has alot kids. But he brushes it off. Replacing the thought of his genetics being merged is weird, into a fantasy where all those merged, genetically made kids were yours and his.

Congratulations, you gave this old man wattpad fantasies. Fucking hell, he wants to pull you into the game to do that. Though, that thought can and should wait. For now, he wants to watch and stare at you longer. *Just* a little longer.

--NEUVILETTE, the hydro dragon was always a man with (questionable) morals. But even he, the mascot of Justice has his limits. He was upset at the fact that you weren't as active as before, sure he sympathized with your overwhelmed situation (especially since it was he who activated half the quests), but that mean you can literally just leave like that. It wasn't his fault that his curiosity about the game you kept mumbling about made him break out of the game he's bounded in. What was his reaction to Hydropump Judge and Judgy Cat? Well, he laughed. Not because he was upset, but because he was *still* favored. He was still your main. Even if there was no differences in attacks when it came to grinding in slime valley. So he rewards you with extremely overpowered and multiple copies of him, it also doesn't help the fact that he could literally also just stare at you for hours and hours. And you still brush it off. You weren't weirded out. You weren't reporting to the game developers. Unlike when you felt uncomfortable when he forced the camera to not be able to move and freezing the option to switch through the characters. Just you and him. Eye to eye.

"Man I wished you had a voiceline, Neuvi. I mean, your banner description in this game is absolutely hilarious, but I genuinely want another funny audio. Aside fron Dr. Snek"

-YOU mumble as you kept spamming the attack button, watching your highscore be passed, you questioned why the character was able to hit high numbers, but you didn't question it, you never did. Brushing it off and thinking that it must be because he had the highest level out of everyone. Neuvillette smiles. Happy, satisfied and lovestruck at how calm and adorable you were. He loved your expressions, all of it. But he *adored* your relaxed state. Since it was rare to see you like this. He wished the Fontaine update and his banner came earlier when you joined the game.

...Maybe he should lower the world level himself? He wants to see you in this state more often. He wants to see you happy and carefree, proud that you finally finished your quests. He thought of this as he kept staring at you through Judgy cat. You had fallen asleep, not minding the fact that he was on screen a while ago. You didn't question it, since it was part of the games anyways. Seeing you in such a state makes him want to break out of your damn electronic and drag you with him. But that can wait, for now he should think of a way to make you play genshin more often.

[hollowsart]

Acedia's suits!!!

if Acedia was in a video game, you'd have quite a decent selection to choose from for a new cosmetic to play with!

Some suits have a bonus feature/ability that can aid in battles, while the rest are merely aesthetic. A few may even be beneficial during story moments.

small descriptions of all of them:

Default: Amazing Fantasy #15: The Cryptid Crawler 1962. A beautiful 2 piece suit that Acedia and Doc Ock designed and crafted together as a thank you to her for saving his life.

50% Matcha: Symbiote/"Black" suit. When Matcha was born, it grew attached to and bonded with Acedia without her knowledge, causing her to act out without her usual anxiety, becoming a little more bubbly and bouncy. Her suit got visual overhaul when Matcha made itself known. It was only when Matcha finally detached from her that Acedia was hit with a wave of realization, embarrassment and regret to the things she did. (Boosts attack and speed)

"Big Time": Who doesn't love a nice black with neon suit? It almost gives off a futuristic vibe. (cosmetic)

Homemade: Before she became 'Acedia' she lurked around in her beloved sloth onesie and matching slippers to stop a few petty crimes despite her better judgement. (cosmetic)

2099: In the far off distant future, the Daily Bugle is torn between calling the Cryptid Crawler the 'New York Jersey Devil' or 'New York's very own El Chupacabra'. After so many years, they still aren't very bright on creature identification, as noted by 'The Lizard' being an Axolotl. (Boosted stealth & speed)

"Web-Man": Bizarro Acedia?? Something is off about this Sloth-Woman. Yet JJJ still thinks it's Acedia, albeit with a new change of clothes.. that are just a color swap. (cosmetic)

Cryptic Mystic (Mysty Dreamer + Bubble Sloth): A little gift from her beloved Mysterio made in his image. When couples wear matching clothes. (Boosts Stealth + releases smoke from palms of claws) (other 2 are souvenirs from hopping the multiverse to her friend's worlds)

Insulated: When getting shocked one too many times, Acedia got this suit made to help protect herself against Electra the next time they fought so she could help to deescalate things more safely. (stores charges of electricity from Electra's attacks and is able to release small bursts to temporarily stun enemies + boosted attack & defense)

Doc Ock: A suit devised by Otto to aid Acedia in getting closer to him safer to help stop him when his inhibitor is damaged and he is sent into a frenzy. The two actuators that hang behind her can are fully functional. (boosted stealth & attack)

Zombie: What if..? Mysterio had been scratched during an unforeseen attack by a zombie, keeping it a secret from Acedia so she wouldn't worry as they found a place to hide. It was only a matter of time before the infection kicked in and his bit her, causing her to change alongside him. (cosmetic)

Negative: A special suit crafted to counter Miss Negative's energy powers and be able to take her out. (effective only against Miss Negative, otherwise cosmetic)

Harvest: Perhaps in another life Acedia was more on brand to the whole 'Spider' thing. (boosted speed)

Captain Universe: Temporarily Acedia was chosen by the Enigma Force while the current holder at the time was unable to perform their duties, being taken out of commission by some outside greater power. (boosted attack)

Mysteria: In the future of The Fantastic Spider-Man, Mysterio has a brand new partner in crime. Mysteria was a loyal and dedicated fan who idolized Mysterio so much she became deluded, seeing Spider-Man as the villain and Mysterio as the hero. She now works by his side and often faces and fumbles against Spider-Girl as Spider-Man enters retirement. (can create an illusory duplicate to distract foes for a quick getaway, duplicate fades after a short bit of time)

Love Bug: A lovely little albino sloth here to spread love and joy to everyone and be your friend! :) (cosmetic)

Friends Forever: A suit made from friends across the multiverse coming together to show their everlasting bond with one another through the shared hardships they've all faced together. Wearing this feels like a group hug. (boosted defense)

[kiwisbell]

The Hitman's Guide to Getting the Girl: Chapter 3 [dave york x f!reader]

It's just another job, until Dave York decides to kidnap an enemy’s wiseass daughter. It’s just another job, until he falls in love.

chapter 1 | chapter 2 | chapter 3 | chapter 4 | chapter 5 | chapter 6 | chapter 7 | chapter 8

series masterlist

status: complete

chapter 3 summary: Losing himself in the temptation of you.

pairing: dave york x f!reader

rating: 18+ (mdni)

tags and warnings for entire fic: kidnapping, murder, violence, the world being horrible to women, reader having a very terrible sense of self-preservation, unprotected piv, oral sex (m and f receiving), dave york finding his second calling as a pussy-eating god, pining, possessive sex, jealousy, daddy issues, (stockholm syndrome?), dirty talk, actually filthy talk, hitmen and politicians, revenge, scary man with a soft spot for his woman, philosophical foreplay, tramp stamp worship (you'll see), a little sprinkle of breeding kink if you look hard enough, obsessive behaviour, anal fingering, anal sex, implied age gap, light dom/sub vibes, light bondage

tags and warnings for this chapter: references to masturbation, sexual fantasies, arranged marriage (that is not between reader & dave), angst, more daddy issues, slightly more touching (!!!), sexual tension, mutual enabling of bad habits, protective dave york, the emergence of obsessive dave york, pining/yearning, bonding, reader's tramp stamp makes its first appearance

word count: ~ 4.7k

chapter 3: a buried and a burning flame

MAY

You're in a Neiman Marcus with Dave when you break the news. 

You’ve been trying on dresses for hours now under the guise that you’re in need of some retail therapy. But if Dave doesn't know your tells by now, the way your hands tremble as you smooth them over fabrics, you have no idea how you're going to breach the subject. 

“How's this?” you ask, pulling back the curtain and striking a pose. 

Dave’s problem is very different from yours. The skintight dress barely brushes the floor, one of your arms exposed while the other is wrapped in black spandex. Your neck glitters with a diamond necklace. Watching you try on dresses all day is fun, certainly, but he's going to have to excuse himself soon to fuck his hand in the bathroom. 

He did it last night. And the one before that. And the last seven or so before that, once he finally let himself give in. In the shower, he turned the water to scalding and braced his hand on the wall as he closed his eyes, picturing your knees folded neatly under you. Your mouth around his cock, tongue swirling over the head. Hands on his thighs. Squeezing. Desperate. Sticky, warm, wet. Fuck—you’d be so wet. You’d blink water and tears from your eyes under the stream and he’d burn up hot, telling you how fucking good you are, taking his big dick. He fisted himself, perhaps a bit too hard near the end, coaxing the cum out of his tip so he could grunt his way through an orgasm and finally fucking focus.

Dave stands slowly from the cushy sofa, his hands clasped in front of the slight tent in his pants, and almost keels over from the whiff of perfume he smells. It's a toxin. It makes him dizzy. “It's nice,” he says, gently pinching the hem of your sleeve. 

“What about the colour?” you press.

“It’s… black.” He’s not fond of this game you’re playing.

“And the fit?” You turn around and give him a fleeting view of your ass. Dave’s vision briefly blurs.

“You’re beautiful,” he says, voice strained. “You know you are. Everyone knows you are.”

You beam up at him. “I just wanted to goad you into saying it.”

“You don't have to.” You're the prettiest fucking woman I’ve ever seen in my life. 

“You know…” Your smile goes sly, your hands lifting to straighten his tie even though it's rarely askew. “In this light, you're not so bad yourself.”

Dave inhales hard, his nostrils flaring. You smell so fucking good. “We’re getting the dress.”

You run your hands down the lapels of his jacket. “Yeah, we are. But I'll need your help to unzip.”

Christ. 

Because he's powerless to resist anything you say, Dave follows you into the fitting room and shucks the curtain closed. Guarding your body with his from anyone who may walk inside, he eyes you in the mirror. Your skin is smooth and soft under the rough pads of his fingers, your warmth so stark against the cool fabric of his suit. The grace of you rubs up against his jagged edges. A needle pricking skin. 

His hands feel heavy as he lifts them to the small zipper at the back of the dress. His breath shifts the hair at the nape of your neck. Goosebumps erupt across your shoulders. 

“Your hands are cold,” you whisper. He can see only your profile when you turn your head slightly, and he doesn't think he could take any more than that. 

Dave begins to drag the zipper downward, listening hard to every catch in the metal grooves as if they're claps of thunder. Gauging the time between the next strike of lightning. His skin is prickling with the knowledge of being so close to you. “You can look if you want,” you tell him. He’s inches away from the tattoo on your lower back. 

His eyes close for a moment, rolling over the sound of your velvet voice in his head. When he opens them, the zipper is down, and he's watching the way your skin and muscles ripple behind the soft black fabric. He doesn't need to be this close anymore, and he's beginning to wander toward the shoulder of your dress, beginning to think he should just yank it down and—

Cloying. Thick. Heavy and wet and relentless. Ruination.

“I know,” he says. His voice makes you shiver. It's a cold, quiet rasp that wraps its fingers around the back of your neck. You feel a gentle pressure behind your ear and close your eyes as Dave’s nose nudges one of your diamond earrings, inhaling your perfume like he wants to inject it into his blood.

With that, he steps away and leaves you to undress alone. You don't think about the way his hands lingered too long by your zipper, nor the way his eyes found you in the mirror, ravenous. You pull on your own dress and take your new one to the counter. Dave pays without looking at the price. 

In the backseat of his car, you close the privacy screen. “Dave. I need to tell you something. And you're not allowed to get scary.”

Dave lifts his brows. “I’m never scary.”

“But you're so funny.” You tug affectionately on his tie. “My father called me this morning. He said he wants to put things to bed. For good. And he wants to meet.”

You’re already there to loosen his angry, involuntarily grip around his cell phone. “Dave.”

He’s looking at his lap, his jaw feathering. He knew all along that he couldn’t protect you from your father forever—truthfully, in the beginning, he had been hoping the opposite. But you have a way of sticking to his ribs. A decadent dessert that you can never forget once you eat. The taste you crave so badly you’ll go out of your way to return.

“Why now?” he grits. “It’s been months. Why now?”

“I don't know, honey, but if he wants to bury the hatchet, then maybe we should give him a chance.” 

Dave’s head shoots up. “We?”

“What, you think I'm going to go alone? You're coming with me whether you like it or not, Mr. York.” Your elbow bumps him gently. “You’re my security detail.”

Something inside his chest feels ready to split its seams and burst. Something roars to be let out. 

~

Victoire is a two-star family restaurant managed by Victoria Brock, current matriarch to a long line of Brocks. Among these is a man named Victor Brock, Senator of Chicago, who is currently sitting next to your father in a pressed three-piece suit. 

They're seated in the VIP section, closed off by a curtain. The restaurant smells like old money with a touch of modern extravagance. Crystals chandeliers dangle from the ceiling and toss golden light onto your skin. From behind you, Dave is allowed to stare as much as he wants; so he milks it. The planes of your back shift in the dim light, the brightness of your smile blinds, and your eyes glitter like a sky of stars. So charming. So in your element. 

Dave stays behind you, the way it should be, observing his surroundings for threats. Of course, it's a restaurant, so he mostly ends up observing furniture. The booths are a deep bottle green, the oak wood tables polished so smoothly they look like hardened honey. This is the sort of place that welcomes a person like you: comforting and soft, illuminated by diamonds. 

You walk into the VIP room before Dave, who’s dressed in a handsome suit with a handkerchief that matches the red bottoms of your shoes. No one can see this unless they look hard. And you know your father will not. 

But your father does notice Dave. The glare is purposeful and fleeting, but it does the job. Dave knows he isn't wanted here. It doesn't do a good enough job to deter him. Not many things can when it comes to you. 

“Look at you,” says your father, standing up to shake your hand. Dave holds his tongue at the sight. From the looks of it, you're also trying not to laugh. “You look gorgeous. Come, sit.”

He elects not to acknowledge Dave, who eyes your father with a half-muster glare. “Senator Brock,” you say brightly, the princess taking her spotlight, “what a pleasure. I didn't know you were coming.”

Brock stands up and takes your hand, an action Dave watches carefully. Brock is a handsome, single senator, and Dave York has a schmoozer radar like no other. “The pleasure’s mine. You look stunning.”

You give him a polite smile and brush your hand up against Dave’s sleeve. “This is Dave York. He's my security.”

“I thought you were coming alone,” says your father. 

You slide gracefully onto the bench seat. Dave sits beside you, adjusting his jacket. “I’m sure you know my disappearance made an impression on the media. Security became a necessity.”

Dave tries not to puff up at that. You think he's a necessity. “Want to explain why there's a senator at your table, Mark?” 

Your father licks his teeth before speaking, slow and measured. “Senator Brock is here, Mr. York, because he has a proposition.”

Dave doesn't like this. The room feels a touch too warm now, your arm rubbing up against his and the chandelier twinkling its warm lights above. Your fingers softly brush the fabric of his pants underneath the table. It's a purely comforting gesture—for the both of you, it seems, for your face is schooled into politely-disguised panic. 

“A proposition?” Your eyes slip toward the senator, who says your name like it's a consolation. Dave’s hand finds your back, his thumb tracing one of your vertebrae. It feels like animal instinct: the hairs on the back of your neck rise, the scent of your perfume deepens in his nose as if spiked with terror, and all he knows is Calm her. Make her feel safe. 

“We’ve both spent a lot of time in the public eye,” says Brock, diplomatic as ever. “And neither of us have once been seen with a… significant other.”

No. 

Nononono. 

Your hand curls into a fist under the table and your body sways slightly. “Oh. So that's what this is about.”

“Honey…” begins your father. 

“Don't call me that.”

“Honey, just listen to—”

“To a marriage proposal?” The tips of your ears are burning. “I didn't come here to get engaged.”

“Then what did you come here for?” your father demands, leaning back with his brows high, sipping his Chardonnay like he knows he's won. 

“I came because I thought you wanted to end this ridiculous feud between you and Dave.”

“I can afford to lose a little money from your toy,” your father says dismissively. “What I can’t afford to lose is my reputation.”

Dave’s palm is a heavy weight on your lower back. “Your reputation is yours to protect, Mark. Not hers.”

“This doesn't concern you,” he spits. 

“It absolutely fucking does if you think you're going to marry her off.”

“I don't want to marry someone I don't love,” you say. As if it needs explanation at all. “No offence, Senator.”

Senator Brock just shakes his head. “I don't intend to get in the way of any family matters. This is strictly about public appearances.”

“Think about it,” implores your father. “You haven't shown your face in public for months, much less with a man on your arm.”

Dave has never seen you so incensed. 

“Sorry I haven't been around for people to photograph, what with a kidnapping and all.” At that, Dave looks down into his lap, but you squeeze his thigh and he knows that you don't hold it against him. He’ll just never understand it. “Do you realise how demeaning this is? I’m not a prized cow.”

“I understand,” says Brock in a voice that can only fit a senator; gentle and somewhat condescending. Dave wants to vault himself over the table and give him a nice, ripe black eye. “But I expect nothing from you intimately.” 

I should fucking hope not, Dave thinks, his jaw feathering as he sucks on his teeth to refrain from speaking. Or getting violent. 

“People need reason to like you more,” says your father, and Dave does not take kindly to that. 

“People like her just fine,” he growls. 

Brock intervenes again, ever the politician. “I only expect a relatively public wedding and attending events when necessary. Other than that, we can occupy separate wings of my home, and our families will benefit from the union.”

“Oh, my God.” You plant your face in your hands, the veneer of shiny politeness gone. “This is humiliating. This is so fucking humiliating…”

“This is over,” says Dave, standing up abruptly. “We’re done here. You can take your proposal and stick it up your ass, Senator.”

“Don't think you can get out of this just because your guard dog says so.” Your father stands, too, straightening his own tie. “You're getting married, and you should be grateful that's all I’m having you do.”

Grateful? Oh, Dave is going to get violent. He’s very fucking excited to get violent. No one will ever know where the bodies—

“That's rich.” You pour two fingers’ worth of red for yourself and down it in one continuous gulp. “Have a nice evening, Senator. Dad, you can marry yourself off if you want to keep your business that badly.”

You thread your fingers through Dave’s and lead him out of the restaurant. His driver—tonight, it’s Ari—brings you both back to the York household. The wine couldn't get you anywhere near tipsy; you're too riled-up with an unsettled energy that has Dave’s hand glued to your back. He traces imaginary shapes over the spot where your tattoo lies and tries to picture it in his head.

“I can’t believe him,” you murmur, hugging yourself as Dave walks you to the front door. “Okay. That's a lie. I can't believe I let myself believe he wanted to make things better.”

Dave’s lips brush your temple, the only indulgence he allows himself. “This is not on you,” he says softly. “I should kill both of them for pulling that shit.”

“You can't kill a senator, Dave.” You give him a fond smile though your eyes betray any show of joy. You're riddled with unease and a faint tremor of fear visibly burdens the straightness of your spine. 

Dave holds open the door for you and triple-checks it behind him as always. “And what about your father?”

You chew on your bottom lip as you ponder it. “I’ll get back to you.”

He’ll take it. “Come on. Let’s get you warmed up.”

“How did you know I was cold?”

He pins you with an affectionate glare. “You’re shivering, baby.”

“I’m angry,” you say weakly, your bare arm covered in goosebumps nonetheless. 

He offers his hand to you, and you slip your palm into his. Something between you begins to pull taut. It isn't a distinguishable moment from any other, but it glows and pulsates, twin stars circling two bodies. It's not kind, but it's not cruel. It’s a connection that merely is, or has always been. 

Neither of you care to figure it out. You just hold his hand and let him take you upstairs. 

The ensuite in Dave’s bathroom is kept spotless. It's just as drab and modern as the rest of his home. You’ve been scattering little pops of colour around downstairs—if he cares, he doesn't mention it. But of course he notices. He’s the most observant man you've ever met. 

You haven't stepped foot inside his bedroom since you arrived here. You linger in the doorway for a moment, scanning your surroundings. His bed sheets are crisp white, his comforter grey, the walls sparse with decoration. Not a houseplant in sight. It's functional but not lived in.

Dave leans against the wall next to you and watches your eyes flicker about. “Tell me what you're thinking.”

“You have so much money,” you say, “and you can't afford an interior decorator?”

Dave chuckles. “What's your going rate?”

“If you start paying me for anything, Mr. York, this relationship will begin to feel disingenuous.”

Still amused, he squeezes your hand. “We wouldn't want that. Come with me.”

His bathroom is spacious and clean, the giant claw-footed bathtub emitting a siren song to your cold, tense body. Dave, knowing you better than most, turns on the faucet. 

“I can leave,” he offers, his body so close behind you that his breath shifts your hair. 

You answer him by taking his hand and placing it against the zipper of your dress. “It’s been long enough,” you whisper. “I know you're curious to see it.”

Dave’s breath hitches. Blood goes soaring to his dick as he tugs the zipper down, his free hand trailing down your bare arm at the same time. He delights in the shivers that erupt across your skin and feels you lean into him slightly. You trust him. He's done everything wrong and you trust him not to hurt you. You trust your body in his hands and Jesus, he's not going to fuck this up. 

He's touching sacred space. He will wrap the sensation of your softness and warmth tight around his brain and let the feel of it saturate everything. He wants his soul stained with you. 

He continues to bring the zipper down, and you sigh. “I don't know what to do, Dave.”

“I know,” he says. Not a comfort or a solution. Just acknowledgement. 

“I always know what to do. I always know what to say. I couldn't even get out of a marriage tonight.”

“He blindsided you.” Dave is doing very well at remaining calm. Having you so close to him is helping. “He blindsided us both. But we're getting you out of this.”

“Yeah.” You let your head fall back against his shoulder, closing your eyes for a moment. “We can talk about it later.”

He leans into you a fraction and gives your ear a nudge with his nose. “Are you asking me to take off your dress?”

Your eyes flutter when you inhale his cologne. The last time you were wandering the nearby drugstore, you spent a moment too long in the scent aisle, holding a bottle of the Tom Ford he wears. In your trancelike state, you put it in your cart before you realised you did not, in fact, need to buy a bottle of cologne. You weren't his secretary. Sheepishly, you returned the bottle, but not before taking a sample stick. 

You've been more pathetic. 

Dave York smells like pine, cologne, and when he gets into trouble, the faint tang of iron. There isn't a trace of blood on him tonight. You turn your head to meet his eyes. Your pupils enlarge, nearly eclipsing the irises. “Do you want to undress me?”

His lips part slightly, and a puff of air leaves him. “You know the answer to that.”

You're both speaking so quietly that the running bath nearly drowns both of your voices. “I want to hear you say it.”

His eyes shutter. “I want to undress you,” he says, his nose sliding across your temple, “and a whole lot more.”

Your hand guides his fingers to the hem of your dress. “I want you to see me, Dave. You're the only one who does.”

Dave swallows hard, his palm warming your arm as it idly trails up and down. This is the permission that frightens him the most. The first tremendous leap. There is no turning back from this. He doesn't want to. 

He wants to learn to pace himself, to revel in the briefest brilliance that is knowing you. 

“Am I?” he muses, sliding the shoulder of your dress down. He's transfixed by the slow shudder he receives from you, the way he can see your lashes flutter on your cheeks, as he exposes your breasts to the cool air. 

“Yes,” you breathe. “Don't be coy. It’s not your style.”

“No, it isn't.” The dress, tailor-made to the delicious curves of your shape, slips down your back to the floor as his fingers urge the rest of it away. It pools in a pitch-black heap at your feet, and Dave York takes in the sight of you. 

All of you. 

“Jesus,” he rasps, eyes dipping to your tits, nipples hard as the air conditioning cools your skin, around your waist, down your back. Every knob of your spine speaks for your life, your learnings. He traces his fingers lightly over each one, taking his time as he teaches himself. 

“What's the verdict?” you tease, your voice going soft, close to vulnerable. 

You do, indeed, have a tramp stamp. Dave follows the shape of the small bleeding wings, the paper-thin lines of the sun in between. 

“It's Icarus,” he says, “isn't it?”

“A reminder,” you confirm, “to never sacrifice any part of my life to some selfish ambition.”

Dave’s thumb gently circles over the black ink. “What do you want, instead?”

You hum in thought, and he can feel the trepidation in his own throat. “To live, I guess. Just live.”

He hums in kind. There's no oxygen left for him in this room. Steam from the bath curls like silvery breath into the air, the feeling of your skin is grounding him, and there's nothing but you. Your body and your sharp mind and the heart that thrills him. 

“What is my style?” he asks. 

You exhale, and it sounds a little like laughter. “I don't know. You're unpredictable. Usually, that would scare me.”

“But?”

“But I like you.” A hand covers his own, bringing it around your waist, resting it between your breasts. Like this, he can feel your heartbeat against your sternum. “I like what you do to me. I like your kindness and your cruelty. I like the way you work and talk and think.”

Dave closes his eyes, stepping closer to you, dipping his head to bring his lips along your jaw in a ghost of a kiss. “How do I think, baby?” he mutters against your skin. “Tell me.”

“Like a killer,” you sigh. 

“Mmm. You’d let a killer touch you like this?” His hand falls, deliberate and slow down the path of your stomach, your hipbone to your thigh. “You must not want to live that badly.”

You don't need to tell him that he's the one bringing you to life. He can feel it in the throbbing of your heart, the shallow touch to your breathing, the way your body subtly pushes into his hands. 

“Dave.”

He says your name in kind. 

“I don't want to marry him.” 

The small break in your voice puts a hole in his heart. Dave guides you to face him and cups your face in his hands. Your eyes glisten with unshed tears. “Sweetheart,” he says softly. “You're not going to marry him. No asshole senator is going to put a ring on your finger.”

“Are we going to stop it?” 

He nods once. Unyielding. “We're gonna stop it.”

You rest your forehead against his and let yourself smile at last. “Okay. Now let me get in the bathtub.”

The water eases the knots in your muscles as he helps you lower yourself inside. You close your eyes, resting your head on the lip, while Dave makes some calls. 

You asked him once if he ever wanted to use his skills for good. 

This is how he does it.

~

“Tell me about your family.”

The silence fizzles, the crack of an ember flying haphazardly away from the fire. Sitting on a stool by your side, Dave holds your hand—well, more like your wrist—and, with his thumb, strokes the veins that beat with life. He found he wasn't fond of the idea of parting with you quite yet. So he didn't. 

This is his job now. And it's the only one he's ever had that brings him any sense of clarity. 

“You've had more than enough mouthfuls of mine,” you elaborate. “So tell me about yours.”

“Mom and Dad passed a few years back,” says Dave. “They were good people. Grew up in a small town with my sister, who hightailed it to New York the first chance she could. My parents worked real estate together. They made friends with their clients, and they were good to us. We were never poor, never rich.” Dave’s lips find your knuckles. “Joined up when I was out of college. Mom cried for days. I almost succumbed to the guilt, but moms are good at that, I guess.”

Water sloshes around you as you turn onto your side, resting your chin on the edge of the tub and looking up at Dave. “Ari says you were a good soldier.”

Dave huffs. “Yeah, I’ll bet he does. Wants a goddamn raise.”

“My mom was good, too,” you tell him. “I don't remember much of her, but I remember her smiling and laughing. It’s like I knew so much about her and nothing at all. But I miss her all the same.”

Dave opens up your palm to him, his mouth tracing the lines on your skin. “Anyone who's good to you is good to me. My mom used to say that whenever my sister would bring a new girlfriend or boyfriend home.”

“And you?” Your voice takes a teasing edge. “How many women did Dave York bring home before he decided he liked his latest hostage best?”

He still winces at your wording all these months later but laughs nonetheless. “Fewer than I think you’re imagining. Life got busy quick.”

“Those pesky C.I.A. jobs.”

“The same. They tossed me all around the world until I decided to start my own company. The VA never did shit for me, and with my injury, I couldn't keep flying.”

You grin. “Entrepreneurship looks very good on you.” It takes a strong pull on his willpower not to stare at your tits, barely submerged in the warm water. “Do you still feel it sometimes?” you ask, your gooey eyes making him want to form dust into gold for you. 

“Comes and goes,” he says. The last thing he wants to do in this world is be the cause of your worry. “But I’m old. Our backs act up all the time anyway.”

“Dave.” You pin him with a stern stare. “You shouldn't be sitting like that with a back injury. Why have I been letting you stay there for the past hour?”

“I’m fine,” he says softly, squeezing your hand. “I don’t feel any pain.”

You chew on your lip. “Help me out of the bath?”

Dave’s back pinches as he stands up and you, of course, don't miss his wince. He averts his gaze when he sees you giving him precisely the same look as before. You have an uncanny ability to make him feel scolded. 

You wrap yourself in a soft towel when you climb out of the tub. You smell fresh as crisp linen and your skin is dewy, smooth, so soft he wants to lick you all over. “Looks like we both need to relax,” you say, your hand brushing his lower back. He feels the light touch as if it's a lightning strike. “We never ate dinner.”

“Barry’s gone home,” he says, a little dazed by how close you are. Your body emanates warmth, and it makes him feel sleepy. 

“There’s leftover Chinese in the fridge,” you say. “Your guys were hungry last night.”

You take his hand and lead him downstairs. The droplets of water on your skin glisten in the shifting light. His nerves have become a map of you. He doesn't know what he would do if he lost this sacred knowledge. He doesn't think there's a part of him that could stay quiet. 

[kuroashims]

☠ CHRONICLES OF A BRAINROT ☠

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After many years simming in my corner, I finally decided to step out of my comfort zone and share my pixel babies with the simblr/tumblr sphere!

I started playing sims with the first opus when I was pretty tiny, and couldn't stop ever since. This game allows my creativity and inner world to express like no other game would, and that's what I love so much about it.

I created many different worlds, kingdoms and stories, but the one I enjoy the most is my One Piece save I started a year ago. It is the first time I am really eager to leave CAS to actually play the game!

Back in 2015 I've been introduced to the manga/anime universe and I never went back! It truly was a revelation, and a revolution in my own stories. But when I discovered One Piece, all of a sudden I was hooked. This universe is so colorful and deep at the same time, it is the safe place I go whenever I feel down, and it never fails me. It may sound silly but I can't explain how warm it makes me feel. Especially Luffy's vibe and laugh, he's so precious.

So last year when I had to stop working because of bad health issues, my last two brain cells met and said to each other "hey, why not One Piece sims?", and that was it, I began this crazy journey of looking for the perfect OP custom content for the perfect OP babies, being disappointed of not finding many or really old ones...and that is when, after weeks and weeks of research, I decided to create my own One Piece custom content, because, why not?!

I never touched Blender (and a year later I still feel such a newbie with it) nor Photoshop before, but it didn't stop me to throw myself into it and man, despite all the crying seeing my creations in game unexpectedly float in the air or be filled with "???" in CAS and such, I can say that I don't regret anything!

I can sing on stage, write songs or dance, but can I properly draw? No, I cannot. And I've been frustrated for so long since I wanted to do fanarts for my fandoms but I tried, aaand it was bad. Like, really really bad. Fortunately simming is now one of my places of expression, and I'm SO EXCITED about my lil creations & stories.

My wish is to grow a small community of One Piece fans and/or fellow simmers with whom I could share my passions and enjoy theirs. I know you guys are out there, and I love you already!!

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➨ useful informations for navigation:

• Some of my posts may contain dark topics, blood and mature rp ships (18+)

• I'll do my best to limit spoilers but take note that there might me some here

• I am WCIF friendly but it might take a while for me to answer since I literally use thousands of cc. So please ask for 1 or 2 items at a time. I will happily share their names and creators

• I will not share any download links of my own OP custom content, because I often use other artist's meshes parts, then I mix them with my own etc ; so claiming these items as my own and share them to dl would break those artist's TOUs. Thank you for your comprehension

• That said, if I ever grow a significant sim community, I would eventually contact these artists one by one to ask their permissions to share my content with you! (with credits ofc)

• On this page I'll only reblog sims from other people that are One Piece characters, as well as One Piece fanarts or anything related

• Aside from my sims I also really enjoy editing my own gifs and manga/anime panels so you can expect to see a lot of them ♡

• Don't be surprised if some of my sims seem really different from one screenshot to another, that is because I have different saves with different timelines (children, pre timeskip, post timeskip, Wano), and various AUs like high school, dark fantasy world etc. For example, by now I already have 8 different Sanji sims in several styles and stages of his life (my biggest number for a single character, but I can't help it...I just love him so much!)

• If there are any suggestions, requests, ships (personally into Zosan/Zolu/Lusan/Lawlu/Acesan/Shuggy/Mishanks/Frobin) and more that you would like to see, feel free to ask and I will enjoy making it happen for you!

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SO HERE WE ARE ☻

THANKS FOR READING...

HAVE A WONDERFUL DAY ✿❁❀

[bit-of-a-nerd]

What Mike’s Room Means About Byler

we’ve all talked and hear about mike’s rooms queercoding. people talk a lot about the posters, which have two things: fantasy and men. men is obvious queercoding when you look at other characters rooms. the lack of women is interesting when making the case that hes gay not bi. but theres something that people dont talk a lot about

mike and el have a very strong sci-fi coding. that makes sense, its a sci-fi show, and their biggest season together was the season based as an homage to classic 80’s sci-fi films. creators have made comparisons to et, her powers in s1 had a strong “alien” vibe from sci-fi, and imagery with things like star wars. 

however, byler has a strong fantasy coding. their first scene (both at all, but also their first one on one scene) had to do with dnd (fantasy game). this coding does go away for a bit in s2 when dnd takes a bit of a backseat (except for dustin coining the name of the mind flayer). but its back again in full force for s3. their major s3 fight (with TONS of queer mike coding and byler coding in general) was after the failed dnd game. will’s dnd game had some of the most pure fantasty vibes that we’ve seen of st dnd games.  the music he used, the costuming, the village all screamed medieval fantasy. 

not to mention dnd used to point towards mikes conformity. him leaving it in s3 is a sign of conformity, but him returning shows him starting to embrace himself. his costuming at rink o mania show’s thats not fully the case, pointing towards something else being the root of the conformity. then one of the (if not the) biggest byler scene, and the crux of what will be a major byler focused plot point, is will’s painting and the van scene. the painting? A FANTASY DND FIGHT! there’s a reason people love cleradin au’s and love the ship names cleradin and wiseheart. because dnd, and by extent fantasy, are woven into byler.

so keeping all that in mind, lets talk about rooms. rooms are usually a place for self expression. posters and things that express who you are and your interests. we've seen the duffers use rooms to express this in the past. but, they’ve also used rooms to show attraction. we dont see the second point much in mikes season 1 room, but we see the first. his room is a reflection of his nerdy interests and his friends mainly (also closet imagery!!!). but now that hes growing into a teenager it makes sense that we would begin to see the second part when we finally get his room again in s4. 

so: interests, we see his fantasy posters and his guitar. his fantasy posters line back up with his participation in hellfire. not TONS there, but some signals to him adopting eddies style due to some facsination/hero worship/crush(???) of the guy (an example being the guitar).

but attraction is where his room gets REALLY interesting. he has MULTIPLE posters of shirtless men. his one way sign to the closet. does more need to be said? it does. because attraction to men and being closeted, doesn’t mean much for being in relationships. (again bi people do exist!! he could be closeted and still in love with his gf)

In this scene he’s reading a letter from his girlfriend, in their ‘perfect’ relationship, their sci-fi coded relationship. so, even with the attraction to men coded, maybe the duffers didnt see the need to recode his female attraction, they just added coding of his relationship into his room, right? he might just not be the guy to have a shrine to his partner, he might just be more subtle?

except all the posters are more fantasy leaning. which is a different genre from scifi. his room does not point towards his relationship with el. but we fantasy is the coding behind his and will’s relationship. the same relationship that in their time apart he’s somehow managed to start acting weirder around his best friend, and feel the need to assert that they. are. just. friends. the same friend who just got confirmed in love with mike, and is now a love interest. 

I know theres been a lot of talk about mikes room but people haven’t really talked about the fantasy aspect, or bylers fantasy coding and mlvns sci-fi coding. I think it’s a lot more important than people are giving it credit for. 

[iron-sparrow]

List 5 things that make you happy, then put this in the askbox for the last 10 people who reblogged something from you! get to know your mutuals and followers (ू•‧̫•ू⑅)♡

Thank you so much for asking! Seriously, I lit up a little bit seeing this pop up in my inbox.

I'm gonna try to keep this one shorter, for everyone else's sakes, but I do have a rambling and somewhat-abstract variant available.

Iced coffee, woo! I used to make little videos for Insta of my coffee-making process with my bird perched on my shoulder, in frame. I don't make those vids anymore, but I still enjoy making my drinks and consuming far too much caffeine. (P.S. I think charging extra for non-dairy is so unfair.)

Big-ass machines! Watching trains and planes and Pacific Rim and hearing Optimus Prime and meeting Rasputin in Destiny... SO COOL.

ALL the fucking stationary. ✎ I don't spend quite as much money as I used to on stationary, but I still love finding cute washi tapes and stickers and stuff at Kinokuniya or from independent Asian artists online. I tend to gravitate toward nature-themed stuff, though I'm really in love with the Erenville tape a raiding friend got me recently for my birthday!

Okay, I really love the critically-acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV. You know, the one that includes the entirety of A Realm Reborn AND the award-winning Heavensward expansion up to... Oh, the free trial is up to Stormblood now, isn't it? Anyway, this game changed my brain chemistry and introduced me to so many amazing humans to raid and RP and just vibe with. (Pointing at you!)

Birds are incredible. I mean, I kind of love almost any animal you tell me about. Birds have always had a special place in my brain, though. When I finally got a cockatiel a few years ago, my long-time friends just kind of nodded and said, "Always knew this would happen." Here's my precious little satanic dander ball, Beelzebub...

Throwing in some tags because lovely people have sent me this ask, and I wanted to make sure they KNOW I SAW IT. Get tagged, @uldahstreetrat & @aislingsurrow!

[topbanana-art]

Finally making an OC info post- by no means is this all of them, just ones that are most active and/or live in my head rent free.

First up- Rhys (DnD 5e - Rime of the Frostmaiden)

20 years Old, Half Orc, Half Elf (sweet baby angel) , He/Him

Fighter- Echo Knight

Absolute Ray of Sunshine; Rhys is from Icewind Dale; more specifically the Nomadic Reghed Tribe of the Elk.

He's unfamiliar with the outside world and even includes settlements in his own country

He's a Himbo basically a big dog.

This campaign lead him to leaving his tribe for the first time after an unfortunate accident which turned him into a small 'painted child' and searching for his missing sister. (both these are sorted now!)

*Rhys found an old oil painting of this child, blacked out and next thing he knew he was that small elf child. Her skin and clothing having the texture of painted canvas, and bleeds paint.

For a good chunk of the campaign he was just a totally normal elf- whose shadow didn't match with the body

---

Dhalas (DnD 5e Annalor)

36 Years Old, They/Him, Triton

Drunken Master Monk

Chill surfer dude vibes

Part of a travelling circus, They're a balancing act

Extremely laid back, Dhalas talks like they fight- dancing around, seemingly without rhyme or reason and occasionally clumsy.

---

Foxglove (BG3)

138 Years old (tweaked her age a lil), She/They, Drow

Arcane Trickster Rogue

Guild Artisan Background- Locksmith & Apprentice Finesmith

Chill and sassy, that Tav who talks their way out of shit.

Skews Towards Chaotic Good

Presents Androgynous most of the time

Must lockpick everything- she's not actually super interested what's inside, she just wants to see the workmanship of the locks and trashtalk how bad they are.

Yeah she's smooching the vampire. (and Halsin)

Naturally cares for others, even at the cost of her own wellbeing.

Has a Phobia of anything touching/going near her eyes- so the start of the game is A Time for Fox.

---

Arslan Dhoro (FFXIV)

21 Years Old (as of ARR), He/Them

Xaela AuRa

Dragoon - White Mage Main (All healer classes tbh)

Stoic, Resting Angry Face Himbo

He struggles to show emotion but he's just pretty shy and cautious about opening up to others.

From the Azim Steppe, he left in his early teens with his father after the death of his mother, to explore the world beyond the Steppe.

His Father Died in his late teens, attacked in Coerthas thinking he and Arslan were Dravanians.

He's extremely soft and protective for the Scions/his friends

---

Shiv (DnD 5e Saltmarsh- campaign completed)

Awful, terrible lesbian

68 years old, She/Her, Halfling

Celestial Warlock - Unicorn Patron w/ a Baby Phoenix familiar, Toby

A piece of shit. Is an absolute asshole and wont let you know she cares.

Lowkey magical girl

Ex-smuggler, who's patron is literally 'I can fix her', 'she can be a better person'. Part of the 'Beyond Skeletons' Pirate crew, she's the medic of the crew.

---

Pymmyr Tathnel (DnD 5e)

Pym

85 Years Old, He/They, Drow

Gloomstalker Ranger

Emotional Support Blink Dog, Princess Liquorice

This boy is scared all the time

Doesn't talk much, but speaks in a soft voice

Has disordered 'Sleeping' and Eating :)

His plague mask has tinted lenses to help ease the strain with how bright the surface is

I wont tell too much about them as a lot of their info is spoilers to other players. But this sad Drow just rocks up in my head on the regular.

---

Erebus (Anima Beyond Fantasy)

AKA- My first TTRPG character! circa 2011-2 I think???

Real name Sho Yoshimitsu

22 Years Old, He/Him

Duk'Zarist Nephilim

Assassin

Textbook 'strong silent and intimidating hot man'

But basically a big soft boy if you break past the mile thick ice

Tragic backstory™ , used to using his body for the job

He really enjoys cooking!

Also hopelessly in love with a small soft summoner, Caelum (the one hugging him), They're RedxBlue gays

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I think I'll leave it there for now!

I may add more later, I hope it was interesting?? and I'm still pretty shy with yelling this much about my characters haha.

Thanks for reading if you made it this far! 💜

[himboskywalker]

Heyy boo, do you have a book that is not star wars related that you wish you could read for the first time or reread all the time?

I am searching for books recommendations and I am pretty open about every genre, maybe not horror but everything else is totally fine.

My number one book recommendation that I will always obnoxiously shove in everyone’s faces is Lord of the Rings. It is my heart and soul and favorite thing in the world and if you’ve never read the trilogy I highly recommend it. But I also have quite a few other recs!

Anything written by Andy Weir. “The Martian” is his best known work,which they made the Matt Damon movie of,and while I do love it “Project Hail Mary” is my favorite of his and one of my favorite sci-fi books of all time.

I loved “To Sleep in a Sea of Stars” which was Christopher Paolini’s sci-fi debut a couple years ago but he just came out with its prequel “Fractal Noise” and I liked it even more.

For some good old fashioned space opera brilliance I recommend the “Final Architecture” trilogy by Adrian Tchaikovsky. The last book of the series just came out and I DEVOURED it. Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time,Ruin,and Memory are also phenomenal, you really just can’t go wrong with him.

For more space opera and politics I highly recommend Arkady Martine,she DEBUTED with “Memory Called Empire” which won all sorts of awards. The sequel also recently came out but I haven’t gotten the chance to read it.

I’m in the middle of reading Pierce Brown’s “Red Rising” saga,which I would describe as adult Hunger Games,and have thoroughly enjoying it as well!

For fantasy I love Samantha Shannon’s “Priory of the Orange Tree” and “A Day of Fallen Night”. You’ll get varying opinions of what to read first,I read Priory when it first came out so that’s my biased opinion.

I’m a massive fan of “She Who Became the Sun” by Shelly Parker-Chan and their sequel “He Who Drowned the World” and I want it to go on record I read SWBS when it first came out and before it blew up *flips hair*

R.J. Barker’s “Tide Child” trilogy is awesome,first book of that series is “The Bone Ships.” It’s high seas fantasy with dragon bone ships and epic war and amazing world building.

I always highly recommend “Gideon the Ninth” by Tamsyn Muir and now also the rest of the books in the series. I think the usual pitch is lesbian necromancers in space.

I cannot cannot recommend “The Shadow of the Gods” by John Gwynne enough! It’s quintessential epic fantasy told as a Norse epic and it’s in my top five of modern fantasy books.

While I have serious beef with Song of Achilles just like our fellow obikin Will,I did love and devour Madeline Miller’s “Circe.” In every way I think it’s her superior work.

I can’t recommend fantasy without recommending “The Grace of Kings” by Ken Liu. His entire series will blow your socks off,but the first book won nearly every award for fantasy books that have ever existed.

I’m a huge fan of R.F Kuang’s “The Poppy War” series although I’ve heard this one is a contentious recommendation. I think this series is hate or love it but if for whatever reason you don’t vibe with this series I also highly recommend Kuang’s “Babel.”

If you want something a little less well known I could chew through drywall over Simon Jimenez’s “The Spear Cuts Through Water.” It was in my top five of 2023 release books.

I can also make a separate rec list of less new books and overall classics I always recommend or gift to people,both fiction and nonfiction!

[heraldofcrow]

Okay for something less chaotic: select 5 Dark Souls 2 blorbos! Except for Aldia and Lucatiel because they're self-explanatory and will only rig the list xD I mean the less obvious blorbos!

P.S.: Turns out that Navlaan is Shabriri at home and idk how to feel about it

NAVLAAN IS SHABRIRI AT HOME!!

Ok yes, my DS2 blorbos, FINALLY!

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Shanalotte 🍀

My girl comes first because she is the most well known character, but she is MORE than just the level up girl that says “Bear seek seek lest” and all that lmao.

Shan was the original Melina, in that she was waaaayyy deeper and more mysterious that one would initially think, which is actually kinda sad because all of the Soulsborne level-up girls are considered the heroines of the story and usually are more complicated than they seem.

But anyway, Shan is by far one of the most developed, to the point where she even got a really unique CG model in the DS2 trailers.

(Seen here. Thank Fromsfotware Hoarder once again).

She also has some really cool unused concept art and LOOK AT HER. She has a very Druidian look that gives off a “traditional fantasy” vibe that Dark Souls usually tends to warp with other designs. Also, the pic where she’s T-posing….I will never shut up about her ornaments and that big-ass dagger. Melina vibes for sure.

There are some miiild downgrades for her actual in-game model IN MY OPINION, but nothing too drastic. I just wish they had kept her little forehead gem, but she looks great otherwise.

Beyond design, she is also just a fascinating character. I love that she was…created? She is like the Doll in that sense, but she wasn’t a memory ornament. She was an attempt to achieve immortality, which actually isn’t an unintelligent idea on humanity’s part. Dragons are eternal after all, but uhh…it’s unethical of course. (Idk why I am very drawn to characters that were born from human experimentation but I just love them okay).

Shan being part dragon is bizarre and I love it. She also has her own motivations in trying to break the human curse. Part of me thinks it’s because she wants to avoid any more children being used for grotesque creations like she was. Just that touch of agency and personal interest makes her appealing to me. I could go on about her all day and I’m sure you now see that I’m not very normal about her. Lowkey been simping since I first played DS2 in late 2014 or whatever.

I even wrote her a little story with the DS2 protag back in the day. I’d like to rewrite it and publish maybe. Anyway yeah, Shanalotte is my DS2 beloved besides Lucatiel.

Alsanna ❄️

“ALSANNAAAAAA”—Ivory King. Maybe.

You may not know of the DS2 “It-couple” yet, but they are like the Ciaran and Artorias in the game. They are the epitome of “I can fix her” and “I can make him worse,” which is, funnily enough, exactly how I see Ciaran and Artorias lmao. I’m admittedly soft for the trope of “black cat and golden retriever” type pairs if they are written well.

But Alsanna is more than just one half of a romantic plot. She is the fourth daughter of Manus and the “redeemed one,” if you will. She is her father’s fear, which basically meant she herself was the personification of anxiety lol. She says it herself in the game.

She went looking for a king to corrupt in order to feel stronger and gain power, but she ended up with the Ivory King…who was like…a pretty cool guy. He knew what she was trying to do and didn’t care. Her dark powers even corrupted parts of his kingdom, but he was just kind to her and treated her with dignity. This changed her heart eventually and she ended up devoting herself to protecting the kingdom with him. I won’t say what happens, but it’s a really bittersweet story that Alsanna gladly shares. I love her. She’s a good bean.

AND HER DESIGN. I swear, she’s one of the big reasons why I’d want a Remaster of DS2, because my poor girl is tormented by gritty pixels, but she has a lovely look. Here’s what she is SUPPOSED to look like to us:

Cosplay by harridana

Girl is slaying ngl. My fav redeemed Manus daughter fr.

Fume Knight Raime 🐦‍⬛

Me??? Having the knight with a raven aesthetic as a blorbo? Naaahhhh.

This is SO unexpected.

Anyway, Raime is mah boi. This gothy edgelord saw right through Nashandra and Vendrick’s doomed marriage and got kicked out for being loud about it. Basically.

He also lost a fight to his golden boi rival, Velstadt, who was a Vendrick SIMP. Although, technically they probably both were at first, but Raime was too alt. He had to be exiled.

Then he latched on to Nadalia instead…Manus’ most lonely daughter. Raime is infatuated with her in the game, and I kinda interpret it as a mother-son thing. Basically, Raime had an Oedipus complex lmao. Reject the father (Vendrick) and embrace the mother (Nadalia).

I could be wrong, but that’s how it comes off. It’s also totally ironic how Raime knew Nashandra was sus but fell for Nadalia anyway. He’s a hypocrite, but he’s MY hypocrite and I love him. His story and design are great.

Nashandra ♠️

Nashandra…I’m so normal. She was the original Marika fr. I love evil blonde queens <3

I don’t wanna spoil the whole damn plot of DS2, so I’ll just say….I love how this literal fragment of dark became so politically savvy and cunning that she basically toppled a kingdom. I like to imagine some more complicated feelings between Vendrick and Shandra than ‘guy simps and takes massive L.”

Yeah, that IS what happened, but Shandra fooled him for years. How? HOW? A literal manifestation of Manus’ “want” could not have been that believable…unless? I’ll leave it to your imagination.

Anyway, she is too spoilerly to talk about, but I love Nashandra both design-wise and story-wise. AND HER MUSIC IS SO GOOD.

Zullie + Alva 🪻

These two come as a package and count as one blorbo, I will not be taking criticisms. I was gonna put Creighton here, but guess who gets less screwed over in DS3? THESE TWO.

Their story is so good. Idk what it is about FromSoft’s love of “problematic female character meets chill guy and starts to hang out with him instead of murdering his ass,” but it’s…a thing lol.

Zullie, (not the YouTuber sdfgh), is such an iconic DS2 character that stole the show with her design and history while Alva has one of the best armor sets in the game. He’s also just a cool fella overall. I used to like to read about and imagine their shenanigans as a duo, and in fact, they subtly inspired my take on Leo and Ursula in Bloodborne. Noble knight and shady witch duos are fun as hell. Love these two.

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Creighton still counts, but some of these characters got better treatment and writing in the end, sadly.

[autumnaaltonen]

How do you think alucard would react to a gen z humor? For example: would he enjoy tiktok and vine? Would he be confused by our memes? How would he react to our self-deprecating humor?

This will be a running theme in my fanficiton, so I'm all for this. Also, I am barely Gen Z, and continuously learn new slang from my students, so excuse the cringe 😅

In my personal opinion, Alucard very much gives supportive grandpa vibes.

He's happy to view whatever "KidToks", "YouViews", or "Bumblr" memes you shove in his face. He's not going to understand it, but he's happy to watch if it makes you smile.

He really loves BookTok for reading material when he's chillin in the dungeon, especially murder mysteries and modern fantasy.

When he first got a taste of your Vine-Vocab, he legit just thought that was the way you spoke.

Seras delivering you a birthday gift: "so you just gonna bring me a birthday gift on my birthday to my birthday party on my birthday with a birthday gift?"

Giving the Hellsing taskforce driving directions for their next mission: "Road work ahead? Uh, yeah, I sure hope it does."

Joining him in the shooting range for target practice: "Don't fuck with me! I have the power of God and anime on my side!"

When you eventually informed him it was from a dead meme-site that defined your generation, he was very impressed that you young-folk have such an extensive reference log to communicate with each other.

Like I said, grandpa vibes.

His favorite moments are when your Gen Z slang is directed at him. He has no idea what you're talking about, but he loves it cus it's you. You love it too, because you can use it to your advantage and flirt with him incognito.

"Alucard, I admire the 40s coat and sunhat drip, but it's a little camp these days. We really need to give you a glow up."

"I saw the footage from your last mission, and I have to say, you were an absolute snack. Totally bussin'."

"You high-key live in my head, rent-free, Alucard."

He enjoys your silly words. Such admirable youth.

But when it came to your self-deprecating humour, it was kind of 50/50 for him. He understands it with no issues, and as long as it wasn't too hurtful towards yourself, he thought it was hilarious.

"Sorry, demons! There’s no room inside me because I’m self-possessed." Hella relatable for him.

"I question my sanity a lot of times. Every now and then, it replies." He's like, "same."

You'd think he would enjoy it all, given his dark-humour streak. However, when you talk too poorly about yourself, it really puts a damper on his mood.

Even though he's a grandpa, we have to remember that Alucard is incredibly intelligent. So whenever you're shitting on yourself, he plays your game to his advantage.

You: "I'm the human equivalent of a typo."

Alucard: "But you'll always be my type."

Wait. What?

You: "If I remember correctly, the last time that I was someone’s type was when I was donating blood in the blood drive."

Alucard: "I had it for my dinner last week, it was one of the best bags I've ever drank."

Motherfucker. There more you try to put yourself down, the more creative he gets. It's like a ping-pong game of put-downs and affectionate counter-attacks.

You: "My life’s purpose is to be a cautionary tale for others."

Alucard: "I'll just have to be your happily-ever-after."

You: "I wouldn’t even settle for me, so why would you?"

Alucard: "Because we could be settling together in my coffin when we sleep."

You: "When I’m ready to sleep, I don’t bother checking if my foot is hanging off the end of my bed anymore. Come get me, demons."

Alucard: "Is that a proposition?"

You finally admit defeat, as your red cheeks and blood pressure could only handle so much.

Damn that sexy old man.